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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13801-0.txt b/13801-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..891e85d --- /dev/null +++ b/13801-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8401 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13801 *** + +HARVEST + +by + +MRS. HUMPHRY WARD + +Author of _Robert Elsmere_, _Lady Rose's Daughter_, _Missing_, +_Helena_, etc. + +1920 + + + + + + + +I + + +Two old labourers came out of the lane leading to Great End Farm. Both +carried bags slung on sticks over their shoulders. One, the eldest and +tallest, was a handsome fellow, with regular features and a delicately +humorous mouth. His stoop and his slouching gait, the gray locks also, +which straggled from under his broad hat, showed him an old man--probably +very near his old-age pension. But he carried still with him a look +of youth, and he had been a splendid creature in his time. The other +was short of stature and of neck, bent besides by field work. A +broadly-built, clumsy man, with something gnome-like about him, and the +cheerful look of one whose country nerves had never known the touch of +worry or long sickness. The name of the taller man was Peter Halsey, and +Joseph Batts was his companion. + +It was a fine July evening, with a cold north wind blowing from the plain +which lay stretched to their right. Under the unclouded sun, which by its +own "sun-time" had only reached half-past four in the afternoon, though +the clock in the village church had already struck half-past five, the +air was dry and parching, and the fields all round, the road itself, and +the dusty hedges showed signs of long drought. + +"It du want rain," said Peter Halsey, looking at a crop of oats through +an open gate, "it du want rain--_bad_." + +"Aye!" said the other, "that it du. Muster Shenstone had better 'a read +the prayer for rain lasst Sunday, I'm thinkin', than all them long ones +as ee _did_ read." + +Halsey was silent a moment, his half-smiling eyes glancing from side to +side. At last he said slowly,-- + +"We du be prayin' a lot about ower sins, and Muster Shenstone is allus +preachin' about 'em. But it's the sins o' the _Garmins_ I be thinkin' of. +If it hadn't a bin for the sins o' the Garmins my Tom wouldn't ha' lost +'is right hand." + +"An' ower Jim wouldn't be goin' into them trenches next November as ever +is," put in Batts. "It's the sins o' the Garmins as ha' done _that_, an' +nothin' as you or I ha' done, Peter." + +Halsey shook his head assentingly. + +"Noa--for all that pratin', pacifist chap was sayin' lasst week. I +didn't believe a word ee said. 'Yis,' I says, 'if you want this war to +stop, I'm o' your mind,' I says, 'but when you tells me as _England_ +done it--you'm--'" + +The short man burst into a cackling laugh. + +"'You'm a liar!' Did you say that, Peter?" + +Peter fenced a little. + +"There be more ways nor one o' speakin' your mind," he said at last. "But +I stood up to un. Did you hear, Batts, as Great End Farm is let?" + +The old man turned an animated look on his companion. + +"Well, for sure!" said Batts, astonished. "An' who's the man?" + +"It's not a man. It's a woman." + +"A woman!" repeated Batts, wondering. "Well, these be funny times to live +in, when the women go ridin' astride an' hay-balin', an' steam-ploughin', +an' the Lord knows what. And now they must be takin' the farms, and +turnin' out the men. Well, for sure." + +A mild and puzzled laughter crossed the speaker's face. + +Halsey nodded. + +"An' now they've got the vote. That's the top on't! My old missis, she +talks poltiks now to me of a night. I don't mind her, now the childer be +all gone. But I'd ha' bid her mind her own business when they was yoong +an' wanted seein' to." + +"Now, what can a woman knoa about poltiks?" said Batts, still in the same +tone of pleasant rumination. "It isn't in natur. _We_ warn't given the +producin' o' the babies--we'd ha' cried out if we 'ad been!" + +A chuckle passed from one old man to the other. + +"Well, onyways the women is all in a flutter about the votin'," said +Halsey, lighting his pipe with old hands that shook. "An' there's chaps +already coomin' round lookin' out for it." + +"You bet there is!" was Batts's amused reply. "But they'll take their +toime, will the women. 'Don't you try to hustle-bustle me like you're +doin',' say my missus sharp-like to a Labour chap as coom round lasst +week, 'cos yo' won't get nothin' by it.' And she worn't no more +forthcomin' to the Conservative man when ee called." + +"Will she do what _you_ tell her, Batts?" asked Halsey, with an evident +interest in the question. + +"Oh, Lord, no!" said Batts placidly, "shan't try. But now about this +yoong woman an' Great End?--" + +"Well, I ain't heared much about her--not yet awhile. But they say as +she's nice-lookin', an' Muster Shentsone ee said as she'd been to college +somewhere, where they'd larn't her farmin'." + +Batts made a sound of contempt. + +"College!" he said, with a twitching of the broad nostrils which seemed +to spread over half his face. "_They_ can't larn yer farmin'!" + +"She's been on a farm too somewhere near Brighton, Muster Shenstone says, +since she was at college; and ee told me she do seem to be terr'ble +full o' new notions." + +"She'd better be full o' money," said the other, cuttingly. "Notions is +no good without money to 'em." + +"Aye, they're wunnerfull costly things is notions. Yo'd better by a long +way go by the folk as know. But they do say she'll be payin' good wages." + +"I dessay she will! She'll be obleeged. It's Hobson's choice, as you +might say!" said Batts, chuckling again. + +Halsey was silent, and the two old men trudged on with cheerful +countenances. Through the minds of both there ran pleasant thoughts +of the contrast between the days before the war and the days now +prevailing. Both of them could remember a wage of fifteen and sixteen +shillings a week. Then just before the war, it had risen to eighteen +shillings and a pound. And now--why the Wages Board for Brookshire had +fixed thirty-three shillings as a weekly minimum, and a nine-hours' day! +Prices were high, but they would go down some day; and wages would not go +down. The old men could not have told exactly why this confidence lay so +deep in them; but there it was, and it seemed to give a strange new +stability and even dignity to life. Their sons were fighting; and they +had the normal human affection for their sons. They wished the war to +end. But, after all, there was something to be said for the war. +They--old Peter Halsey and old Joe Batts--were more considered and more +comfortable than they would have been before the war. And it was the +consideration more even than the comfort that warmed their hearts. + +The evening grew hotter, and the way to the village seemed long. The old +men were now too tired to talk; till just as they came in sight of the +first houses, they perceived the village wagonette coming towards them. + +"There she be! I did hear as Webb wor to meet her at the station. He's +took her over once before," said old Halsey, raising his eyes for a +moment and then dropping them again. Batts did the same. The glance was +momentary. But both men had the same impression of a pleasant-faced young +woman sitting erect behind Jonathan Webb, the decrepit driver of the +wagonette, and looking straight at them as they passed her. There was a +general effect of youth and bright colour; of pale brown hair, too, +over very dark eyes. + +"Aye, she be quite nice-lookin'," said Batts, with unction, "rayther +uncommon. She minds me summat o' my missis when she wor a young 'un." +Halsey's mouth twitched a little, but though his thoughts were ironical, +he said nothing. It was generally admitted by the older people that Mrs. +Batts had been through many years the village beauty, but her fall from +that high place was now of such ancient date that it seemed foolish of +Batts to be so fond of referring to it. + +The wagonette passed on. The woman sitting in it carefully took note of +the scene around her, in a mood of mingled hope and curiosity. She was to +live in this valley without a stream, under these high chalk downs with +their hanging woods, and within a mile or so of the straggling village +she had just driven through. At last, after much wandering, she was to +find a home--a real home of her own. The word "home" had not meant +much--or much at least that was agreeable--to her, till now. Her large +but handsome mouth took a bitter fold as she thought over various past +events. + +Now they had left the village behind, and were passing through fields +that were soon to be her fields. Her keen eyes appraised the crops +standing in them. She had paid the family of her predecessor a good +price for them, but they were worth it. And just ahead, on her left, was +a wide stretch of newly-ploughed land rising towards a bluff of grassy +down-land on the horizon. The ploughed land itself had been down up to a +few months before this date; thin pasture for a few sheep, through many +generations. She thought with eagerness of the crops she was going to +make it bear, in the coming year. Wheat, or course. The wheat crops all +round the village were really magnificent. This was going to be the +resurrection year for English farming, after fifty years of "death and +damnation"--comparatively. And there would be many good years to come +after. + +Yes, Mr. Thomas Wellin, whose death had thrown the farm which she had now +taken on the market, had done well for the land. And it was not his fault +but the landlord's that the farmhouse and buildings had been allowed to +fall into such a state. Mr. Wellin had not wanted the house, since he was +only working the land temporarily in addition to his own farm half a mile +away. But the owner, Colonel Shepherd, ought to have looked after the +farmhouse and buildings better. Still, they were making her a fair +allowance for repairs. + +She was longing to know how the workmen from Millsboro had been getting +on. Hastings, the Wellins' former bailiff, now temporarily hers, had +promised to stay behind that evening to meet her at the farm. She only +meant to insist on what was absolutely necessary. Even if she had wished +for anything more, the lack of labour would have prevented it. + +The old horse jogged on, and presently from a row of limes beside the +road, a wave of fragrance, evanescent and delicious, passed over the +carriage. Miss Henderson sniffed it with delight. "But one has never +_enough_ of it!" she thought discontentedly. And then she remembered how +as a child--in far-away Sussex--she used to press her face into the +lime-blossom in her uncle's garden--passionately, greedily, trying to get +from it a greater pleasure than it would ever yield. For the more she +tried to compel it, by a kind of violence, the more it escaped her. She +used to envy the bees lying drunk among the blooms. They at least were +surfeited and satisfied. + +It struck her that there was a kind of parable in it of her whole +life--so far. + +But now there was a new world opening. The past was behind her. She drew +herself stiffly erect, conscious through every limb of youth and +strength, and filled with a multitude of vague hopes. Conscious, too, of +the three thousand pounds that Uncle Robert had so opportunely left her. +She had never realized that money could make so much difference; and she +thought gratefully of the elderly bachelor, her mother's brother, who had +unexpectedly remembered her. It had enabled her to get her year's +training, and to take this farm with a proper margin of capital. She +wished she had been able to tell Uncle Robert before he died what it +meant to her. + +They passed one or two pairs of labourers going home, then a group of +girls in overalls, then a spring cart containing four workmen behind a +ragged pony, no doubt the builder's men who had been at work on the Great +End repairs. They all looked at her curiously, and Rachel Henderson +looked back at them--steadily, without shyness. They were evidently aware +of who she was and where she was going. Some of them perhaps would soon +be in her employ. She would be settling all that in a week or two. + +Ah, there was the house. She leant forward and saw it lying under the +hill, the woods on the slope coming down to the back of it. Yes, it was +certainly a lonely situation. That was why the house, the farm lands, +too, had been so long unlet, till old Wellin, the farm's nearest +neighbour, having made a good deal of money, had rented the land from +Colonel Shepherd, to add to his own. The farm buildings, too, he had made +some use of, keeping carts and machines, and certain stores there. But +the house he had refused to have any concern with. It had remained empty +and locked up for a good many years. + +The wagonette turned into the rough road leading through the middle of a +fine field of oats to the house. The field was gaily splashed with +poppies, which ran, too, along the edges of the crop, swayed by the +evening breeze, and flaming in the level sun. Though lonesome and +neglected, the farm in July was a pleasant and picturesque object. It +stood high and the air about it blew keen and fresh. The chalk hill +curved picturesquely round it, and the friendly woods ran down behind to +keep it company. Rachel Henderson, in pursuit of that campaign she was +always now waging against a natural optimism, tried to make herself +imagine it in winter--the leafless trees, the solitary road, the treeless +pasture or arable fields, that stretched westward in front of the farm, +covered perhaps with snow; and the distant stretches of the plain. There +was not another house, not even a cottage, anywhere in sight. The +village had disappeared. She herself, in the old wagonette, seemed the +only living thing. + +No, there was a man emerging from the farm-gate, and coming to meet +her--the bailiff, George Hastings. She had only seen him once before, on +her first hurried visit, when, after getting a rough estimate from him of +the repairs necessary to the house and buildings, she had made up her +mind to take the farm, if the landlord would agree to do them. + +"Yon's Muster Hastings," said Jonathan Webb, turning on her a benevolent +and wrinkled countenance, with two bright red spots in the midst of each +weather-beaten cheek. Miss Henderson again noticed the observant +curiosity in the old man's eyes. Everybody, indeed, seemed to look at her +with the same expression. As a woman farmer she was no doubt just a +freak, a sport, in the eyes of the village. Well, she prophesied they +would take her seriously before long. + +"I'm afraid I haven't as much to show you, miss, as I'd like," said +Hastings, as he helped her to alight. "It's cruel work nowadays trying to +do anything of this kind. Two of the men that began work last week have +been called up, and there's another been just 'ticed away from me this +week. The wages that some people about will give are just mad!" He threw +up his hands. "Colonel Shepherd says he can't compete." + +Miss Henderson replied civilly but decidedly that somehow or other the +work would have to be done. If Colonel Shepherd couldn't find the wages, +she must pay the difference. Get in some time, during August, she must. + +The bailiff looked at her with a little sluggish surprise. He was not +used to being hustled, still less to persons who were ready to pay rather +than be kept waiting. He murmured that he dared say it would be all +right, and she must come and look. + +They turned to the right up a stony pitch, through a dilapidated gate, +and so into the quadrangle of the farm. To the left was a long row of +open cow-sheds, then cow-houses and barns, the stables, a large shed in +which stood an old and broken farm cart, and finally the house, fronting +the barns. + +The house was little more than a large cottage built in the shabbiest way +forty years ago, and of far less dignity than the fine old barn on which +it looked. It abutted at one end on the cart-shed, and between it and the +line of cow-sheds was the gate into the farmyard. + +Miss Henderson stepped up to the house and looked at it. + +"It is a poor place!" she said discontentedly; "and those men don't seem +to have done much to it yet." + +Hastings admitted it. But they had done a little, he said, shamefacedly, +and he unlocked the door. Miss Henderson lingered outside a moment. + +"I never noticed," she said, "that the living room goes right through. +What draughts there'll be in the winter!" + +For as she stood looking into the curtainless window that fronted the +farm-yard, she saw through it a further window at the back of the room, +and beyond that a tree. Both windows were large and seemed to take up +most of the wall on either side of the small room. The effect was +peculiarly comfortless, as though no one living in the room could +possibly enjoy any shred of privacy. There were no cosy corners in it +anywhere, and Miss Henderson's fancy imagined rows of faces looking in. + +Inside a little papering and whitewashing had been done, but certainly +the place looked remarkably unviting. A narrow passage ran from front +to back, on one side of which was the living room with the two windows, +while on the other were the kitchen and scullery. Upstairs there were two +good-sized bedrooms with a small third room in a lean-to at the back, the +lower part of which was occupied by a wash-house. Through the windows +could be seen a neglected bit of garden, and an untidy orchard. + +But when she had wandered about the rooms a little, Rachel Henderson's +naturally buoyant temperament reasserted itself. She had brought some +bright patterns of distemper with her which she gave to Hastings with +precise instructions. She had visions of casement curtains to hide the +nakedness of the big windows with warm serge curtains to draw over them +in the winter. The floors must be stained. There should be a deep +Indian-red drugget in the sitting-room, with pigeon-blue walls, and she +thought complacently of the bits of old furniture she had been +collecting, which were stored in a friend's flat in town. An old dresser, +a grandfather's clock, some bits of brass, two arm-chairs, an old oak +table--it would all look very nice when it was done, and would cost +little. Then the bedrooms. She had brought with her some rolls of flowery +paper. She ran to fetch them from the wagonette, and pinned some pieces +against the wall. The larger room with the south aspect should be +Janet's. She would take the north room for herself. She saw them both in +her mind's eye already comfortably furnished; above all fresh and bright. +There should be no dirt or dinginess in the house, if she could help it. +In the country whitewash and distemper are cheap. + +Then Hastings followed her about through the farm buildings, where her +quick eye, trained in modern ways, perceived a number of small +improvements to be made that he would never have noticed. She was always +ready, he saw, to spend money on things that would save labour or lessen +dirt. But she was not extravagant, and looking through the list of her +directions and commissions, as he hastily jotted them down, he admitted +to himself that she seemed to know what she was about. And being an +honest man himself, and good-tempered, though rather shy and dull, he +presently recognized the same qualities of honesty and good temper in +her; and took to her. Insensibly their tone to each other grew friendly. +Though he was temporarily in the landlord's employ, he had been for some +years in the service of the Wellin family. Half-consciously he contrasted +Miss Henderson's manner to him with theirs. In his own view he had been +worse treated than an ordinary farm labourer throughout his farming life, +though he had more education, and was expected naturally to have more +brains and foresight than the labourer. He was a little better paid; but +his work and that of his wife was never done. He had got little credit +for success and all the blame for failure. And the Wellin women-folk had +looked down on his wife and himself. A little patronage sometimes, and +worthless gifts, that burnt in the taking; but no common feeling, no real +respect. But Miss Henderson was different. His rather downtrodden +personality felt a stimulus. He began to hope that when she came into +possession she would take him on. A woman could not possibly make +anything of Great End without a bailiff! + +Her "nice" looks, no doubt, counted for something. Her face was, perhaps, +a little too full for beauty--the delicately coloured cheeks and the +large smiling mouth. But her brown eyes were very fine, with very dark +pupils, and marked eyebrows; and her nose and chin, with their soft, +blunted lines, seemed to promise laughter and easy ways. She was very +lightly and roundly made; and everything about her, her step, her +sunburn, her freckles, her evident muscular strength, spoke of open-air +life and physical exercise. Yet, for all this general aspect of a comely +country-woman, there was much that was sharply sensitive and individual +in the face. Even a stranger might well feel that its tragic, as well as +its humorous or tender possibilities, would have to be reckoned with. + +"All right!" said Miss Henderson at last, closing her little notebook +with a snap, "now I think we've been through everything. I'll take +over one cart, and Mrs. Wellin must remove the other. I'll buy the +chaff-cutter and the dairy things, but not the reaping machine--" + +"I'm afraid that'll put Mrs. Wellin out considerably!" threw in Hastings. + +"Can't help it. I can't have the place cluttered up with old iron like +that. It's worth nothing. I'm sure _you_ wouldn't advise me to buy it!" + +She looked with bright decision at her companion, who smiled a little +awkwardly, and said nothing. The old long habit of considering the Wellin +interest first, before any other in the world, held him still, though he +was no longer their servant. + +Miss Henderson moved back towards the house. + +"And you'll hurry these men up?--as much as you can? They _are_ +slow-coaches! I must get in the week after next. Miss Leighton and I +intend to come, whatever happens." + +Hastings understood that "Miss Leighton" was to be Miss Henderson's +partner in the farm, specially to look after the dairy work. Miss +Henderson seemed to think a lot of her. + +"And you must please engage those two men you spoke of. Neither of them, +you say, under sixty! Well, there's no picking and choosing now. If they +were eighty I should have to take them! till the harvest's got in. There +are two girls coming from the Land Army, and you've clinched that other +girl from the village?" + +Hastings nodded. + +"Well, I dare say we shall get the harvest in somehow," she said, +standing at the gate, and looking over the fields. "Miss Leighton and I +mean to put our backs into it. But Miss Leighton isn't as strong as I +am." + +Her eyes wandered thoughtfully over the wheat-field, ablaze under the +level gold of the sun. Then she suddenly smiled. + +"I expect you think it a queer business, Mr. Hastings, women taking to +farming?" + +"Well, it's new, you see, Miss Henderson." + +"I believe it's going to be very common. Why shouldn't the women do it!" +She frowned a little. + +"Oh, no reason at all," said Hastings hurriedly, thinking he had offended +her. "I've nothing against it myself. And there won't be men enough to go +round, after the war." + +She looked at him sharply. + +"You've got a son in the war?" + +"Two, and one's been killed." + +"Last year?" + +"No, last month." + +Miss Henderson said nothing, but her look was full of softness. "He was +to have been allowed home directly," Hastings went on, "for two or three +months. He was head woodman before the war on Lord Radley's property." He +pointed to the wooded slopes of the hill. "And they were to have given +him leave to see to the cutting of these woods." + +"These woods!" Miss Henderson turned a startled face upon him. "You don't +mean to say they're coming down!" + +"Half of them commandeered," said Hastings, with a shrug. "The Government +valuers have been all over them these last weeks. They're splendid +timber, you know. There's been a timber camp the other side of the hills +a long while. They've got Canadians, and no doubt they'll move on here." + +Miss Henderson made another quick movement. She said nothing, however. +She was staring at the woods, which shone in the glow now steadily +creeping up the hill, and Hastings thought she was protesting from the +scenery point of view. + +"Well, the Government must have the wood," he said, with resignation. +"We've got to win the war. But it does seem a pity." + +"I don't know that I should have taken the farm," she said, under her +breath-- + +"If you had known? I wish I'd thought to tell you. But it was really only +settled a few days ago." + +"I don't like having a lot of strange men about the farm," she said +abruptly, "especially when I have girls to look after." + +"Oh, the camp's a long way from the farm," he said consolingly. "And +these woods will come last." + +Still Miss Henderson's face did not quite recover its cheerfulness. She +looked at her watch. + +"Don't let me keep you, Mr. Hastings. I'll lock up the house, if you'll +tell me where to leave the key." + +He showed her where to put it, in a corner of the stable, for him to find +on the morrow. Then, in her rapid way, Miss Henderson offered him the +post of bailiff on the farm, from the date of her entry. He agreed at +once; his salary was settled, and he departed with a more cheerful aspect +than when he arrived. The hopefulness and spring of youth had long since +left him, and he had dreaded the new experience of this first meeting +with a woman-farmer, from whom he desired employment simply because he +was very badly off, he was getting old, and Mr. Wellin's widow had +treated him shabbily. He had lost his nerve for new ventures. But Miss +Henderson had made things easy. She had struck him as considerate and +sensible--a "good sort." He would do his best for her. + +Rachel Henderson, left to herself, did not immediately re-enter the +house. She went with a face on which the cloud still rested to look at +the well which was to be found under the cart-shed, at the eastern end of +the house. + +It was covered with a wooden lid which she removed. Under the shed roof +there was but little light left. A faint gleam showed the level of the +water, which, owing to the long drought, was very low. Hastings had told +her that the well was extremely deep---150 feet at least, and +inexhaustible. The water was chalky but good. It would have to be pumped +up every morning for the supply of the house and stables. + +The well had a brick margin. Rachel sat down upon it, her eyes upon that +distant gleam below. The dusk was fast possessing itself of all the farm, +and an evening wind was gustily blowing through the cart-shed, playing +with some old guano sacks that had been left there, and whistling round +the corners of the house. Outside, Rachel could hear the horse fidgeting, +and old Jonathan coughing--no doubt as a signal to her that she had kept +him long enough. + +Still, she sat bent together on the margin of the well. Then she drew off +her glove, and felt for something in the leather bag she carried on her +wrist. She took it out, and the small object sparkled a little as she +held it poised for a moment--as though considering. Then with a rapid +movement, she bent over the well, and dropped it into the water. There +was a slight splash. + +Rachel Henderson raised herself and stood up. + +"That's done with!" she said to herself, with a straightening of all her +young frame. + +Yet all the way back to London she was tormented by thoughts of what she +had declared was "done with"; of scenes and persons, that is, which she +was determined to forget, and had just formally renounced for ever by her +symbolic action at the well. + + + + +II + + +"You do seem to have hit on a rather nice spot, Rachel, though lonesome," +said Miss Henderson's friend and partner, Janet Leighton, as they stood +on the front steps of Great End Farm, surveying the scene outside, on an +August evening, about a week after she and Rachel had arrived with their +furniture and personal belongings to take possession of the farm. + +During that week they had both worked hard--from dawn till dark, both +outside and in. The harvest was in full swing, and as the dusk was +filling, Janet Leighton, who had just returned herself from the fields, +could watch the scene going on in the wheat-field beyond the farm-yard, +where, as the reaping machine steadily pared away the remaining square of +wheat, two or three men and boys with guns lay in wait outside the square +for the rabbits as they bolted from their fast lessening shelter. The +gold and glow of harvest was on the fields and in the air. At last the +sun had come back to a sodden land, after weeks of cold and drenching +showers which, welcomed in June, had by the middle of August made all +England tremble for the final fate of the gorgeous crops then filling the +largest area ever tilled on British soil with their fat promise. Wheat, +oats, and barley stood once more erect, roots were saved, and the young +vicar of Ipscombe was reflecting as he walked towards Great End Farm that +his harvest festival sermon might now after all be rather easier to write +than had seemed probable during the foregoing anxious weeks of chill and +storm. + +Rachel Henderson, who had thrown herself--tired out--into a chair in the +sitting-room window, which was wide open, nodded as she caught her +friend's remark and smiled. But she did not want to talk. She was in that +state of physical fatigue when mere rest is a positive delight. The sun, +the warm air, the busy harvest scene, and all the long hours of hard but +pleasant work seemed to be still somehow in her pulses, thrilling through +her blood. It was long since she had known the acute physical pleasure of +such a day; but her sense of it had conjured up involuntarily +recollections of many similar days in a distant scene--great golden +spaces, blinding sun, and huge reaping machines, twice the size of that +at work in the field yonder. The recollections were unwelcome. Thought +was unwelcome. She wanted only food and sleep--deep sleep--renewing +her tired muscles, till the delicious early morning came round again, and +she was once more in the fields directing her team of workers. + +"Why, there's the vicar!" said Janet Leighton, perceiving the tall and +willowy figure of Mr. Shenstone, as its owner stopped to speak to one of +the boys with the guns who were watching the game. + +Rachel looked round with a look of annoyance. + +"Oh, dear, what a bore," she said wearily. "I suppose I must go and tidy +up. Nobody ought to be allowed to pay visits after five o'clock." + +"You asked him something about a village woman to help, didn't you?" + +"I did, worse luck!" sighed Rachel, gathering up her sunbonnet and +disappearing from the window. Janet heard her go upstairs, and a hasty +opening of cupboards overhead. She herself had come back an hour earlier +from the fields than Rachel in order to get supper ready, and had slipped +a skirt over the khaki tunic and knickerbockers which were her dress--and +her partner's--when at work on the farm. She wondered mischievously what +Rachel would put on. That her character included an average dose of +vanity, the natural vanity of a handsome woman, Rachel's new friend was +well aware. But Janet, Rachel's elder by five years, was only tenderly +amused by it. All Rachel's foibles, as far as she knew them, were +pleasant to her. They were in that early stage of a new friendship when +all is glamour. + +Yet Janet did sometimes reflect, "How little I really know about her. She +is a darling--but a mystery!" + +They had met at college, taken their farm training together, and fallen +in love with each other. Janet had scarcely a relation in the world. +Rachel possessed, it seemed, a brother in Canada, another in South +Africa, and some cousins whom she scarcely knew, children of the uncle +who had left her three thousand pounds. Each had been attracted by the +loneliness of the other, and on leaving college nothing was more natural +than they should agree to set up together. Rachel, as the capitalist, was +to choose the farm and take command. Janet went to a Cheshire dairy farm +for a time to get some further training in practical work; and she was +now responsible for the dairy at Great End, with the housekeeping and the +poultry thrown in. She was a thin, tall woman with spectacles, and had +just seen her thirty-second birthday. Her eyes were honest and clear, her +mouth humorous. She never grudged other women their beauty or their +success. It always seemed to her she had what she deserved. + +Meanwhile the vicar approached, and Miss Leighton descended the steps and +went to meet him at the gate. His aspect showed him apologetic. + +"I have come at an unearthly hour, Miss Leighton. But I thought I should +have no chance of finding Miss Henderson free till the evening, and I +came to tell you that I think I have found a woman to do your work." + +Janet bade him come in, and assured him that Rachel would soon be +visible. She ushered him into the sitting-room, which he entered on a +note of wonderment. + +"How nice you have made it all," he said, looking round him. "When I +think what a deserted hole this has been for years. You know, the village +people firmly believe it is haunted? Old Wellin never could get anybody +to sleep here. But tramps often used it, I'm certain. They got in through +the windows. Hastings told me he had several times found a smouldering +fire in the kitchen." + +"What sort is the ghost?" Janet inquired, as she pointed him to a chair, +devoutly hoping that Rachel would hurry herself. + +"Well, there's a story--but I wonder whether I ought to tell you--" + +"I assure you as to ghosts--I have no nerves!" said Janet with a +confident laugh, "and I don't think Rachel has either. We are more +frightened of rats. This farm-yard contains the biggest I've ever seen. +I dream of them at night." + +"It's not exactly the ghost--" said the vicar, hesitating. + +"But the story that produced the ghost? What--a murder?" + +"Half a century ago," said the vicar reassuringly; "you won't mind that?" + +"Not the least. A century ago would be romantic. If it was just the other +day, we should feel we ought to have got the farm cheaper. But half a +century doesn't matter. It's a mid-Victorian, just a plain, old-fashioned +murder. Who did it?" + +The vicar opened his eyes a little. Miss Leighton was, he saw, a lady, +and perhaps clever. Her spectacles looked like it. No doubt she had been +at Oxford or Cambridge before going to Swanley? These educated women in +new professions were becoming a very pressing and common fact! As to the +murder, he explained that it had been just an ordinary poaching affair. +An old gamekeeper on the Shepherd estate had been attacked by a gang of +poachers in the winter of 1866. He had been shot in one of the woods, and +though mortally wounded had been able to drag himself to the outskirts of +the farm where his strength had failed him. He was found dead under the +cart-shed which backed on the stables, and the traces of blood on the +hill marked the stages of his struggle for life. Two men were suspected, +one of them a labourer on the Great End Farm; but there was no evidence. +The suspected labourer had gone to Canada the year after the murder, and +no one knew what had happened to him. + +But having told the tale the vicar was again seized with compunction. + +"I oughtn't to have told you--I really oughtn't; just on your settling +in--I hope you won't tell Miss Henderson?" + +Janet's amused reply was interrupted by Rachel's entrance. The vicar +arose with eagerness to receive her. He was evidently attracted by his +new parishioners and anxious to make a good impression on them. Miss +Henderson's reception of the vicar, however, was far more guarded. The +easy friendliness of manner which had attracted the bailiff Hastings was, +at first at any rate, entirely absent. Her attitude was almost that of a +woman defending herself against possible intrusion, and Janet Leighton, +looking on, and occasionally sharing in the conversation, was surprised +by it, as indeed she was by so many things concerning Rachel now that +their acquaintance was deepening; surprised also, as though it were a new +thing, by her friend's good looks as she sat languidly chatting with the +vicar. Rachel had merely put on a blue overall above her land-worker's +dress. But her beautiful head, with its wealth of brown hair, and her +face, with its sensuous fulness of cheek and lip, its rounded lines, and +lovely colour--like a slightly overblown rose--were greatly set off by +the simple folds of blue linen; and her feet and legs, shapely but not +small, in their khaki stockings and shoes, completed the general effect +of lissom youth. The flush and heat of hard bodily work had passed away. +She had had time to plunge her face into cold water and smooth her hair. +But the atmosphere of the harvest field, its ripeness and glow, seemed to +be still about her. A classically minded man might have thought of some +nymph in the train of Demeter, might have fancied a horn of plenty, or a +bow, slung from the sunburnt neck. + +But the vicar had forgotten his classics. _En revanche_, however, he was +doing his best to show himself sympathetic and up-to-date with regard to +women and their new spheres of work--especially on the land. He had +noticed three girls, he said, working in the harvest field. Two of them +he recognized as from the village; the third he supposed was a stranger? + +"She comes from Ralstone," said Rachel. + +"Ah, that's the village where the new timber camp is. You really must see +that camp, Miss Henderson." + +"I hate to think of the woods coming down," she said, frowning a little. + +"We all do. But that's the war. It can't be helped, alack! But it's +wonderful to see the women at work, measuring and checking, doing the +brain work, in fact, while the men do the felling and loading. It makes +one envious." + +The vicar sighed. A flush appeared on his young but slightly cadaverous +face. + +"Of the men--or the women?" + +"Oh, their work, I mean. They're doing something for the war. I've done +my best. But the Bishop won't hear of it." + +And he rather emphatically explained how he had applied in vain for an +army chaplaincy. Health and the shortage of clergy had been against him. +"I suppose there must be some left at home," he said with a shrug, "and +the doctors seem to have a down on me." + +Janet was quite sorry for the young man--he was so eagerly apologetic, so +anxious to propitiate what he imagined ought to be their feelings about +him. And Rachel all the time sat so silent and unresponsive. + +Miss Leighton drew the conversation back to the timber camp; she would +like to go and see it, she said. Every one knew the Canadians were +wonderful lumbermen. + +The Vicar's eyes had travelled back to Rachel. + +"Were you ever in Canada, Miss Henderson?" The question was evidently +thrown out nervously at a venture, just to evoke a word or a smile from +the new mistress of the farm. + +Rachel Henderson frowned slightly before replying. + +"Yes, I have been in Canada." + +"You have? Oh, then, you know all about it." + +"I know nothing about Canadian lumbering." + +"You were on the prairies?" + +"I lived some time on a prairie farm." + +"Everything here must seem very small to you," said the vicar +sympathetically. But this amiable tone fell flat. Miss Henderson still +sat silent. The vicar began to feel matters awkward and took his hat from +the floor. + +"I trust you will call upon me for any help I can possibly be to you," he +said, turning to Janet Leighton. "I should be delighted to help in the +harvest if you want it. I have a pair of hands anyway, as you see!" He +held them out. + +He expatiated a little more on his disappointment as to the front. Janet +threw in a few civil words. Rachel Henderson had moved to the window, and +was apparently looking at the farm-girls carrying straw across the yard. + +"Good-night, Miss Henderson," said the young man at last, conscious of +rebuff, but irrepressibly effusive and friendly all the time. "I hope you +will let your Ralstone girl come sometimes to the clubroom my sister and +I have in the village? We feel young people ought to be amused, +especially when they work hard." + +"Thank you, but it's so far away. We don't like them to be out late." + +"Certainly not. But in the long evenings--don't you know?" The vicar +smiled persuasively. "However, there it is--whenever she comes she will +be welcome. And then, as to your seat in church. There is a pew that has +always belonged to the farm. It is about half-way up." + +"We don't go to church," said Rachel, facing him. "At least, I don't." +She looked at her companion. + +"And I can't be counted on," said Janet, smiling. + +The vicar flushed a little. + +"Then you're not Church of England?" + +"I am," said Rachel indifferently; "at least I'm not anything else. Miss +Leighton is a Unitarian." Then her eyes lit up with a touch of fun, and +for the first time she smiled. "I'm afraid you'll think us dreadful +heathens, Mr. Shenstone!" + +What the vicar did think was that he had never seen a smile transform a +face so agreeably. And having begun to smile, Rachel perversely continued +it. She walked to the gate with her visitor, talking with irrelevant +animation, inviting him to come the following day to help in the +"carrying," asking questions about the village and its people, and +graciously consenting to fix a day when she and her friend would go to +tea with Miss Shenstone at the vicarage. The young man fairly beamed +under the unexpected change, and lingered at the gate as though unable to +tear himself away; till with a little peremptory nod, though still +smiling, Rachel dismissed him. + +Janet Leighton meanwhile watched it all. She had seen Rachel treat a new +male acquaintance before as she had just treated the vicar. To begin +with, the manners of an icicle; then a sudden thaw, just in time to save +the situation. She had come with amusement to the conclusion that, +however really indifferent or capricious, her new friend could not in the +long run resign herself to be disliked, even by a woman, and much more in +the case of a man. Was it vanity, or sex, or both? Temperament perhaps; +the modern word which covers so much. Janet remembered a little niece of +her own who in her mother's absence entertained a gentleman visitor with +great success. When asked for his name, she shook her pretty head. "Just +a man, mummy," she said, bridling. Janet Leighton suspected that similar +tales might have been told of Miss Henderson in her babyhood. + +And yet impressions recurred to her of another kind--of a sensitive, +almost fierce delicacy--a shrinking from the ugly or merely physical +facts of life, as of one who had suffered some torment in connection with +them. + +Janet's eyes followed the curly brown head as its possessor came slowly +back from the gate. She was thinking of a moment when, one evening, while +they were both still at college, they had realized their liking for each +other, and had agreed to set up in partnership. Then Rachel, springing to +her feet, with her hands behind her, and head thrown back, had said +suddenly: "I warn you, I have a story. I don't want to tell you, to tell +anybody. I shan't tell you. It's done with. I give you my word that I'm +not a bad woman. But if you don't want to be my partner on these terms, +say so!" + +And Janet had felt no difficulty whatever in becoming Rachel Henderson's +partner on these terms. Nor had she ever yet regretted it. + +The light farm cart which had been sent to the station for stores drove +up to the yard gate as Rachel left it. She turned back to receive some +parcels handed out by the "exempted" man who drove it, together with some +letters which had been found lying at the village post office. Two of the +letters were for Janet. She sent them up to the house, and went herself +towards the harvest field. + +There they stood--the rows of golden "shocks" or stooks. The "shockers" +had just finished their day's work. She could hear the footsteps of the +last batch, a cheerful chatter, while talk and laughter came softened +through the evening air. The man who had been driving the reaping machine +was doing some rough repairs to it in a far corner of the field, with a +view to the morrow, and she caught sight of her new bailiff, Hastings, +who had waited to see everybody off, disappearing towards his own +cottage, which stood on a lonely spur of the down. The light was fast +going, but the deep glow of the western sky answered the paler gold of +the new-made stubble and the ranged stooks, while between rose the dark +and splendid masses of the woods. + +Rachel stood looking at the scene, possessed by a pleasure which in her +was always an ardour. She felt nothing by halves. The pulse of life beat +in her still with an energy, a passion, that astonished herself. She was +full of eagerness for her new work and for success in it, full of +desires, too, for vague, half-seen things, things she had missed so +Far--her own fault. But somewhere in the long, hidden years, they must, +they should be waiting for her. + +The harvest was magnificent. She had paid the Wellins a high price for +the standing crops, but there was going to be a profit on her bargain. +Her mind was full of schemes, if only she could get the labour to carry +them out. Farming was now on the up-grade. She had come into it at the +very best moment, and England would never let farming go down again, +after the war, for her own safety's sake. + +_The War_! She felt towards it as to some distant force, which, so far as +she personally was concerned, was a force for good. Owing to the war, +farming was booming all over England, and she was in the boom, taking +advantage of it. Yet she was ashamed to think of the war only in that +way. She tried to tame the strange ferment in her blood, and could only +do it by reminding herself of Hastings's wounded son, whose letter he had +showed her. And then--in imagination--she began to see thousands of +others like him, in hospital beds, or lying dead in trampled fields. Her +mood softened, the tears came into her eyes. + +Suddenly--a slight whimper--a child's whimper--close beside her. She +paused in amazement, looking round her, till the whimper was renewed; and +there, almost at her feet, cradled in the fragrant hollow of a wheat +stook, she saw a tiny child--a baby about a year old, a fair, plump +thing, just waking from sleep. + +At sight of the face bending over her, the child set up a louder cry, +which was not angry, however, only forlorn. The tears welled fast into +her blue eyes. She looked piteously at Rachel. + +"Mummy, mummy!" + +"You poor little thing!" said Rachel. "Whose are you?" + +One of the village women who had been helping in the "shocking," she +supposed, had brought the child. She had noticed a little girl playing +about the reapers in the afternoon--no doubt an elder sister brought to +look after the baby. Between the mother and the sister there must have +been some confusion, and one or other would come running back directly. + +But meanwhile she took up the child, who at first resisted passionately, +fighting with all its chubby strength against the strange arms. But +Rachel seemed to have a way with her--a spell, which worked. She bent +over the little thing, soothing and cooing to her, and then finding a few +crumbs of cake in the pocket of her overall, the remains of her own lunch +in the field, she daintily fed the rosy mouth, till the sobs ceased and +the child stared upwards in a sleep wonder, her blue eyes held by the +brown ones above her. + +"Mummy!" she repeated, still whimpering slightly. + +"Mummy's coming," said Rachel tenderly. "What a duck it is!" + +And bending, she kissed the soft, downy cheek greedily, with the same +ardour she had just been throwing into her own dreams of success. + +She carried the child, now quiet and comforted, towards the house. The +warm weight upon her arms was delicious to her. Only as she neared the +gate in the now moonlit dusk, her lips quivered suddenly, and two tears +rolled down her cheeks. + +"I haven't carried a child," she thought, "since--" + +Suddenly there was a shout from the farther gate of the harvest field, +and a girl came running at top speed. It was the little one's elder +sister, and with a proper scolding, Rachel gave up her prize. + +The two land-girls had finished giving food and water to the cattle and a +special mush to new-born calves. Everything was now in order for the +night, and Janet, standing on the steps of the farm-house, rang a bell, +which meant that supper would be ready in a few minutes. The two partners +and their employees were soon gathered round the table in the kitchen, +which was also the dining-room. It was a cold meal of bacon, with +lettuce, bread and jam, some tea made on a "Tommy's cooker," and potatoes +which Janet, who was for the present housekeeper and cook, produced hot +and steaming from the hay-box to which she had consigned them after the +midday dinner. A small oil-lamp had been lit, and through the open +windows afterglow and moonrise streamed in to mingle with its light. +There was a pot of flowers on the table--purple scabious, and tall +cow-parsley, gathered from the orchard, where no one had yet had time to +cut the ragged hay beneath the trees. + +The scene was typical of a new England. Women governing--and women +serving--they were all alike making their way through new paths to new +ends. It was no household in the ordinary sense. The man was wanting. The +two elder women were bound to the two younger by a purely business tie, +which might or might not develop into something more personal. The two +land-lasses had come to supper in their tunics and breeches, while Rachel +Henderson and Janet had now both put on the coloured overalls which +disguised the masculine garb beneath, and gave them something of the +usual feminine air. Rachel's overall, indeed, was both pretty and +artistic, embroidered a little here and there, and showing a sunburnt +throat beneath the rounded chin. + +The talk turned on the day's work, the weather prospects, the vagaries of +the cows at milking time, and those horrid little pests the "harvesters," +which haunt the chalk soils. The two "hands" were clear by now that they +liked Miss Leighton the best of the two ladies, they hardly knew why. +Betty Rolfe, the younger of them, who came from Ralstone, was a taking +creature, with deep black, or rather violet, eyes, small features framed +in curly hair, and the bloom of ripe fruit. She was naturally full of +laughter and talk, and only spoilt by her discoloured and uneven teeth, +which showed the usual English neglect of such things in childhood. + +Her companion, Jenny Harberton, was a much more ordinary type, with broad +cheeks, sandy hair, and a perpetual friendly grin, which generally served +her instead of speech, at least in her employer's presence. She was a +capital milker, and a good honest child. Her people lived in the village, +and her forebears had always lived there. They were absolutely indigenous +and autochthonous--a far older Brookshire family than any of the dwellers +in the big houses about. + +Then in the midst of a loving report by Betty on the virtues and docility +of a beautiful Jersey cow who was the pride of Miss Henderson's new herd, +Janet Leighton remembered one of her letters of the evening and drew it +out of her pocket. + +"Who do you think is going to be--is already--the commandant of the +timber girls in the new camp?" + +Rachel couldn't guess. + +"You remember Mrs. Fergusson--at College?" + +Rachel raised her eyebrows. + +"The Irish lady? Perfectly." + +"Well, it's she. She writes to me to say she is quite settled, with +thirty girls, that the work is fascinating, and they all love it, and you +and I _must_ go over to see her." + +Rachel looked irresponsive. + +"It's a long way." + +"Oh, Miss," said Jenny Harberton timidly, "it's not so very far. An' it's +lovely when you get there. Father was there last week, drivin' some +officers. He says it _is_ interestin'!" + +Jenny's father, a plumber in the village, owned a humble open car which +was in perpetual request. + +"There are a hundred Canadians apparently," said Janet Leighton, looking +at her letter, "and German prisoners, quite a good few, and these thirty +girls. Mrs. Fergusson begs us to come. Sunday's no good because we +couldn't see the work, but--after the harvest? We could get there with +the pony quite well." + +Rachel said nothing. + +Janet Leighton dropped the subject for the moment, but after supper, with +her writing-desk on her knee, she returned to it. + +"Can't you go without me?" said Rachel, who was standing with her back to +the room, looking out of the window. + +"Well, I could," said Janet, feeling rather puzzled, "but I thought you +were curious to see these new kinds of work for women?" + +"So I am. It isn't the women." + +"The German prisoners, then?" laughed Janet. + +"Heavens, no!" + +"The Canadians?" asked Janet--in wonder--after a moment. Rachel turned +abruptly towards her. + +"Well, I didn't have exactly a good time in Canada," she said, as though +the admission was dragged out of her; adding immediately, "but of course +I'll go--sometime--after the harvest." + +On which she left the room, and presently Janet saw her wandering among +the stooks in the gloaming, her hands behind her back. She seemed in her +ripe and comely youth to be somehow the very spirit of the harvest. + +A little later, just before ten o'clock, while the sunset glow was still +brooding on the harvest fields, the two farm-girls, after a last visit to +the cows, slipped into the little sitting-room. Janet, who was mending +her Sunday dress, greeted them with a smile and a kind word. Then she +moved to the table and took up a New Testament that was lying there. She +was an ardent and mystically-minded Unitarian, and her mind was much set +towards religion. + +"Shall we have prayers at night?" she had said quite simply to the f +arm-girls on their arrival. "Don't if you don't want to." And they had +shyly said "yes"--not particularly attracted by the proposal, but willing +to please Miss Leighton, who was always nice to them. + +So Janet read some verses from the sixth chapter of St. John: "Verily, +verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me hath everlasting +life ... I am the Bread of Life ... I am the living Bread which came down +from Heaven ... The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they +are life." + +Closing the book, while her quiet eyes shone in the gleaming dusk, she +said a few simple things about the Words of Christ, and how the human +soul may feed on them--the Word of Love--the Word of Purity--the Word of +Service. While she was still speaking, the door opened and Rachel came +in. It had been agreed between her and Janet that although she had no +objection to the prayers, she was not to be asked to take part in them. +So that Janet's pulses fluttered a little when she appeared. But there +was no outward sign of it. The speaker finished what she had to say, +while the eyes of her three hearers were sometimes on her face and +sometimes on the wide cornfield beyond the open window, where the harvest +moon, as yet only a brilliant sickle, was rising. The Earth Bread +without--the "Bread of Life" within; even in Jenny's primitive mind, +there was a mingling of the two ideas, which brought a quiet joy. She sat +with parted lips, feeling that she liked Miss Leighton very much, and +would try to please her with the cows. + +Betty, meanwhile, beside her, passed into a waking dream. She was +thinking of a soldier in the village: the blacksmith's son, a tall, +handsome fellow, who had just arrived on leave for ten days. She had +spent Sunday evening wandering in the lanes with him. She felt +passionately that she must see him again--soon. + +The little reading passed into the Lord's Prayer. Then it was over and +the two girls disappeared to bed. Janet felt a little awkward when she +was left alone with Rachel, but she went back to her sewing and began to +talk of the day's news of the war. Rachel answered at random, and very +soon said good-night. + +But long after everybody else in the solitary farmhouse was asleep, +Rachel Henderson was sitting up in bed, broad awake, her hands round her +knees. The window beside her was open. She saw the side of the hill and +the bare down in which it ended, with the moonlight bright upon it, and +the dark woods crowning it. There were owls calling from the hill, and +every now and then a light wind rustled through the branches of an oak +that stood in the farm-yard. + +She was thinking of what Janet had said about the "Words" of Christ--the +Word of Purity--and the Word of Love. How often she had heard her +father read and expound that chapter! very differently as far as +phraseology--perhaps even as far as meaning--went, yet with all his +heart, like Janet. He was an Anglican clergyman who had done missionary +service in the Canadian West. He had been dead now three years, and her +mother five. She had bitterly missed them both when she was in her worst +need; yet now she was thankful they had died--before-- + +What would her father think of her now? Would he grant that she was free, +or would he still hold to those rigid, those cruel views of his? Oh, he +must grant it! She _was_ free! Her breast shook with the fervour of her +protest. She had been through passion and wrong, through things that +seared and defiled. She knew well that she had been no mere innocent +sufferer. Yet now she had her life before her again; and both heart and +senses were hungry for the happiness she had so abominably missed. And +her starved conscience--that, too, was eagerly awake. She had her +self-respect to recover--the past to forget. + +_Work_! that was the receipt--hard work! And this dear woman, Janet +Leighton, to help her; Janet, with her pure, modest life and her high +aims. So, at last, clinging to the thought of her new friend like a +wearied child, Rachel Henderson fell asleep. + + + + +III + + +"A jolly view!" + +Janet assented. She was sitting behind the pony, while Rachel had walked +up the hill beside the carriage, to the high point where both she and the +pony--a lethargic specimen of the race--had paused to take breath. + +They were on a ridge whence there was a broad bit of the world to see. To +the north, a plain rich in all the diversities of English land--field and +wood, hamlet and church, the rising grounds and shallow depressions, the +small enclosures and the hedgerow timber, that make all the difference +between the English midlands and, say, the plain of Champagne, or a +Russian steppe. Across the wide, many-coloured scene, great clouds from +the west were sweeping, with fringes of rain and sudden bursts of light +or shadow, which in their perpetual movement--suggesting attack from the +sky and response from the earth--gave drama and symbol to the landscape. + +On the south--things very different! First, an interlocked range of +hills, forest-clothed, stretching east and west, and, at the very feet of +the two women, a forest valley offering much that was strange to English +eyes. Two years before it had been known only to the gamekeeper and the +shooting guests of a neighbouring landowner. Now a great timber camp +filled it. The gully ran far and deep into the heart of the forest +country, with a light railway winding along the bottom, towards an unseen +road. The steep sides of the valley--Rachel and Janet stood on the edge +of one of them--were covered with felled trees, cut the preceding winter, +and left as they fell. The dead branch and leaf of the trees had turned +to a rich purple, and dyed all the inside of the long deep cup. But along +its edges stretched the forest, still untouched, and everywhere, in the +bare spaces left here and there by the felling among the "rubble and +woody wreck," green and gold mosses and delicate grasses had sprung up, +a brilliant enamel, inlaid with a multitude of wild flowers. + +"Look!" cried Rachel. + +For suddenly, down below them, a huge trunk began to move as though of +its own accord. Hissing and crashing like some gray serpent, it glided +down the hill-side, till it approached a group of figures and horses +congregated at the head of the valley, near an engine puffing smoke. Then +something invisible happened, and presently a trolley piled high with +logs detached itself from the group, and set out on a solitary journey +down the railway, watched here and there by men in queer uniforms with +patches on their backs. + +"German prisoners!" said Janet, and strained her eyes to see, thinking +all the time of a letter she had received that morning from her soldier +brother fighting with the English troops to the west of Rheims:-- + +"The beggars are on the run! Foch has got them this time. But, oh, Lord, +the sight they've made of all this beautiful country! Trampled, and +ruined, and smashed! all of it. Deliberate loot and malice everywhere, +and tales of things done in the villages that make one see red. We +captured a letter to his wife on a dead German this morning: 'Well, the +offensive is a failure, but we've done one thing--we've smashed up +another bit of France!' How are we ever going to live with this people in +the same world after the war?" + +And there below, in the heart of this remote English woodland, now being +sacrificed to the war, moved the sons of this very people, cast up here +by the tide of battle. Janet had heard that nobody spoke to them during +the work, except to give directions; after work they had their own wired +camp, and all intercourse between them and the Canadian woodmen, or the +English timber girls, was forbidden. But what were they saying among +themselves--what were they thinking--these peasants, some perhaps from +the Rhineland, or the beautiful Bavarian country, or the Prussian plains? +Janet had travelled a good deal in Germany before the war, using her +holidays as a mistress in a secondary school, and her small savings, in a +kind of wandering which had been a passion with her. She had known +Bavarians and Prussians at home. But here, in this corner of rural +England, with this veil of silence drawn between them and the nation +which at last, in this summer of 1918, was grimly certain, after four +years of vengeance and victory, what ferments were, perhaps, working in +the German mind? + +Yes, there was the German camp, and beyond it under the hill the Canadian +forestry camp; whilst just beneath them could be seen the roof of the +large women's hostel. + +Another exclamation from Rachel, as, on their left, another great tree +started for the bottom of the hollow. + +"But haven't you seen all this before?" asked Janet. + +"No, I never saw anything of lumbering." + +The tone showed the sudden cooling and reserve that were always apparent +in Rachel's manner when any subject connected with Canada came into +conversation. Yet Janet had noticed with surprise that it was Rachel +herself who, when the harvest was nearly over, had revived the subject of +the camp, and planned the drive for this Saturday afternoon. It had +seemed to Janet once or twice that she was forcing herself to do it, as +though braving some nervousness of which she was ashamed. + +The rough road on which they were driving wound gradually downward +through the felled timber. Soon they could hear the clatter of the +engine, and the hissing of the saws which seized the trees on their +landing, and cut and stripped them in a trice, ready for loading. Round +the engine and at the starting-place of the trolleys was a busy crowd: +lean and bronzed Canadians; women in leather breeches and coats, busily +measuring and marking; a team of horses showing silvery white against the +purple of the hill; and everywhere the German prisoner lads, mostly quite +young and of short stature. The pony carriage passed a group of them, and +they stared with cheerful, furtive looks at the two women. + +Then the group of timber girls below perceived the approaching visitors, +and a figure, detaching itself from the rest, came to meet the carriage. +A stately woman, black-haired, in coat and breeches like the rest, with a +felt hat, and a badge of authority, touches of green besides on the khaki +uniform. Janet recognized her at once as Mrs. Fergusson, their comrade +for a time at college, and much liked both by her and Rachel. + +She came laughing, with hands outstretched. + +"Well, here we meet again! Jolly to see you! A new scene, isn't it? Life +doesn't stand still nowadays! One of my girls will take the carriage for +you." + +A stalwart maiden unharnessed the pony and let him graze. + +Mrs. Fergusson took possession of her visitors, and walked on beside +them, describing the different stages of the work, and sections of the +workers. + +"You see those tall fellows farthest off? Those work the saws and cut up +the trees as they come down. Then the horses bring them to the rollers, +and the Canadians guide them with those hooks till the crane seizes hold +of them and lifts them on to the trolley. But before the hooks get +them--you see the girls there?--they do all the measuring; they note +everything in their books and they mark every log. All the payments of +the camp, the wages paid, the sums earned by the trolley contractor who +takes them to the station, the whole finance in fact, depends on the +_women_. I've trained scores besides and sent them out to other camps! +But now come, I must introduce you to the commandant of the camp." + +"A Canadian?" asked Janet. + +"No, an American! He comes from Maine, but he had been lumbering in +Canada, with several mills and, camps under him. So he volunteered a year +ago to bring over a large Forestry battalion--mostly the men he had been +working with in Quebec. Splendid fellows! But he's the king!" + +Then she raised her voice,-- + +"Captain Ellesborough!" + +A young man in uniform, with a slouch hat, came forward, leaping over the +logs in his path. He gave a military salute to the two visitors, and a +swift scrutinizing look to each of them. Rachel was aware of a thin, +handsome face bronzed by exposure, a pair of blue eyes, rather pale in +colour, to which the sunburn of brow and cheek gave a singular +brilliance, and a well-cut, determined mouth. The shoulders were those of +an athlete, but on the whole the figure was lightly and slenderly built, +making an impression rather of grace and elasticity than of exceptional +strength. + +"You would like to see the camp?" he said, looking at Rachel. + +"Aren't you too busy to show it?" + +"Not at all. I am not wanted just now. Let me help you over those logs." +He held out his hand. + +"Oh, thank you, I don't want any help," said Rachel a little scornfully. +He smiled in approving silence, and she followed his lead, leaping and +scrambling over the piles of wood, with a deer's sureness of foot, till +he invited her to stop and watch the timber girls at their measuring. As +the two visitors approached, land-women and forest-women eyed each other +with friendly looks, but without speech. For talk, indeed, the business +in hand was far too strenuous. The logs were coming in fast; there must +be no slip in measurement or note. The work was hard, and the women doing +it had been at it all day. But on the whole, what a comely and energetic +group, with the bright eyes, the clear skins, the animation born of open +air and exercise. + +"They can't talk to you now!" said Mrs. Fergusson in Janet's ear, amid +the din of the engines, "but they'll talk at tea. And there's a dance +to-night." + +Janet looked round the wild glen in wonder. + +"Who come?" + +"Oh, there's an Air Force camp half a mile away--an Army Service camp on +the other side. The officers come--some of them--every Saturday. We take +down the partitions in our huts. You can't think what pretty frocks the +girls put on! And we dance till midnight." + +"And you've no difficulty with the men working in the camp?" + +"You mean--how do they treat the girls?" laughed Mrs. Fergusson. "They're +_charming_ to the girls! Chivalrous, kind, everything they should be. But +then," she added proudly, "my girls are the pick--educated women all of +them. I could trust them anywhere. And Captain Ellesborough--you won't +get any mischief going on where he is." + +Meanwhile the captain, well out of earshot of Mrs. Fergusson's praise, +was explaining the organization of the camp to Rachel as they slowly +climbed the hill, on the opposite side from that by which she and Janet +had descended. + +"Which works hardest, I wonder?" she said at last, as they paused to look +down on the scene below. "We on our farm, or you here? I've never had +more than five hours' sleep through the harvest? But now things are +slacker." + +He threw his head back with a laugh. + +"Why, this seems to me like playing at lumbering! It's all so tiny--so +babyish. Oh, yes, there's plenty of work--for the moment. But it'll be +all done, in one more season; not a stick left. England can't grow a real +forest." + +"Compared to America?" + +"Well, I was thinking of Canada. Do you know Canada?" + +"A little." Then she added hastily: "But I never saw any lumbering." + +"What a pity! It's a gorgeous life. Oh, not for women. These women +here--awfully nice girls, and awfully clever too--couldn't make anything +of it in Canada. I had a couple of square miles of forest to look +after--magnificent stuff!--Douglas fir most of it--and two pulping mills, +and about two hundred men--a rough lot." + +"But you're not Canadian?" + +"Oh, Lord, no! My people live in Maine. I was at Yale. I got trained +at the forest school there, and after a bit went over the Canadian +frontier with my brother to work a big concession in Quebec. We did very +well--made a lot of money. Then came the war. My brother joined up with +the Canadian army. I stayed behind to try and settle up the business, +till the States went in, too. Then they set me and some other fellows to +raise a Forestry battalion--picked men. We went to France first, and last +winter I was sent here--to boss this little show! But I shan't stay here +long! It isn't good enough. Besides, I want to fight! They've promised me +a commission in our own army." + +He looked at her with sparkling eyes, and her face involuntarily answered +the challenge of his; so much so that his look prolonged itself. She was +wonderfully pleasant to look upon, this friend of Mrs. Fergusson's. And +she was farming on her own? A jolly plucky thing to do! He decided that +he liked her; and his talk flowed on. He was frank about himself, and +full of self-confidence; but there was a winning human note in it, and +Rachel listened eagerly, talking readily, too, whenever there was an +opening. They climbed to the top of the hill where they stood on the +northern edge of the forest, looking across the basin and the busy throng +below. He pointed out to her a timber-slide to their right, and they +watched the trees rushing down it, dragged, as he now saw plainly, by the +wire cable which was worked by the engine in the hollow. A group of +German prisoners, half-way down, were on the edge of the slide, guiding +the logs. + +"We don't have any trouble with them," said the captain carelessly. +"They're only too thankful to be here. They've two corporals of their own +who keep order. Oh, of course we have our eyes open. There are some sly +beggars among them. Our men have no truck with them. I shouldn't advise +you to employ them. It wouldn't do for women alone." + +His smile was friendly, and Rachel found it pleasant to be advised by +him. As to employing prisoners, she said, even were it allowed, nothing +would induce her to risk it. There were a good many on Colonel Shepherd's +estate, and she sometimes met them, bicycling to and from their billets +in the village, in the evening after work. "Once or twice they've jeered +at me," she said, flushing. + +"Jeered at you!" he repeated in surprise. + +"At my dress, I mean. It seems to amuse them." + +"I see. You wear the land army dress like these girls?" + +"When I'm at work." + +"Well, I'm glad you don't wear it always," he said candidly. "These girls +here look awfully nice of an evening. They always change." + +He glanced at her curiously. Her dress of dark blue linen, her pretty hat +to match, with its bunch of flowers, not to speak of the slender ankles +and feet in their blue stockings and khaki shoes, seemed to him +extraordinarily becoming. But she puzzled him. There was something about +her quite different from the girls of the hostel. She appeared to be +older and riper than they; yet he did not believe she was a day more than +five-and-twenty, and some of them were older than that. Unmarried, he +supposed. "Miss Henderson?" Yes, he was sure that was the name Mrs. +Fergusson had mentioned. His eyes travelled discreetly to her bare, left +hand. That settled it. + +"Well, if I came across these fellows jeering at an Englishwoman, I'd +know the reason why!" he resumed hotly. "You should have complained." + +She shook her head, smiling. "One doesn't want to be a nuisance in war +time. One can always protect oneself." + +He smiled. + +"That's what women always say, and--excuse me--they can't!" + +She laughed. + +"Oh, yes, we can--the modern woman." + +"I don't see much difference between the modern woman and the +old-fashioned woman," he said obstinately. "It isn't dress or working at +munitions that makes the difference." + +"No, but--what they signify." + +"What?--a freer life, getting your own way, seeing more of the world?" +The tone was a trifle antagonistic. + +"_Knowing_ more of the world," she said, quietly. "We're not the ignorant +babes our grandmothers were at our age. That's why we can protect +ourselves." + +And again he was aware of something sharp or bitter in her--some note of +disillusionment--that jarred with the soft, rather broad face and dreamy +eyes. It stirred him, and they presently found themselves plunged in a +free and exciting discussion of the new place and opportunities of women +in the world, the man from the more conservative, the women from the more +revolutionary point of view. Secretly, he was a good deal repelled by +some of his companion's opinions, and her expression of them. She quoted +Wells and Shaw, and he hated both. He was an idealist and a romantic, +with a volume of poems in his pocket. She, it seemed, was still on a +rising wave of rebellion, moral and social, like so many women; while his +wave had passed, and he was drifting in the trough of it. He supposed she +had dropped religion, like everything else. Well, the type didn't attract +him. He believed the world was coming back to the old things. The war had +done it--made people think. No doubt this girl had rushed through a lot +of things already, and thought she knew everything. But she didn't. + +Then, as their talk went on, this first opinion dropped in confusion. For +instead of presenting him with a consistent revolutionist, his companion +was, it appeared, full of the most unexpected veins and pockets of +something much softer and more appealing. She had astonishing returns +upon herself; and after some sentiment that had seemed to him silly or +even outrageous, a hurried "Oh, I dare say that's all nonsense!" would +suddenly bewilder or appease a marked trenchancy of judgment in himself +which was not accustomed to be so tripped up. + +The upshot of it was that both Rachel and her new acquaintance enjoyed +an agreeable, an adventurous half hour. They got rapidly beyond +conventionalities. One moment she thought him rude, the next delightful; +just as she alternately appeared to him feminist and feminine. Above them +the doomed beech trees, still green in the late August afternoon, spread +their canopy of leaf, and through their close stems ran dark aisles of +shadow. Below them was the tree-strewn hill-side. In the hollow Rachel +could see Janet Leighton and Mrs. Fergusson among the measuring girls; +the horses moving to and fro; the Canadian lumber-men catching at and +guiding the logs; the trolleys descending the valley; while just opposite +to them trunk after trunk was crashing down the hill, the line of the +steel cable gleaming now and then in a fitful sunshine which had begun +to slip out below a roof of purple cloud. Only one prisoner was left to +look after the slide. The others had just gone down the hill, at a +summons from below. Suddenly Ellesborough sprang to his feet. + +"Good Heavens! what's that?" For a loud cry had rung out, accompanied by +what sounded like a report. The man who had been standing among the dead +brushwood on the other side of the descending timber, about a hundred +yards away, had disappeared; and the huge beech just launched from above +had ceased to move. + +Another cry for help. + +"The cable's broken!" said Ellesborough, starting at full speed for the +slide. Rachel rushed after him, and presently caught him up where he +knelt beside a man lying on the ground, and writhing in great pain. The +prisoner's cap had fallen off, and revealed a young German lad of +nineteen or twenty, hardly conscious, and groaning pitifully at +intervals. As he lay crouched on his face, the red patches on his back, +intended to guide the aim of an armed guard in case of any attempt to +escape, showed with a sinister plainness. + +"The cable snapped, and has caught him round the body," Ellesborough +explained. "Give him this brandy, please, while I try and make out--" + +With skilled and gentle fingers he began to explore the injury. + +"A rib broken, I think." He looked with anxiety at some blood that had +begun to appear on the lips. "I must go down and get some men and a +stretcher. They won't know what to do without me. My second in command is +off duty for the day. Can you look after him while I go? Awfully sorry +to--" + +He gave her a swift, investigating glance. + +She interrupted him. + +"Tell me what to do, and I'll do it." + +He loosened the boy's collar and very gently tried to ease his position. + +"Mamma!" murmured the boy, with the accent of a miserable child in a bad +dream. Ellesborough's face softened. He bent over him and said something +in German. Rachel did not understand it--only the compassionate look in +the man's blue eyes. + +"Give him more brandy if you can, and try and keep him still," said +Ellesborough as he rose to his feet. "I shall be back directly." + +Her glance answered. By this time there was commotion below, the engine +had stopped working and men were running up the hill. Ellesborough went +bounding down the steep slope to meet them. They turned back with him, +and Rachel supposed they had gone to fetch a stretcher, and if possible a +doctor, from the small camp hospital which Mrs. Fergusson had pointed out +to her near the gate. Meanwhile, for a few minutes, she was alone with +this suffering lad. Was he fatally hurt--dying? She managed to get some +brandy down, and then he lay groaning and unconscious, murmuring +incoherent words. She caught "Mamma" again, then "Lisa," "Hans," and +broken phrases that meant nothing to her. Was his mind back in some +German home, which, perhaps, he would never see again? + +All sorts of thoughts passed through her: vague memories gathered +from the newspapers, of what the Germans had done in Belgium and +France--horrible, indescribable things! Oh, not this boy, surely! +He could not be more than nineteen. He must have been captured in the +fighting of July, perhaps in his first action. Captain Ellesborough had +said to her that there was no fighting spirit among any of the prisoners. +They were thankful to find themselves out of it, "safely captured," as +one of them had had the bravado to say, and with enough to eat. No doubt +this boy had dreamt day and night of peace, and getting back to Germany, +to "Mamma" and "Lisa" and "Hans." To die, if he was to die, by this +clumsy accident, in an enemy country, was hard! + +Pity, passionate pity sprang up in her, and it warmed her heart to +remember the pity in the face of Captain Ellesborough. She would have +hated him if he had shown any touch of a callous or cruel spirit towards +this helpless creature. But there had been none. + +In a few more minutes she was aware of Mrs. Fergusson and Janet climbing +rapidly towards her. And behind them came stretcher-bearers, the captain, +and possibly a doctor. + + * * * * * + +The accident broke up the working afternoon. The injured lad was carried +to hospital, where the surgeon shook his head, and refused to prophesy +till twenty-four hours were over. + +Captain Ellesborough disappeared, while Rachel and Janet were given tea +at the woman's hostel and shown the camp. Rachel took an absorbed +interest in it all. This world of the new woman, with its widening +horizons, its atmosphere of change and discovery, its independence of +men, soothed some deep smart in her that Janet was only now beginning +to realize. And yet, Janet remembered the vicar, and had watched the talk +with Ellesborough. Clearly to be the professed enemy of man did not +altogether disincline you for his company! + +At any rate it seemed quite natural to Janet Leighton that, when it was +time to go, and a charming girl in khaki with green facings caught the +pony, and harnessed it for Mrs. Fergusson's parting guests, Ellesborough +should turn up, as soon as the farewells were over; and that she should +find herself driving the pony-carriage up the hill, while Ellesborough +and Rachel walked behind, and at a lengthening distance. Once or twice +she looked back, and saw that the captain was gathering some of the +abounding wild flowers which had sprung up on the heels of the retreating +forest, and that Rachel had fastened a bunch of them into her hat. She +smiled to herself, and drove steadily on. Rachel was young and pretty. +Marriage with some man--some day--was certainly her fate. The kind, +unselfish Janet intended to "play up." + +Then, with a jerk, she remembered there was a story. Nonsense! An unhappy +love affair, no doubt, which had happened in her first youth, and in +Canada. Well, such things, in the case of a girl with the temperament of +Rachel, are only meant to be absorbed in another love affair. They are +the leaf mould that feeds the final growth. Janet cheerfully said to +herself that, probably, her partnership with Rachel would only be a short +one. + +The pair behind were, indeed, much occupied with each other. The tragic +incident of the afternoon seemed to have carried them rapidly through the +preliminary stages of acquaintance. At least, it led naturally to talk +about things and feelings more real and intimate than generally haunt the +first steps. And in this talk each found the other more and more +congenial. Ellesborough was now half amused, half touched, by the mixture +of childishness and maturity in Rachel. One moment her ignorance +surprised him, and the next, some shrewd or cynical note in what she was +saying scattered the _ingénue_ impression, and piqued his curiosity +afresh. She was indeed crassly ignorant about many current affairs in +which he himself was keenly interested, and of which he supposed all +educated women must by now have learnt the ABC. She could not have given +him the simplest historical outline of the great war; he saw that she was +quite uncertain whether Lloyd George or Asquith were Prime Minister; and +as to politics and public persons in Canada, where she had clearly lived +some time, her mind seemed to be a complete blank. None the less she had +read a good deal--novels and poetry at least--and she took a queerly +pessimistic view of life. She liked her farm work; she said so frankly. +But on a sympathetic reply from him to the effect that he knew several +other women who had taken to it, and they all seemed to be "happy" in it, +she made a scornful mouth. + +"Oh, well--'happy'?--that's a different thing. But it does as well as +anything else." + +The last thing she wanted, apparently, was to talk about Canada. He, +himself, as a temporary settler in the Great Dominion, cherished an +enthusiasm for Canada and a belief in the Canadian future, not, perhaps, +very general among Americans; but although her knowledge of the country +gave them inevitably some common ground, she continually held back from +it, she entered on it as little as she could. She had been in the +Dominion, he presently calculated, about seven or eight years; but she +avoided names and dates, how adroitly, he did not perceive till they had +parted, and he was thinking over their walk. She must have gone out to +Canada immediately after leaving school. He gathered that her father had +been a clergyman, and was dead; that she knew the prairie life, but had +never been in British Columbia, and only a few days in Montreal and +Toronto. That was all that, at the end of their walk, he knew; and all +apparently she meant him to know. Whereas she on her side showed a +beguiling power of listening to all he had to say about the mysterious +infinity of the Canadian forest-lands and the wild life that, winter or +spring, a man may live among them, which flattered the very human conceit +of a strong and sensitive nature. + +But at last they had climbed the tree-strewn slope, and were on the open +ridge with the northern plain in view. The sun was now triumphantly out, +just before his setting; the clouds had been flung aside, and he shone +full upon the harvest world--such a harvest world as England had not seen +for a century. There they lay, the new and golden fields, where, to north +and south, to east and west, the soil of England, so long unturned, had +joyously answered once more to its old comrade the plough. + +"'An enemy hath done this,'" quoted Ellesborough, with an approving +smile, as he pointed towards the plain. "But there was a God behind him!" + +Rachel laughed. "Well, I've got three fields still to get in," she said. +"And they're the best. Goodnight." + +She gave him her hand, standing transfigured in the light, the wind +blowing her beautiful hair about her. + +"May I come and see you?" he asked, rather formally. + +She smiled assent. + +"Next week _everything_ will be in, and some of it threshed. I shall be +freer then. You'll like our place." + +He pressed her hand, and she was off, running like a fawn after the +retreating pony carriage. + +He turned away, a little dazzled and shaken. The image of her on the +ridge remained; but what perhaps had struck deepest had been the +sweetness of her as she hung above the injured boy. He went slowly +towards the camp, conscious that the day now departing had opened a new +door in the House of Life. + + + + +IV + + +Ellesborough allowed a week to pass before making the call at Great End +he had arranged with Rachel. But at last, when he thought that her +harvesting would be really over, he set out on his motor bicycle, one +fine evening, as soon as work at the camp was over. According to summer +time it was about seven o'clock, and the sun was still sailing clear +above the western woods. + +Part of his way lay over a broad common chequered with fine trees and +groups of trees, some of them of great age; for the rest he ran through a +world where harvest in its latest stages was still the governing fact. In +some fields the corn was being threshed on the spot, without waiting for +the stacks; in others, the last loads were being led; and everywhere in +the cleared fields there were scattered figures of gleaners, casting long +shadows on the gold and purple carpet of the stubble. For Ellesborough +the novelty of this garden England, so elaborately combed and finished in +comparison with his own country, was by no means exhausted. There were +times when the cottage gardens, the endless hedge-rows, and miniature +plantations pleased him like the detail in those early Florentine +pictures in the Metropolitan Museum, for which, business man as he was, +and accustomed to the wilds, he had once or twice, on visits to New York, +discovered in himself a considerable taste. He was a man, indeed, of many +aptitudes, and of a loyal and affectionate temper. His father, a country +doctor, now growing old, his mother, still pretty at sixty, and his two +unmarried sisters were all very dear to him. He wrote to them constantly, +and received many letters from them. They belonged to one of the old +Unitarian stocks still common in New England; and such stocks are +generally conspicuous for high standards and clean living. "Discipline" +was among the chief marks of the older generation. A father or mother +dreaded an "undisciplined" child, and the word was often on their lips, +though in no Pharisaical way; while the fact was evident in their lives, +and in those private diaries which they were apt to keep, wherein, up to +old age, they jealously watched their own daily thoughts and actions from +the same point of view. + +And though the younger generation, like the younger generation of +Quakers, shows change and some disintegration, the old Puritan +traditions and standards are still, as we all know, of great effect +among them. Especially with regard to women, and all that concerns them. +Among the Ellesborough clan, which was a large one, there prevailed, +along with the traditional American consideration for women, and +especially among the women of the family themselves--a strict and even +severe standard of sexual morals. There was no hypocrisy in it; they +talked of it but little, but they lived by it; and their men were brought +up in the atmosphere created by it. And as affection and tenderness and +self-sacrifice were freely mixed with the asceticism, there was +no rebellion--at any rate no open rebellion--among their men folk. The +atmosphere created led, no doubt, to certain evasions of the hard +problems of life; and to some quiet revaluations of things and persons +when the sons of the family came to men's estate. But in general the "ape +and tiger," still surviving in the normal human being, had been really +and effectively tamed in the Ellesborough race. There was also a +sensitive delicacy both of thought and speech among them; answering to +more important and tested realities. Their marriages were a success; +their children were well brought up, under light but effective control; +and, if it be true, as Americans are ready to say, that the old +conception of marriage is being slowly but profoundly modified over large +sections of their great Commonwealth, towards a laxity undreamt of half a +century ago, the Ellesboroughs could neither be taxed nor applauded in +the matter. They stood by the old ways, and they stood by them +whole-heartedly. + +Ellesborough himself, no doubt, had knocked about the world more than +most of his kindred, and had learnt to look at many things differently. +But essentially, he was the son of his race. His attitude towards women +was at once reverential and protective. He believed women were better +than men, because practically he had found it so in his own circle; but +he held also very strong beliefs, seldom expressed, as to their social +disadvantages and their physical weakness. The record of the Germans +towards women in France and Flanders, a record he had verified for +himself, had perhaps done more than anything else to feed the stern flame +of war in his own soul. At thirty-two, he would probably have already +been a married man, but for the war. He rather fiercely held that it was +a man's duty to marry and have children. But beyond a few passing fancies +he had never been in love; and since the American declaration of war, he +had been, like his President, out to "make the world safe for democracy"; +and the ardour of the struggle had swept his private interests out of +sight. + +All the same here he was, walking his motor cycle up the field road +leading to Great End Farm, and looking eagerly about him. A lonely +position, but beautiful! On the woods behind the house he turned a +professional eye. Fine timber! The man who was to succeed him at Ralstone +would no doubt have the cutting of it. The farm quadrangle, with its +sixteenth century barn, out of which the corn seemed to be actually +bursting from various open doors and windows, appeared to him through +that glamour which, for the intelligent American, belongs to everything +that medieval and Elizabethan England has bequeathed to the England of +the present. He will back himself, he thinks, to plan and build a modern +town better than the Britisher--in any case quicker. But the mosses and +tiles of an old Brookshire barn beat him. + +Ellesborough paused at the gate to watch two land lassies carrying +pails of milk across the yard towards a prolongation of the farm-house, +which he supposed was the dairy. Just beyond the farm-yard, two great +wheat-stacks were visible; while in the hayfields running up to the +woods, large hay-stacks, already nearly thatched, showed dimly in the +evening light. And all this was run by women, worked by Women! Well, +American women, so he heard from home, were doing the same in the fields +and farms of the States. It was all part, he supposed, of a world +movement, by which, no less than by the war itself, these great years +would be for ever remembered. + +The farm-house itself, however, seemed to him from the outside a poor, +flimsy thing, unworthy of the old farm buildings. He could see that the +walls of it were only a brick thick, and in spite of the pretty curtains, +he was struck by the odd feature of the two large windows exactly +opposite each other, so that a spectator on either side of the house +might look right through it. + +"Seems like being in the street. However, if there's nobody to look at +you, I suppose it don't matter." + +Then he laughed, for just as he led his motor cycle into the yard, and +passed the sitting-room window, he was struck by the appearance of two +large sheep, who seemed to be actually in the sitting-room, at its +farther end. They were standing, he presently perceived, upon the steep +down beyond the house, on the slope of which the farm was built; which on +the southern side of the farm quadrangle came right up to the house wall. +At the same moment he saw a woman inside get up and shoo them from the +open window, so that they ran away. + +But when Jenny Harberton had admitted him, and he was waiting in the +sitting-room, from which the woman he had seen had disappeared, he was in +the mood to admire everything. How nice the two women had made it! His +own rough life, both before and since the war, had only increased a +natural instinct for order and seemliness. The pretty blue paper, the +fresh drugget, the photographs on the wall, the flowers, and the delicate +neatness of everything delighted him. He went round looking at the +pictures and the few books, perfectly conscious that everything which he +saw had a more than common interest for him. The room seemed to be +telling a story--opening points of view. + +"Ah!" + +He paused, a broad smile overspreading his bronzed face. + +For he had perceived a popular History of the War lying open and face +downwards on the table, one that he had recommended to the mistress of +the farm. So she had followed his advice. It pleased him particularly! He +had gathered that she was never a great reader; still, she was an +educated woman, she ought to know something of what her country had done. + +And there was actually a piano! He wondered whether she played, or her +friend. + +Meanwhile Rachel was changing her dress upstairs--rather deliberately. +She did not want to look too glad to see her visitor, to flatter him by +too much hurry. When he arrived she had just come in from the fields +where she had been at the threshing machine all day. It had covered her +with dirt and chaff; and the process of changing was only half through +when she heard the rattle of Ellesborough's cycle outside. She stood now +before the glass, a radiant daughter of air and earth; her veins, as it +were, still full of the sheer pleasure of her long day among the stubbles +and the young stock. She was tired, of course; and she knew very well +that the winter, when it came, would make a great difference, and that +much of the work before her would be hard and disagreeable. But for the +moment, her deep satisfaction with the life she had chosen, the congruity +between it and her, gave her a peculiar charm. She breathed content, and +there is no more beautifying thing. + +She had thought a good deal about Ellesborough since their meeting; yet +not absorbingly, for she had her work to do. She was rather inclined to +quarrel with him for having been so long in making his call; and this +feeling, perhaps, induced her to dawdle a little over the last touches of +her toilet. She had put on a thin, black dress, which tamed the +exuberance of her face and hair, and set off the brilliance and fineness +of her skin where the open blouse displayed it. The beautiful throat was +sunburnt, indeed, but not unbecomingly so; and she was about to fasten +round it a slender gold chain, when she suddenly dropped the chain. Some +association had passed through her mind which made her shrink from it. + +She chose instead a necklace of bluish-green beads, long, and curiously +interwoven, which gave a touch of dignity to the plain dress. Then she +paused to consider the whole effect, in a spirit of meditation rather +than mere vanity. "_I wish he knew_!" she thought, and the glass +reflected a frown of perplexity. Had she been wise, after all, to make +such a complete mystery of the past? People in and about Ipscombe would +probably know some time--what all her Canadian friends knew. And then, +the thought of the endless explanations and gossip, of the horrid +humiliation involved in any renewed contact whatever with the ugly things +she had put behind her, roused a sudden, surging disgust. + +"Yes, I was quite right," she thought vehemently. "I was quite right!" + +Voices in the room downstairs! That meant that Janet had gone in to greet +the visitor. Should they ask him to stay for supper? The vicar was +coming, and his pious little sister. There would be quite enough to eat. +Cold ham, potatoes and salad, with their own butter and bread--Janet made +beautiful bread--was enough for anybody in war time. Rachel was in the +mood to feel a certain childish exultation in the plenty of the farm, +amid the general rationing. The possession of her seven milch cows, the +daily pleasure of the milk, morning and evening, the sight of the rich +separated cream, and of the butter as it came fresh from the churn, the +growing weight and sleekness of the calves; all these things gave her a +warm sense of protection against the difficulties and restrictions of the +war. She and Janet were "self-suppliers." No need to bother about ounces +of butter, or spoonfuls of cream. Of course they sold all they could, but +they could still feed their few guests well--better, perhaps, than any of +the folk in the villa houses round Millsborough. + +"Yes! and no one's leave to ask!" + +She threw out her arms in a vehement gesture as she turned away from the +glass. It was the gesture of a wild bird taking flight. + +By which, however, she was not hurling defiance at the gentle but most +efficient little lady who represented the Food Control of the +neighbourhood, and the mere sight of whom was enough to jog uneasy +consciences in the matter of rations. Rachel was long since on the best +of terms with her. + + * * * * * + +Captain Ellesborough was asked to stay to supper, and gladly accepted. +The vicar and his young sister arrived and were introduced to the +American. Betty and Jenny, alarmed at so much company and the quality of +it, hurriedly asked to be allowed to take their meal in the tiny scullery +behind the living room. But the democratic and dissenting Janet would not +hear of it. There was room for everybody, she said, and while she lived +in it there should only be one table for all who worked on the farm. If +the vicar and Miss Shenstone objected, she was sorry for them. But they +wouldn't object. + +So the small living room of the farm was soon full of a merry company: +the two mistresses, in their Sunday frocks, the land girls in their +uniforms, the young vicar in a short coat and round collar, his little +sister of nineteen, who was training to be a missionary, and carried +about with her already the sweet and dedicated look of her calling; and +Ellesborough, a striking and manly figure in full khaki. Ellesborough was +on Rachel's right, the vicar on Janet's; Miss Shenstone sat between the +two girls, and was so far from objecting to their company that she no +sooner found she was to sit next the daughter of her brother's handy-man +than her childish face flushed with pleasure. She had seen Jenny already +at her brother's Bible-class, and she had been drawn to her. Something in +the character of the labourer's daughter seemed to make a special appeal +to the delicate and mystical temper of the vicar's sister, in whom the +ardour of the "watcher for souls" was a natural gift. Jenny seemed to be +aware of it. She was flushed and a little excited, alternately shy and +communicative--like the bird under fascination, already alive to the +signal of its captor. At any rate, Margaret Shenstone kept both her +companions happy through the meal. + +The vicar employed himself in vigorously making friends with Janet +Leighton, keenly alive all the time to that vivid and flower-like vision +of Miss Henderson at the farther end of the table. But some instinct +warned him that beside the splendid fellow in khaki his own claim on her +could be but a modest one. He must watch his opportunity. It was natural +that certain misgivings had already begun to rise in the mind of his +elder sister, Eleanor, who was his permanent companion and housekeeper at +the vicarage. For why should her brother be so specially assiduous in the +harvest operations at Great End? She was well aware that it was the right +and popular thing for the young clergy who were refused service at the +front to be seen in their shirt sleeves as agricultural volunteers, or in +some form of war work. A neighbouring curate in whom she was greatly +interested spent the greater part of his week, for instance, on munition +work at a national factory. She thought him a hero. But if it was to be +harvesting, then it seemed to her that her brother should have divided +his help more evenly among the farms of the village. She was afraid of +"talk." And it troubled her greatly that neither Miss Henderson nor Miss +Leighton came to church. + +Meanwhile, the vicar, like a wise man, was securing the position with +Janet. What he wished, what he was really driving at, he would not let +himself inquire. What he _knew_ was that no woman had ever fluttered his +quiet mind as Miss Henderson had fluttered it during these summer weeks. +To watch her, erect and graceful, "pitching" the sheaves on to the +harvest cart, where he and a labourer received and packed them; to be +privileged to lead the full cart home, with her smile and thanks at the +barn door for reward, or to stand with her while she proudly watched her +new reaping machine, with the three fine horses abreast, sweeping round +her biggest field, while the ripe sheaves fell beside it, as of old they +fell beside the reapers that Hoephoestus wrought in gleaming gold on the +shield of Achilles; and then perhaps to pay a last visit with her to the +farm buildings in the warm dusk and watch the cattle coming in from the +fields and the evening feed, and all the shutting up for the night after +the long, hot, busy day: these things had lately made a veritable idyll +of the vicar's life. He felt as though a hundred primitive sensations and +emotions, that he had only talked of or read about before, had at last +become real to him. Oxford memories revived. He actually felt a wish to +look at his Virgil or Theocritus again, such as had never stirred in him +since he had packed his Oxford books to send home, after the sobering +announcement of his third class. After all, it seemed these old fellows +knew something about the earth and its joys! + +So that a golden light lay over these past weeks. And in the midst of it +stood the figure of a silent and--as far as he was concerned--rather +difficult woman, without which there would have been no transfiguring +light at all. He confessed to himself that she had never had much to say +to him. But wherever she was she drew the male creature after her. There +was no doubt as to that. She was a good employer--fair, considerate, +intelligent; but it was the _woman_--so the vicar believed--who got her +way. + +From which it will be seen that Miss Eleanor Shenstone had some reason +for misgiving, and that the vicar's own peace of mind was in danger. His +standards also were no longer what they were. He had really ceased to +care that Miss Leighton was a Unitarian! + +"I suppose you have been horribly busy?" said Rachel to Ellesborough, +when, thanks to the exertions of Janet and the two girls, everybody had +been provided with a first course. + +"Not more than usual. Do you mean--" He looked at her, smiling, and +Rachel's eyebrows went up slightly. "Ah, I see--you thought I had +forgotten?" + +"Oh, no," she said indifferently. "It is a long way to come." + +He flushed a little. + +"That never occurred to me for a moment!" he said with emphasis. "But you +said you would have finished with the harvest in a week. So I waited. I +didn't want to be a nuisance." + +At which she smiled, a smile that overflowed eyes and lips, and stirred +the senses of the man beside her. + +"How is the prisoner?" + +"Poor boy! He died the day before yesterday. We did everything we could, +but he had no chance from the first. Hard lines!" + +"Why, he might have been home next year!" + +"He might, indeed. Yes, Miss Henderson, it'll be peace next year--perhaps +this year! Who knows! But I hope I'll have a look in first. I've got my +orders. As soon as they've appointed my successor here, I'm off. About a +month, I suppose. They've accepted me for the Air Force." + +His eyes glowed. Rachel said nothing. She felt hurt that he expressed no +regret at going. Then the vicar struck into the conversation with some +enthusiastic remarks about the steady flowing in of the American army. +That, indeed, was the great, the overpowering fact of these August days. +Ellesborough responded eagerly, describing the huge convoy with which he +himself had come over; and that amazing, that incredible march across +three thousand miles of sea and land, which every day was pouring into +the British Isles, and so into France, some 15,000 men--the flower of +American manhood, come to the rescue of the world. He told the great +story well, with the graphic phrases of a quick mind, well fed on facts, +yet not choked by them. The table hung on him. Even little Jenny, with +parted lips, would not have missed a word. + +He meanwhile was led on--for he was not a man of facile or boastful +speech--by the eyes of Rachel Henderson, and those slight gestures or +movements by which from time to time when the talk flagged she would set +it going again. + +Margaret Shenstone was particularly stirred. + +"What friends we shall be!" she said presently, with a long, quivering +breath--"I mean America and England. Friends for ever! And we quarrelled +once. That's so wonderful. That shows good does come out of evil!" + +"I should jolly well think so," said Ellesborough, looking kindly at the +young girl. "Why, if it hadn't been for this war, millions of these boys +who are coming over now would never have seen England or Europe at all. +It'll change the face of everything!" + +"Only we must play up," said the vicar anxiously. "We must get rid of our +abominable shyness, and let your people really see how we really welcome +them." + +Rachel gave a little defiant shake of the head. + +"America's got to thank us, too!" she said, with a challenging look at +Ellesborough. "We've borne it for four years. Now it's your turn!" + +"Well, here we are," said Ellesborough quietly, "up to the neck. But--of +course--don't thank us. It's our business just as much as yours." + +The talk dropped a moment, and Janet took advantage of it to bring in +coffee as a finish to the meal. Under cover of the slight bustle, +Ellesborough said to Rachel, in a voice no longer meant for the table,-- + +"Could you spare me a letter sometimes, Miss Henderson--at the front?" + +He had both elbows on the table, and was playing with a cigarette. There +was nothing the least patronizing or arrogant in his manner. But there +was a male note in it--perhaps a touch of self-confidence--which +ruffled her. + +"Oh, I am a bad letter-writer," she said, as she got up from the table. +"Shall we go and look at the cows?" + +They all went out into the warm September night. Ellesborough followed +Rachel, cigarette in hand, his strong mouth twisting a little. The night +was almost cloudless. The pale encircling down, patched at intervals with +dark hanging woods, lay quiet under a sky full of faint stars. The scent +of the stubblefields, of the great corn-stack just beyond the farmyard, +of the big barn so full that the wide wooden doors could not be closed, +was mingled with the strong ammonia smells of the farm-yard, and here +and there with the sweetness left in the evening air by the chewing cows +on their passage to the cow-house on the farther side of the yard. + +Rachel led the way to the cow-house--a vast fifteenth-century barn, with +an interlacing forest of timber in its roof, where the six cows stood +ranged, while Janet and the two land lassies, with Hastings the bailiff +to help them, were changing the litter and filling up the racks with hay. +Rachel went along the line pointing out the beauties of each separate +beast to Ellesborough, and caressing two little calves whom Jenny was +feeding by hand. Ellesborough was amused by her technical talk and her +proprietor's airs. It seemed to him a kind of play-acting, but it +fascinated him. Janet had brought in a lantern, and the light and shade +of it seemed to have been specially devised to bring into relief Rachel's +round and tempting beauty, the bright brown of her hair where it curled +on the temples, and the lovely oval of the cheeks. Ellesborough watched +her, now passing into deep shadow, and now brilliantly lit up, as the +light of the lantern caught her; overhead, the criss-cross of the arching +beams as of some primitive cathedral, centuries old; and on either side +the dim forms of the munching cattle, and the pretty movements of the +girls busy with their work. + +"Take care," laughed Rachel as she passed him. "There are horrid holes in +this floor. I haven't had time to mend them." + +As she spoke, she slipped and almost fell. Ellesborough threw out a quick +hand and caught her by the arm. She smiled into his face. + +"Neatly done!" she said composedly, submitting to be led by him over a +very broken bit of pavement near the door. His hand held her firmly. Nor +did she make any effort to release herself till they were outside. Here +were the vicar and his sister waiting to say good-night--the vicar much +chagrined that he had seen so little of his chief hostess, and inclined +to feel that his self-sacrificing attention to Miss Leighton at supper +had been but poorly rewarded. Rachel, however, saw that he was out of +humour, and at once set herself to appease him. And in the few minutes +which elapsed before she parted with him at the gate she had quite +succeeded. + +Then she turned to Ellesborough. + +"Shall we go up the hill a little?" + +They slipped through a side gate of the farmyard, crossed a field, and +found themselves on an old grass road leading gently upward along the +side of the down into the shadow of the woods. The still, warm night held +them enwrapped. Rachel had thrown a white scarf over her head and throat, +which gave a mysterious charm to the face within it. As she strolled +beside her hew friend she played him with all the arts of a woman +resolved to please. And he allowed himself to be handled at her will. +He told her about his people, and his friends, about the ideas and +ambitions, also, with which he had come to Europe, which were now in +abeyance, but were to spring to active life after the war. Forestry on a +great scale; a part to be played in the preservation and development of +the vast forest areas of America which had been so wilfully wasted; +business and patriotism combined; fortune possible; but in any case the +public interest served. He talked shrewdly, but also with ardour and +imagination; she was stirred, excited even; and all the time she liked +the foreignness of his voice, the outline of his profile against the sky, +and all the other elements of his physical presence. + +But in the midst of his castle-building he broke off. + +"However, I'm a silly fool to talk like this. I'm going out to the front +directly. Perhaps my bullet's waiting for me." + +"Oh, no!" she said involuntarily--"no!" + +"I hope not. I don't want to die just yet. I want to get married, for one +thing." + +He spoke lightly, and she laughed. + +"Well, that's easy enough." + +He shook his head, but said nothing. They walked on till they reached the +edge of the hill, when Rachel, out of breath, sat down on a fallen log to +rest a little. Below them stretched the hollow upland, with its +encircling woods and its white stubble fields. Far below lay the dark +square of the farm, with a light in one of its windows. + +Rachel pointed to the grass road by which they had come. + +"We haven't seen the ghost!" + +He asked her for the story, and she told it. By now she had pieced it all +together; and it seemed to Ellesborough that it had a morbid fascination +for her. + +"He dragged himself down this very path," she said. "They tracked him by +the blood stains; his wounds dripped all along it. And then he fell, just +under my cart-shed. It was a horrible, bitter night. Of course the silly +people here say they hear groans and dragging steps: That's all nonsense, +but I sometimes wish it hadn't happened at my farm." + +He couldn't help laughing gently at her foolishness. + +"Why, it's a great distinction to have a ghost!" + +She disagreed--decidedly. + +"Any one can have my ghost that wants. I'm awfully easily scared." + +"Are you?" There was a deep note in his voice. "No, I don't believe that. +I'm sure you're a plucky woman. I know you are!" + +She laughed out. + +"How do you know?" + +"Why, no one but a plucky woman could have taken this farm and be working +it as you're doing." + +"That's not pluck," she said, half scornfully. "But if it is--well, I've +got plenty of pluck of that kind. But I am often scared, downright +scared, about nothing. It's just fear, that's what it is." + +"Fear of what?" + +"I don't know." + +She spoke in a sombre, shrinking tone, which struck him uncomfortably. +But when he tried further to discover what she meant, she would say +nothing more. He noticed, indeed, that she would often seem to turn the +talk upon herself, only to cut it short again immediately. She offered +him openings, and then he could make nothing of them; so that when they +reached the outskirts of the farm on their return, he had given her all +the main outlines of his own history, and she had said almost nothing of +hers. + +But all the same the walk had drawn them much nearer. + +He stopped her at the little gate to say,-- + +"I'm going to ask you again--I want you to write to me when I'm in +France." + +And this time she said almost eagerly,-- + +"Yes, I'll write; indeed I'll write! But you'll come over again before +you go?" + +"Rather," he said joyously; "rather! Why, there's a month. You'll be +tired of me before you've done." + +A few minutes later she was standing in her own little room, listening to +the retreating rush of his motor-cycle down the road. There was a great +tumult in her mind. + +"Am I falling in love with him? Am I--am I?" + +But in the dark, when she had put out her light, the cry that shaped +itself in her mind was identical with that sudden misgiving of the +afternoon, when on Ellesborough's arrival she had first heard his voice +downstairs talking to Janet. + +"_I wish he knew_!" But this time it was no mere passing qualm. It had +grown into something intense and haunting. + + * * * * * + +On this same September afternoon, a dark-eyed, shabby woman, with a +little girl, alighted at Millsborough Station. They were met by a man who +had been lounging about the station for some time and whose appearance +had attracted some attention. "See him at a distance, and you might take +him for a lord; but get him close, my word!--" said the station-master to +the booking-clerk, with a shrug, implying many things. + +"Wouldn't give a bob for his whole blessed turn-out," said the +booking-clerk. "But right you are, when you sort of get the hang of him, +far enough away on the other platform, might be a dook!" + +Meanwhile, the man had shouldered some of the bags and parcels brought by +the woman and the child, though hardly his fair share of them; and they +finally reached the exit from the station. + +"If you're going into the town, the bus will be here in a few minutes," +said a porter civilly to the woman. "It'll help you with all those +things." + +The man gruffly answered for her that they preferred to walk, and they +started, the woman and the child dragging wearily beside him. + +"Now, you've got to be content with what I've found for you," he said to +her roughly as they reached the first houses of the town. "There isn't +scarcely a lodging or a cottage to be had. Partly it's the holidays +still, and partly it's silly folk like you--scared of raids." + +"I couldn't go through another winter like last, for Nina's sake," said +the woman plaintively. + +"Why, you silly goose, there won't be any raids this winter. I've told +you so scores of times. We've got the upper hand now, and the Boche will +keep his planes at home. But as you won't listen to me, you've got to +have your way, I suppose. Well, I've got you rooms of a sort. They'll +have to do. I haven't got money enough for anything decent." + +The woman made no reply, and to the porter idly looking after them they +were soon lost from sight in the gathering dusk of the road. + + + + +V + + +The little town of Millsborough was _en fête_. There was a harvest +festival going on, and the County Agricultural Committee had taken the +opportunity to celebrate the successful gathering of the crops, and the +part taken in it by the woman land-workers under their care. They had +summoned the land lasses from far and wide; in a field on the outskirts +of the town competitions had been in full swing all the morning, and now +there were to be speeches in the market-place, and a final march of land +girls, boy scouts, and decorated wagons to the old Parish Church, where a +service was to be held. + +All Millsborough, indeed, was in the streets to look at the procession, +and the crowd was swelled by scores of cadets from a neighbouring camp, +who were good-heartedly keeping the route, and giving a military air to +the show. But the flower-decked wagons were the centre of interest. The +first in the line was really a brilliant performance. It was an old wagon +of Napoleonic days, lent by a farmer, whose forebears had rented the same +farm since William and Mary. Every spoke of the wheels blazed with red +geraniums; there was a fringe of heather along the edge of the cart, +while vegetables, huge marrows, turnips, carrots, and onions dangled from +its sides, and the people inside sat under a nodding canopy of tall and +splendid wheat, mixed with feathery barley. But the passengers were +perhaps the most attractive thing about it. They were four old women in +lilac sunbonnets. They were all over seventy, and they had all worked +bravely in the harvest. The crowd cheered them vociferously, and they +sat, looking timidly out on the scene with smiling eyes and tremulous +lips, their grey hair blowing about their wrinkled, wholesome faces. + +Beside the wagon walked a detachment of land girls. One of them was the +granddaughter of one of the old women, and occasionally a word would +pass between them. + +"Eh, Bessie, but I'd like to git down! They mun think us old fools, +dizened up this way." + +"No, gran; you must ride. You're the very best bit of the show. Why, just +listen how the folk cheer you!" + +The old woman sighed. + +"I'd like to look at it mysel'," she said with a childish plaintiveness. +But her tall granddaughter, in full uniform, with a rake over her +shoulder, thought this a foolish remark, and made no reply. + +In the second wagon, Rachel Henderson in full land-dress--tunic, +knee-breeches, and leggings--stood in the front of the cart, guiding two +white horses, their manes and tails gaily plaited with ribbons, and +scarlet badges on their snowy heads. + +"Eh, but yon's a fine woman!" said an old farmer of the humbler sort to +his neighbour. "Yo'll not tell me she's a land lassie?" + +"Noa, noa; she's the new farmer at Great End--a proud body, they say, an' +a great hustler! The men say she's allus at 'em. But they don't mind +her neither. She treats 'em well. Them's her two land girls walking +beside." + +For Betty and Jenny mounted guard, their harvest rakes on their +shoulders, beside their mistress, who attracted all eyes as she passed, +and knew it. Behind her in the cart sat Janet Leighton; and the two +remaining seats were filled by the Vicar of Ipscombe and Lady Alicia +Shepherd, the wife of the owner of Great End Farm and of the middle-sized +estate to which the farm belonged. + +Lady Alicia was a thin woman, with an excitable temperament, to judge +from her restless mouth and eyes, which were never still for a moment. +She was very fashionably dressed and held a lace parasol. The crowd +scarcely recognized her, which annoyed her, for in her own estimation she +was an important member of the Women's Committee which looked after the +land girls. The war had done a great deal for Lady Alicia. It had dragged +her from a sofa, where she was rapidly becoming a neurasthenic invalid, +and had gradually drilled her into something like a working day. She +lived in a flurry of committees; but as committees must exist, and Lady +Alicias must apparently be on them; she had found a sort of vocation, and +with the help of other persons of more weight she had not done badly. + +She did not quite understand how it was that she found herself in Miss +Henderson's wagon. The committee had refused to have a wagon of its own, +and the good-natured vicar had arranged it for her. She did not herself +much like Miss Henderson. Her husband had sent her to call upon the new +tenants, and she had been much puzzled. They were ladies, she supposed. +They spoke quite nicely, and Miss Henderson seemed to be the daughter of +a clergyman. But she was afraid they were dreadful Socialists! She had +talked to Miss Henderson about the awful--the _wicked_--wages that the +Brookshire board had just fixed for the labourer. + +"My husband says they'll simply crush the life out of farming. We shall +all be ruined, and where will the labourer be then?" + +And Miss Henderson had looked quite unpleasant. It was high time, she +said, that the labourer should have enough to live on--_decently_; really +thrown the word at you. And Colonel Shepherd had told his wife that he +understood from Hastings Miss Henderson had raised her wages before the +award of the Wages Board. Well, he only hoped the young woman had got +some money behind her, otherwise she would be finding herself in Queer +Street and he would be whistling for his rent. + +The wagons drew up in the centre of the market-place, and the band which +the cadets had brought with them struck up "God Save the King." Lady +Alicia rose at once and nudged her little boy, whom she had brought with +her, to take off his cap. She looked approvingly over the crowd, which +was growing denser and denser every moment. It was so that she really +enjoyed the populace--at a safe distance--and ready to lend itself to the +blandishments of its natural leaders. Where was her husband, Colonel +Shepherd? Of course they would want him to speak at some time in the +proceedings. But she looked for him in vain. + +Meanwhile, the speaking was beginning from the first cart. A land girl +who had played a rousing part in the recruiting campaign of the early +summer was speaking in a high voice, clearly heard by the crowd. She +was tall and pretty, and spoke without a sign of hesitation or +self-consciousness. She gloried in the harvest, in the splendid news from +the war, in the growth of the Woman's Land Army. "We've just been proud +to do our bit at home while our boys have been fighting over there. +They'll be home soon, perhaps, and won't we give them a welcome! And +we'll show them the harvest that we've helped to reap--the biggest +harvest that England's ever known!--the harvest that's going to beat the +Boche." The young simple voice flowed on, with its simple story and its +note of enthusiasm, and sometimes of humour. "It's hard work, but we love +it! It's cold work often, but we love it! The horses and the cows and the +pigs--they're naughty often, but they're nice!---yes, the pigs, too. It's +the beasts and the fields and the open air we love!" + +Betty looked at Jenny with a grin. + +"Jenny!--them pigsties yesterday; d'ye think she's ever cleaned one out?" + +"I know she has," said Jenny confidentially. "She's Farmer Green's girl, +out Ralstone way. Ee says there ain't nothing she can't do. Ee don't +want no men while he's got 'er. They offered him soldiers, and ee +wouldn't have 'em." + + * * * * * + +"Silly, sentimental young woman," said a tall man, with a pipe in his +mouth, who had just lounged up to the outskirts of the crowd, from a side +street. "Who's she going to take in here? What's the good of talking +poetry about farming to a lot of country people? A London shop-girl, I +guess. What does she know about it?" + +"You bets she knows a lot," said a young man beside him, who, to judge +from his uniform, was one of the Canadians employed at Ralstone camp. +He had been taken with the "sentimental young woman," and was annoyed by +the uncivil remarks of his neighbour. "Wonder what farm she's on?" + +"Oh, you know these parts?" said the other, removing his pipe for a +moment and looking down on his companion. + +"Well, not exactly." The reply was hesitating. "My grandfather went out +to Canada from a place near here sixty years ago. I used to hear him and +my mother talk about Millsborough." + +"Beastly hole!" said the other, replacing his pipe. + +"I don't agree with you at all," said the other angrily. "It's as nice a +little town of its size as you'd find anywhere." + +The other shrugged his shoulders. A man a few yards off in the crowd +happened at that moment to be looking in the direction of the two +speakers. It was the ticket-collector at the station, enjoying an +afternoon off. He recognized the taller of the two men as the "dook" he +had seen at Millsborough station about a week ago. The man's splendid +carriage and iron-grey head were not to be mistaken--also his cadaverous +and sickly look, and his shabby clothes. The ticket-collector saw that +the man was holding the dark-eyed, "furrin-looking" child by the hand, +which the woman he met had brought down with her. "Furriners," he +supposed, all of them; part of that stream of fugitives from air raids +that had been flowing out of London during the preceding winter, and was +now flowing out again, as the next winter approached, though in less +volume. Every house and lodging in Millsborough was full, prices had gone +up badly, and life in Millsborough was becoming extremely uncomfortable +for its normal inhabitants--"all along o' these panicky aliens!" thought +the ticket-collector, resentfully, as he looked at the tall man. + +The tall man, however, was behaving as though the market-place belonged +to him, talking to his neighbours, who mostly looked at him askance, and +every now and then breaking into a contemptuous laugh, provoked +apparently by the eloquence of the young woman in the wagon. Meanwhile +the little girl whose hand he held was trying to pull him into a better +place for seeing the rest of the procession. For from the place where +they stood on the outskirts of the crowd, the foremost wagon with its +nodding wheat and sheaves, its speaker, its old women, and its bodyguard +of girls entirely hid the cart behind it. + +"Dis way, pappa, dis way," said the child, dragging him. He let her draw +him, and suddenly from behind the speaker's cart there emerged the second +wagon with its white horses; Rachel Henderson, the observed of all +beholders, standing flushed and smiling, with the reins in her hands, the +vicar just behind her, and Lady Alicia's lace parasol. + +"My God!" said the man. + +His sudden start, and clutch at the child's hand made the child cry out. +He checked her with a savage word, and while she whimpered unheeded, he +stood motionless, sheltering himself behind a girl with a large hat who +stood in front of him, his eyes fixed on the Great End wagon. A ghastly +white had replaced the patchy red on his cheeks, and had any careful +observer chanced to notice him at the moment, he or she would have been +struck by the expression of his face--as of some evil, startled beast +aware of its enemy, and making ready to spring. + +But the expression passed. With a long breath, Roger Delane pulled +himself together. + +"Hold your noise, Nina," he said roughly to the child. "If you'll be a +good girl, I'll put you on my shoulder." + +The child stopped crying at once, and Delane, raising her on to his +shoulder, pulling his own soft hat over his eyes and placing the child so +that her dress concealed his own features. Then he resumed an excited +scrutiny of the Great End wagon. At the same moment he saw a man in +uniform making his way through the crowd towards Miss Henderson who was +waving to him. An officer--an American officer. Delane recognized at once +the high collar and the leathern peak to the cap. + +The crowd had already begun to cheer him. He reached the Great End wagon, +and its mistress, all smiles, bent over to speak to him. She and the +vicar seemed to be giving directions, to which the American with a +laughing shrug assented, going off to the front wagon, evidently in +obedience to orders. There the girl speaker had just sat down amid a +hearty cheer from the crowd; and the chairman of the meeting, a burly +farmer, eagerly came to the side of the wagon, and helped the American +officer into the cart. Then with a stentorian voice the chairman +announced that Captain Ellesborough from Ralstone camp had come "to tell +us what America is doing!" A roar from the crowd. Ellesborough saluted +gaily, and then his hands in his pockets began to talk to them. His +speech, which was a racy summary of all that America was doing to help +the Allies, was delivered to a ringing accompaniment of cheers from the +thronged market-place, rising to special thunder when the captain dwelt +on the wheat and bacon that America was pouring across the Atlantic +to feed a hungry Europe. + +"We've tightened our own belts already; we can tighten them, I dare say, +a few holes more. Everybody in America's growing something, and making +something. When a man thinks he's done enough, and wants to rest a bit, +the man next him gets behind him with a bradawl. There's no rest for +anybody. We've just registered _thirteen million_ men. That sounds like +business, doesn't it? No slacking there! Well, we mean business. And you +mean business. And the women mean business." + +Then a passage about the women, which set the land girls grinning at each +other, and at the men in the crowd, ending in three cheers for Marshal +Foch and Sir Douglas Haig, which came echoing back from the Fourteenth +Century church and the old houses which ringed the market-place. + +All eyes were on the speaker, no one noticed the tall man with the +olive-skinned child on his shoulder. He himself, with thumping pulses, +never ceased to watch the figures and movements in the second wagon. He +saw Miss Henderson sit down and another woman also in tunic and knickers +take her place. He watched her applauding the speaker, or talking with +the clergyman behind her, or the lady with the lace parasol. And when the +speech was over, amid a hurricane of enthusiasm, when the resolution had +been put and carried, and the bells in the old church-tower began to ring +out a deafening joy-peal above the dispersing crowd, he saw the American +officer jump down from the speaker's wagon and return to Miss Henderson. +Steps were brought, and Captain Ellesborough handed out the ladies. Then +he and Rachel Henderson went away side by side, laughing and talking, +towards the porch of the church, where Delane lost them from sight. + +The market-place emptied rapidly. The decorated wagons moved off to the +field where the competitions had been held in the morning, and some +of the crowd with them. Another portion streamed into the church, and +soon only a few scattered groups were left. + +The tall man put down the child, and was seized with a fit of coughing, +which left him more pallid and sunken-eyed than before. When it was over, +he noticed a group of elderly labourers. They had come late into the +meeting, and were making for the bar of the Cow-roast Inn, but before +they entered it Delane went up to one of them. + +"I'm a stranger here," he said carelessly. "Can you tell me who all these +people were in the wagons?" + +The man addressed--who was old Halsey--gave the speaker a reconnoitring +look. + +"Well, I dunno neither," he said cautiously, "leastways, many of 'em. +There was my old missus, in the first one. She didn't want to go, dressed +up in them sunbonnets. But they made such a fuss of her, she had to. +There was Farmer Broughton I seed, an' I don't know nobody else." + +"Well, but the second wagon?" said Delane impatiently. + +"Oh, the second wagon. Why, that was Miss Henderson. Don't ye know 'er? I +works for 'er?" + +"Is she on the land?" + +The old man laughed. + +"That she be! She's a farmer, is Miss Henderson, an' she frames pretty +fair. She don't know much yet, but what she don't know Hastings tells, +her." + +"Who's Hastings?" + +"Why, her bailiff, to be sure. You do be a stranger, not knowin' Muster +Hastings?" + +"I'm just here for a few weeks. It's a rum business, isn't it, this of +women taking farms?" + +Halsey nodded reflectively. + +"Aye, it's a queer business. But they do be cleverer at it than ye'd +think. Miss Henderson's a good head-piece of her own." + +"And some money, I suppose?" + +"Well, that's not my look out, is it, so long as I gits my wages? I +dessay Colonel Shepherd, ee sees to that. Well, good-day to you. I'm +goin' in to get summat to drink. It's a dryin' wind to-day, and a good +bit walk from Ipscombe." + +"Is that where you live?" + +"Aye--an' Miss Henderson's place is just t'other side. A good mile to +Ipscombe, and near a mile beyont. I didn't want to come, but my old woman +she nagged me to come an' see her 'ome." + +And with another nod, the old man turned into the public, where his mates +were already enjoying the small beer of the moment. + +For a few minutes, Delane strolled down the main road in silence, the +child playing at his heels. Then he turned abruptly, called the child, +and went up the side street from which he had appeared when the +meeting began. + +A quarter of an hour later he returned to the market-place alone. The +service in the church was still going on. He could hear them singing, the +harvest hymn: "We plough the fields and scatter--The good seed on the +land." But he did not stop to listen. He walked on rapidly in the +direction of Ipscombe. + +Delane found the main line from Millsborough to Ipscombe dotted +at intervals with groups of persons returning from the harvest +festival--elderly women with children, a few old labourers, a few +soldiers on leave, with a lively fringe of noisy boys and girls +skirmishing round and about their elders, like so many young animals on +the loose. The evening light was failing. The pools left by a passing +shower, gleamed along the road, and the black elms and oaks, scarcely +touched as yet by autumn gold, stood straight and sharp against a rainy +sky. + +The tall, slouching man scrutinized the various groups as he passed them, +as though making up his mind whether to address them or not. He wore a +shabby greatcoat, warmer than the day demanded, and closely buttoned +across the chest. The rest of his dress, felt hat, dark trousers, and tan +boots, had all of it come originally from expensive shops, but was now +only just presentable. The one thing in good condition about him was the +Malacca cane he carried, which had a carved jade handle, and was +altogether out of keeping with his general appearance. + +All the same there was something striking in that appearance. Face, +figure and dress represented the wreck of more than one kind of +distinction. The face must once have been exceptionally handsome, before +an underlying commonness and coarseness had been brought out or +emphasized by developments of character and circumstance. The mouth was +now loose and heavy. The hazel eyes had lost their youth, and were +disfigured by the premature wrinkles of either ill-health or dissipation. +None the less, a certain carriage of the head and shoulders, a certain +magnificence in the whole general outline of the man, especially in the +defiant eyes and brow, marked him out from the crowd, and drew attention +of strangers. + +Many persons looked at him, as he at them, while he swung slowly along +the road. At last he crossed over towards an elderly man in company with +a young soldier, who was walking lamely with a stick. + +"Excuse me," he said, formally, addressing the elder man, "but am I right +for Ipscombe?" + +"That you are, muster. The next turnin' to the right'll bring yer to it." +Peter Betts looked the stranger over as he spoke, with an inquisitive +eye. + +"You've come from the meeting, I suppose?" + +"Ay. We didn't go to the service. That worn't in our line. But we heerd +the speeches out o' doors." + +"The carts were fine!--especially the second one." + +"Ay--that's our missis. She and the two girls done the dressin' o' the +cart." + +"What's her name?" + +"Well, her name's Henderson," said the old man, speaking with an amiable, +half careless detachment, the manner rather of a philosopher than a +gossip. + +"She's the farmer's wife?" + +"Noa, she ain't. She's the farmer herself--'at's what she is. She's took +the farm from Colonel Shepherd--she did--all on her own. To be sure +there's Miss Leighton as lives with her. But it do seem to me as Miss +Henderson's--as you might say--the top 'un. And me an' James Halsey works +for her." + +"_Miss_ Henderson? She's not married?" + +"Not she!" said old Betts emphatically. "She's like a lot o' women +nowadays, I guess. They doan't want to be married." + +"Perhaps nobody 'as wanted to marry 'em, dad!" said his elder son, +grinning at his own stale jest. + +Betts shook a meditative head. + +"Noa--yo'll not explain it that way," he said mildly. "Some of 'em's +good-looking--Miss Henderson 'ersel', by token. A very 'andsome +up-standin' young woman is Miss Henderson." + +Delane followed all these remarks with close attention, and continued a +rather skilful examination. He learnt that Great End was a farm of about +two hundred and fifty acres, that Miss Henderson seemed to have "lots o' +money," and had sold her autumn crops very well, that Miss Leighton +managed the stock and the dairy with the help of two land-girls, and it +was thought by the village that the two ladies "was doin' fine." + +Arrived at the village, Betts turned into his cottage, with a nod to his +companion, and Delane went on his way. + +The lane on the farther side of the village was dark under branching +trees. Delane stumbled along it, coughing at intervals, and gripped by +the rising chill of the September evening. A little beyond the trees he +caught sight of the farm against the hill. Yes, it was lonesome, as the +old man said, but a big, substantial-looking place. Rachel's place! And +Rachel had "lots o' money"--and as to her health and well-being, why the +sight of her on that cart was enough. That vision of her indeed--of the +flushed, smiling face under the khaki hat, of the young form in the trim +tunic and leggings, and, not least, of the admiring crowd about her, kept +returning upon the man's furious sense as something not to be borne, a +recurrent blow from which he could not escape. + +And that American chap--that Yankee officer who had walked off with her +to the church--what was the meaning of that? They were not strangers, +that was plain. She had beckoned to him from the cart. The manner of +their short conversation, indeed, showed them well acquainted. She told +him to go and speak--and he had gone--with alacrity--smiling back at her. +Courting, no doubt! Rachel could never let a man alone--or live, without +a man after her. A brutal phrase shaped itself--a vile epithet or +two--flung into the solitude of the lane. + +When he emerged from the trees into a space of greater light between two +stubble fields, Delane suddenly drew a letter from his pocket. While +Rachel was flaunting with "lots of money"--this was how his affairs were +going. + +"DEAR ROGER,--I can do nothing for you. Your demands are simply +insatiable. If you write me any more begging letters, or if you attempt +again to force your way into my house as you did last week, I shall tell +the bank to cancel your allowance, and wash my hands of you altogether. +My husband's determined to stop this kind of thing. Don't imagine you can +either threaten us, or come round us. We have tried again and again to +help and reform you. It is no good--and now we give you up. You have +worn us out. If you are wise, you will not answer this--and if you keep +quiet the allowance shall be continued. MARIANNE TILNEY." + +That was a nice letter to get from a man's only sister! Allowance! What +was £100 a year to a woman as rich as Marianne? And what was the use +of £100 a year to him, with living at the price it was now? His wretched +pittance besides, doled out to him by his father's trustees under his +father's will, brought his whole income up to £300 a year. How was a man +to live on that, and support a woman and child? + +And here was Rachel--free--bursting with health--and possessed of "lots +of money." She thought, no doubt, that she had done with him--thrust him +out of her life altogether. He'd let her see! Whose fault was it that he +had taken up with Anita? Nagging, impossible creature!--with her fine +ladyisms and her tempers, and her insolent superior ways! + +He walked on, consumed with a bitterness which held him like a physical +anguish. By now he had reached the farm gate. The sunset had cleared and +deepened. Great rosy thunder-clouds topped the down, and strong lights +were climbing up the bronzed masses of wood behind the house. No one to +be seen. At Millsborough they could hardly be out of church yet. He had +time before him. He walked cautiously up the farm-lane, diverging to the +left as he reached the buildings so as to escape the notice of any one +who might be left in charge. As he slipped under the large cart-shed +which backed on the cow-house, he heard somebody whistling inside. It was +old Halsey, who had done the afternoon milking in the absence of the +girls. Delane could hear the movements of the labourer, and the munching +of the cows. A little farther on was the stable, and two horses' heads, +looking pensively out from the open half of the door. Delane peered into +the stable with the eye of one to whom all farming matters were familiar. +Three fine horses--d---d fine horses!--must have cost £100 a piece at +least. No doubt the cows were equally good stuff. And he had noticed +under the outer cart-shed a brand-new reaper and binder, and other farm +implements and machines of the best quality. Rachel was doing the thing +in style. + +But where was the farm-house? Then as he crept round the third side of +the rough quadrangle, he became aware of a large window with white +curtains. Looking through it with his face against the glass, he was +startled to find that he was looking straight into the farm-yard through +another window of equal size on the other side of the room. And at the +moment Halsey came out of the cow-shed carrying a pail of milk in either +hand. Delane drew hastily back into the shelter of an old holly that grew +against the wall, till the old man had disappeared. Then he eagerly +examined the room, which was still suffused by the sunset. Its prettiness +and comfort were so many fresh exasperations. He contrasted it inwardly +with the wretched lodging from which he had just come. Why, he knew the +photographs on the walls--her father, the old parson, and her puritanical +mother, whom Rachel had always thrown in his teeth. Her eldest brother, +too, who had been drowned at sea. And that engraving--that sentimental +thing by Watts, "Love and Death," that Rachel had bought once on a visit +to Toronto, and he had scolded her for buying. There it was, as large as +life. How did it come there? Was it her property or his? He believed he +could claim it, if he chose. Gad!--what would she say if she knew where +he was at that moment, and what he was doing! + +For eighteen months she had hidden herself so cleverly that he had +entirely lost sight of her. When her lawyers communicated with him in the +spring they had been careful to give no address. On the whole he had +believed her to be still in Canada. She, on the other hand, unless she +were a greater fool than he thought her, _must_ have guessed that he +would get back to England somehow. Why, the farm had ended in bankruptcy, +and what else was there to do but to come home and dun his relations! +Yet she had not been afraid to come home herself, and set up in this +conspicuous way. She supposed, of course, that she had done with him for +good--kicked him off like an old shoe! The rage in his blood set his +heart beating to suffocation. Then his cough seized him again. He stifled +it as best he could, flattened against the wall, in the shadow of a +yew-tree. + +The sound, however, was apparently heard, for there were rapid steps +across the farm-yard, and a gate opened. "Hallo--who's there?" The voice +was, no doubt, that of the labourer he had seen. Delane slipped +noiselessly along the wall, and to the back of the stables, till all was +quiet again within the farm. + +But outside in the road there were persons approaching. He mounted the +hill a little way into the shelter of the trees which covered the steep +face of the down, and ran up into the great woods along the crest. +Through the gathering dusk he saw the large farm-cart clattering up the +lane with several figures in it. The cart carried lamps, which sent +shafts of light over the stubbles. There was a sound of talk and +laughter, and alongside the cart he saw a man leading a motor-bicycle, +and apparently talking to the women in the cart. A man in uniform. +The American, no doubt! + +The cart drew up at the farm-yard gates, and the old labourer came to +open them. Everybody dismounted, except one of the girls, who, standing +in the wagon, drove the horses. Then, for a time, Delane could see +nothing more. The farm quadrangle had absorbed the party. Occasionally a +light flashed, or a voice could be heard calling, or laughter came +floating up the hill through an open door or window. But in a little +while all was silence. + +Delane sat down on a fallen trunk, and watched. All kinds of images were +rushing through his brain--wide wheat fields with a blazing sun on the +stooks--a small frame house set nakedly on the flat prairie with a bit of +untidy garden round it--its living room in winter, with a huge fire, and +a woman moving about--the creek behind it, and himself taking horses down +to water. They were images of something that had once meant happiness and +hope--a temporary break or interlude in a dismal tale which had closed +upon it before and after. + +Darkness came down. The man on the hill said to himself, "Now they are +having supper," and he crept down again to the farm, and crouching and +wriggling along he made his way again to the big window, over which the +curtains had been drawn. There was no one in the sitting-room, however, +to judge from the silence, but from the kitchen across the passage came a +rush of voices, together with a clatter of plates. The kitchen looked out +on the front of the farm, and a wooden shutter had been fastened across +the window. But the wood of the shutter was old and full of chinks, and +Delane, pressing his face to the window, was able to get just a glimpse +of the scene within--Rachel at the head of the table, the man in uniform +beside her--three other women. A paraffin lamp threw the shadow of the +persons at the table sharply on the white distempered wall. There were +flowers on the table, and the meal wore a home-like and tempting air to +the crouching spy outside. Rachel smiled incessantly, and it seemed to +Delane that the handsome man beside her could not take his eyes from her. +Nor could Delane. Her brown head and white throat, her soft, rose-tinted +face emerging from the black dress, were youth itself--a vision of youth +and lusty-hood brilliantly painted on the white wall. + +Delane looked his fill. Then he dropped down the bank on which the farm +stood, and avoiding the open track through the fields, he skirted a hedge +which led down to the road, and was lost in the shadows of advancing +night. + + + + +VI + + +Rain!--how it pelted the September fields day after day and week after +week, as though to remind a world still steeped in, still drunk with the +most wonderful of harvests, that the gods had not yet forgotten their old +jealousy of men, and men's prosperity. Whenever a fine day came the early +ploughing and seeding was in full swing, and Rachel on one side of the +largest field could watch the drill at work, and on the other the harrow +which covered in the seed. In the next field, perhaps, she would find +Betty and Jenny lifting potatoes, and would go to help with them, digging +and sorting, till every limb ached and she seemed to be a part herself of +the damp brown earth that she was robbing of its treasure. For a time +when the harvest was done, when the ricks were thatched ready for +threshing, there had been a moment of ease. But with the coming of +October, the pressure began again. The thought of the coming frost and of +all those greedy mouths of cattle, sheep, and horses to be filled through +the winter, drove and hunted the workers on Great End Farm, as they have +driven and hunted the children of earth since tilling and stock-keeping +began. Under the hedges near the house, the long potato caves had been +filled and covered in; the sheep were in the turnips, and every two or +three days, often under torrents of rain, Rachel and the two girls must +change the hurdles, and put the hungry, pushing creatures on to fresh +ground. On the top of the down, there was fern to be cut and carted for +the winter fodder, and fallen wood to be gathered for fuel, under the +daily threats of the coal-controller. + +Rachel worked hard and long. How she loved the life that once under other +skies and other conditions she had loathed! Ownership and command had +given her a new dignity, in a sense a new beauty. Her labourers and her +land girls admired and obeyed her, while--perhaps!--Janet Leighton had +their hearts. Rachel's real self seemed to be something that no one knew; +her companions were never quite at ease with her; and yet her gay, +careless ways, the humanity and natural fairness of her mind, carried a +spell that made her rule sit light upon them. + +Yes!--after all these weeks together, not even Janet knew her much +better. The sense of mystery remained; although the progress of the +relation between her and Ellesborough was becoming very evident, not only +indeed to Janet, but to everybody at the farm. His departure for France +had been delayed owing to the death in action of the officer who was to +have been sent home to replace him. It might be a month now before he +left. Meanwhile, every Sunday he spent some hours at the farm, and +generally on a couple of evenings in the week he would arrive just after +supper, help to put the animals to bed, and then stay talking with Rachel +in the sitting-room, while Janet tidied up in the kitchen. Janet, the +warm-hearted, had become much attached to him. He had been at no pains to +hide the state of his feelings from her. Indeed, though he had said +nothing explicit, his whole attitude to Rachel's friend and partner was +now one of tacit appeal for sympathy. And she was more than ready to +give it. Her uprightness, and the touch of austerity in her, reached +out to similar qualities in him; and the intellectual dissent which she +derived from her East Anglican forbears, from the circles which in +eighteenth-century Norwich gathered round Mrs. Opie, the Martineaus, and +the Aldersons, took kindly to the same forces in him; forces descended +from that New England Puritanism which produced half the great men--and +women--of an earlier America. Rachel laughed at them for 'talking +theology,' not suspecting that as the weeks went on they talked--whenever +they got a chance--less and less of theology, and more and more of +herself, through the many ingenious approaches that a lover invents and +the amused and sympathetic friend abets. + +For clearly Ellesborough was in love. Janet read the signs of it in the +ease with which he had accepted the postponement of his release from the +camp, eager as he was to get to the fighting line. She heard it in his +voice, saw it in his eyes; and she was well aware that Rachel saw it. +What Rachel thought and felt was more obscure. She watched for +Ellesborough; she put on her best frocks for him; she was delighted to +laugh and talk with him. But she watched for Mr. Shenstone, too, and +would say something caustic or impatient if he were two or three days +without calling. And when he called, Rachel very seldom snubbed him, as +at first. She was all smiles; the best frocks came out for him, too; and +Janet, seeing the growing beatitude of the poor vicar, and the growing +nervousness of his sister, was often inclined to be really angry with +Rachel. But they were not yet on such terms as would allow her to +remonstrate with what seemed to her a rather unkind bit of flirtation; +seeing that she did not believe that Rachel had, or ever would have, a +serious thought to give the shallow, kindly little man. + +But though she held her tongue, Janet showed her feeling sometimes by a +tone, or a lifted eyebrow, and then Rachel would look at her askance, +turning the vicar's head none the less on the next occasion. Was it that +she was deceiving herself, as well as trying, very unsuccessfully, to +deceive the lookers-on? The progress of the affair with Ellesborough made +on Janet a curious and rather sinister impression, which she could hardly +explain to herself. She seemed to see that Ellesborough's suit steadily +advanced; that Rachel made no real attempt to resist his power over her. +But all the same there was no happy, spontaneous growth in it. Rachel +seemed to take her increasing subjection hardly, to be fighting obscurely +against it all the time, as though she were hampered by thought and +motives unknown to the other two. Ellesborough, Janet thought, was often +puzzled by the cynical or bitter talk with which Rachel would sometimes +deliberately provoke him. And yet it was clear that he possessed the +self-confidence of a strong man, and did not really doubt his ultimate +power to win and hold the woman he was courting. + +One bitterly cold evening at the very end of September, Ellesborough, +arriving at the farm, was welcomed by Janet, and told that all hands were +in the fields "clamping" potatoes. She herself left a vegetable stew +ready for supper, safely simmering in a hay-box, and walked towards the +potato field with Ellesborough. On the way they fell in with Hastings, +the bailiff, who was walking fast, and seemed to be in some excitement. + +"Miss Leighton--that old fool Halsey has given notice!" + +Janet stopped in dismay. Halsey was a valuable man, an old-fashioned +labourer of many aptitudes, equally good as a woodman, as an expert in +"fagging" or sickling beaten-down corn, as a thatcher of roofs or ricks, +as a setter of traps for moles, or snares for rabbits. Halsey was the +key-stone of the farm labour. Betts was well enough. But without Halsey's +intelligence to keep him straight--Janet groaned. + +"What on earth's the matter, Hastings? We raised his wages last week--and +we did it before the county award was out!" + +Hastings shook his head. + +"It's not wages. He says he's seen the ghost!" + +Janet exclaimed, and Ellesborough laughed. + +"What, the defunct gamekeeper?" + +Hastings nodded. + +"Vows he's seen him twice--once on the hill--on the green path--and once +disappearing round the corner of the farm. He declares that he called to +the man--who was like nobody he had ever seen before--and the man took no +notice, but went along, all hunched up--as they say the ghost is--and +talking to himself--till all of a sudden he vanished. I've argued with +him. But nothing'll hold him--old idiot! He vows he'll go---and if he +talks to the others they'll all go." + +"Has he gone home?" asked Janet. + +"Long ago. He left the horses to Jenny, and just marched off. In the lane +he met me, and gave notice. Such a cock-and-bull story as you never +heard! But I couldn't do anything with him." + +"I'll go and tackle him," said Janet at once. "We can't lose him. The +work will go to smash." + +She waved a farewell to Ellesborough, and ran back to the house. The +others, watching, saw her emerge on her bicycle and disappear towards the +village. + +"Well, if anybody can move the old fellow, I suppose it's Miss Leighton," +said Hastings disconsolately. "She's always managed to get the right side +of him so far. But I'm nearly beat, captain! Things are getting too hard +for me. You can't say a word to these men--they're off in a moment. And +the wages!--it's sinful!" + +"We're supposed only to be fighting a war, Hastings," said Ellesborough +with a smile as they walked on together. "But all the time there's +revolution going on beside it--all over the world!" + +Hastings made a face. + +"Right you are, captain. And how's it going to work out?" + +"Don't ask me!" laughed Ellesborough--"we've all got to sit tight and +hope for the best. All I know is that the people who work with their +hands are going to get a bit of their own back from the people who work +with their heads--or their cheque-books. And I'm glad of it! But ghosts +are a silly nuisance. However, I dare say Miss Leighton will get round +the old man." + +Hastings looked doubtful. + +"I don't know. All the talk about the murder has come up again. They say +there's a grandson come home of the man that was suspected sixty years +ago--John Dempsey. And some people tell me that this lad had the whole +story of the murder from his grandfather--who confessed it--only last +year, when the man died." + +"Well, if he's dead all right, and has owned up to it, why on earth does +the ghost make a fuss?" + +Hastings shook his head. + +"People get talking," he said gloomily. "And when they get talking, +they'll believe anything--and see anything. It'll be the girls next." + +Ellesborough tried to cheer him, but without much success. The "poor +spirit" of the bailiff was a perpetual astonishment to the American, in +the prime of his own life and vigour. Existence for Hastings was always +either drab or a black business. If the weather was warm, "a bit of cold +would ha' been better": if a man recovered from an illness, he'd still +got the "bother o' dyin' before him." He was certain we should lose the +war, and the rush of the September victories did not affect him. And if +we didn't lose it, no matter--prices and wages would still be enough to +ruin us. Rachel grew impatient under the constant drench of pessimism. +Janet remembered that the man was a delicate man, nearing the sixties, +with, as she suspected, but small provision laid up for old age; with an +ailing wife; and bearing the marks in body and spirit of years of +overwork. She never missed an opportunity of doing him a kindness; and +the consequence was that Hastings, always faithful, even to his worst +employers, was passionately faithful to his new mistresses, defending +them and fighting for their interests, as they were sometimes hardly +inclined to fight for themselves. + +After showing Ellesborough the way to the "clamps," Hastings left him. In +succession to the long days of rain there had been a sudden clearing in +the skies. The day had been fine, and now, towards sunset, there was a +grand massing of rosy cloud along the edge of the down, and windy lights +over the valley. Rachel, busy with the covering of the potato "clamps," +laid down the bundle of bracken she had been handing to Peter Betts, and +came quickly to meet her visitor. Her working dress was splashed with +mire from neck to foot, and coils of brown hair had escaped from her +waterproof cap, and hung about her brilliant cheeks. She looked happy, +but tired. + +"Such a day!" she said, panting, as they met. "The girls and I began at +six this morning--lifting and sorting. It was so important to get them +in. Now they're safe if the frost does come. It's a jolly crop!" + +Ellesborough looked at her, and her eyes wavered before the ardour in +his. + +"I say! You work too hard! Haven't you done enough? Come and rest." + +She nodded. "I'll come!" + +She ran to say a word to the others and rejoined him. + +They went back to the farm, not talking much, but conscious through every +nerve of the other's nearness. Rachel ran upstairs to change her dress, +and Ellesborough put the fire together, and shut the windows. For the sun +had sunk behind the hill, and a bitter wind was rising. When Rachel came +down again, the wood-fire glowed and crackled, the curtains drawn, and +she stared in astonishment at a small tea-tray beside the fire. + +Ellesborough hurriedly apologized. + +"I found some boiling water in the kettle, and I know by now where Miss +Janet keeps her tea." + +"Janet brought us tea to the field." + +"I dare say she did. That was four--this is six. You felt cold just now. +You looked cold. Be good, and take it easy!" He pointed to the only +comfortable chair, which he had drawn up to the fire. + +"Are you sure it boiled?" she said sceptically, as she sank into her +chair, her eyes dancing. "No man knows when a kettle boils." + +"Try it! For five winters on the Saguenay, I made my own tea--and baked +my own bread. Men are better cooks than women when they give their minds +to it!" He brought her the cup, hot and fragrant, and she sipped it in +pure content while he stood smiling above her, leaning against the +mantelpiece. + +"I wanted to see you," he said presently. "I've just got my marching +orders. Let's see. This is October. I shall have just a month. They've +found another man to take over this job, but he can't come till +November." + +"And--peace?" said Rachel, looking up. + +For Prince Max of Baden had just made his famous peace offer of October +5th, and even in rural Brookshire there was a thrilling sense of opening +skies, of some loosening of those iron bonds in which the world had lain +for four years. + +"There will be no peace!" said Ellesborough with sudden energy, "so long +as there is a single German soldier left in Belgium or France!" + +She saw him stiffen from head to foot--and thrilled to the flame of +avenging will that suddenly possessed him. The male looked out upon her, +kindling--by the old, old law--the woman in her. + +"And if they don't accept that?" + +"Then the war will go on," he said briefly, "and I shall be in for the +last lap!" + +His colour changed a little. She put down her cup and bent over the fire, +warming her hands. + +"If it does go on, it will be fiercer than ever." + +"Very likely. If our fellows set the pace there'll be no dawdling. +America's white hot." + +"And you'll be in it?" + +"I hope so," he said quietly. + +There was a pause. Then he, looking down upon her, felt a sudden and +passionate joy invade him--joy which was also longing--longing +irresistible. His mind had been wrestling with many scruples and +difficulties during the preceding days. Ought he to speak--on the eve of +departure--or not? Would she accept him? Or was all her manner and +attitude towards him merely the result of the new freedom of women? +Gradually but surely his mounting passion had idealized her. Not only +her personal ways and looks had become delightful to him, but the +honourable, independent self in him had come to feel a deep admiration +for and sympathy with her honourable independence, for these new powers +in women that made them so strong in spite of their weakness. She had +become to him not only a woman but a heroine. His whole heart approved +and admired her when he saw her so active, so competent, so human. And +none the less the man's natural instinct hungered to take her in his +arms, to work for her, to put her back in the shelter of love and +home--ith her children at her knee.... + +And how domestic was this little scene in which they stood--the +firelight, the curtained room, the tea-things, her soft, bending form, +with the signs of labour put away!... + +The tears rushed to his eyes. He bent over her, and spoke her name, +almost unconsciously. + +"Rachel!" + +His soul was in the name! + +She started, and looked up. While he had been thinking only of her, her +thoughts had gone wandering--far away. And they seemed to have brought +back--not the happy yielding of a woman to her lover--but distress and +fear. A shock ran through him. + +"Rachel!--" He held out his hands to her. He could not find words, but +his eyes spoke, and the agitation in every feature. + +But she drew back. + +"Don't--don't say anything--till--" + +His look held her--the surprise in it--the tender appeal. She could not +take hers from it. But the disturbance in him deepened. For in the face +she raised to him there was no flood of maidenly joy. Suddenly--her eyes +were those of a culprit examining her judge. A cry sprang to his lips. + +"Wait!--wait!" she said piteously. + +She fell back in her chair, covering her face, her breast heaving. He saw +that she was trying to command herself, to steady her voice. One of those +forebodings which are the children of our half-conscious observation shot +through him. But he would not admit it. + +He stooped over her and tried again to take her hand. But she drew it +away, and sat up in her chair. She was very white, and there were tears +in her eyes. + +"I've got something to say to you," she said, with evident difficulty, +"which--I'm afraid--will surprise you very much. Of course I ought to +have told you--long ago. But I'm a coward, and--and--it was all so +horrible. I am not what you suppose me. I'm--a married woman--at least I +was. I divorced my husband--eighteen months ago. I'm quite free now. I +thought if you really cared about me--I should of course have to tell you +some time--but I've been letting it go on. It was very wrong of me--I +know it was very wrong!" + +And bowing her face on her knees, she burst into a passion of weeping, +the weeping of a child who was yet a woman. The mingled immaturity and +intensity of her nature found its expression in the very abandonment of +her tears. + +Ellesborough, too, had turned pale. He was astounded by what +she said. His thoughts rushed back over the six weeks of their +friendship--recalling his first impressions of something mysterious +and unexplained. + +But of late, he had entirely forgotten them. She had talked so frankly +and simply of her father and mother--of her father's missionary work in +Canada, and her early journeys with him; and of her brother in Ontario, +his children and his letters. Once she had handed him a letter from this +brother to read, and he had been struck by the refined and affectionate +tone of it. Here were the same family relations as his own. His heart, +his taste were satisfied. If Rachel Henderson accepted him he would be +bringing his mother a daughter she would find it easy to love. + +And all the time--instead of an unmarried girl, with the experiences +of love and marriage before her--she had been already married--and +divorced! Another man had loved and possessed her--and even if she were +innocent--but of course she was innocent!--there must be some ugly story +involved. + +He tried to collect his thoughts--but all his consciousness seemed to be +bruised and in pain. He could only put his hand on her hair, and say +incoherent things,-- + +"Don't cry so, dear--don't cry!" + +And even as he spoke he felt with bewilderment how--in a moment--their +respective attitudes had changed. She checked her sobs. + +"Sit there!" she said, pointing peremptorily to a seat opposite. Then she +looked round her. + +"Where is Janet?" + +"She went to the village." + +Rachel dried her eyes, and with trembling hands smoothed her hair back +from her face. + +"I'll try and tell it shortly. It's a horrible tale." + +"Do you feel able to tell it?" + +For he was aghast at her pallor--the alteration in her whole aspect. + +"I must," she wailed. "Weren't you--weren't you just going to ask me to +marry you?" + +Strange question!--strange frowning eyes! + +"I was," he said gravely. "Didn't you know I should?" + +"No, no, I didn't know!" she said piteously. "I was never _sure_--till +you looked at me then. I wouldn't be sure!" + +He said nothing. Speech was ice-bound till he had heard what she had to +say. + +"It all began to happen three years ago," she said hurriedly, hiding her +face from him with her hand while she hung over the fire. "I was living +with my brother, who was then near Winnipeg. He offered me a home after +my father died. But he was married, and I didn't get on with his wife. I +dare say it was my fault, but I wasn't happy, and I wanted to get away. +Then a man--an Englishman--bought the next section to us, and we began +to know him. He was a gentleman--he'd been to Cambridge--his father had +some land and a house in Lincolnshire. But he was the third son, and +he'd been taught land agency, he said, as a training for the colonies. +That was all we knew. He was very good-looking, and he began courting me. +I suppose I was proud of his being a University man--a public school boy, +and all that. He told me a lot of stories about his people, and his +money--most of which were lies. But I was a fool--and I believed them. My +brother tried to stop it. Well, you know from his letters what sort of +man he is," and again she brushed the sudden tears away. "But his wife +made mischief, and I was set on having a place of my own. So I stuck to +it--and married him." + +She rose abruptly from her seat and began to move restlessly about the +room, taking up a book or her knitting from the table, and putting them +down again, evidently unconscious of what she was doing. Ellesborough +waited. His lean, sharply-cut face revealed a miserable, perhaps an +agonized suspense. This crisis into which she had plunged him so suddenly +was bringing home to him all that he had at stake. That she mattered to +him so vitally he had never known till this moment. + +"What's the good of going into it!" she said at last desperately. "You +can guess--what it means"--a sudden crimson rushed to her cheeks--"to +be tied to a man--without honour--or principle--or refinement--who +presently seemed to me vile all through--in what he said--or what he did. +And I was at his mercy. I had married him in such a hurry he had a right +to despise me, and he used it! And when I resisted and turned against +him, then I found out what his temper meant." She raised her shoulders +with a gesture which needed no words. "Well--we got on somehow till my +little girl was born--" + +Ellesborough started. Rachel turned on him her sad, swimming eyes. But +the mere mention of her child had given her back her dignity and strength +to go on. She became visibly more composed, as she stood opposite to him, +her beautiful dark head against the sunset clouds outside. + +"She only lived a few weeks. Her death was largely owing to him. But +that's a long story. And after her death I couldn't stand it any more. I +ran away. And soon I heard that he had taken up with an Italian girl. +There was a large camp of Italians on the C.P.R., quite close to us. She +was the daughter of one of the foremen. So then my brother made me go to +his lawyers in Winnipeg. We collected evidence very easily. I got my +divorce eighteen months ago. The decree was made absolute last February. +So, of course, I'm quite free--quite--_quite_ free!" + +She spoke the last words almost savagely, and after them she moved away +to the window looking on the down, and stood gazing through it, as though +she had forgotten Ellesborough's presence. + +"The action was not defended?" he asked, in a low voice. + +She shook her head without speaking. But after a minute she added,-- + +"I can show you the report." + +There was silence. Ellesborough turned round, put his hands on the +mantelpiece, and buried his face on them. Presently she approached him, +looked at him with a quivering lip, and said in broken sentences,-- + +"It has all come so suddenly--hasn't it? I had been in such good +spirits to-day, not thinking of those horrible things at all. I don't +know what I meant to do, if you did ask me--for of course I knew you +_might_. I suppose I intended to put off telling you--so as to be sure +first--_certain_--that you loved me. And then--somehow--when you looked +down on me like that, I felt--that _I_ cared--much more than I had +thought I cared--too much to let you speak--before you knew--before I'd +told you. It's always been my way--to--put off disagreeable things. And +so I thought I could put this off. But every night I have been awake +thinking--'if only he knew!'--and I was wretched--for a while--because +you didn't know. But then it went away again--and I forgot it. One does +forget things--everything--when one is hard at work. But I'm awfully +sorry. And now--I think--we'd better say good-bye." + +Her voice faltered against her will. He raised himself quickly. + +"No--no," he said passionately, "we won't say good-bye. But you must let +me think--for you, as well as for myself." + +"It would be better to say good-bye," she persisted. "I'm afraid--you +expect in me--what I haven't got. I see that now. Because I'm keen about +this work, and I can run this farm, you think--perhaps--I'm a strong +character. But I'm not. I've no judgment--not in moral things. I give +in--I'm weak--and then--I could kill myself!" + +She had grown very white again--and her eyes were strangely fixed on him. +The words seemed to him incoherent, out of touch somehow even with their +tragic conversation. But his first passing bewilderment was lost in pity +and passion. He stopped, took her hand, and kissed it. He came nearer. + +But again she drew back. + +"There's Janet!" she said, "we can't talk any more." + +For she had caught sight of Janet in the farm-yard, leading her bicycle. + +"Can you meet me to-morrow evening--on the Common?" he said. "I could be +there about six." + +She frowned a little. + +"Is it worth while?" + +"I beg you!" he said huskily. + +"Very well--I'll come. We shall be just friends, please." + +"But, of course, I'll tell you more--if you wish." + +Janet's voice and step were heard in the passage. How Ellesborough got +through the next ten minutes he never remembered. When they were over, he +found himself rushing through the cool and silence of the autumn night, +thankful for this sheltering nature in which to hide his trouble, his +deep, deep distress. + + + + +VII + + +The October night rang stormily round Great End Farm. The northwest wind +rushing over the miniature pass just beyond the farm, where the road +dropped from the level of the upland in which Ipscombe lay, to the level +of the plain, was blowing fiercely on the square of buildings which stood +naked and undefended against weather from that quarter of the heaven, +while protected by the hills and the woods from the northeast. And +mingled with the noisy or wailing gusts came the shrieking from time to +time of one of the little brown owls that are now multiplying so fast in +the English midlands. + +The noise of the storm and the clamour of the owl were not the cause of +Rachel's wakefulness; but they tended to make it more feverish and +irritable. Every now and then she would throw off the bed-clothes, and +sit up with her hands round her knees, a white and rigid figure lit by +the solitary candle beside her. Then again she would feel the chill of +the autumn night, and crouch down shivering among the bed-clothes, pining +for a sleep that would not come. Instead of sleep, she could do nothing +but rehearse the scene with Ellesborough again and again. She watched the +alterations in his face--she heard the changes in his voice--as she told +her story. She was now as sorry for him as for herself! The tears came +flooding into her eyes as she thought of him. In her selfish fears of his +anger she had forgotten his suffering. But the first true love of her +life was bringing understanding. She realized the shock to him, and wept +over it. She saw, too, that she had been unjust and cowardly in letting +the situation go so far without speaking; and that there was no real +excuse for her. + +Would he give her up? She had told him that all was at an end between +them; but that was only pride--making a virtue of a necessity. Oh, no, +no, he must not give her up! It was only six weeks since their first +meeting, and though it would be untrue to say that since the meeting he +had wholly possessed her thoughts, she had been capable all through them +of that sort of dallying with the vicar which Janet thought unkind. She +had been able to find plenty of mind for her work, and for the ambitions +of her new profession, and had spent many a careless hour steeped in the +sheer physical pleasure of the harvest. Yet, from the beginning, his +personality had laid its grip on hers. She had never been able to forget +him for long. One visit from him was no sooner over than she was +calculating on and dreaming of the next. And as the consciousness +of some new birth in her had grown, and sudden glimpses had come to her +of some supreme joy, possibly within her grasp, so fear had grown, and +anxiety. She looked back upon her past, and knew it stained--knew that it +must at some point rise as an obstacle between her and him. + +But how great an obstacle? She was going to tell him, faithfully, +frankly, all the story of her marriage--accuse her own rash self-will in +marrying Delane, confess her own failings as a wife; she would tell no +hypocritical tale. She would make it plain that Roger had found in her no +mere suffering saint, and that probably her intolerance and impatience +had contributed to send him to damnation. But, after all, when it was +told, what could Ellesborough do but pity her?--take her in his arms--and +comfort her--for those awful years--and her lost child? + +The tears rained down her cheeks. He loved her! She was certain of that. +When he had once heard the story, he could not forsake her! She already +saw the pity in his deep grey eyes; she already felt his honest, +protecting arms about her. + +Ah--_but then_? Beyond that imagined scene, which rose, as though +it were staged, before her, Rachel's shrinking eyes, in the windy +darkness, seemed to be penetrating to another--a phantom scene in a dim +distance--drawn not from the future, but the past. Two figures moved in +it. One was herself. The other was not Roger Delane. + +The brown owl seemed to be shrieking just outside her window. Her +nerves quivered under the sound as though it were her own voice. Why was +life so cruel, so miserable? Why cannot even the gods themselves make +undone what is done? She was none the worse--permanently--for what had +happened in that distant scene--that play within a play? How was she the +worse? She was "not a bad woman!"--as she had said so passionately to +Janet, when they joined hands. There was no lasting taint left in mind +and soul--nothing to prevent her being a pure and faithful wife to George +Ellesborough, and a good mother to his children. It was another Rachel to +whom all that had happened, a Rachel she had a right to forget! She was +weak in will--she had confessed it. But George Ellesborough was strong. +Leaning on him, and on kind Janet, she could be all, she would be all, +that he still dreamed. The past--_that_ past--was dead. It had no +existence. Nothing--neither honour nor love--obliged her to disclose it. +Except in her own mind it was dead and buried--as though it had never +been. No human being shared her knowledge of it, or ever would. + +And yet the Accuser came closer and closer, wrestling with her shrinking +heart. "You can't live a lie beside him all your life!" "It won't be a +lie. All that matters to him is what I am now--not what I was. And it +wasn't I!--it was another woman--a miserable, battered creature who +couldn't help herself." "It will rise up between you, and perhaps--after +all--in some way--he will discover it." "How can he? Dick and I--who in +all the world knew, but us two?--and Dick is dead." "Are you sure that no +one knew:--that no one saw you? Think!" + +A pale face grew paler in the dim light, as thought hesitated:-- + +"There was that wagon--and the boy--in the storm." "Yes--what then?" +"Well--what then? The boy scarcely saw me." "He did see you." "And if he +did--it is the commonest thing in a Canadian winter to be caught by a +storm, to ask shelter from a neighbour." "Still--even if he drew no +malicious conclusion, he saw you--alone in that farm with Dick Tanner, +and he probably knew your name." "How should he know my name?" "He had +seen you before--you had seen him before." "I didn't know his name--I +don't know it now." "No--but in passing your farm once, he had dropped a +parcel for a neighbour--and you had seen him once--at a railway station." +"Is it the least likely that I shall ever see him again--or that he +remembers seeing me at Dick Tanner's door?" "Not likely, perhaps--but +possible--quite possible." + +And while this question and answer passed through the brain, the woman +sitting up in bed seemed to be transported to a howling wintry scene of +whirling snow--a November twilight--and against that background, the hood +of a covered wagon, a boy holding the reins, the heavy cape on his +shoulders white with snow, the lamps of the wagon shining dimly on him, +and making a kind of luminous mist round the cart. She heard a parley, +saw a tall and slender man with fair hair go out to the boy with hot +milk and bread, caught directions as to the road, and saw herself as a +half-hidden figure in the partially open door. + +And then afterwards--the warm farm kitchen shutting out the storm--a man +at her knees--his arms round her--his kisses on her cheek. + +And again the irrevocableness of it closed down upon her. It could +_never_ be undone: that was the terrible commonplace which held her in +its grasp. It could never be wiped out from one human mind, which must +bear the burden of it as best it could, till gradually--steadily--the +life, had been killed out of the ugly, haunting thing, and it had been +buried--drowned, out of sight and memory. + +But the piteous dialogue began again. + +"How _could_ I have resisted? I was so miserable--so lonely--so weak!" +"You didn't love him!" "No--but I was alone in the world." "Well, then, +tell George Ellesborough--he is a reasonable man--he would understand." +"I can't--I _can't_! I have deceived him up till now by passing as +unmarried. If I confess this, too, there will be no chance for me. He'll +never trust me in anything!--he'll suspect everything I do or say--even +if he goes on loving me. And I couldn't bear it!--nor could he." + +And so at last the inward debate wore itself out, and sleep, sudden and +deep, came down upon Rachel Henderson. When she woke in the morning it +was to cleared skies both in her own mind and in the physical world. The +nightmare through which she had passed seemed to her now unreal, even a +little absurd. Her nerves were quieted by sleep, and she saw plainly what +she had to do. That "old, unhappy, far-off thing" lurking in the +innermost depth of memory had nothing more to do with her. She would look +it calmly in the face, and put it finally--for ever--away. But of her +marriage she would tell everything--everything!--to George Ellesborough, +and he should deal with her as he pleased. + + * * * * * + +The day was misty and still. October, the marvellous October of this +year, was marching on. Every day, Foch on the battlefield of France and +Belgium was bringing down the old Europe, and clearing the ground for the +new. In English villages and English farms, no less than in the big +towns, there was ferment and excitement, though it showed but little. +Would the boys be home by Christmas--the sons, the brothers, the +husbands? What would the change be like--the life after the war? If there +were those who yearned and prayed for it--there were those who feared it. +The war had done well for some, and hideously for others. And all through +the play of individual interests and desires, and even in the dullest +minds there ran the intoxicating sense of Victory, of an England greater +and more powerful than even her own sons and daughters had dared to +dream--an England which knew herself now, by the stern test of the four +years' struggle, to be possessed of powers and resources, spiritual, +mental, physical, which amazed herself. In all conscious minds, brooding +on the approaching time, there rose the question: "What are we going to +do with it?" and even in the unconscious, the same thought was present, +as a vague disturbing impulse. + +Janet had just read the war telegrams to Rachel, who had come down late, +complaining of a headache; but when Janet--the reserved and equable +Janet--after going through the news of the recapture of Ostend, +Zeebrugge, and Bruges, broke into the passionate, low-spoken comment: +"The Lord is King--be the people never so unquiet!" or could not, for +tears, finish the account of the entry into recaptured Lille, and the joy +of its inhabitants, Rachel sat irresponsive--or apparently so. + +How would it affect Ellesborough--this astounding news? Would it take him +from her the sooner, or delay his going? That was all she seemed capable +of feeling. + +Janet was troubled by her look and attitude, and being well aware that +the two had had a long _tête-à -tête_ the day before, wondered how things +were going. But she said nothing; and after breakfast Rachel joined the +two girls in the potato-field, and worked as hard as they, hour after +hour. But her usual gaiety was gone, and the girls noticed at once the +dark rims under her eyes. They wondered secretly what Miss Henderson's +"friend" had been doing. For that the "Cap'n" was courting their employer +had long been plain to them. Betty, of course, had a "friend," the young +soldier whose sick leave was nearly up, and the child's deep velvety eyes +were looking nearly as tired as Miss Henderson's. While Jenny, too, the +timid, undeveloped Jenny had lately begun to take an interest in a +"friend," a young fellow belonging to Ellesborough's forestry camp whom +she had met in Millsborough the day of the Harvest Festival. They had +hardly exchanged half an hour's real conversation. But he had bought her +some sweets at Millsborough, and walked a bit of the way home with her. +Then she had seen him in the village once or twice. He had some relations +there--there was some talk of him, and that old murder at the farm--she +didn't know rightly what it was. But she felt somehow that Miss Henderson +wouldn't want to have him about--Miss Henderson didn't like talk of the +murder--so Jenny had never asked him to look her up. But her raw, +childish mind was full of him, and the ferments of sex were stirring. +In the secret opinion of both girls, "friends" were quite as much pain as +pleasure. No girl could do without them; but they were pretty certain to +cause heart-aches, to make a girl wish at some time or other that she had +never been born. A London factory-girl would have expressed it in the +Cockney way: "Blokes are no good--but you must have a bloke!" + +The two girls then concluded that Captain Ellesborough had been causing +trouble, as all men did, at some point; and being sympathetic little +souls, they worked especially hard in the potato-field, and would not +allow Rachel to carry the heavier baskets to the "clamp." + +Meanwhile Janet had been wrestling with old Halsey, till he had very +reluctantly yielded to her persuasion, and returned to work. + +"I'm not the man I wor," he confided to Peter Betts, as they were eating +their dinner under a hedge in the damp October sunshine. "When I wor a +young man, I wouldn't ha' minded them things, not if it was iver so. But +now they do give me the shivers in my inside." + +"What do?" said Peter Betts, with a mouthful of cold bacon. He was still +greatly in the dark as to why Halsey had left work so early in the +afternoon the day before, and why he was now in such a gruff and gloomy +mood. There was indeed a rumour in the village that old Halsey had seen +"summat," but as Halsey had gone to bed immediately after Miss Leighton +had had her say with him, and had refused to be "interviewed" even by +his wife, there was a good deal of uncertainty even in the mind of his +oldest pal, Peter Betts. + +"Why--ghostisses!" said Halsey, with a frown, removing his pipe for a +moment to give emphasis to the word. "I don't see as a man can be +expected to deal with ghostisses. Anythin' else yer like in a small +way--mad dogs, or bulls, or snakes, where they keep 'em, which, thank the +Lord, they don't in these parts--but not _them_." + +"What did yer see?" said Betts, after a few ruminating pulls. + +"Well, I saw old Watson, the keeper, as was murdered sixty years since, +'at's what I saw," said Halsey with slow decisiveness. + +"An' what might be like?" asked Betts, with equal deliberation. The day +was mild and sunny; the half-ploughed field on which they had been +working lay alternatively yellow in the stubbles and a rich brown purple +in the new turned furrows under the autumn noon. A sense of well-being +had been diffused in the two old men by food and rest. Halsey's tongue +grew looser. + +"Well, I saw a man come creepin' an' crouchin' down yon grass road"--(it +was visible from where they sat, as a green streak on the side of the +hill)--"same as several people afore me 'as seen 'um--same as they allus +say old Watson must ha' come after Dempsey shot 'im. He wor shot in the +body. The doctors as come to look at 'im fust foun' that out. An' if +ye're shot in the body, I understan', yo naterally double up a bit if yo +try to walk. Well--that's jes' how I saw 'im--crouchin' along. Yo +remember it wor a dull evenin' yesterday--an' it wor gettin' dark, though +it worn't dark. It wor not much after fower, by my old watch--but I +couldn't see 'im at all plain. I wor in Top-End field--you know?--as +leads up to that road. An' I watched 'im come along making for that +outside cart-shed--that 'un that's back to back wi' the shippen, where +they foun' Watson lyin'. An' I wor much puzzled by the look on 'im. I +didn't think nothink about old Watson, fust of all--I didn't know what to +think. I was right under the hedge wi' the horses; 'ee couldna' ha' seen +me--an' I watched 'im. He stopped, onst or twice, as though he wor +restin' hisself--pullin' 'isself together--and onst I 'eered 'im cough--" + +Halsey looked round suddenly on his companion as though daring him to +mock. + +Betts, however, could not help himself. He gave an interrupting and +sceptical chuckle. + +"Ghostisses don't cough, as ever I 'eered on." + +"And why shouldn't they?" said Halsey testily. "If they can do them +other things they'd used to do when livin'--walkin' an' seein' an' +such-like--why not coughin'?" + +Betts shook his head. + +"Never 'eered on it," he said, with conviction. + +"Well, anyways I seed him come down to that shed, an' then I lost 'im. +But I 'ad the creeps somehow and I called to Jenny to come an' take the +'orses. An' then I went after 'im. But there was all the field an' the +lane to cross, and when I come to the shed, there wasn't no one and +nothink to be seen--excep'--" + +The old man paused, and again looked doubtfully at his companion. + +"Well?" said Betts eagerly, his philosophic attitude giving way a little. + +"Excep'--a large patch o' blood--_fresh blood_--I touched it--on one of +them ole sacks lyin' near the cart," said Halsey slowly. "An' it worn't +there in the afternoon, for I moved the sacks mysel'." + +Betts whistled softly. Halsey resumed,-- + +"There was nothin' moved--or taken away--nothin' at all!--only that +patch. So then I went all round the farm, and there was nobody. I thought +'ee might ha' turned back by the grass road, p'raps, without my seein' +'im, so I went that way, and there was nothin'--until--a little way up +the road--there was blood again"--the old man's voice dropped--"every +couple o' yards or so--a drop or two here--an' a drop or two there--just +as they tracked old Watson by it, up the hill, and into yon wood--where +Dempsey set on him." + +The two old men looked at each other. Betts was evidently impressed. + +"Are you sure it was blood?" + +"Sure. Last night, Hastings said it was sheep-dip! After I tole 'im, when +'ee went to look under the shed, it wor so dark 'ee couldn't see nothin'. +Well, 'ee knew better this mornin'. 'Ee fetched me, an' asst me if I'd +said anythin' to Miss Janet. And I said, no. So then he tole me I wasn't +to say nothin' to the ladies, nor the girls, nor anybody. An' 'ee'd done +summat wi' the sack--I dunno what. But 'ee might ha' held 'is tongue last +night about sheep-dip! Who's been dippin' sheep about here? 'As Miss +Henderson got any ruddle anywhere about the farm? I know she ain't!--an' +Muster Hastings knows she ain't." + +"Why didn't yer tell Miss Janet?--about the bleedin'?" + +"Well, I was a bit skeered. I thought I'd sleep on't, before I got +talkin' any more. But on the way 'ome, as I tellt yer, I met Hastings, +an' tole '_im_, an' then give 'im notice." + +"That wor a bit hasty, worn't it?" said Betts after a moment, in a +judicial tone. But he had been clearly much exercised by his companion's +account, and his pipe hanging idly from his hands showed that his +thoughts were active. + +"Well, it might ha' bin," Halsey admitted, "but as I said afore, I'm +gettin' an old man, and I don't want no truck wi' things as I don't +unnerstan'. It give me the wust night as I've had since I had that bad +turn wi' the influenza ten year ago." + +"You didn't see his face?" + +"No." + +"An' 'ee didn't mind you of anybody?" + +Halsey hesitated. + +"Well, onst I did think I'd seen one o' the same build--soomwhere. But I +can't recolleck where." + +"As for the blood," said Betts reflectively, "it's as curous as the +coughin'. Did you iver hear tell as ghosts could bleed?" + +Hastings shook his head. Steeped in meditation, the two men smoked +silently for a while. Then Betts said, with the explosiveness of one who +catches an idea,-- + +"Have yer thought o' tellin' John Dempsey?" + +"I hain't thought o' tellin' nobody. An' I shouldn't ha' told Miss +Leighton what I did tell her, if she 'adn't come naggin' about my givin' +notice." + +"You might as well tell John Dempsey. Why, it's his business, is old +Watson! Haven't yer seen 'im at all?" + +Halsey said "No," holding his handsome old head rather high. Had he +belonged to a higher station in life, his natural reticence, and a +fastidious personal dignity would have carried him far. To a modern +statesman they are at least as valuable as brains. In the small world +of Ipscombe they only meant that Halsey himself held rather scornfully +aloof from the current village gossip, and got mocked at for his pains. +The ordinary human instinct revenged itself, however, when he was +_tête-à -tête_ with his old chum Peter Betts. Betts divined at any rate +from the expression in the old man's eyes that _he_ might talk, and +welcome. + +So he poured out what he knew about John Dempsey, a Canadian lad working +in the Forestry Corps at Ralstone, who turned out to be the grandson of +the Dempsey who had always been suspected of the murder of Richard Watson +in the year 1859. This young Dempsey, he said, had meant to come to +Ipscombe after the war, and put what he knew before the police. But +finding himself sent to Ralstone, which was only five miles from +Ipscombe, he saw no reason to wait, and he had already given all the +information he could to the superintendent of police at Millsborough. His +grandfather had signed a written confession before his death, and John +Dempsey had handed it over. The old man, it appeared, had "turned pious" +during a long illness before his death, and had wished to square matters +with his conscience and the Almighty. When his grandson had volunteered +for the war, and was about to sail for Europe, old Dempsey had sent for +him, had told him the story, and charged him, when he was able, to place +his confession in the proper hands. And having done that, he died "very +quiet and comfortable"--so John Dempsey reported. + +"Which is more than poor Jem Watson did," growled Halsey. He felt neither +respect nor sympathy for a man who, having set up a secret, couldn't +keep it; and the confession itself, rather than the crime confessed, +confirmed the poor opinion he had always held of the elder Dempsey when +they were young men in the village together. But he agreed to let Betts +bring "young John" to see him. And thereupon they went back to the sowing +of one of Miss Henderson's big fields with winter wheat. + +When the milking was done, and work was nearly over for the day, a note +brought by messenger arrived at the farm for Miss Henderson. It was from +Ellesborough--a few scribbled words. "I am prevented from coming this +evening. The Chief Forestry Officer of my district has just arrived, and +stays the night. I hope to come over to-morrow between six and seven. +Shall I find you?" + +Rachel scribbled an answer, which a small boy on a bicycle carried off. +Then she went slowly back to the sitting-room, so disappointed and +unnerved that she was on the brink of tears. Janet who had just come in +from milking, was standing by the table, mending a rent in her +waterproof. She looked up as Rachel entered, and the needle paused in her +hand. + +"I say, Rachel!--you do look overdone! You've been going at it too hard." + +For all day long Rachel had been lifting, and sorting, and carrying, in +the potato-field, finding in the severe physical exertion the only relief +from restlessness. She shook her head irritably and came to stand by the +wood fire which Janet had just lit, a welcome brightness in the twilight +room. + +"Suppose you knock up--" began Janet in a tone of remonstrance. Rachel +cut her short. + +"I want to speak to you--please, Janet." + +Janet looked round in astonishment and put down her work. Rachel was +standing by the fire, with her hands behind her back, her eyes fixed on +Janet. She was still in the graceful tunic and knee-breeches, in which +her young and splendid youth seemed always most at home. But she had +taken off her cap, and her brown hair was falling round a pale face. + +"Janet--you know Captain Ellesborough and I had a long talk last night?" + +Janet smiled. + +"Of course I do. And of course I have my own thoughts about it!" + +"I don't know what they are," said Rachel slowly. "But--I'd better tell +you--Captain Ellesborough asked me to marry him." + +She paused. + +"Did you think that would be news to any of us?" said Janet, laughing, +and then stopped. The sudden contraction of pain in Rachel's face, and +something like a sob startled her. + +"Don't, Janet, please. I told him something--which made him +wonder--whether he did want to marry me after all." + +Janet's heart gave an uncomfortable jump. A score of past conjectures and +misgivings rushed back upon her. + +"What did you tell him?" + +"What I see now I ought to have told you--as well as him--long ago. +Henderson is my maiden name. I was a married woman for three years. I +had a child which died. I divorced my husband, and he's still alive." + +The colour had flamed back into her cheeks. Janet sat silent, her eyes +fixed on Rachel's. + +"I did tell you I had a story, didn't I?" said Rachel insistently. + +"You did. I took my chance. It was you who--who brought the action?" + +"I brought the action. There was no defence. And the judge said--I'd been +awfully badly treated--it was no wonder I wanted--to get free. Well, +there it is. I'm sorry I deceived you. I'm sorry I deceived him." + +"You didn't deceive me," said Janet. "I had practically guessed it." +She rose slowly, and going up to Rachel, she put her hands on her +shoulders,-- + +"Why didn't you tell me, you poor thing!" Her voice and eyes were full of +emotion--full of pity. But Rachel shrank away a little from her touch, +murmuring under her breath, "Because I wanted never to hear of it--or +think of it again." Then, after a pause, she added, "But if you want to +know more, I'll tell you. It's your right. My married name was Delane." + +"Don't tell me any more!" said Janet peremptorily. "I don't want to hear +it. But you ought to be--quite frank--with _him_." + +"I know that. Naturally--it was a great shock to him." + +There was something very touching in her attitude. She stood there like a +shamefaced boy, in her quasi-male dress; and the contrast between her +strong young beauty, and the humility and depression of her manner +appealed with singular force to Janet's mind, so constantly and secretly +preoccupied with spiritual things. Rachel seemed to her so much cleverer +and more vigorous than herself in all matters of ordinary life. Only in +the region of religious experience did Janet know herself the superior. +But Rachel had never made any outward sign that she cared in the least to +know more of that region, whether in Janet or other people. She had held +entirely aloof from it. But self-reproach--moral suffering--are two of +the keys that lead to it. And both were evident here. Janet's heart went +out to her friend. + +"When is he coming?" + +"To-morrow evening. I dare say he'll give me up." + +Janet marvelled at the absence of self-assertion--the touch of +despair--in words and tone. So it had gone as deep as this! She blamed +herself for lack of perception. An ordinary love-affair, about to end +in an ordinary way--that was how it had appeared to her. And suddenly it +seemed to her she had stumbled upon what might be tragedy. + +No, no--there should be no tragedy! She put her arms round Rachel. + +"My dear, he won't give you up! As if I hadn't seen! He worships the +ground you tread upon!" + +Rachel said nothing. She let her face rest on Janet's shoulder. When she +raised it, it was wet. But she kissed Janet quietly, and went away +without another word. + + + + +VIII + + +Four grown-ups and a child were gathered in the living-room of Halsey's +cottage. The cottage was old like its tenant and had all the +inconveniences of age; but it was more spacious than the modern cottage +often is, since it and its neighbours represented a surviving fragment +from an old Jacobean house--a house of gentlefolks--which had once stood +on the site. Most of the house had been pulled down, but Colonel +Shepherd's grandfather had retained part of it, and turned it into two +cottages--known as 1 and 2 Ipscombe Place--which for all their drawbacks +were much in demand in the village, and conferred a certain distinction +on their occupants. Mrs. Halsey's living room possessed a Tudor +mantelpiece in moulded brick, into which a small modern kitchener had +been barbarously fitted; and three fine beams with a little incised +ornament ran across the ceiling. + +Mrs. Halsey had not long cleared away the tea, and brought in a paraffin +lamp, small but cheerful. She was a middle-aged woman, much younger than +her husband--with an ironic half-dreamy eye, and a native intelligence +much superior to her surroundings. She was suffering from a chronic +abscess in the neck, which had strange periodic swellings and +subsidences, all of which were endlessly interesting to its possessor. +Mrs. Halsey, indeed, called the abscess "she," wrapped it lovingly in red +flannel, describing the evening dressing of it as "putting her to bed," +and talked of "her" qualities and oddities as though, in the phrase of +her next-door neighbour, "it'd a been a christened child." She had +decided views on politics, and was a match for any political agent who +might approach her with an eye to her vote, a commodity which she kept, +so to speak, like a new shilling in her pocket, turning it from time +to time to make sure it was there. + +But independent as she was, she rarely interfered with the talk of Halsey +and his male friends. And on this occasion when the three men--Halsey, +Peter Betts, and young Dempsey--had gathered smoking round the fire, she +settled herself with her knitting by the table and the lamp, throwing in +every now and then a muttered and generally sarcastic comment, of which +her husband took no notice--especially as he knew very well that the +sarcasms were never aimed at him, and that she was as proud of him as she +was generally contemptuous of the rest of the world. + +Halsey had just finished a rather grudging description of his experiences +two days before for John Dempsey's benefit. He was conscious that each +time he repeated them, they sounded more incredible. He didn't want to +repeat them; he didn't mean to repeat them; after this, nobody should get +any more out of him at all. + +Young Dempsey's attitude was certainly not encouraging. Attentive at +first, he allowed himself, as Halsey's talk developed, a mild, +progressive grin, which spread gradually over his ugly but honest face, +and remained there. In face of it, Halsey's speech became more and more +laconic, till at last he shut his mouth with a snap, and drawing himself +up in his chair, re-lit his pipe with the expression that meant, "All +right--I've done--you may take it or leave it." + +"Well, I don't see that what you saw, Mr. Halsey, was so very uncommon!" +Dempsey began, still smiling, in spite of a warning look from Betts. +"You saw a man come down that road? Well, in the first place, why +shouldn't a man come down that road--it's a reg'lar right of way--" + +"It's the way, mind ye, as the ghost of old Watson has allus come!" put +in Peter Betts, chivalrously anxious to support his friend Halsey, as far +as he could, against a sceptical stranger. "An' it's been seen twice on +that road already, as I can remember: once when I was a little boy, by +old Dan Holt, the postmaster, and once about ten years ago." + +Dempsey looked at the speaker indulgently. To his sharpened transatlantic +sense, these old men, in this funny old village, seemed to him a +curiously dim and feeble folk. He could hardly prevent himself from +talking to them as though they were children. He supposed his grandfather +would have been like that if he'd stayed on at Ipscombe. He thanked +the stars he hadn't! + +But since he had been summoned to consult, as a person who had a vested +interest, of a rather blood-curdling sort, in the Great End ghost, he had +to give his opinion; and he gave it, while Halsey listened and smoked in +a rather sulky silence. For it was soon evident that the murderer's +grandson had no use at all for the supposed ghost-story. He tore it +ruthlessly to pieces. In the first place, Halsey described the man seen +on the grass-road as tall and lanky. But according to his grandfather's +account, the murdered gamekeeper, on the contrary, was a broadly-built, +stumpy man. In the next place--the coughing and the bleeding!--he laughed +so long and loudly at these points in the story that Halsey's still black +bushy eyebrows met frowningly over a pair of angry eyes, and Betts tried +hurriedly to tame the young man's mirth. + +"Well, if yer don't think that man as Halsey saw _was_ the ghost, what do +you s'pose 'ee was doin' there?" asked Betts, "and where did he go? +Halsey went right round the farm. The hill just there is as bare as my +hand. He must ha' seen the man--if it _wor_ a man--an' he saw nothin'. +There isn't a tree or a bush where that man could ha' hid hisself--if +he _wor_ a man." + +Dempsey declared he should have to go and examine the ground himself +before he could answer the question. But of course there was an answer +to it--there must be. As to the man--why Millsborough, and Ipscombe too, +had been full of outlandish East Enders, flying from the raids, Poles +and Russians, and such like--thievin' fellows by all accounts. Why +couldn't it be one of them--prowling round the farm for anything he could +pick up--and frightened off, when he saw Halsey? + +Betts, smoking with prodigious energy, inquired what he made of the +_blood_. Didn't he know the old story of how Watson was tracked down to +the cart-shed? Dempsey laughed again. + +"Well, it's curious, grant ye. It's real funny! But where are you going +to get blood without a body? And if a thing's a body, it isn't a ghost!" + +The two old men were silent. Halsey was lost in a hopeless confusion of +ideas, and Betts was determined not to give his pal away. + +But here--say what you like!--was a strange man, seen, on the road, which +had been used, according to village tradition, on several previous +occasions, by the authentic ghost of Watson; his course was marked by +traces of blood, just as Watson's path of pain had been marked on the +night of the murder; and on reaching the spot where Watson had breathed +his last, the apparition, whatever it was, had vanished. Perplexity, +superstition, and common sense fought each other. Halsey who knew much of +his Bible by heart was inwardly comparing texts. "A spirit hath not flesh +and blood"--True--but on the other hand what about the "bodies of the +saints"--that "arose"? While, perhaps, the strongest motive of all in the +old man's mind was the obstinate desire to prove himself right, and so to +confound young scoffers like Dempsey. + +Dempsey, however, having as he thought disposed of Halsey's foolish tale +was determined to tell his own, which had already made a great impression +in certain quarters of the village, and ranked indeed as the chief +sensation of the day. To be able to listen to the story of a murder told +by the grandson of the murderer, to whom the criminal himself had +confessed it, and that without any fear of unpleasant consequences to any +one, was a treat that Ipscombe had seldom enjoyed, especially as the +village was still rich in kinsfolk of both murdered and murderer. + +Dempsey had already repeated the story so often that it was by now +perfect in every detail, and it produced the same effect in this lamplit +kitchen as in other. Halsey, forgetting his secret ill-humour, was +presently listening open-mouthed. Mrs. Halsey laid down her knitting, and +stared at the speaker over the top of her spectacles; while across +Betts's gnome-like countenance smiles went out and in, especially at the +more gruesome points of the tale. The light sparkled on the young +Canadian's belt, the Maple Leaf in the khaki hat which lay across his +knees, on the badge of the Forestry Corps on his shoulder. The old +English cottage, with its Tudor brick-work, and its overhanging beams, +the old English labourers with the stains of English soil upon them, made +the setting; and in the midst, sat the "new man," from the New World, +holding the stage, just as Ellesborough the New Englander was accustomed +to hold it, at Great End Farm. All over England, all over unravaged +France and northern Italy similar scenes at that moment were being +thrown on the magic sheet of life; and at any drop in the talk, the +observer could almost hear, in the stillness, the weaving of the Great +Loom on which the Ages come and go. + +There was a pause, when Dempsey came to a dramatic end with the last +breath of his grandfather; till Mrs. Halsey said dryly, fixing the young +man with her small beady eyes,-- + +"And you don't mind telling on your own grandfather?" + +"Why shouldn't I?" laughed Dempsey, "when it's sixty years ago. They've +lost their chance of hanging him anyhow." + +Mrs. Halsey shook her head in inarticulate protest. Betts said +reflectively,-- + +"I wouldn't advise you to be tellin' that tale to Miss Henderson." + +Dempsey's expression changed at the name. He bent forward eagerly. + +"By the way, who is Miss Henderson? Do you know where she comes from?" + +The others stared. + +"Last winter," said Betts at last, "she wor on a farm down Devonshire +way. And before that she wor at college--with Miss Janet." + +"Was she ever in Canada?" + +"Yes!" said Halsey with sudden decision, "she wor--for she told me +one day when I wor mendin' the new reaper and binder, that we in this +country didn't know what harvest meant. 'Why, I've helped to reap a +field--in Canada,' she ses, 'fower miles square,' she ses, 'six teams o' +horses--an' six horses to the team,' she ses--'that's somethin' like.' So +I know she's been in Canada." + +"Ah!" said Dempsey, staring at the carpet. "And she's not married? You're +sure she's not married?" + +"Married?" said all the others, looking at him in disapproving +astonishment. + +"Well, if she ain't, I saw her sister--or her double--twice--about +two-and-a-half year ago--at a place thirty miles from Winnipeg. I could +ha' sworn I'd seen her before!" + +"Well, you can't ha' seen her before," said Betts positively; "cause +she's Miss, not Missis." + +"Ah!" said Dempsey again in a non-committal voice, looking hard this time +into the fire. + +"Where have you seen her--in these parts?" asked Mrs. Halsey. + +"At the Harvest Festival, t'other day. But I must have been +mistaken--that's all. I think I'm going to call upon her some day." + +"Whatever for?" + +"Why--to tell her about my grandfather!" said Dempsey, looking round at +Mrs. Halsey, with an air of astonishment that any one should ask him the +question. + +"You won't be welcome." + +"Why not?" + +"Because she don't want to hear nothin' about Watson's murder. And +whatever's the good on it, anyhow?" said Mrs. Halsey with sudden +emphasis. "You've told us a good tale, I'll grant ye. But yer might as +well be pullin' the old feller 'isself out of his grave, as goin' round +killin' 'im every night fresh, as you be doin'. Let 'im be. Skelintons is +skelintons." + +Dempsey, feeling rather indignantly that his pains had been wasted, and +his audience was not worthy of him, rose to take his departure. Halsey's +face cleared. He turned to look at his wife, and she winked in return. +And when the young forester had taken his departure, Mrs. Halsey stroked +the red flannel round her swollen neck complacently. + +"I 'ad to pike 'im out soomhow. It's 'igh time she wor put to bed!" + +That same evening, Ellesborough left the Ralstone camp behind him about +six o'clock, and hurried through the late October evening towards Great +End Farm. During the forty-eight hours which had elapsed since his +interview with Rachel he had passed through much suffering, and agonies +of indecision. He had had to reconstruct all his ideas of the woman he +loved. Instead of the proud and virginal creature he had imagined himself +to be wooing, amid the beautiful setting of her harvest fields, he had to +think of her as a woman dimmed and besmirched by an unhappy marriage with +a bad man. For himself, he certainly resented the concealment which had +been practised on him. Yet at the same time he thought he understood the +state of exasperation, of invincible revolt which had led to it. And he +kept reminding himself that, after all, her confession had anticipated +his proposal. + +Nevertheless such men as he have ideas of marriage, both romantic and +austere. They are inclined to claim what they give--a clean sheet, and +the first-fruits of body and soul. In Rachel's case the first-fruits +had been wasted on a marriage, of which the ugly and inevitable +incidents haunted Ellesborough's imagination. One moment he shrank from +the thought of them; the next he could not restrain the protesting rush +of passion--the vow that his love should put her back on that pinnacle of +honour and respect from which fate should never have allowed her to fall. + +Well, she had promised to tell him her story in full. He awaited it. +As to his own people, they were dear, good women, his mother and +sisters--saints, but not Pharisees. + +It was a dark and lowering evening, with tempest gusts of wind. But from +far away, after he had passed Ipscombe, a light from one of the windows +of the farm shone out, as though beckoning him to her. Suddenly from the +mouth of the farm, he saw a bicycle approaching. The rider was Janet +Leighton. She passed him with a wave and a smile. + +"Going to a Food meeting! But Rachel's at home." + +What a nice woman! Looking back over the couple of months since he had +known the inmates of the farm, he realized how much he had come to like +Janet Leighton. So unselfish, so full of thought for others, so modest +for herself! There couldn't be a better friend for Rachel; her friendship +itself was a testimonial; he reassured himself by the mere thought of +her. + +When he drew up at the farm, Hastings with a lantern in his hand was just +disappearing towards the hill, and the two girls, Betty and Jenny, passed +him, each with a young man, two members, in fact, of his own Corps, John +Dempsey and another. They explained that they were off to a Red Cross +Concert in the village hall. Ellesborough's pulse beat quicker as he +parted from them, for he realized that he would find Rachel alone in the +farm. + +Yes, there she was at the open door, greeting him with a quiet face--a +smile even. She led the way into the sitting-room, where she had just +drawn down the blinds and closed the curtains of the window looking on +the farm-yard. But his arrival had interrupted her before she could do +the same for the window looking on the Down. Neither of them thought of +it. Each was absorbed in the mere presence of the other. + +Rachel was in her black Sunday dress of some silky stuff. Her throat was +uncovered, and her shapely arms showed through the thin sleeves. The +black and white softened and refined something overblown and sensuous in +her beauty. Her manner, too, had lost its confident, provocative note. +Ellesborough had never seen her so adorable, so desirable. But her +self-command dictated his. He took the seat to which she pointed him; +while she herself brought a chair to the other side of the fire, putting +on another log with a steady hand, and a remark about the wind that was +whistling outside. Then, one foot crossed over the other, her cheek +reddened by the fire, propped on her hand, and her eyes on the fresh +flame that was beginning to dance out of the wood, she asked him,--"You'd +like to hear it all?" + +He made a sign of assent. + +So in a quiet, even voice, she began with an account of her family and +early surroundings, more detailed than anything she had yet given him. +She described her father (the striking apostolic head of the old man hung +on the wall behind her) and his missionary journeys through the prairie +settlements in the early days of Alberta; how, when he was old and weary, +he would sometimes take her, his latest child, a small girl of ten or +twelve, on his pastoral rounds, for company, perched up beside him in his +buggy; and how her mother was killed by the mere hardships of the prairie +life, sinking into fretful invalidism for two years before her death. + +"I nursed her for years. I never did anything else--I couldn't. I never +had any amusements like other girls. There was no money and no time. She +died when I was twenty-four. And three months after, my father died. He +didn't leave a penny. Then my brother asked me to go and live with him +and his wife. I was to have my board and a dress allowance, if I would +help her in the house. My brother's an awfully good sort--but I couldn't +get on with his wife. I just couldn't! I expect it was my fault, just as +much as hers. It was something we couldn't help. Very soon I hated the +sight of her, and she never missed a chance of making me feel a worm--a +useless, greedy creature, living on other people's work. If only there +had been some children, I dare say I could have borne it. But she and I +could never get away from each other. There were no distractions. Our +nerves got simply raw--at least mine did." + +There was a pause. She lifted her brown eyes, and looked at Ellesborough +intently. + +"I suppose my mother would have borne it. But girls nowadays can't. Not +girls like me, anyway. Mother was a Christian. I don't suppose I am. I +don't know what I am. I just _had_ to live my own life. I couldn't exist +without a bit of pleasure--and being admired--and seeing men--and all +that!" + +Her cheeks had flushed. Her eyes were very bright and defiant. + +Ellesborough came nearer to her, put out a strong hand and enclosed hers +in it. + +"Well then--this man Delane--came to live near you?" + +He spoke with the utmost gentleness, trying to help her out. + +She nodded, drawing her hand away. + +"I met him at a dance in Winnipeg first--the day after I'd had a horrid +row with my sister-in-law. He'd just taken a large farm, with a decent +house on it--not a shack--and everybody said his people were rich and +were backing him. And he was very good-looking--and a Cambridge man--and +all that. We danced together almost all the evening. Then he found out +where I lived, and used to be always coming to see me. My brother never +liked him. He said to me often, 'Why do you encourage that unprincipled +cad? I'm certain there's a screw loose about him!' And I wasn't in love +with Roger--not really--for one moment. But I _think_ he was in love with +me--yes, I'm sure he was--at first. And he excited and interested me. I +was proud, too, of taking him away from other girls, who were always +running after him. And my sister-in-law was just mad to get rid of me! +Don't you understand?" + +"Of course I do!" + +Her eyelids wavered a little under the emotion of his tone. + +"Well, then, we got married. My brother tried to get out of him what his +money-affairs were. But he always evaded everything. He talked a great +deal about this rich sister, and she did send him a wedding present. But +he never showed me her letter, and that was the last we ever heard of +her while I knew him...." + +Her voice dropped. She sat looking at the fire--a grey, pale woman, from +whom light and youth had momentarily gone out. + +"Well, it's a hateful story--and as common!--as common as dirt. We began +to quarrel almost immediately. He was jealous and tyrannical, and I +always had a quick temper. I found that he drank, that he told me all +sorts of lies about his past life, that he presently only cared about me +as--well, as his mistress!"--and again she faced Ellesborough with hard, +insistent eyes--"that he was hopelessly in debt--a gambler--and +everything else. When the baby came, I could only get the wife of a +neighbouring settler to come and look after me. And Roger behaved so +abominably to her that she went home when the baby was a week old--and I +was left to manage for myself. Then when baby was three months old, she +caught whooping-cough, and had bronchitis on the top. I had a few pounds +of my own, and I gave them to Roger to go in to Winnipeg and bring out a +doctor and medicines. He drank all the money on the way--that I found out +afterwards--he was a week away instead of two days--and the baby died. +When he came back he told me a lie about having been ill. But I never +lived with him--as a wife--after that. Then, of course, he hated me, and +one night he nearly killed me. Next morning he apologized--said that he +loved me passionately--and that kind of stuff--that I was cruel to +him--and what could he do to make up? So then I suggested that he should +go away for a month--and we should both think things over. He was +rather frightened, because--well--he'd knocked me about a good deal in +the horrible scene between us--and he thought I should bring my brother +down on him. So he agreed to go, and I said I would have a girl friend to +stay with me. But, of course, as soon as he was gone, I just left the +house and departed. I had got evidence enough by then to set me +free--about the Italian girl. I met my brother in Winnipeg. We went to +his lawyers together, and I began proceedings--" + +She stopped abruptly. "The rest I told you.--_No!_--I've told you the +horrible things--now I'll say something of the things which--have made +life worth living again. Till the divorce was settled I went back to my +brother in Toronto. I dropped my married name then and called myself +Henderson. And then I came home--because my mother's brother, who was a +manufacturer in Bradford, wrote to ask me. But when I arrived he was +dead, and he had left me three thousand pounds. Then I went to Swanley +and got trained for farm-work. And I found Janet Leighton, and we made +friends. And I love farm-work--and I love Janet--and the whole world +looks so different to me! Why, of course, I didn't want to be reminded of +that old horrible life! I didn't want people to say, 'Mrs. Delane? Who +and where is her husband? Is he dead?' 'No--she's divorced.' 'Why?' +There's!--don't you see?--all the old vile business over again! So I cut +it all!" + +She paused--resuming in another voice--hesitating and uncertain,-- + +"And yet--it seems--you can't do a simple thing like that +without--hurting somebody--injuring somebody. I can't help it! I didn't +mean to deceive _you_. But I had a right to get free from the old life +if I could!" + +She threw back her head proudly. Her eyes were full of tears. Then she +rose impetuously. + +"There!--I've told you. I suppose you don't want to be friends with me +any more. It was rotten of me, I know, for, of course--I saw--you seemed +to be getting to care for me. I told Janet when we set up work together +that I wasn't a bad woman. And I'm not. But I'm weak. You'd better not +trust me. And besides--I fell into the mud--and I expect it sticks to me +still!" + +She spoke with passionate animation--almost fierceness. While through her +inner mind there ran the thought, "I've told him!--I've told him! If he +doesn't understand, it's not my fault. I can always say, 'I _did_ tell +you--about Roger--_and the rest_!--as much as I was bound to tell you.' +Why should I make him miserable--and destroy my own chances with him for +_nothing_?" + +They stood fronting each other. Over the fine bronzed face of the +forester there ran a ripple of profound emotion--nostril and lip--and +eye. Then she found herself in his arms--with no power to resist or free +herself. Two or three deep, involuntary sobs--sobs of excitement--shook +her, as she felt his kisses on her cheek. + +"Darling!--I'll try and make up to you--for all you've suffered. Poor +child!--poor little Rachel!" + +She clung to him, a great wave of passion sweeping through her also. She +thought, "Now I shall be happy!--and I shall make him happy, too. Of +course I shall!--I'm doing quite right." + +Presently he put her back in her chair, and sat beside her on the low +fender stool, in front of the fire. His aspect was completely +transformed. The triumphant joy which filled him had swept away the +slightly stiff and reserved manner which was on the whole natural to him. +And it had swept away at the same time all the doubts and hesitations of +his inner mind. She had told her story, it seemed to him, with complete +frankness, and a humility which appealed to all that was chivalrous and +generous in a strong man. He was ready now to make more excuses for her, +in the matter of his own misleading, than she seemed to wish to make for +herself. How natural that she should act as she had acted! The thought of +her suffering, of her ill-treatment was intolerable to him--and of the +brute who had inflicted it. + +"Do you know where that man is now?" he said to her presently. She had +fallen back in her chair--pale and shaken, but dressed, for his eyes, in +a loveliness, a pathos, that was every moment strengthening her hold upon +him. + +"Roger? No, I have no idea. I always suppose he's in Canada still. He +never appeared when the case was tried. But the summons had to be served +on him, and my lawyers succeeded in tracking him to a lodging in Calgary, +where he was living--with the Italian girl. But after that we never heard +any more of him--except that I had a little pencil note--unsigned, +undated, delivered by hand--just before the trial came on. It said I +should repent casting him off--that I had treated him shamefully--that I +was a vile woman--and though I had got the better of him for the time, he +would have his revenge before long." + +Ellesborough shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. + +"Threats are cheap! I hope you soon put that out of your mind?" + +She made a little restless movement. + +"Yes, I--I suppose so. But I did tell you once, didn't I, that--I often +had fears--about nothing?" + +"Yes, you did tell me," he said, smiling. "Don't have any more fears, +darling! I'll see to that." + +He took her hands again, and raised them to his lips and kissed them. It +astonished him to feel them so cold, and see her again so excited and +pale. Was she really afraid of the villain she had escaped from? The +dear, foolish woman! The man in his self-confident strength loved her the +more for the vague terrors he felt himself so well able to soothe. + +For half an hour more they sat together, in that first intimacy of love, +which transfigures men and women, so that when they pass back from it +into ordinary life they scarcely recognize life or themselves again. They +talked much less of the past than of the future--and that in the light of +the glorious war news coming in day by day. Austria was on the point of +surrender--the German landslide might come at any moment--then +_peace_!--incredible word. Ellesborough would hardly now get to France. +They might be able to marry soon--within a few weeks. As to the farm, he +asked her, laughing, whether she would take him in as a junior partner +for a time, till they could settle their plans. "I've got a bit of money +of my own. But first you must let me go back, as soon as there are ships +to go in--to see after my own humble business. We could launch out--get +some fine stock--try experiments. It's a going concern, and I've got a +good share in it. Why shouldn't you go, too?" + +He saw her shrink. + +"To Canada? Oh, no!" + +He scourged himself mentally for having taken her thoughts back to the +old unhappy times. But she soon recovered herself. Then it was time for +him to go, and he stood up. + +"I should like to have seen Janet!" he said joyously. "She'll have to get +used to Christian names. How soon will you tell her? Directly she +comes in?" + +"Certainly not. I shall wait--till to-morrow morning." + +He laughed, whispering into her ear, as her soft, curly head lay against +his breast. + +"You won't wait ten minutes--you couldn't! Well, I must be going, or +they'll shut me out of the camp." + +"Why do you hurry so?" + +"Hurry? Why, I shall be an hour late, anyway. I shall have to give myself +C.B. to-morrow." + +She laughed--a sound of pure content. Then she suddenly drew herself +away, frowning at him. + +"You do love me--you do--you will always!--whatever people may say?" + +He was surprised at the note almost of violence in her voice. He answered +it by a passionate caress, which she bore with trembling. Then she +resolutely moved away. + +"Do go!" she said to him, imploringly. "I'd like to be a few +minutes--alone--before they come back." + +He saw her settle herself by the fire, her hands stretched out to the +blaze. Seeing that the fire was low, and remembering the chill of her +hands in his, he looked around for the wood-basket which was generally +kept in a corner behind the piano. + +His movement was suddenly arrested. He was looking towards the +uncurtained window. The night had grown pitch dark outside, and there +were splashes of rain against the glass. But he distinctly saw as he +turned a man's face pressed against the glass--a strained, sallow, face, +framed in straggling black hair, a face with regular features, and eyes +deeply set in blackened orbits. It was a face of hatred; the lips tightly +drawn over the teeth, seemed to have a curse on them. + +The vision lasted only a moment. Ellesborough's trained instinct, the +wary instinct of the man who had parsed days and nights with nature in +her wilder and lonelier places, checked the exclamation on his lips. And +before he could move again, the face had disappeared. The old holly bush +growing against the farm wall, from which the apparition seemed to have +sprung, was still there, some of its glossy leaves visible in the bright +light of the paraffin lamp which stood on the table near the window. And +there was nothing else. + +Ellesborough quietly walked to the window, drew down the blind, and +pulled the curtains together. Rachel looked around at the sound. + +"Didn't I do that?" she said, half dreamily. + +"We forgot!" He smiled at her. "Now it's all cosy. Ah, there they are! +Perhaps I'll get Janet to come as far as the road with me." For voices +were approaching--Janet talking to the girls. Rachel looked up, +assenting. The colour had rushed back to her face. Ellesborough took in +the picture of her, sitting unconscious by the fire, while his own +pulse was thumping under the excitement of what he had seen. + +With a last word to her, he closed the sitting-room door behind him, and +went out to meet Janet Leighton in the dark. + + + + +IX + + +It was a foggy October evening, and Berkeley Square, from which the +daylight had not yet departed, made a peculiarly dismal impression on +the passers-by, under the mingled illumination of its half-blinded lamps, +and of a sunset which in the country was clear and golden, and here in +west London could only give a lurid coppery tinge to the fog, to the +eastern house-fronts, and to the great plane-trees holding the Square +garden, like giants encamped. Landsowne House, in its lordly seclusion +from the rest of the Square, seemed specially to have gathered the fog to +itself, and was almost lost from sight. Not a ray of light escaped the +closely-shuttered windows. The events of the _mensis mirabilis_ were +rushing on. Bulgaria, Austria, Turkey, had laid down their arms--the +German cry for an armistice had rung through Europe. But still London lay +dark and muffled. Her peril was not yet over. + +In the drawing-room of one of the houses on the eastern side, belonging +to a Warwickshire baronet and M.P.--Sir Richard Winton by name--a lady +was standing in front of a thrifty fire, which in view of the coal +restrictions of the moment, she had been very unwilling to light at all. +The restrictions irritated her; so did the inevitable cold of the room; +and most of all was she annoyed and harassed by the thought of a visitor +who might appear at any moment. She was tall, well-made, and plain. One +might have guessed her age at about thirty-five. She had been out in the +earlier afternoon, attending a war meeting on behalf of some charities in +which she was interested, and she had not yet removed a high and stately +hat with two outstanding wings and much jet ornament, which she had worn +at the meeting, to the huge indignation of her neighbours. The black of +her silk dress was lightened by a rope of pearls, and various diamond +trinkets. Her dress fitted her to perfection. Competence and will were +written in her small, shrewd eyes and in the play of a decided mouth. + +There was a knock at the door. At Lady Winton's "Come in!" a stout, +elderly maid appeared. She came up to her mistress, and said in a lowered +voice,-- + +"You'll see Mr. Roger here?" + +"Why, I told you so, Nannie!" was the impatient answer. "Is everybody out +of the way?" + +The maid explained that all was ready. Jones the butler had been +sent with a note to the City, and the housemaid was sitting with the +kitchen-maid, who was recovering from the flu. + +"I told them I'd answer the bell. And I'll keep an eye that no one comes +down before he's gone. There he is!" + +For the bell had rung, and the maid hastened to the hall door to answer +it. + +A tall man entered--coughing. + +"Beastly night, Nannie!" he said, as soon as the cough would let him. +"Don't suit my style. Well?--how are you? Had the flu, like everybody +else?" + +"Not yet, Mr. Roger--though it's been going through the house. Shall I +take your coat?" + +"You'd better not. I'm too shabby underneath." + +"Sir Richard's in the country, Mr. Roger." + +"Oh, so her ladyship's alone? Well, that's how I generally find her, +isn't it?" + +But Nannie--with her eye on the stairs--was not going to allow him any +lingering in the hall. She led him quickly to the drawing-room, opened +it, and closed it behind him. Then she herself retreated into a small +smoking-den at the farther end of the hall, and sat there, without a +light, with the door open--watching. + +Roger Delane instinctively straightened himself to his full height as he +entered his sister's drawing-room. His overcoat, though much worn, was of +an expensive make and cut; he carried the Malacca cane which had been his +companion in the Brookshire roads; and the eyeglass that he adjusted as +he caught sight of his sister completed the general effect of shabby +fashion. His manner was jaunty and defiant. + +"Well, Marianne," he said, pausing some yards from her. "You don't seem +particularly glad to see me. Hullo!--has Dick been buying some more +china?" + +And before his sister could say anything, he had walked over to a table +covered with various bric-a-brac, where, taking up a fine Nankin vase, he +looked closely at the marks on its base. + +Lady Winton flushed with anger. + +"I think you had better leave the china alone, Roger. I have only got a +very few minutes. What do you want? Money, I suppose--as usual! And yet I +warned you in my last letter that you would do this kind of thing once +too often, and that we were _not_ going to put up with it!" She struck +the table beside her with her glove. + +Delane put down the china and surveyed her. + +"The vase is Ming all right--better stuff than Dick generally buys. I +congratulate him. Well, I'm sorry for you, my dear Marianne--but you +_are_ my sister--and you can't help yourself!" + +He looked at her, half-smiling, with a quiet bravado which enraged her. + +"Don't talk like that, Roger! Tell me directly what it is you want. You +seem to think you can force me to see you at any time, whatever I may be +doing. But--" + +"Your last letter was 'a bit thick'--you see--it provoked me," said +Delane calmly. "Of course you can get the police to chuck me out if you +like. You would be quite in your rights. But I imagine the effect on the +aristocratic nerves of Berkeley Square would be amusing. However--" + +He looked round him-- + +"As Carlyle said to the old Queen, 'I'm getting old, madam, and with your +leave I'll take a chair--'" + +He pushed an arm-chair forward. + +"And let me make up the fire. It's beginning to freeze outside." + +Lady Winton moved quickly to the fireplace, holding out a prohibiting +hand. + +"There is quite enough fire, thank you. I am going out presently." + +Delane sat down, and extended a pair of still shapely feet to the slender +flame in the grate. + +"Dick's boots!" he said, tapping them with his cane, and looking round at +his sister. "What a lot of wear I've got out of them since he threw them +away! His overcoat, too. And now that it's the thing to be shabby, Dick's +clothes are really a godsend. I defraud Jones. But I have no doubt that +Jones gets a good deal more than is good for him." + +"Look here, Roger!--suppose you stop talking this nonsense and come to +business," said Marianne Winton, in pale exasperation. "I've sent Jones +out with a note--but he'll be back directly. And I've got an appointment. +What are you doing? Have you got any work to do?" + +She took a seat not far from her brother, who perceived from her tone +that he had perhaps gone as far as was prudent. + +"Oh, dear, no, I've got no work to do," he said, smiling. "That's not a +commodity that comes my way. But I must somehow manage to keep a roof +over Anita and the child. So what can I do but count on your assistance, +my dear? My father left you a great deal of money which in equity +belonged to me--and I am bound to remind you of it." + +"You know very well why he left you so little!" said Lady Winton. "We +needn't go into that old story. I ask you again, what do you want?" She +took out her watch. "I have just ten minutes." + +"What do I want?" He looked at her with a slow, whimsical laugh. "Money, +my dear, money! Money means everything that I must have--food, coals, +clothes, doctor, chemist, buses--decent houseroom for Anita and myself--" + +A shiver of revulsion ran through his sister. + +"Have you married that woman?" + +He laughed. + +"As you seemed to think it desirable, Anita and I did take a trip to a +Registry Office about a month ago. It's all lawful now--except for our +abominable English law that doesn't legitimize the children. But"--he +sprang to his feet with a movement which startled her--"whom do you think +I've seen lately?" + +His sister stared at him, amazed at the change in him--the animation, the +rush of colour in the hollow, emaciated face. + +"_Rachel_!--my wife--my former--precious--wife. I thought she was in +Canada. No doubt she thought the same of me. But I've stumbled upon her +quite by chance--living close to the place where I had taken lodgings for +Anita and the babe, in September, in case there were more raids this +winter. What do you think of that?" + +"It doesn't interest me at all," said Lady Winton coldly. + +"Then you have no dramatic sense, my dear. Just think! I stroll out, for +want of anything better to do, with Anita, into the market-place of a +beastly little country town, to see a silly sort of show--a mixture of a +Harvest Festival and a Land Girls' beano--when without a moment's +warning--standing up in a decorated wagon--I behold--_Rachel_!--handsomer +than ever!--in a kind of khaki dress--tunic, breeches, and +leggings--enormously becoming!--and, of course, the observed of all +observers. More than that!--I perceive a young man, in an American +uniform, dancing attendance upon her--taking her orders--walking her off +to church--Oh, a perfectly clear case!--no doubt about it at all. And +there I stood--within a few yards of her--and she never saw me!" + +He broke off, staring at his sister--a wild, exultant look--which struck +her uncomfortably. Her face showed her arrested, against her will. + +"Are you sure she didn't see you?" + +"Sure. I put the child on my shoulder, and hid behind her. Besides--my +dear--even Rachel might find it difficult to recognize her discarded +husband--in this individual!" + +He tapped his chest lightly. Lady Winton could not withdraw her +own eyes from him. Yes, it was quite true. The change in him was +shocking--ghastly. He had brought it entirely on himself. But she +could not help saying, in a somewhat milder tone,-- + +"Have you seen that doctor again?" + +"To whom you so obligingly sent me? Yes, I saw him yesterday. One lung +seems to have finally struck work--_caput_! as the Germans say. The other +will last a bit longer yet." + +A fit of coughing seized him. His sister instinctively moved farther away +from him, looking at him with frightened and hostile eyes. + +"Don't be alarmed," he said, as soon as he had found his voice again, +"I'm drenched in disinfectant. I take all proper precautions--for the +child's sake. Now then"--he rose with an effort to his feet--"what are +you going to do for me?" + +His aspect had altered, had assumed a sinister and passionate intensity. +His sister was conscious of the menace in it, and hastily taking up a +small hand-bag lying near her, she produced a purse from it. + +"I have saved twenty pounds for you--out of my own money--with _great_ +difficulty," she said, with indignant emphasis. "If I were to tell +Richard, he would be furious. And I cannot--do--_anything_--more for you, +beyond the allowance I give you. Everything you suffer from, you have +brought upon, yourself. It is hopeless to try and help you." + +He laughed. + +"Well, then, I must try Rachel!" he said carelessly, as he looked for his +hat. + +"That I think would be the lowest depth!" said Lady Winton, breathing +quick, "to beg money from the wife who divorced you!" + +"I am ready to beg for money--requisition is the better word--from +anybody in the world who has more of it than I. I am a Bolshevist. You +needn't talk to me about property, or rights. I don't acknowledge them. +I want something that you've got, and I haven't. I shall take it if I +find the opportunity--civilly if I can, uncivilly, if I must." + +Lady Winton made no reply. She stood, a statue of angry patience waiting +for him to go. He slowly buttoned on his coat, and then stepped coolly +across the room to look at an enlarged photograph of a young soldier +standing on the piano. + +"Handsome chap! You're in luck, Marianne. I suppose you managed to get +him into a staff job of some sort, out of harm's way?" + +He turned to her with a sneer on his lips. His sister was still silent. + +The man moving about the room was perhaps the thing she feared and +hated most in the world. Every scene of this kind--and he forced them +on her, in spite of her futile resistance, at fairly frequent +intervals--represented to her an hour of torture and humiliation. How to +hide the scenes and the being who caused them, from her husband, her +servants, her friends, was becoming almost her chief preoccupation. +She was beginning to be afraid of her brother. For some time she had +regarded him as incipiently insane, and as she watched him this evening +he seemed to her more than ever charged with sinister possibilities. It +appeared to be impossible to influence or frighten him; and she realized +that as he seemed not to care a fig whether she caused a scandal or not, +and she cared with every pulse of her being, she was really in his power, +and it was no good struggling. + +"Well, good-night, Edith," he said at last, taking up his hat. "This'll +last for a bit--but not very long, I warn you--prices being what they +are. Oh, by the way, my name just now is Wilson--make a note of it!" + +"What's that for?" she said disdainfully. + +"Some Canadian creditors of mine got wind of me--worse luck. I had to +change my quarters, and drop the old name--for a bit. However--what's +in a name?" He laughed, and held out his hand. + +"Going to shake hands, Edie? You used to be awfully fond of me, when you +were small." + +She stood, apparently unmoved, her hands hanging. The pathetic note had +been tried on her too often. + +"Good-night, Roger. Nannie will show you out." + +The door closed on him, and Lady Winton dropped on a sofa by the fire, +her face showing white and middle-aged in the firelight. She was just +an ordinary woman, only with a stronger will than most; and as an +ordinary woman, amid all her anger and fear, she was not wholly proof +against such a spectacle as that now presented by her once favourite +brother. It was not his words that affected her--but a hundred little +personal facts which every time she saw him burnt a little more deeply +into her consciousness the irreparableness of his personal ruin--physical +and moral. Idleness, drink, disease--the loss of shame, of self-respect, +of manners--the sense of something vital gone for ever--all these fatal +things stared out upon her, from his slippery emaciated face, his +borrowed clothes, his bullying voice--the scent on him of the mews in +which he lived! + +She covered her face with her hands and cried a little. She could +remember when he was the darling and pride of the family--especially of +his father. How had it happened? He had said to her once, "There must +have been a black drop somewhere in our forbears, Edie. It has reappeared +in me. We are none of us responsible, my dear, for our precious selves. I +may be a sinner and a loafer--but that benevolent Almighty of yours made +me." + +That was wicked stuff, of course; but there had been a twist in him from +the beginning. Had _she_ done her best for him? There were times when her +conscience pricked her. + +The clock struck seven. The sound brought her to her feet. She must go +and dress. Richard would be home directly, and they were dining out, to +meet a distinguished General, in London for a few days' leave from the +front. Dick must, of course, know nothing of Roger's visit; and she must +hurriedly go and look up the distinguished General's career in case she +had to sit next him. Vehemently she put the preceding hour out of her +mind. The dinner-party to which she was going flattered her vanity. It +turned her cold to think that Roger might some day do something which +would damage that "position" which she had built up for herself and her +husband, by ten years' careful piloting of their joint lives. She knew +she was called a "climber." She knew also that she had "climbed" +successfully, and that it was Roger's knowledge of the fact, combined +with a horrid recklessness which seemed to be growing in him, that made +the danger of the situation. + +Meanwhile Delane stepped out into the fog, which, however, was lifting a +little. He made his way down into Piccadilly, which was crowded with +folk, men and women hurrying home from their offices, and besieging the +omnibuses--with hundreds of soldiers too, most of them with a girl beside +them, and smart young officers of every rank and service--while the whole +scene breathed an animation and excitement, which meant a common +consciousness, in the crowd, of great happenings. All along the street +were men with newspapers, showing the headlines to passers-by. "President +Wilson's answer to the German appeal expected to-morrow." "The British +entry into Lille." + +Delane bought an _Evening News_, glanced at the headlines, and threw it +away. What did the war matter to him?--or the new world that fools +supposed to be coming after it? Consumptives had a way, no doubt, of +living longer than people expected--or hoped. Still, he believed that a +couple of years or so would see him out. And that being so, he felt +a kind of malignant indifference towards this pushing, chattering world, +aimlessly going about its silly business, as though there were any real +interest or importance in it. + +Then, as he drifted with the crowd, he found himself caught in a +specially dense bit of it, which had gathered round some fallen horses. A +thin slip of a girl beside him, who was attempting to get through the +crush, was roughly elbowed by a burly artilleryman determined to see the +show. She protested angrily, and Delane suddenly felt angry, too. "You +brute, you,--let the lady pass!" he called to the soldier, who turned +with a grin, and was instantly out of reach and sight. "Take my arm," +said Delane to the girl--"Where are you going?" The little thing looked +up--hesitated--and took his arm. "I'm going to get a bus at the Circus." +"All right. I'll see you there." She laughed and flushed, and they walked +on together. Delane looked at her with curiosity. High cheek-bones--a red +spot of colour on them--a sharp chin--small, emaciated features, and +beautiful deep eyes. Phthisical!--like himself--poor little wretch! He +found out that she was a waitress in a cheap eating-house, and had very +long hours. "Jolly good pay, though, compared to what it used to be! Why, +with tips, on a good day, I can make seven and eight shillings. That's +good, ain't it? And now the war's goin' to stop. Do you think I want it +to stop? I don't think! Me and my sister'll be starvin' again, I +suppose?" + +He found out she was an orphan, living with her sister, who was a typist, +in Kentish town. But she refused to tell him her address, which he idly +asked her. "What did you want with it?" she said, with a sudden frown. +"I'm straight, I am. There's my bus! Night! night!--So long!" And with a +half-sarcastic wave of her tiny hand, she left him, and was soon engulfed +in the swirl round a north-bound bus. + +He wandered on along Regent Street, and Waterloo Place, down the Duke of +York's steps into the Mall, where some captured guns were already in +position, with children swarming about them; and so through St. James's +Park to the Abbey. The fog was now all but clear, and there were frosty +stars overhead. The Abbey towers rose out of a purple haze, etherially +pale and moon-touched. The House of Commons was sitting, but there was +still no light on the Clock Tower, and no unmuffling of the lamps. London +was waiting, as the world was waiting, for the next step in the vast +drama which had three continents for its setting; and meanwhile, save for +the added movements in the streets, and a new something in the faces of +the crowds hurrying along the pavements, there was nothing to show that +all was in fact over, and the war won. + +Delane followed a stream of people entering the Abbey through the north +transept. He was carried on by them, till a verger showed him into a seat +near the choir, and he mechanically obeyed, and dropped on his knees. + +When he rose from them, the choir was filing in, and the vergers with +their pokers were escorting the officiating Canon to his seat. Delane had +not been inside a church for two or three years, and it was a good deal +more since he had stood last in Westminster Abbey. But as he watched the +once familiar spectacle there flowed back upon him, with startling force, +old impressions and traditions. He was in Cambridge again, a King's man, +attending King's Chapel. He was thinking of his approaching Schools, and +there rose in his mind a number of figures, moving or at rest, Cambridge +men like himself, long since dismissed from recollection. Suddenly memory +seemed to open out--to become full, and urgent, and emphatic. He appeared +to be living at a great rate, to be thinking and feeling with peculiar +force. Perhaps it was fever. His hands burnt. + +"_My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my +Saviour!_" + +As the chant rose, and he recognized the words, he felt extraordinarily +exalted, released, purified. Why not think away the past? It has no +existence, except in thought. + +"I am what I conceive myself to be--who can prove me to be anything else? +What am I then! An educated man, with a mind--an intelligence. I have +damaged it, but there it is--still mine." + +His eyes wandered, during the Lesson, to the line of sculptured Statesmen +in the north transept. He had taken History honours, and his thoughts +began to play with matter still stored in them: an essay on Dizzy and +Cobden he had written for a Cambridge club--or Gladstone's funeral, which +he had seen as a boy of seventeen. He had sat almost in this very place, +with his mother, who had taken pains to bring him to see it as an +historic spectacle which he might wish to remember. A quiet, dull woman, +his mother--taciturn, and something of a bookworm. She had never +understood him, nor he her. But she had occasionally shown moments of +expansion and emotion, when the soul within glowed a little through its +coverings; and he remembered the look in her eyes as the coffin +disappeared into the earth, amid the black-coated throng of Lords and +Commons. She had been for years a great though silent worshipper of Mr. +Gladstone, to the constant amusement of her Tory husband and sons. + +Then, suddenly, a face, a woman's pretty face, in the benches of the +north transept, caught his eye, and with a leap, as of something +unchained, the beast within him awoke. It had reminded him of Rachel; and +therewith the decent memories of the distant past disappeared, engulfed +by the seething, ugly, mud-stained present. He was again crouching on the +hill-side, in the shelter of the holly, watching the scene within: Rachel +in that man's arms! Had the American seen him? He remembered his own +backward start of alarm, as Ellesborough suddenly turned and walked +towards the window. He had allowed himself, in his eagerness to see, to +press too near. He had exposed himself? He did not really believe that he +had been discovered--unless the American was an uncommonly cool hand! Any +way, his retreat to the wooded cover of the hill had been prompt. Once +arrived in the thick plantation on the crest, he had thrown himself down +exhausted. But as he sat panting there, on the fringe of the wood, he had +fancied voices and the flash of a light in the hollow beneath him. These +slight signs of movement, however, had quickly disappeared. Darkness and +silence resumed possession of the farm, and he had had no difficulty in +finding his way unmolested through the trees to the main road, and to the +little town, five miles nearer to London than Millsborough, at which he +had taken a room, under his present name of Wilson. + +The wooded common, indeed, with its high, withered bracken, together with +the hills encircling the farm, had been the cover from which he had +carried out his prying campaign upon his former wife. As he sat or knelt, +mechanically, under the high and shadowy spaces of the Abbey, his mind +filled with excited recollections of that other evening when, after +tearing his hand badly on some barbed wire surrounding one of Colonel +Shepherd's game preserves, so that it bled profusely, and he had nothing +to bandage it with, he had suddenly become aware of voices behind him, +and of a large party of men in khaki--Canadian foresters, by the look +of them, from the Ralstone timber camp, advancing, at some distance, in a +long extended line through the trees; so that they were bound to come +upon him if he remained in the wood. He turned back at once, faced the +barbed wire again, with renewed damage both to clothes and hands, and +ran, crouching, down the green road leading to the farm, his wound +bleeding as he ran. Then he had perceived an old labourer making for him +with shouts. But under the shelter of the cart-shed, he had first +succeeded in tying his handkerchief so tightly round his wrist, with his +teeth and one hand, as to check the bleeding, which was beginning to make +him feel faint. Then, creeping round the back of the farm, he saw that +the upper half of the stable door was open, and leaping over it, he had +hidden among the horses, just as Halsey came past in pursuit. The old +man--confound him!--had made the circuit of the farm, and had then gone +up the grass road to the hill. Delane, looking out from the dark stable, +had been able to watch him through the dusk, keeping an eye the while to +the opposite door opening on the farm-yard. But the labourer disappeared, +and in the dark roomy stable, with its beamed roof, nothing could be +heard but the champing and slow tramping movements of the splendid +cart-horses. Rachel's horses! Delane passed his free hand over two of +them, and they turned their stately heads and nosed him in a quiet way. +Then he vaulted again over the half door, and hurried up the hill, in the +gathering darkness. + +He was aware of the ghost-story. He had heard it and the story of the +murder from a man cutting bracken on the common; and he had already +formed some vague notions of making use of it for the blackmailing of +Rachel. It amused him to think that perhaps his sudden disappearance +would lead to a new chapter of the old tale. + +Then at the recollection of Rachel's prosperity and peace, of her sleek +horses and cows, her huge hay and corn stacks, her comfortable home, and +her new lover, a fresh shudder of rage and hatred gripped him. She had +once been his thing--his chattel; he seemed to see her white neck and +breast, her unbound hair on the pillow beside him--and she had escaped +him, and danced on him. + +Of course she had betrayed him--of course she had had a lover! What other +explanation was there of her turning against him?--of her flight from his +house? But she had been clever enough to hide all the traces of it. He +recalled his own lame and baffled attempts to get hold of some evidence +against her, with gnashing of teeth.... + + * * * * * + +"_For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are +not seen are eternal!_" + +He caught the words staring at him from the page of the open prayer book +beside him, and automatically the Greek equivalent suggested itself. He +had always done well in "divinners"! Then he became aware that the +blessing had been given, that the organ was playing, and the congregation +was breaking up. + + * * * * * + +Twenty-four hours later, Delane found himself on a road leading up from +the town where he was lodging to the summit of the wide stretch of common +land on the western side of which lay Great End Farm. Half way up a long +hill, he came upon a young man in uniform, disconsolately kneeling beside +a bicycle which he seemed to be vainly trying to mend. As Delane came up +with him, he looked up and asked for a light. Delane produced a match, +and the young man, by the help of it, inspected his broken machine. + +"No go!" he said with a shrug, "I shall have to walk." + +He rose from the ground, put up the tool he had been using, and buttoned +up his coat. Then he asked Delane where he was going. Delane named a +little village on the farther edge of the common. + +"Oh, well, that's straight ahead. I turn off to the right," said the +young soldier, "at the cross road." + +They walked on together, Delane rather unwillingly submitting to the +companionship thus sprung upon him. He saw from the badge on the man's +shoulder that he belonged to one of the Canadian Forestry Corps in the +district, and was at once on his guard. They started in silence, till +Delane, pulling his mind back with a jerk, asked his companion if he was +going to Ipscombe. + +"No--only to Great End Farm." + +Darkness hid the sudden change in Delane's countenance. + +"You know some one there?" + +"No, but I want to see one of the ladies about something. There's two of +them running the farm. But Miss Henderson's the boss." + +Cautiously, with assumed indifference, Delane began to ask questions. + +He discovered that his companion's name was Dempsey; and before many +minutes had passed the murderer's grandson was in the full swing of his +story. Delane, despising the young man for a chattering fool, listened, +nevertheless, with absorbed attention to every item of his tale. +Presently Dempsey said with a laugh,-- + +"There's been people in Ipscombe all these years as always would have it +old Watson walked. I know the names of three people at least as have +sworn to seein' 'im. And there's an old fellow in Ipscombe now that +declares he's seen him, only t'ther day." + +Delane lit his pipe, and nonchalantly inquired particulars. + +Dempsey gave a mocking account of Halsey's story. + +"He's an old fool! Did you ever hear of a ghost bleedin' before!" The +speaker threw back his head and laughed. "That's all rot! Besides, I +don't believe in ghosts--never did. But as Miss Henderson's farmin' the +very land where old Watson was done in, I thought she'd like to have the +true story and first hand. And there's no one but me knows it--not first +hand. So I wrote to her, and said as I would call at six o'clock this +evening." + +"You know her?" + +"No--o," said the young man, hesitating. "But I somehow fancy as I may +have seen her before." + +"Where?" + +"Why, in Canada. I was living on a farm, not far from Winnipeg"--he named +the place. Delane suddenly dropped his pipe, and stooped to pick it up. + +"All right," he said, "go on." + +"And there was a man--a sort of gentleman--his name was Delane--on +another farm about ten miles from where I was working. People talked +of him no end--he was a precious bad lot! I never saw him that I know +of--but I saw his wife twice. They say he was a brute to her. And she was +awfully handsome. You couldn't forget her when you'd once come across +her. And when I saw Miss Henderson drivin' one of the wagons in the +Millsborough Harvest Festival, a fortnight ago, I could have sworn it was +Mrs. Delane. But, of course, it was my mistake." + +"Where did you see Mrs. Delane?" + +"Once at her own place. I was delivering some poultry food that Delane +had bought of my employer--and once at a place belongin' to a man +called Tanner." + +"Tanner?" + +"Tanner. He was somethin' the same sort as Delane. We've a lot of them in +Canada--remittance men, we call them--men as can't get on in the old +country--and their relations pay 'em to go--and pay 'em to keep away. But +Tanner was a nice sort of fellow--quite different from Delane. He painted +pictures. I remember his showin' some o' them in Winnipeg. But he was +always down on his luck. He couldn't make any money, and he couldn't +keep it." + +"You saw Miss Henderson there?" + +Dempsey gave a guffaw. + +"Oh, Lor, no! I don't say that. Why, I'd get into trouble--shouldn't I? +But I saw Mrs. Delane. I was driving past Tanner's place, with two +horses, and a heavy load, November two years ago--just before we passed +our Military Service Act, and I joined up. And an awful storm came on--a +regular blizzard. Before I got to Tanner's I was nearly wore out, an' the +horses, too. So I stopped to ask for a hot drink or somethin'. You +couldn't see the horses' heads for the snow. And Tanner brought me out +some hot coffee--I'm a teetotaller, you see--an' a woman stood at the +door, and handed it to him. She was holdin' a lamp, so I saw her quite +plain. And I knew her at once, though she was only there a minute. It was +Mrs. Roger Delane." + +He stopped to light a cigarette. No sound came from his companion. All +round them spread the great common, with its old thorns, its clumps of +fir, its hollows and girdling woods, faintly lit by a ghostly moonlight +that was just beginning to penetrate the misty November dusk. The +cheerful light of Dempsey's cigarette shone a moment in the gloom. Delane +was conscious of an excitement which it took all his will to master. But +he spoke carelessly. + +"And what was Mrs. Delane doing there?" + +Dempsey chuckled. + +"How should I know? Tanner used to have a sister staying with him +sometimes. Perhaps she and Mrs. Delane were friends. But I saw that woman +quite plain. It was Mrs. Delane--that I'll swear. And Miss Henderson is +as like her as two peas. It might have been her sister. Miss Henderson's +very uncommon-looking. You don't often see that complexion and that hair. +And she has lived in Canada." + +"How do you know?" + +"She told old Halsey. Well, there's my road, just ahead. And if you're +going to Moor End, you keep straight on. The moon's coming up. It won't +be very dark." And with a careless good-night, the Canadian turned a +corner, and disappeared along a road which diverged at a right angle from +the main road, and led, as Delane knew, direct to Ipscombe. + +He himself walked on, till he found a lane tunnelled through one of the +deep woods that on their western side ran down to Great End Farm. In the +heart of that wood there was a keeper's hut, disused entirely since the +war. Delane had discovered it, and was quite prepared to spend a night +there at a pinch. There was a rude fireplace in it, and some old sacks. +With some of the fallen wood lying about, a man could make a fire, and +pass a winter night in very tolerable comfort. + +He made his way in, managed to prop a sack against the small cobwebbed +window, fastened the door with a rusty bolt, and brought out an electric +torch he always carried in his pocket. + +There was not a house within a long distance. There were no keepers now +on Colonel Shepherd's estate. Darkness--the woods--and the wild creatures +in them--were his only companions. Half a mile away, no doubt, Rachel in +her smart new parlour was talking to the Canadian fellow. + +_Tanner!_ Ye gods! At last he had the clue to it all. + + + + +X + + +Dempsey did not find Rachel Henderson at home when he called at Great End +Farm, after his meeting with his unknown companion on the common. + +Ellesborough and Rachel had gone to London for the day. Ellesborough's +duties at the Ralstone camp were in a state of suspended animation, +since, in these expectant days before the signing of the armistice, there +had been a general slackening, as though by silent and general consent, +in the timber felling due to the war throughout the beautiful district +in which Millsborough lay. Enough damage had been done already to the +great wood-sanctuaries. On one pretext or another men held their hands. + +Ellesborough then was free to take time off when he would, and to spend +it in love-making. The engagement had been announced, and Ellesborough +believed himself a very happy man--with the slight drawbacks that may be +imagined. + +In the first place--although, as he became better acquainted with +Rachel's varying moods and aspects, he fell more and more deeply under +the charm of her temperament--a temperament at once passionate and +childish, crude, and subtle, with many signs, fugitive and surprising, of +a deep and tragic reflectiveness; he became also more and more conscious +of what seemed to him the lasting effects upon her of her miserable +marriage. The nervous effects above all; shown by the vague "fears" of +which she had spoken to him, on one of their early walks together; and by +the gulfs of depression and silence into which she would often fall, +after periods of high, even wild spirits. + +It was this constant perception of a state of nervous suffering and +irritability in this splendid physical creature--a state explained, as he +thought, by her story, which had put him instantly on his guard, when +that sinister vision at the window had sprung for a moment out of the +darkness. Before almost he could move towards it, it had gone. And with a +farewell smile at the woman he had just been holding in his arms, a smile +which betrayed nothing, he had hurried away from her to investigate the +mystery. A hasty word to Janet Leighton in the kitchen, and he was making +a rapid circuit of the farm, and searching the farm-yard; with no results +whatever. + +Then he, Janet, and Hastings had held a hurried and secret colloquy in a +corner of the great cow-shed, as far from Rachel's sight and hearing as +possible. Clearly some one was haunting the farm for some malicious +purpose. Hastings, for the first time, told the story of the blood-marks, +and of two or three other supposed visions of a man, tall and stooping, +with a dark sallow face, which persons working on the farm, or walking +near it on the hill, had either seen or imagined. Ellesborough finally +had jumped on his motor-bicycle and ridden off to the police depot at +Millsborough. Some wind of the happenings at Great End Farm had already +reached the police, but they could throw no light on them. They arranged, +however, with Ellesborough to patrol the farm and the neighbourhood after +dark as often as their diminished force would allow. + +They were inclined to believe that some half-witted person was concerned, +drawn, perhaps, from the alien population which had been floating through +the district, and bent on mischief or robbery--or a mixture of both. + +Rachel meanwhile knew nothing of these consultations. After her +engagement was made public, she began to look so white, so tired and +tremulous, that both Ellesborough and Janet were alarmed. Overwork, +according to Janet, with the threshing, and in the potato-fields. Never +had Rachel worked with such a feverish energy as in these autumn weeks. +Add the excitement of an engagement, said Janet, and you see the result. + +She would have prescribed bed and rest; but Rachel scouted the advice. +The alternative was amusement--change of scene--in Ellesborough's +company. Here she was more docile, feverishly submissive and happy, +indeed, so long as Ellesborough made the plans, and Ellesborough watched +over her. Janet wondered at certain profound changes in her. It was, she +saw, the first real passion of Rachel's life. + + * * * * * + +So Dempsey called in vain. Miss Henderson was in town for a theatre and +shopping. But he saw Janet Leighton, to whom with all the dramatic +additions and flourishes he had now bestowed upon it, he told his story. +Janet, who, on a hint from Hastings, had expected the visitation, was at +any rate glad that Rachel was out of the way, seeing what a strong and +curious dislike she had to the ghost-story, and also to any talk of the +murder from which it originated. + +Janet, however, listened, and with a growing and fascinated attention, to +the old tale. Was there some real connection, she wondered, between it +and the creature who had been prowling round the farm? Was some one +personating the ghost, and for what reason? The same queries were +ardently in the mind of Dempsey. He reported Halsey's adventure, +commenting on it indignantly. + +"It's some one as knows the story, and is playin' the fool with it. It's +a very impudent thing to do! It's not playing fair, that's what it isn't; +and I'd like to get hold of him." + +Janet's mouth twitched. The young man's proprietorial interest in his +grandfather's crime, and annoyance that any one should interfere with it, +turned the whole thing to comedy. Moreover, his fatuous absorption in +that side of the matter made him useless for any other purpose: so that +she soon ceased from cross-examining him, and he rose to go. + +"Well, I'm sorry not to have seen Miss Henderson," he said awkwardly, +twisting his cap. "I'd like to have had a talk with her about Canada. It +was old Halsey told me she'd lived in Canada." + +"Yes," said Janet irresponsively. + +Dempsey smiled broadly and seemed embarrassed. At last he said with a +jerk:-- + +"I wonder if Miss Henderson ever knew a man called Tanner--who lived near +Winnipeg?" + +"I never heard her speak of him." + +"Because"--he still twirled--"when I saw Miss Henderson at Millsborough +that day of the rally, I thought as I'd seen her before." + +"Oh?" said Janet ardently. But some instinct put her on her guard. + +"Dick Tanner, they called him, was a man--an artist chap--who lived not +far from the man I was with--and I once saw a lady there just like Miss +Henderson." + +"Did you?" + +Dempsey grew bolder. + +"Only it couldn't have been Miss Henderson, you see--because this lady I +saw was a Mrs. Delane. But was Mrs. Delane perhaps a relation of Miss +Henderson? She was just like Miss Henderson." + +"I'll ask Miss Henderson," said Janet, moving towards the door, as a +signal to him to take his leave. "But I expect you're confusing her with +some one else." + +Dempsey, however, began rather eagerly to dot the i's. The picture of the +snowstorm, of the woman at the door, various points in his description +of her, and of the solitary--apparently bachelor--owner of the farm, +began to affect Janet uncomfortably. She got rid of the chatter-box as +soon as possible, and went slowly to the kitchen, to get supper ready. As +she fried the bacon, and took some vegetables out of the hay-box, she was +thinking fast. + +Tanner? No--she had never heard Rachel mention the name. But it happened +that Dempsey had given a precise date. It was in the "November before +they Passed Conscription" in Canada, _i.e._ before he himself was called +up--that he saw Mrs. Delane, at night, in Dick Tanner's house. And Janet +remembered that, according to the story which as they two sat by the fire +alone at night, when the girls were gone to bed, Rachel had gradually +built up before her. It was in that same month that Rachel had been +deserted by Delane; who had gone off to British Columbia with the Italian +girl, as his wife afterwards knew, leaving Rachel alone on the farm--with +one Japanese servant. + +Why shouldn't she have been staying on Mr. Tanner's farm? There was no +doubt some one else there--whom the boy didn't see. Perhaps she had +herself taken refuge there during the storm. But all the same Janet felt +vaguely troubled. + + * * * * * + +It was nearly seven o'clock, and the moon, now at the full, was rising +over the eastern hill, and balancing the stubbles and the new-turned +plough-lands in the upland cup to a pearly whiteness as they lay under +the dark woods and a fleecy sky. There was a sound of a motor in the +lane--the village taxi bringing the travellers home. + +In a few more minutes they were in the sitting-room, Rachel throwing off +her thick coat with Ellesborough's help, and declaring that she was not +the least tired. + +"Don't believe her!" said Ellesborough, smiling at Janet. "She is not a +truthful woman!" + +And his proud eyes returned to Rachel as though now that there was light +to see her by he had no other use for them. + +Rachel, indeed, was in a radiant mood. Pallor and depression had +vanished; she was full of chatter about the streets, the crowds, the +shops. + +"But it's hopeless to go shopping with a man! He can't make up his mind +one bit!" + +"He hadn't a mind to make up!" murmured Ellesborough, looking up at her +as she perched above him on a corner of the table. + +She laughed. + +"That, I suppose, was what made him want to buy the whole place! If I'd +taken his advice, Janet, I should have been just cleaned out!" + +"What's the good of being economical when one's going to be married!" +said Ellesborough, joyously. "Why--" + +Rachel interrupted him--with a hand on his shoulder. + +"And we've settled our plans, Janet--that is, if you're agreeable. Will +you mind looking after the farm for six months?" + +"You see, if the armistice is signed--and we shall know to-morrow," said +Ellesborough, "I shall be free in a month or so, and then we propose to +marry and get a passage before Christmas. I must go home, and she says +she'll come with me!" + +A shadow had fallen suddenly, it seemed to Janet, over Rachel's aspect, +but she at once endorsed what Ellesborough had said. + +"We can't settle things--can we?--till we've seen his people. We've got +to decide whether I'll go to America, or he'll come here." + +"But we want to say"--Ellesborough turned gravely to Janet--"that first +and foremost, we wish to do the best for you." + +The sudden tears came into Janet's eyes. But they did not show. + +"Oh, that'll be all right. Don't bother about me." + +"We shall bother!" said Rachel with energy, "but I'll tell you all about +it presently. He won't stay to supper." + +She descended from the table, and Ellesborough rose. After a little more +chat about the day and its doings, he said good-night to Janet. + +"How do you get back?" + +"Oh, I left my bike in the village. I shall walk and pick it up there." + +Rachel took up her thick coat and slipped it on again. She would walk +with him to the road, she said--there were some more things to say. + +Janet watched them go out into the wide frosty night, where the sky was +shedding its clouds, and the temperature was falling rapidly. She +realized that they were in that stage of passion when everything is +unreal outside the one supreme thing, and all other life passes like a +show half-seen. And all the while the name Tanner--Dick Tanner--echoed +in her mind. Such a simple thing to put a careless question to Rachel! +Yet perhaps--after all--not so simple. + +Meanwhile the two lovers were together on the path through the stubbles, +walking hand-in-hand through the magic of the moonlight. + +"Will you write a little line to my mother to-morrow?" + +"Yes, of course. But--" + +He caught her long breath. + +"I have prepared the way, darling. I promise you--it will be all right." + +"But why--why--didn't I see you first?" It was a stifled cry, which +seemed somehow to speak for them both. And she added, bitterly, "It's no +good talking--it can't ever be the same--to you, or to your people." + +"It shall be the same! Or rather, we shall owe you a double share of love +to make up to you--for that horrible time. Forget it, dear--make yourself +forget it. My mother would tell you so at once." + +"Isn't she--very strict about divorce?" + +Ellesborough hesitated--just a moment. + +"She couldn't have any doubts about your case--dearest--who could? You +fell among thieves, and--" + +"And you're picking me up, and taking me to the inn?" + +He pressed her hand passionately. They walked in silence till the gate +appeared. + +"Go back, dearest. I shall be over on Sunday." + +"Not till then?" + +"I'm afraid not. If the peace news comes tomorrow, the camp'll go mad, +and I shall have to look after them." + +They paused at the gate, and he kissed her. She lay passive in his arms, +the moonlight touched her brown hair, and the beautiful curves of her +cheek and throat. + +"Wasn't it heavenly to-day?" she whispered. + +"Heavenly! Go home!" + +She turned back towards the farm, drawing her cloak and its fur collar +close round her, against the cold. And indeed Ellesborough was no sooner +gone, the rush of the motor cycle along the distant road had no sooner +died away, than a shiver ran through her which was more than physical. So +long as he was there, she was happy, excited, hopeful. And when he was +not there, the protecting screen had fallen, and she was exposed to all +the stress and terror of the storm raging in her own mind. + +"Why can't I forget it all--_everything_! It's dead--_it's dead_!" she +said to herself again and again in an anguish, as she walked back through +the broad open field where the winter-sown corn was just springing in the +furrows--the moon was so bright that she could see the tiny green spears +of it. + +And yet in reality she perfectly understood why it was that, instead of +forgetting, memory was becoming more and more poignant, more and more +persecuting. It was because the searching processes of love were going +deeper and deeper into her inmost soul. This good man who loved her, who +was going to take her injured life into his keeping, to devote to her all +his future, and all the harvest of his upright and hard-working past--she +was going to marry him with a lie between them, so that she could never +look him straight in the face, never be certain that, sometime or other, +something would not emerge like a drowned face from the dark, and ruin +all their happiness. It had seemed, at the beginning, so easy to keep +silence, to tell everything but the one miserable fact that she couldn't +tell! And now it was getting intolerably hard, just because she knew +for the first time what love really meant, with its ardour for +self-revelation, for an absolute union with the beloved. By marrying him +without confession, she would not only be wronging him, she would be +laying up probable misery for herself--and him--through the mere action +of her own temperament. + +For she knew herself. Among the girls and women she had been thrown with +during the preceding year and a half, there were some moral anarchists, +with whose views she had become strikingly familiar. Why, they said, make +so much of these physical facts? Accept them, and the incidents that +spring from them. Why all this weeping and wailing over supposed shames +and disgraces? The sex-life of the present is making its own new codes. +Who knows what they will ultimately be? And as for the indelible traces +and effects of an act of weakness or passion that the sentimental and +goody-goody people talk of, in the majority of cases they don't exist. +After it, the human being concerned may be just the same as before. + +Rachel was quite aware of this modern gospel. Only she was shut out from +adopting it in her own case by an invincible heredity, by the spirit of +her father in her, the saintly old preacher, whose uncompromising faith +she had witnessed and shared through all her young years. She might and +did protest that the faith was no longer hers. But it had stamped her. +She could never be wholly rid of its prejudices and repulsions. What +would her father have said to her divorce?--he with his mystical +conception of marriage? She dreaded to think. And as to that other +fact which weighed on her conscience, she seemed to hear herself +pleading--with tears!--"Father!--it wasn't my will--it was my +_weakness_!--Don't look at me so!" + +And now, in addition, there was the pressure upon her of Ellesborough's +own high ideals and religious temper; of the ideals, also, of his family, +as he was tenderly and unconsciously revealing them. And, finally, there +was the daily influence of Janet's neighbourhood--Janet, so austere for +herself, so pitiful for others: Janet, so like Ellesborough in the +unconscious sternness of her moral outlook, so full, besides, of an +infinite sorrow for the sinner. + +And between these two stood this variable, sensuous, woman's nature, so +capable both of good and evil. Rachel felt the burden of their virtues +too much for her, together with the sting of her own secret knowledge. + +In some moments, even, she rebelled against her own passion. She had such +a moment of revolt, in this moonlit dark, as her eyes took in the farm, +the dim outlines of the farm buildings, the stacks, the new-ploughed +furrows. Two months earlier her life had been absorbed in simple, clear, +practical ambitions: how to improve her stock--how to grow another bushel +to the acre--how and when to build a silo--whether to try +electrification: a score of pleasant riddles that made the hours fly. And +now this old fever had crept again into her blood, and everything had +lost its savour. There were times when she bitterly, childishly, +regretted it. She could almost have hated Ellesborough, because she loved +him so well; and because of the terror, the ceaseless preoccupation that +her love had begun to impose upon her. + +Janet, watching her come in, saw that the radiance had departed, and that +she crept about again like a tired woman. When, after nine o'clock, they +were alone by the fire, again and again it was on the tip of Janet's +tongue to say, "Tell me, who was Dick Tanner?" Then, in a sudden panic +fear, lest the words should slip out, and bring something irreparable, +she would get up, and make a restless pretence of some household work or +other, only to sit down and begin the same inward debate once more. But +she said nothing, and Rachel, too, was silent. She sat over the fire, +apparently half asleep. Neither of them moved to go to bed till nearly +midnight. + +Then they kissed each other, and Janet raked out the fire. + +"To-morrow!" she said, her eyes on the red glow of the embers, +"_to-morrow_!--Will it be peace?" + +And then Rachel remembered that all the civilized world was waiting for +the words that would end the war. Somewhere in a French château there was +a group of men conferring, and on the issue of this night depended the +lives of thousands, and the peace of Europe. + +Janet raised her clasped hands, and her plain, quiet face shone in the +candle-light. She murmured something. Rachel guessed it was a prayer. But +her own heart seemed dead and dumb. She could not free it from its load +of personal care; she could not feel the patriotic emotion which had +suddenly seized on Janet. + +The morning broke grey and misty. The two labourers and the girls went +about their work--raising their heads now and then to listen. And at +eleven came the signal. Out rang the bells from Ipscombe Church tower. +Labourers and girls threw down what they were doing, and gathered in the +farm-yard round Janet and Rachel, who were waving flags on the steps of +the farm-house. Then Rachel gave them all a holiday for the rest of the +day, and very soon there was no one left on the farm premises but the two +women and the bailiff. + +"Don't stay, Hastings," said Rachel. "I'll get the horse and cart +myself." + +For it was market day at Millsborough, and peace or no peace, she had +some business that must be done there. + +"Oh, I've no call to go, Miss," said Hastings. "I'd rather stay and look +after things." + +His eyes met Janet's, and she nodded imperceptibly. She was relieved to +think of Hastings--good, faithful, unassuming creature!--remaining on +guard. The very desertion of the farm-houses on this great day might +tempt marauders--especially that thief or madman who had been haunting +their own premises. She hoped the police would not forget them either. +But Hastings' offer to stay till the girls came back from the +Millsborough crowds and bands at about nine o'clock quite eased her mind. +And meanwhile she and Hastings, as had been agreed, kept their anxieties +from Rachel. + +Rachel went off at twelve o'clock in her khaki suit, driving a spirited +young horse in a high cart, which was filled with farm produce. She was +to take early dinner with some new friends, and then to go and look at a +Jersey cow which Janet coveted, in a farm on the other side of +Millsborough. + +"Don't wait tea for me," she said to Janet, "I shall get some somewhere." +And then with a smile to them both she was off. Janet stood looking after +her, lost in a painful uncertainty. "Can't you let it alone?" Lord +Melbourne was accustomed to say suavely to those members of the Cabinet +who brought him grievances or scandals that wanted seeing to. One half of +Janet's mind was saying, "Can't you let it alone?" to the other half. + + + + +XI + + +The daylight had all gone when Rachel at last got into her cart in the +yard of the Rose and Thistle at Millsborough and took the reins. But +there was a faint moonrise struggling through the mist in which the +little town and countryside were shrouded. And in the town, with its +laughing and singing crowds, its bright shop windows, its moist, +straggling flags, the mist, lying gently over the old houses, the moving +people, the flashes and streamers of light, was extraordinarily romantic +and beautifying. + +Rachel drove slowly through the streets, delighting in the noise and +excitement, in the sheer new pleasure of everything, the world--human +beings--living--the end of the war. And out among the fields, and in the +country road, the November sun was still beautiful; what with the pearly +mist, and the purple shapes of the forest-covered hills. She had been +much made of in Millsborough. People were anxious to talk to her, to +invite her, to do business with her. Her engagement, she perceived, had +made her doubly interesting. She was going to be prosperous, to +succeed--and all the world smiled upon her. + +So that her pulses were running fast as she reached Ipscombe, where, in +the mild fog, a few groups were standing about, and a few doors were +open. And now--there was home!--in front of her. And--Heavens! what had +Janet done? Rachel pulled up the horse, and sat enchanted, looking at the +farm. For there it lay, pricked out in light, its old Georgian lines +against the background of the hill. Every window had a light in it--every +blind was drawn up--it was Janet's illumination for the peace. She had +made of the old house "an insubstantial faery place," and Rachel laughed +for pleasure. + +Then she drove eagerly on into the dark tunnel of trees that lay between +her and the house. + +Suddenly a shape rushed out of the hedge into the light of the lamps, and +a man laid a violent hand upon the horse's reins. The horse reared, and +Rachel cried out,-- + +"What are you doing? Let go!" + +But the man held the struggling horse, at once coercing and taming +it, with an expert hand. A voice!--that sent a sudden horror through +Rachel,-- + +"Sit where you are--hold tight!--don't be a fool!--he'll quiet down." + +She sat paralysed; and, still holding the reins, though the trembling +horse was now quiet, a man advanced into the light of the left-hand lamp. + +"Well--do you know me?" he said quietly. + +She struggled for breath and self-control. + +"Let those reins alone!--what are you doing here?" + +And snatching up her whip, she bent forward. But he made a spring at it, +snatched it easily with a laugh, and broke it. + +"You know you never were strong enough to get the better of me. Why do +you try? Don't be an idiot. I want to make an appointment with you. You +can't escape me. I've watched you for weeks. And see you alone, too. +Without that fellow you're engaged to." + +Her passion rose, in spite of her deadly fear. + +"He'll take care of that," she said, "and the police. I'm not helpless +now--as I used to be." + +"Ah, but you'd better see me. I've got a great deal to say that concerns +you. I suppose you've told that American chap a very pretty story about +our divorce? Well, it took me a long time to get to the bottom of it +myself. But now I'm--well, disillusioned!" + +He came closer, close to the rail of the cart and the lamp, so that she +saw clearly the haggard wreck of what once had been Roger Delane, and the +evil triumph in his eyes. + +"Who stayed the night alone, with Dick Tanner, on his place, when I was +safely got rid of?" he said, in a low but clear voice. "And then who +played the innocent--who did?" + +"Liar!" + +"Not at all. I've got some new evidence now--some quite fresh light on +the scene--which may be useful to me. I want money. You seem to have a +lot. And I want to be paid back a little of what I'm owed. Oh, I can hold +my tongue, if it's made worth my while. I don't suppose you've told your +American young man anything about Dick Tanner--eh?" + +"Let go the horse!" she said fiercely, trying to recapture the reins. +"You've nothing to do with me any more." + +"Haven't I? Oh, by all means tell your Yankee that I've waylaid you. I +shouldn't at all object to an interview with him. In fact, I rather think +of asking for it. But if you want to prevent it, you've got to do what +you're told." + +He came closer, and spoke with slow emphasis. "You've got to arrange a +time--when I can see you--_alone?_ When shall it be?" + +Silence. But far ahead there were sounds as of some one approaching. +Delane leapt on the step of the cart. + +"This is Monday. Wednesday night--get rid of everybody! You can do it if +you like. I shall come at nine. You've got to let me in." + +Her white, quivering face was all his answer. + +"Don't forget," he said, jumping down. "Good-night!" + +And in a second he was gone, where, she could not tell. + +The reins fell from her grasp. She leant back in the cart, half fainting. +The horse, finding the reins on his neck, strayed to the grassy side of +the road, and began grazing. A short time passed. In another minute or +two the left wheel would have gone done into a deep ditch. + +"Hallo!" cried a man's voice. "What the matter?" + +Rachel tried to rouse herself, but could only murmur inarticulately. The +man jumped off his bicycle, propped it against a tree, and came running +to her. + +He saw a woman, in a khaki felt hat and khaki dress, sitting hunched up +in a fainting state on the seat of a light cart. He was just in time to +catch the horse and turn it back to the road. Then in his astonishment +John Dempsey altogether forgot himself. + +"Don't be frightened, Mrs. Delane! Why, you've had a faint. But never +mind. Cheer up! I'll get you home safe." + +And Rachel, reviving, opened her heavy eyes to see stooping over her the +face of the lad in the hooded cart whom she had last seen in the night of +that November snowstorm, two years before. + +"What did you say?" she asked stupidly. Then, raising herself, with an +instinctive gesture she smoothed back her hair from her face, and +straightened her hat. "Thank you, I'm all right." + +Dempsey's mouth as he retreated from her shaped itself to an involuntary +grin. + +"I beg your pardon, ma'am--but I think I've seen you in Canada. Didn't I +once come to your place, with a parcel from Mr. Grimes--that was my +employer--of Redminster? I remember you had a Jap servant. And there was +another time, I think"--the lad's eyes fixed her, contracted a little, +and sharp with curiosity--"when you and Mr. Dick Tanner gave me that +fizzling hot coffee--don't you remember?--in that awful blizzard two +years ago? And Mr. Tanner gave the horses a feed, too. Awfully good chap, +Mr. Tanner. I don't know what I should have done without that coffee." + +Rachel was still deathly white, but she had recovered possession of +herself, and her mind was working madly through a score of possibilities. + +"You're quite mistaken," she said coldly, "I never saw you before that I +am aware of. Please let go the reins. I can manage now quite well. I +don't know what made me feel ill. I'm all right now." + +"You've got the reins twisted round the shaft, miss," said Dempsey +officiously. "You'd better let me put 'em right." + +And without waiting for a reply, he began to disentangle them, not +without a good deal of fidgeting from the horse, which delayed him. His +mouth twitched with laughter as he bent over the shaft. Deny that she was +Mrs. Delane! That was a good one. Why, now that he had seen her close, he +could swear to her anywhere. + +Rachel watched him, her senses sharpening rapidly. Only a few minutes +since Roger had been there--and now, this man. Had they met? Was there +collusion between them? There must be. How else could Roger know? No one +else in the world but this youth could have given him the information. +She recalled the utter solitude of the snow-bound farm--the heavy +drifts--no human being but Dick and herself--till that evening when the +new snow was all hard frozen, and they two had sleighed back under the +moon to her own door. + +What to do? She seemed to see her course. + +"What is your name?" she asked him, endeavouring to speak in her ordinary +voice, and bending over the front of the cart, she spoke to the horse, +"Quiet, Jack, quiet!" + +"My name's John Dempsey, ma'am." He looked up, and then quickly withdrew +his eyes. She saw the twitching smile that he now could hardly restrain. +By this time he had straightened the reins, which she gathered up. + +"It's curious," she said, "but you're not the first person who's mistaken +me for that Mrs. Delane. I knew something about her. I don't want to be +mistaken for her." + +"I see," said Dempsey. + +"I would rather you didn't speak about it in the village--or anywhere. +You see, one doesn't like to be confused with some people. I didn't like +Mrs. Delane." + +The lad looked up grinning. + +"She got divorced, didn't she?" + +"I dare say. I knew very little about her. But, as I said, I don't want +to be mistaken for her." + +Then, tying the reins to the cart, she jumped down and stood beside him. + +His hand went instinctively to the horse's mouth, holding the restive +animal still. + +"And I should be very much obliged to you if you would keep what you +thought about me to yourself. I don't want you to talk about it in the +village or anywhere. Come up and see me--at the farm--and I'll tell you +why I dislike being mixed up with that woman--why, in fact, I should mind +it dreadfully. I can't explain now, but--" + +The young man was fairly dazzled by the beauty of the sudden flush on her +pale cheeks, of her large pleading eyes, her soft voice. And this--as old +Betts had only that afternoon told him--was the lady engaged to his own +superior officer, Captain Ellesborough, the Commandant of Ralstone Camp, +whom he heartily admired, and stood in considerable awe of! His vanity, +of which he possessed so large a share, was much tickled; but, also, his +feelings were touched. + +"Why, of course, ma'am, won't say anything. I didn't mean any harm." + +"All right," said Rachel, scrambling back to her seat. "If you like to +come up to-morrow morning, I shall be pleased to see you. It's a bargain, +mind!" + +He saluted, smiling. She nodded to him, and drove off. + +"Well, that's the rummiest go!" said the bewildered Dempsey to himself, +as he walked towards his bicycle. "Mistake be damned! She _was_ Mrs. +Delane, and what's she up to now with my captain? And what the deuce was +she doing at Tanner's?" + +Never did a person feel himself more vastly important than Dempsey as he +bicycled back to the Ralstone camp, whence he had started in the morning, +after the peace news, to go and see a cousin living some distance beyond +Great End Farm. To be his grandfather's grandson was much--but _this_! + +Rachel drove, with hands unconscious of the reins, along the road and up +the farm lane leading through her own fields. The world swam around her +in the mist, but there, still in front of her, lay the illuminated farm, +a house of light standing in air. As she neared it, the front door opened +and sounds of singing and laughter came out. + +The "Marseillaise"! _Allons, enfants de la patrie!_--Janet was playing +it, singing vigorously herself, and trying to teach the two girls the +French words, a performance which broke down every other minute in +helpless laughter from all three. Meanwhile, Hastings, who had been +standing behind the singers, his hands in his pockets, a rare and +shamefaced pleasure shining from his care-worn face, thought he heard the +cart, and looked out. Yes, it was the Missis, as he liked to call Miss +Henderson, and he ran down to meet her. + +"Well, I suppose there were fine doings at Millsborough, Miss," he said, +as he held the horse for her to get down. + +"Yes--there were a lot of people. It was very noisy." + +"We thought you'd hear our noise, Miss, as far as the road! Miss +Leighton, she's been keeping us all alive. She took the girls to +church--to the Thanksgiving Service, while I looked after things." + +"All right, Hastings," said Miss Henderson, in a voice that struck his +ear strangely. "Thank you. Will you take the cart?" + +He thought as he led the horse away, "She's been overdoin' it again. The +Cap'n will tell her so." + +Rachel climbed the little slope to the front door. It seemed an Alp. +Presently she stood on the threshold of the sitting-room, in her thick +fur coat, looking at the group round the piano. Janet glanced round, +laughing. "Come and join in!" And they all struck up "God Save the +King"--a comely group in the lamplight, Jenny and Betty lifting their +voices lustily. But they seemed to Rachel to be playing some silly game +which she did not understand. She closed the door and went upstairs to +her own room. It was cold and dark. She lit a candle, and her own face, +transformed, looked at her from the glass on the dressing-table. She gave +a weary, half-reflective sigh. "Shall I be like that when I'm old?" + +She took off her things, and changed mechanically into an afternoon +dress, her mind, like a hunted thing, running hither and thither all the +time. + +Presently she got up and locked the door. She must think--_think_--by +herself. + +It would be quite easy to defy Roger--quite easy to lie, and lie +successfully, if only she was sure of herself, and her own will to carry +things through. Roger could prove nothing--or that vulgar boy--or +anybody. She had only to say, "I went to find Lucy Tanner, who was my +friend--she wasn't there--I was overtaken by the storm--and Dick Tanner +looked after me till I could get home." + +It was the most natural--the most plausible story. If Delane forced +himself on George with any vile tale, Ellesborough would probably give +him in charge for molesting his former wife. There was absolutely nothing +to fear, if she handled the thing in a bold, common-sense way, and told a +consistent and clever lie. + +And yet, she had weakly made appointments with both her tormentors!--made +it plain to them that she was afraid! She called herself a coward, and a +fool--and then as she leant her head against the side of her bed, the +tears ran down her face, and her heart cried out for Ellesborough. + +"How _can_ I go on lying to him--now--and all my life?" It was the same +cry as before, but more intense, more passionate with every day's living. +The need for lying had now doubled; yet her will could less and less +steel itself to it, because of sheer love and remorse towards the man who +loved her. + +"He would forgive me. I know he would--I know he would!" she kept on +murmuring to herself, while her eyes rained in the semi-darkness. + +Yes, but it would change everything! Their love--his feeling towards +her--could never be the same again. After Roger Delane--Dick Tanner. Why +not another--and another? Would he not always be watching her, dreading +some new discovery! Suspecting her, even while he loved her? + +No. She must choke off Delane--with money--the only way. And invent some +story--some bribe, too--for that odious young man who had caught her +unawares. + +So again she hardened herself, despairingly. It could not be allowed +her--the balm and luxury of confession! It was too dangerous. Her all +was in it. + +Meanwhile, the singing continued below. Janet had struck up "Tipperary," +and the small flute-like voices of the girls, supported by her harsher +one, mounted joyously through every crevice of the slightly-built house. + +"It's a long, long way to Tipperary, +And my heart's right there." + +The beautiful tune, interwoven for our generation with all that is most +poignant in its life, beat on Rachel's nerves. It was being sung all over +England that Armistice Day, as it had been sung in the first days of the +war, joyously, exultingly, yet with catching breath. There was in it more +than thousands of men and women dared to probe, whether of joy or sorrow. +They sang it, with a sob in the throat. To Rachel, also, sunk in her own +terrors, it was almost unbearable. The pure unspoilt passion of it--the +careless, confident joy--seemed to make an outcast of her, as she sat +there in the dark, dragged back by the shock and horror of Delane's +appearance into the slime and slough of old memories, and struggling with +them in vain. Yes, she was "damaged goods"--she was unfit to marry George +Ellesborough. But she would marry him! She set her teeth--clinging to him +with all the energy of a woman's deepening and maturing consciousness. +She had been a weak and self-willed child when she married Delane--when +she spent those half miserable, half wild days and nights with Dick +Tanner. Now she trusted a good man--now she looked up and adored. Her +weakness was safe in the care of George Ellesborough's strength. Well, +then, let her fight for her love. + +Presently Janet knocked at the door. The singing downstairs had ceased. + +"Are you tired, Rachel? Can't I help you?" + +"Just a bit tired. I'm resting. I'll be down directly." + + * * * * * + +But the interruption had started fresh anxieties in her mind. She had +paid the most perfunctory attention to the few words Janet had said about +Dempsey's call at the farm, two nights before. She understood at the time +that he had come to chatter about the murder, and was very glad that she +had been out of the way. + +But now--what was it that he had said to Janet--and why had Janet said so +little about his visit? + +Instead of resting she walked incessantly up and down. This uncertainty +about Janet teased her; but after all it was nothing to that other +mystery--how did Roger know?--and to the strange and bewildering effect +of the juxtaposition of the two men--their successive appearance in the +darkness within--what?--ten minutes?--a quarter of an hour?--while the +cloud was on her own brain--without apparently any connection between +them--and relevance to each other. There must have been some connection! +And yet there had been no sign of any personal knowledge of Roger Delane +in Dempsey's talk; and no reference whatever to Dempsey in Delane's. + +She went down to supper, very flushed and on edge. Little Jenny eyed her +surreptitiously. For the first time the child's raw innocence was +disturbed or jealous. What did John Dempsey want with calling on Miss +Henderson--and why had he made a rather teasing mystery of it to her, +Jenny? "Wouldn't you like to know, Miss Inquisitive?" Yes, Jenny would +like to know. Of course Miss Henderson was engaged to Captain +Ellesborough, and all that. But that was no reason why she should carry +off Jenny's "friend," as well as her own. Jenny's heart swelled within +her as she watched Miss Henderson from the other end of the table. Yes, +of course, she was nice-looking, and her clothes were nice. Jenny thought +that she would get a new best dress soon, now that peace was come; and a +new hat with a high silk crown to match the dress. Dempsey had admired a +hat like that on a girl in the village. He had said it was "real smart." +And to be "smart" Jenny thought was to be happy. + +After supper, Janet and the girls washed up and put all tidy for the +night. Rachel worked at accounts in the sitting-room. She had sold the +last hay she had to spare wonderfully well, and potatoes showed a good +profit. Threshing charges were very high, and wages--appalling! But on +the whole, they were doing very well. Janet's Jersey cow had been +expensive, but they could afford her. + +They had never yet drawn out so good an interim balance sheet without +delight, and rosy dreams for the future. Now her mood was leaden, and she +pushed the papers aside impatiently. As she was sitting with her hands +round her knees, staring into the fire, or at the chair where +Ellesborough had sat while she told her story, Janet came into the room. +She paused at the door, and Rachel did not see her look of sudden alarm +as she perceived Rachel's attitude of depression. Then she came up to the +fire. The two girls could be heard laughing overhead. + +"So my cow's a good one?" she said, with her pleasant voice and smile. + +"A beauty," said Rachel, looking up, and recapitulating the points and +yield of the Jersey. + +Janet gave a shrug--implying a proper scepticism. + +"It doesn't seem to be quite as easy to tell lies about cows as about +horses," she said, laughing; "that's about all one can say. We'll hope +for the best." Then--after a moment,-- + +"I never told you much about that man Dempsey's visit. Of course he came +to see you. He thought when he saw you at Millsborough that you were a +Mrs. Delane he had seen in Canada. Were you perhaps a relation of hers? I +said I would ask you. Then I inquired how often he had seen Mrs. Delane. +He said twice--perhaps three times--at her home--at a railway +station--and at a farm belonging to a man called Tanner." + +"Yes," said Rachel, indifferently. "I knew Lucy Tanner, his sister. She +was an artist like him. I liked them both." + +There was silence. In Rachel's breast there was beating a painful tide of +speech that longed to find its way to freedom--but it was gripped and +thrust back by her will. There was something in Janet as in Ellesborough +that wooed her heart, that seemed to promise help. + +But nothing more passed, of importance. Janet, possessed by vague, yet, +as they seemed to herself, quite unreasonable anxieties, gave some +further scornful account of Dempsey's murder talk, to which Rachel +scarcely listened; then she said, as she turned to take up her +knitting,-- + +"I'm going over to-morrow to a little service--a Thanksgiving service--at +Millsborough. I took the girls to church to-day--but I love my own +people!" Her face glowed a little. + +"Unitarian service, you mean?" + +"Yes--we've got a little 'cause' there, and a minister. The service will +be about six, I think. The girls will manage. The minister and his wife +want me to stay to supper--but I shall be back in good time." + +"About ten?" + +"Oh, yes--quite by then. I shall bicycle." + +Through Rachel's mind there passed a thrill of relief. So Janet would be +out of the way. One difficulty removed. Now, to get rid of the girls? + + * * * * * + +Rachel scarcely slept, and the November day broke grey and misty as +before. After breakfast she went out into the fields. Old Halsey was +mole-catching in one of them. But instead of going to inspect him and his +results, she slipped through a tall hedge, and paced the road under its +shelter, looking for Dempsey. + +On the stroke of eleven she saw him in the distance. He came up with the +same look, half embarrassed, half inclining to laugh, that he had worn +the day before. Rachel, on the other hand, was entirely at her ease, and +the young man felt her at once his intellectual and social superior. + +"You seem to have saved me and my horse from a tumble into that ditch +last night," she said, with a laugh, as she greeted him. "Why I turned +faint like that I can't imagine. I do sometimes when I'm tired. Well, now +then--let us walk up the road a little." + +With her hands in her pockets she led the way. In her neat serge suit and +cap, she was the woman-farmer--prosperous and competent--all over. +Dempsey's thoughts threw back in bewilderment to the fainting figure of +the night before. He walked on beside her in silence. + +"I wanted to tell you," said Miss Henderson calmly--"because I'm sure +you're a nice fellow, and don't want to hurt anybody's feelings--why +I asked you to hold your tongue about Mrs. Delane. In the first +place, you're quite mistaken about myself. I was never at Mr. Tanner's +farm--never in that part of Canada; and the person you saw there--Mrs. +Delane--was a very favourite cousin of mine, and extraordinarily like me. +When we were children everybody talked of the likeness. She had a very +sad story, and now--she's dead." The speaker's voice dropped. "I've been +confused with her before--and it's a great trouble to me. The confusion +has done me harm, more than once, and I'm very sensitive about it. So, as +I said last night, I should be greatly obliged if you would not only not +spread the story, but deny it, whenever you can." + +She looked at him sharply, and he coloured crimson. + +"Of course," he stammered, "I should like to do anything you wish." + +"I do wish it, and--" she paused a moment, as though to think--"and +Captain Ellesborough wishes it. I would not advise you, however, to say +anything at all about it to him. But if you do what we ask you, you may +be sure we shall find some way--some substantial way--of showing that we +appreciate it." + +They walked on, she with her eyes on the ground as though she were +thinking out some plan for his benefit--he puzzled and speechless. + +"What do you want to do, now the war's over?" she said at last, with a +smile, looking up. + +"I suppose I want to settle down--somewhere--on land, if I had the +money." + +"Here?--or in Canada?" + +"Oh, at home." + +"I thought so. Well, Mr. Dempsey, Captain Ellesborough and I shall be +quite ready to help you in any scheme you take up. You understand?" + +"That's awfully kind of you--but--" + +"Quite ready," she repeated. "Let me know what your plans are when you've +worked them out--and I'll see what can be done." Then she stopped. There +was a gate near into one of her own fields. Their eyes met--hers +absolutely cool and smiling--his wavering and excited. + +"You understand?" she repeated. + +"Oh, yes--I understand." + +"And you agree?" she added, emphasizing the words. + +"Oh, yes, I--I--agree." + +"Well, then, that's all right--that's understood. A letter will always +find me here. And now I must get back to my work. Good-morning." + +And with a nod, she slipped through the gate, and was half way across the +fallow on the other side of it before he had realized that their strange +conversation was at an end. + + + + +XII + + +The vicar and his sister Eleanor were sitting at breakfast in the small +Georgian house, which, as the vicarage, played a still important +part in the village of Ipscombe. The Church may be in a bad way, as her +own children declare; revolution may be in sight, as our English +Bolshevists love to believe--not too seriously; but meanwhile, if a +stranger in any normal English village wants to lay his finger on the +central ganglion of its various activities, he will still look for the +church and the vicarage--or rectory, as the case may be. If the parson is +bad or feeble, the pulse of the village life will show it; and if he is +energetic and self-devoted, his position will give him a power in the +community--power, tempered of course by the necessary revolts and +reactions which keep the currents of life flowing--not to be easily +attained by other energetic and self-devoted persons. The parson may +still easily make himself a tyrant, but only to find, in the language of +the Greek poet, that it was "folly even to wish" to tyrannize. + +The vicar had come downstairs that morning in a mood of depression, +irritable--almost snappish depression. His sister Eleanor had seldom seen +him so unlike himself. Being an affectionate sister, she was sorry for +him; though, as she rightly guessed, it was that very news which had +brought such great relief of mind to herself which was almost certainly +responsible for her brother's gloom. Miss Henderson was engaged to +Captain Ellesborough. There was therefore no question of her becoming +Mrs. Shenstone, and a weight was lifted from the spirits of the vicar's +sister. Towards Rachel, Eleanor Shenstone felt one of those instinctive +antipathies of life which are far more decisive than any of the ordinary +causes of quarrel. Miss Shenstone was thin, methodical, devoted; of small +speech and great virtue. Such persons so securely anchored and +self-determined can have but small sympathy for the drifters of this +world. And that Rachel Henderson was--at least as compared with herself +and her few cherished friends--morally and religiously adrift, Miss +Shenstone had decided after half an hour's conversation. + +The vicar knew perfectly well that his sister was relieved. It was that +which had secretly affected a naturally sweet temper. He was suffering +besides from a haunting sense of contrast between these rainy November +days, and the glowing harvest weeks in which he had worked like a navvy +for and with Rachel Henderson. It was over, of course. None of the nice +things of life ever came his way for long. But he did feel rather sorely +that during his short spell of favour with her, Miss Henderson had +encouraged him a good deal. She had raised him up--only to cast him down. +He thought of her smiles, and her sudden softness, of the warm grip of +her hand, and the half mocking, half inviting look in her eyes, with the +feeling of a child shut out from a garden where he well knows the ripe +apples are hanging; only not for him. The atmosphere of sex which +environed her--was it not that which had beguiled the vicar, while it had +repelled his sister? And yet Eleanor Shenstone did most honestly wish +her brother to marry--only not--not anything so tempting, troubling, and +absorbing as Rachel Henderson. + +"Haven't we a tiresome meeting to-night?" said the vicar with an +impatient sigh, as he sat languidly down to the couple of sardines which +were all his sister had allowed him for breakfast. + +"Yes--Miss Hall is coming to speak." + +Miss Hall was a lady who spoke prodigiously on infant welfare, and had a +way of producing a great, but merely temporary effect on the mothers of +the village. They would listen in a frightened silence while she showed +them on a blackboard the terrifying creatures that had their dwelling in +milk, and what a fly looks like when it is hideously--and in the mothers' +opinion most unnecessarily--magnified. But when she was gone came +reaction. "How can she know aught about it--havin' none of her own?" +said the village contemptuously. None the less the village ways were +yielding, insensibly, little by little; and the Miss Halls were after all +building better than they knew. + +The vicar, however, always had to take the chair at Miss Hall's meetings, +and he was secretly sick and tired of babies, their weights, their foods, +their feeding-bottles, and everything concerned with them. His sister +considered him and like a wise woman, offered him something sweet to +make up for the bitter. + +"Do you think you could possibly take a note for me to Miss Leighton this +morning--when you go to see old Frant?" + +"Old Frant" was a labourer on the point of death to whom the vicar was +ministering. + +He pricked up his ears. + +"Great End's hardly in old Frant's direction." + +_Camouflage_, of course. Miss Shenstone understood perfectly. + +"It won't take you far out of your way. I want Miss Leighton to send +those two girls to the Armistice dance to-night if they'd like to come. +Lady Alicia writes that several of her maids are down with the flu, and +she asks me to give away two or three more tickets." + +"Why doesn't Lady Alicia let the servants manage the thing themselves +when she gives them a party? _They_ ought to invite. I wouldn't be bossed +if I were they," said the vicar, with vivacity. + +"She's so particular about character, dear." + +"So would they be. She hasn't been so very successful in her own case." + +For the Shepherds' eldest daughter had just been figuring in a divorce +case to the distress of the Shepherds' neighbours. + +Miss Shenstone showed patience. + +"I'll have the note ready directly." + +And when it was ready, the vicar took it like a lamb. He walked first to +Great End, meditating as he went on Miss Henderson's engagement. He had +foreseen it, of course, since the day of the Millsborough "rally." A fine +fellow, no doubt--with the great advantage of khaki. But it was to be +hoped we were not going to be altogether overrun with Americans--carrying +off English women. + +At the gate of the farm stood a cart into which two young calves had just +been packed. Hastings was driving it, and Rachel Henderson, who had just +adjusted the net over the fidgety frightened creatures, was talking to +him. + +She greeted Shenstone rather shyly. It was quite true that in the early +stages of her acquaintance with Ellesborough she had amused herself a +good deal with the vicar. And in his note of congratulation to her on her +engagement, she had detected just the slightest touch of reproach. + +"I wish I had guessed it sooner." That meant, perhaps--"Why did you make +a fool of me?" + +Meanwhile Miss Shenstone's note was duly delivered, and Rachel, holding +it in her hand, opened the wicket gate. + +"Won't you come in?" + +"Oh, no, I mustn't waste your time," said the vicar, with dignity. +"Perhaps you'll give me a verbal answer." + +Rachel opened the note, and the vicar was puzzled by the look which +crossed her face as she read it. It was a look of relief--as though +something fitted in. + +"Very kind of Lady Alicia. Of course the girls shall come. They will be +delighted. You really won't come in? Then I'll walk to the road with +you." + +What was the change in her? The vicar perceived something indefinable; +and before they had walked half the distance to the road he had forgotten +his own grievance. She looked ill. Janet Leighton, meeting him in the +village a few days before, had talked of her partner as "done up." Was it +the excitement of falling in love?--combined perhaps with the worry of +leaving her work and the career just begun? + +He asked a few questions about her plans. She answered him very gently, +with a subtle note of apology in her voice; but yet, as it seemed to him, +from rather far away. And when they parted, he realized that he had never +known more of her than an outer self, which offered but little clue to +the self within. + +Rachel walked back to the farm with Miss Shenstone's note in her pocket. +She had told the vicar that her land-girls should certainly come to the +Shepherds' servants' party--but she said nothing about it to them--till +Janet Leighton had safely bicycled away in the early afternoon. The +invitation, however, was a godsend. For Rachel had begun to realize that +there was a good deal of watching going on--watching of the farm, and +watching over herself. She understood that Halsey had been scared by some +tramp or other whom he took for the ghost; and she saw that Janet was +unwilling that any one should be alone after dark in the farm. Nobody +had talked to her--Rachel--about it--no doubt by Ellesborough's +wish--because she was supposed to be out of sorts--run down. She had +accepted the little conspiracy of silence as a proof of his tenderness, +and had obediently asked no questions. + +And it had not yet occurred to her to connect the stories floating +about the farm with Delane's reappearance. The stunning fact of the +reappearance, with all that it might mean to her, absorbed her mind--for +a few hours yet. + +But as soon as Janet was safely off the premises, she hurried across to +the shippen, where Betty and Jenny were milking. + +"Girls!--would you like to go to the Shepherds' dance to-night? I've got +an invitation for you?" + +Stupefaction--and delight! The invitations had been very sparing and +select, and the two little maidens had felt themselves Cinderellas +indeed, all the sorer in their minds seeing that Dempsey and Betty's +young man were both going. + +But _frocks_! Jenny at least had nothing suitable. Rachel at once offered +a white frock. The milking and dairy work were hurried through, and then +came the dressing, as the dance began at seven. Betty, knowing herself to +be a beauty, except for her teeth, had soon finished. A white blouse, a +blue cotton skirt, a blue ribbon in her mop of brown hair--and she looked +at herself exultantly in Miss Henderson's glass. Jenny was much more +difficult to please. She was crimson with excitement, and the tip of her +little red tongue kept slipping in and out. But Rachel patted and +pinned--in a kind of dream. Jenny's red hair, generally worn in the +tightest wisps and plaits, was brushed out till it stood like a halo +round her face and neck, and she was secretly afraid that Dempsey +wouldn't know her. + +Then Rachel wrapped them up in their land-army waterproofs, and saw them +off, carrying an electric torch to guide them safely through the bit of +lane under the trees. But there was a moon rising, and the fog was less. + +"Ain't she just kind?--don't you just love her?" said Jenny ecstatically +to Betty, as they turned back to wave their farewells again to the figure +standing in the doorway. + +Betty assented. But they were both greatly astonished. For Rachel did not +in general take much personal notice of them. + +They were no sooner out of sight than Rachel went to look at the clock in +the kitchen. Ten minutes to seven. Two hours to wait. How were they +going to be got through? + +She went out aimlessly into the farm-yard, where the farm buildings stood +in a faintly luminous mist, the hill-side behind them, and the climbing +woods. To her left, across the fields ran the road climbing to the +miniature pass, whence it descended steeply to the plain beyond. And on +the further side of the road lay her own fields, with alternating bands +of plough-land and stubble, and the hedge-row trees standing ghostly and +separate in the light haze. + +She was alone in the farm, in all that landscape the only living thing at +the moment, except for the animals. A tense energy of will seemed to +possess her. She was defending herself--defending Ellesborough--and +their joint lives. How was she going to do it? She didn't know. But the +passion in her blood would give her strength--would see her through. + +In the old barn, the cows were munching peacefully. The air was sweet +with their breath, and with the hay piled in their cribs. Rachel wandered +noiselessly amongst them, and they turned their large eyes slowly to look +at her, and the small lantern she carried. In the stables, too, not a +sound, but an occasional swishing and champing. Rachel hung up the +lantern, and sat down on a truss of hay, idly watching the rays of light +striking up into the cross-beams of the roof, and on the shining flanks +of the horses. Her mind was going at a great speed. And all in a +moment--without any clear consciousness of the strange thoughts that had +been running through her brain--an intuition struck through her. + +_Roger_!--it was he who had been playing the ghost--he who had been seen +haunting the farm--who had scared Halsey--_Roger_! come to spy upon +her and her lover! Once the idea suggested itself, she was certain of +it--it must be true. + +The appearance in the lane had been cleverly premeditated. She had been +watched for days, perhaps for weeks. + +Ellesborough had been watched, too, no doubt. + +She drew a shuddering breath. She was afraid of Roger Delane. From the +early days of her marriage she had been afraid of him. There was about +him the incalculable something which means moral insanity--abnormal +processes of mind working through uncontrolled will. You could never +reason with or influence him, where his appetites or his passions were +concerned. A mocking spirit looked out upon you, just before his blow +fell. He was a mere force--inhuman and sinister. + +Well, she had got to fight it and tame it! She shut up the cow-house and +stable, and stood out awhile in the farm-yard, letting the mild wind play +on her bare head and hot cheeks. The moon was riding overhead. The night +seemed to her very silent and mysterious--yet penetrated by something +divine to which she lifted her heart. What would Ellesborough say over +there--in his forester's hut, five miles beyond the hills, if he knew +what she was doing--whom she was expecting? She shut her eyes, and saw +his lean, strong face, his look-- + +The church clock was striking, and surely--in the distance, the sound of +an opening gate? She hurried back to the house, and the sitting-room. The +lamp was low. She revived it. She made up the fire. She felt herself +shivering with excitement, and she stooped over the fire, warming her +hands. + +She had purposely left the front door unlocked. A hand tried the handle, +turned it--a slow step entered. + +She went to the sitting-room door and threw it open-- + +"Come in here." + +Roger Delane came in and shut the door behind him. They confronted each +other. + +"You've managed it uncommonly well," he said, at last. "You've dared it. +Aren't you afraid of me?" + +"Not the least. What do you want?" + +They surveyed each other--with hatred, yet not without a certain +passionate curiosity on both sides. When Delane had last seen Rachel she +was a pale and care-worn creature, her youth darkened by suffering and +struggle, her eyes still heavy with the tears she had shed for her lost +baby. He beheld her now rounded and full-blown, at the zenith of her +beauty, and breathing an energy, physical and mental, he had never yet +seen in her. She had escaped him, and her life had put out a new flower. +He was suddenly possessed as he looked at her, both by the poisonous +memory of old desire, and by an intolerable sense of his impotence, and +her triumph. And the physical fever in his veins made self-control +difficult. + +On her side, she saw the ruin of a man. When she married him he had been +a moral wreck. But the physical envelope was still intact, still +splendid. Now his clothes seemed to hang upon a skeleton; the hollows in +the temples and cheeks, the emaciation of the face and neck, the scanty +grey hair, struck horror, but it was a horror in which there was not +a trace of sympathy or pity. He had destroyed himself, and he would, if +he could, destroy her. She read in him the thirst for revenge. She had to +baffle it, if she could. + +As she defied him, indeed, she saw his hand steal to his coat-pocket, and +it occurred to her that the pocket might contain a revolver. But the +thought only nerved her--gave her an almost exultant courage. + +"What do I want?" he repeated, at last with-drawing his eyes. "I'll tell +you. I've come--like Foch--to dictate to you certain terms, which you +have only to accept. We had better sit down. It will take time." + +Rachel pointed to a chair. He took it, crossed one knee over the other, +rested his arm on the table near, and watched her with a sneering smile, +while she seated herself. + +He broke the silence. + +"I confess you were very clever about Dick Tanner--and I was a precious +fool! I never suspected." + +"I have not the least idea what you mean." + +"A lie!" he said, impetuously. "You were in Dick Tanner's house--staying +with him alone--at night--after I left you. You were seen there--by +a man--a Canadian--from whom I had the story--only two days ago. He +doesn't know my name, nor I his. We met on the common, two nights ago, +after dark. And by the merest chance he was coming to the farm, and he +began to talk of you. Then this came out. But of course I always knew +that it--or something like it--would come out. Your puritanical airs +never deceived me--for a moment." + +"I suppose you are talking of John Dempsey?" The scorn in her voice +enraged him. + +"I know nothing about John Dempsey. Of course I can track the man who +told me, if I want to--with the greatest ease. He was coming here to +call. He saw either you or your partner. And I shall track him--if you +force me." + +She was silent--and he smiled. + +"Assume, please, that I have my witness at hand. Well, then, he saw you +alone--at night--in Dick Tanner's charge, a few days apparently, after +you and I quarrelled. What were you doing there?" + +"It was during that great snowstorm, I suppose," she said, in her most +ordinary voice, taking up her knitting. "I remember going over to the +Tanners' to ask for something--and being snow-bound. Lucy Tanner was +always ready to help me--and be sorry for me." + +At this he laughed out, and the note of the laugh dismayed her. + +"Lucy Tanner? Yes, that's good. I thought you'd play her! Now, I'll +tell you something. The day after I left you, I was on the train going +to Regina. We stopped a long time. I don't remember why--at Medicine +Hat--and walking up and down the platform was--_Lucy Tanner_! Does that +surprise you? She told me she couldn't stand the Manitoba climate, and +was going to a friend at Kamloops for the winter. Is that news to you?" + +Rachel had turned white, but he saw no other sign of discomposure. + +"Not at all. Naturally, I went over expecting to find her. But as you +say, she was gone, and Mr. Tanner drove me back, when the storm went +down." + +Then she threw down her knitting and faced him. + +"What's the use of talking like this, Roger? You won't make anything out +of this story you're so proud of. Hadn't you better come to business? +Why have you been spying on me, and dogging me like this? You know, of +course, I could give you in charge to-morrow, or I could get Captain +Ellesborough to do it. And I will--unless you give me your solemn promise +to leave this place, to go out of my life altogether, and stop molesting +me in this scandalous way. Now, of course, I understand who it is that +has been prowling about the farm all these weeks. And I warn you the +police too know all about it, and are on the watch. They may have +tracked you here to-night for all I know." + +"Not they! I passed one bobby fellow on the hill, going safely away +north, as I came down. I was scarcely three yards from him, and he never +twigged. And the other's gone to Millsborough. You could hardly be more +alone, more entirely at my mercy--than you are at this moment, Miss +Henderson!" He laid an ironic emphasis on the name. + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +"All the same the people who live with me in this house will soon be +back. I recommend you to make haste. I ask you again--what is it you +want?" + +She had stood up pluckily--he admitted it. But, as he observed her +closely it seemed to him that the strain on her nerves was telling. She +was beginning to look pinched, and her hand as it lay beside her +knitting shook. + +"Well, I'll tell you," he said coolly. He took a half sheet of note-paper +out of the breast-pocket of his coat, drew the lamp on the table towards +him, and looked at certain figures and notes written on the paper. + +"I went this morning in town to look up your uncle's will. Of course I +remember all about that old chap at Manchester. I often speculated on +what he was going to leave you. Unfortunately for me he lived just a +little too long. But I find from the copy of the will that he left +you--three--thousand--pounds. Not bad, considering that you were never at +all civil to him. But three thousand pounds is more than you require to +run this small farm on. You owe me damages for the injury you inflicted +on me by the loss of--first, your society; second, your financial +prospects. I assess it at five hundred pounds. Pay me that small sum, +and--well, I engage to leave you henceforth to the Captain,--and +your conscience." + +He bent forward across the table, his mocking eyes fixed intently upon +her. There was silence a moment--till she said:-- + +"And if I refuse?" + +"Oh, well, then--" he lifted a paper-knife and balanced it on his hand as +though considering--"I shall of course have to work up my case. What do +you call this man?--John Dempsey? A great fool--but I dare say I shall +get enough out of him. And then--well, then I propose to present the +story to Captain Ellesborough--for his future protection." + +"He won't believe a word of it." + +But her lips had blanched--her voice had begun to waver--and with a cruel +triumph he saw that he had won the day. + +"I dare say not. That's for him to consider. But if I were you, I +wouldn't put him to the test." + +Silence again. He saw the fluttering of her breath. With a complete +change of tone, he said, smiling, in a low voice:-- + +"Rachel!--when did you begin to prefer Dick Tanner to me? No doubt you +had a jolly time with him. I suppose I can't undo the divorce--but you +would never have got it, if I hadn't been such an innocent." + +She sprang up, and he saw that he had gone too far. + +"If you say any more such things to me, you will get nothing from me--and +you may either _go_--" she pointed passionately to the door--"or you may +sit there till my people come back--which you like." + +He looked at her, under his eyebrows, smiling mechanically--weighing the +relative advantages of prudence or violence. Prudence carried the day. + +"You are just the same spitfire, I see, as you used to be! All right. I +see you understand. Well, now, how am I to get my money--my damages?" +She turned away, and went quickly to an old bureau that had been her +uncle's. He watched her, exultant. It was all true, then. Dick Tanner had +been her lover, and Ellesborough knew nothing. He did not know whether to +be the more triumphant in her tacit avowal, or the more enraged by the +testimony borne by her acquiescence to her love for Ellesborough. He +hated her; yet he had never admired her so much, as his eyes followed her +stooping over the drawers of the bureau, her beautiful head and neck +in a warm glow of firelight. + +Then, suddenly, he began to cough. She, hunting for her cheque-book, took +no notice at first. But the paroxysm grew; it shook the very life out of +him; till at last she stood arrested and staring-while he fell back in +his chair like a dead man, his eyes shut, his handkerchief to his lips. + +"Shall I--shall I get you some brandy?" she said, coldly. He nodded +assent. She hurriedly looked for her keys, and went to a cupboard in the +kitchen, where Janet kept a half bottle of brandy for medical use if +needed. + +He drank off what she brought--but it was some time before he recovered +speech. When he did it was in a low tone that made the words a curse:--- + +"That's your doing!" + +Her only answer was a gesture. + +"It is," he insisted, speaking in gasps. "You never showed me any real +love--any forbearance. You never cared for me--as you know I cared for +you. You told me so once. You married me for a home--and then you +deserted--and betrayed me." + +There was a guilty answer in her consciousness which made her speak +without anger. + +"I know my own faults very well. And now you must go--we can't either of +us stand this any more. Do you give me your solemn promise that you will +trouble me no more---or the man I am going to marry--if I do this for +you?" + +"Give me a piece of paper--" he said, huskily. + +He wrote the promise, signed it, and pushed it to her. Then he carefully +examined the self cheque "to bearer" which she had written. + +"Well, I dare say that will see me out--and bury me decently. I shall +take my family down to the sea. You know I've got a little girl--about +three? Oh, I never told any lies about Anita. I've married her now." + +Rachel stood like a stone, without a word. Her one consuming anxiety was +to see him gone, to be done with him. + +He rose slowly--with difficulty. And the cough seized him again. Rachel +in a fevered exasperation watched him clinging to the table for support. +Would he die--or faint--then and there--and be found by Janet, who must +now be on her way home? She pressed brandy on him again. But he pushed +it away. "Let me be!" She could only wait. + +When he could speak and move again, he put the cheque away in his pocket, +and buttoned his coat over it. + +"Well, good-night." Then straightening himself, he fixed her with a pair +of burning eyes. "Good-night. Anita will be kind to me--when I die--Anita +will be a woman to me. You were never kind--you never thought of any one +but yourself. Good-bye. Good luck!" + +And walking uncertainly to the door, he opened it and was gone. She heard +his slow steps in the farmyard, and the opening of the wicket gate. Then +all sounds died away. + +For a few minutes she crouched sobbing over the fire, weeping for sheer +nervous exhaustion. Then the dread seized her of being caught in such a +state by Janet, and she went upstairs, locked her door, and threw herself +on her bed. The bruise of an intolerable humiliation seemed to spread +through soul and body. She knew that for the first time she had confessed +her wretched secret which she had thought so wholly her own--and +confessed it--horrible and degrading thought!--to Roger Delane. Not in +words indeed--but in act. No innocent woman would have paid the +blackmail. The dark room in which she lay seemed to be haunted by +Delane's exultant eyes. + +And the silence was haunted too by his last words. There arose in her a +reluctant and torturing pity for the wretched man who had been her +husband; a pity, which passed on into a storm of moral anguish. Her whole +past life looked incredibly black to her as she lay there in the +dark--stained with unkindness, and selfishness, and sin. + +Which saw her the more truly?--Roger, or Ellesborough?--the man who hated +and cursed her, or the man who adored her? + +She was struggling, manoeuvring, fighting, to keep the truth from George +Ellesborough. It was quite uncertain whether she would succeed. Roger's +word was a poor safeguard! But if she did, the truth itself would only +the more certainly pursue and beat her down. + +And again, the utter yearning for confession and an unburdened soul came +upon her intolerably. The religious psychologist describes such a crisis +as "conversion," or "conviction of sin," or the "working of grace." And +he knows from long experience that it is the result in the human soul not +so much of a sense of evil, as of a vision of good. Goodness had been +brought near to Rachel in the personality--the tender self-forgetting +trust--of George Ellesborough. It was goodness, not fear--goodness, +unconscious of any threatened wrong--that had pierced her heart. Then a +thought came to her. _Janet!_--Janet whose pure and loving life beside +her made yet another element in the spiritual forces that were pressing +upon her. + +She sprang to her feet. She would tell Janet everything--put her poor +secret--her all--in Janet's hands. + + + + +XIII + + +It was again a very still and misty night,--extraordinarily mild for the +time of year. A singular brooding silence held all the woodlands above +Great End Farm. There was not a breath of wind. Every dead branch that +fell, every bird that moved, every mouse scratching among the fallen +beech leaves, produced sounds disproportionately clear and startling, and +for the moment there would be a rustle of disturbance, as though +something or some one, in the forest heart, took alarm. Then the deep +waters of quiet closed again, and everything--except that watching +presence--slept. + +The hut in Denman Wood, which had formerly played a hospitable part as +the scene of many a Gargantuan luncheon to Colonel Shepherd's shooting +parties, had long been an abandoned spot. All the Colonel's keepers under +fifty had gone to fight; and there was left only an old head keeper, with +one decrepit helper, who shot the scanty game which still survived on +strict business principles, to eke out the household rations of the big +house. The Ipscombe woods were rarely visited. They were a long way from +the keeper's cottage, and the old man, depressed by the difference +between war and pre-war conditions, found it quite enough to potter round +the stubbles and turnips of the home farm when game had to be shot. + +The paths leading through the underwood to the hut were now in these four +years largely over-grown. A place more hidden and forgotten it would +have been difficult to find. And for this reason, combined with its +neighbourhood to Rachel Henderson's farm, Roger Delane had chosen to +inhabit it. + +It was the third night after his interview with his former wife. He +reached the hut after dark, by various by-paths over the wide commons +stretching between it and X--the station at which he now generally +alighted. He carried in his pocket some evening newspapers, a new +anthology, and a novel. Owing to an injection of morphia--a habit to +which he had only lately taken--he felt unusually fit, and his brain was +unusually alert. At the same time he had had a disagreeable interview +with a doctor that morning who had been insisting on Sanatorium treatment +if the remaining lung was to be preserved and his life prolonged. He did +not want to prolong his life, but only to avoid the beastliness of pain. +It seemed to him that morphia--good stuff!--was going to do that for him. +Why hadn't he begun it before? But his brain was queer--he was conscious +of that. He had asked the doctor about some curious mental symptoms. The +reply was that phthisis was often accompanied by them. + +Obsession--fixed ideas--in the medical sense: half of him, +psychologically, was quite conscious that the other half was under their +influence. The sound self was observing the unsound self, but apparently +with no power over it. Otherwise how was it that he was here again, +hiding like a wild beast in a lair, less than a mile from Great End Farm, +and Rachel Henderson? + +He had found his way to London in the small hours of the day following +his scene with Rachel, intending to keep his promise, and let his former +wife alone. The cashing of Rachel's cheque had given him and Anita some +agreeable moments; though Anita was growing disturbed that he would not +tell her where the money came from. They had found fresh lodgings in a +really respectable Bloomsbury street; they had both bought clothes, and +little Netta had been rigged out. Delane had magnificently compounded +with his most pressing creditors, and had taken Anita to a theatre. But +he had been discontented with her appearance there. She had really lost +all her good looks. If it hadn't been for the kid-- + +And now, after this interval, his obsession had swooped upon him again. +It was an obsession of hate--which simply could not endure, when it came +to the point, that Rachel Henderson should vanish unscathed into the +future of a happy marriage, while he remained the doomed failure and +outcast he knew himself to be. Rachel's implied confession rankled in him +like a burn. _Tanner!_--that wretched weakling, with his miserable daubs +that nobody wanted to buy. So Rachel had gone to him, as soon as she had +driven her husband away, no doubt to complain of her ill-treatment, to +air her woes. The fellow had philandered round her some time, and had +shown an insolent and interfering temper once or twice towards himself. +Yes!--he could imagine it all!--her flight, and Tanner's maudlin +sympathy--tears--caresses--the natural sequel. And then her pose of +complete innocence at the divorce proceedings--the Judge's remarks. +Revolting hypocrisy! If Tanner had been still alive, he would somehow +have exposed him--somehow have made him pay. Lucky for him he was drowned +in that boat accident on Lake Nipissing! And no doubt Rachel thought that +the accident had made everything safe for her. + +Every incident now, every phase of his conversation with her was +assuming a monstrous and distorted significance in his mind. How easily +she had yielded on the subject of the money! He might have asked a great +deal more--and he would have got it. Very likely Ellesborough was well +off--Yankees generally were--and she knew that what she gave Delane as +hush money would make very little difference to her. Ellesborough no +doubt would not look very closely into her shekels, having sufficient of +his own. Otherwise it might occur to him to wonder how she had got rid of +that £500. Would it pinch her? Probably, if all she had for capital was +the old chap's legacy. Well--serve her right--serve her, damned, doubly +right! Ellesborough's kisses would make up. + +These thoughts, after a momentary respite, held him in their grip as he +walked London streets. Suspicion of the past--ugly and venomous--flapped +its black wings about him. Had Rachel ever been faithful to him--even in +the early days? She had made acquaintance with the Tanners very soon +after their marriage. Looking back, a number of small incidents and +scenes poked their heads out of the dead level of the past. Rachel +and Tanner, discussing the Watts photograph when Rachel first acquired +it--Tanner's eager denunciatory talk--he called himself an +"impressionist"--the creature!--because he couldn't draw worth a +cent--Rachel all smiles and deference. She had never given _him_ that +sort of attention. Or Rachel at a housewarming in the next farm to +his--Rachel in a pale green dress, the handsomest woman there, dancing +with Tanner--Rachel quarrelling with him in the buggy on the way home, +because he called Tanner a milksop--"He cares for beautiful things, and +you don't!--but that's no reason why you should abuse him." + +And what about those weeks not very long after that dance, when he had +gone off to the land-sale at Edmonton (that was the journey, by the way, +when he first saw Anita!), and Rachel had stayed at home, with a girl +friend, a girl they knew in Winnipeg? But that girl hadn't stayed all +the time. To do her justice, Rachel had made no secret of that. He +remembered her attacking him when he came home for having left her for +three or four days quite alone. Why had he been so long away? Probably a +mere bluff--though he had been taken in by it at the time, and being +still in love with her, had done his best to appease her. But what had +she been doing all the time she was alone? In the light of what he knew +now, she might have been doing anything. _Was the child his_? + +So, piece by piece, with no auditor but his own brain, shut in upon +himself by the isolation which his own life had forged for him, he built +up a hideous indictment against the woman he had once loved. He wished he +had put off his interview with her till he had had time to think things +out more. As he came to realize how she had tricked and bested him, her +offence became incredibly viler than it seemed at first. He had let her +off far too cheaply that night at the farm. Scenes of past violence +returned upon him, and the memory of them seemed to satisfy a rising +thirst. Especially the recollection of the divorce proceedings maddened +him. His morbid brain took hold on them with a grip that his will could +not loosen. Her evidence--he had read it in the Winnipeg newspapers--the +remarks of the prating old judge--and of her cad of a lawyer--good God! +And all the time it was _she_ who ought to have been in the dock, and he +the accuser, if he had known--if he hadn't been a trusting idiot, a +bleating fool. + +A brooding intensity of rage, as this inward process went on, gradually +drowned in him every other feeling and desire. The relief and amusement +of the money and its spending were soon over. He thought no more of it. +Anita, and his child even--the child for whom he really cared--passed out +of his mind. As he sat drinking whisky in the dull respectable lodging, +at night after Anita had gone to bed, he felt the sinister call of those +dark woods above Rachel's farm, and tasted the sweetness of his new power +to hurt her, now that she had paid him this blackmail, and damned herself +thereby--past help. She had threatened him. But what could she do--or the +Yankee fellow either? She had given the show away. As for his promise, +when he had no right to make it,--no right to allow such a woman to get +off scot-free, with plenty of money and a new lover. + +So on the Thursday evening he took train for X. It was still the +Armistice week. The London streets were crowded with soldiers and young +women of every sort and kind. He bought a newspaper and read it in the +train. It gave him a queer satisfaction--for one half of him was still +always watching the other--to discover that he could feel patriotic +emotion like anybody else and could be thrilled by the elation of +Britain's victory--_his_ victory. He read the telegrams, the positions on +the Rhine assigned to the Second Army, and the Fourth,--General Plumer +General Rawlinson--General F.--Gad! he used to know the son of that last +old fellow at King's. + +Then he fell to his old furtive watching of the people on the platform, +the men getting in and out of the train. At any moment he might fall in +with one of his old Cambridge acquaintances, in one of these smart +officers, with their decorations and their red tabs. But in the first +place they wouldn't travel in this third class where he was sitting--not +till the war was over. And in the next, he was so changed--had taken +indeed such pains to be--that it was long odds against his being +recognized. Eleven years, was it, since he left Cambridge? About. + +At X. he got out. The ticket collector noticed him for that faint touch +of a past magnificence that still lingered in his carriage and gait; but +there were so many strangers about that he was soon forgotten. + +He passed under a railway arch and climbed a hill, the hill on which he +had met Dempsey. At the top of the hill he left the high-road for a grass +track across the common. There was just enough light from a declining +moon to show him where he was. The common was full of dark shapes--old +twisted thorns, and junipers, and masses of tall grass--shapes which +often seemed to him to be strargely alive, the silent but conscious +witnesses of his passage. + +The wood was very dark. He groped his way through it with difficulty +and found the hut. Once inside it, he fastened the door with a wooden +bar he had himself made, and turned on his electric torch. Bit by bit +in the course of his night visits he had accumulated a few necessary +stores--some firewood, a few groceries hidden in a corner, a couple +of brown blankets, and a small box of tools. A heap of dried bracken in a +corner, raised on a substratum of old sacks, had often served him for a +bed; and when he had kindled a wood fire in the rough grate of loose +bricks where Colonel Shepherd's keepers had been accustomed to warm the +hot meat stews sent up for the shooting luncheons, and had set out his +supper on the upturned fragment of an old box which had once held meal +for pheasants, he had provided at least what was necessary for his night +sojourn. This food he had brought with him; a thermos bottle full of hot +coffee, with slices of ham, cheese, and bread; and he ate it with +appetite, sitting on a log beside the fire, and pleasantly conscious as +he looked round him, like the Greek poet of long ago, of that "cuteness" +of men which conjures up housing, food, and fire in earth's loneliest +places. Outside that small firelit space lay the sheer silence of the +wood, broken once or twice by the call and flight of an owl past the one +carefully darkened window of the hut, or by the mysterious sighing +and shuddering which, from time to time, would run through the crowded +stems and leafless branches. + +A queer "hotel" this, for mid-November! He might, if he had chosen, have +been amusing himself, _tant bien que mal_, in one or other of those +shabby haunts,--bars, night-clubs, dancing-rooms, to which his poverty +and his _moeurs_ condemned him, while his old comrades, the lads he had +been brought up with at school and college, guardsmen, Hussars, and the +rest, were holding high revel for the Peace at the Ritz or the Carlton; +he might even, as far as money was concerned, now that he had bagged his +great haul from Rachel, have been supping himself at the Ritz, if he had +only had time to exchange his brother-in-law's old dress suit, which +Marianne had passed on to him, for a new one, and if he could have made +up his mind to the possible recognitions and rebuffs such a step would +have entailed. As it was, he preferred his warm hiding-place in the heart +of the woods, coupled with this exultant sense of an unseen and +mysterious power which was running, like alcohol, through his nerves. + +Real alcohol, however, was not wanting to his solitary meal. He drenched +his coffee in the cognac he always carried about with him, and then, +cigarette in hand, he fell back on the heap of bracken to read a while. +The novel he sampled and threw away; the anthology soon bored him; and he +spent the greater part of two hours lying on his back, smoking and +thinking--till it was safe to assume that the coast was clear round Great +End Farm. About ten o'clock, he slipped noiselessly out of the hut, after +covering up the fire to wait for his return, and hiding as far as he +could the other traces of his occupation. The damp mist outside held all +the wood stifled, and the darkness was profound. Stepping as lightly as +possible, and using his torch with the utmost precaution, he gradually +made his way to the edge of the wood, and the lip of the basin beyond it. +On the bare down was enough faint moonlight to see by, and he +extinguished his little lantern before leaving the wood. Below him were +the dim outlines of the farm, a shadowy line of road beyond, and, as it +were, a thicker fold of darkness, to mark the woods on the horizon. There +was not a light anywhere; the village was invisible, and he listened for +a long time without hearing anything but the rush of a distant train. + +Ah!--Yes, there was a sound down there in the hollow--footsteps, +reverberating in the silence. He bent his head listening intently. The +footsteps seemed to approach the farm, then the sounds ceased, till +suddenly, on the down slope below him, he saw something moving. He threw +back his head with a quiet laugh. + +The Ipscombe policeman, no doubt, on his round. Would he come up the +hill? Hardly, on such a misty night. If not, his retreating steps on the +farm lane would soon tell his departure. + +In a few minutes, indeed, the click of an opening gate could be clearly +heard through the mist, and afterwards, steps. They grew fainter and +fainter. All clear! + +Choosing a circuitous route, Delane crept down the hill, and reached a +spot on the down-side rather higher than the farm enclosure, from which +the windows of the farm-house could be seen. There was a faint light in +one of the upper two--in which he had some reason to think was that of +Rachel's bedroom. It seemed to him the window was open; he perceived +something like the swaying of a blind inside it. The night was +marvellously mild for mid-November; and he remembered Rachel's old +craving for air, winter and summer. + +The light moved, there was a shadow behind the blind, and suddenly the +window was thrown up widely, and a pale figure--a woman's figure--stood +in the opening. Rachel, no doubt! Delane slipped behind a thorn growing +on the bare hill-side. His heart thumped. Instinctively his hand groped +for something in his pocket. If she had guessed that he was there--within +twenty yards of her! + +Then, as he watched the faint apparition in the mist, it roused in +him a fresh gust of rage. Rachel, the sentimental Rachel, unable to +sleep--Rachel, happy and serene, thinking of her lover--the lies of her +divorce all forgotten--and the abominable Roger cut finally out of her +life!-- + +The figure disappeared; he heard the closing of the window, which was +soon dark. Then he crept down to the farm wall, and round the corner of +it to that outer cart-shed, where he had bound up his bleeding hand on +the night when Halsey--silly ass!--had seen the ghost. He did not dare to +smoke lest spark or smell might betray him. Sitting on a heap of sacks in +a sheltered corner, his hands hanging over his knees, he spent some long +time brooding and pondering--conscious all the while of the hidden and +silent life of the house and farm at his back. By now he fancied he +understood the evening ways of the place. The two girls went up to bed +first, about nine; the two ladies, about an hour later; and the farm +bailiff as a rule did not sleep on the premises, though there was a bed +in the loft over the stable which could be used on occasion. That window, +too, through which he had watched the pair of lovers, when the Yankee +discovered him--that also seemed to fit into a scheme. + +Yes!--the Yankee had discovered him. His start, his sudden movement as +though to make a rush at the window, had shown it. Meanwhile Delane +had not waited for developments. Quick as thought he had made for one of +those sunken climbing lanes in which the chalk downs of the district +abound, a lane which lay to the south of the farm, while the green +terraced path connected with the ghost-story lay to the north of it. No +doubt there had been a hue and cry, a search of the farm and its +immediate neighbourhood. But the night was dark and the woods wide. Once +in their shelter, he had laughed at pursuit. What had the Yankee said to +Rachel? And since he had stopped her in the lane, what had Rachel been +saying to the Yankee? Had she yet explained that the face he had seen at +the window--supposing always that he had told her what he had seen--and +why shouldn't he?--was not the face of a casual tramp or lunatic, but the +face of a discarded husband, to whom all the various hauntings and +apparitions at the farm had been really due? + +That was the question--the all-important question. Clearly some +one--Ellesborough probably--had given a warning to the police. On what +theory?--ghost?--tramp?--or husband? + +Or had Rachel just held her tongue, and had the Yankee been led to +believe that the husband--for Rachel must have owned up about the husband +though she did call herself Miss Henderson!--was still some thousands of +miles away--in Canada--safely dead and buried, as far as Rachel was +concerned? + +On the whole, he thought it most probable that Rachel had held her tongue +about his reappearance. If she had thought it worth while to bribe him so +heavily, it was not very likely that she would now herself have set the +American on the track of a secret which she so evidently did not want an +expectant bridegroom to know. + +The American--d--n him! A furious and morbid jealousy rushed upon the man +crouching under the cart-shed. The world was rapidly reducing itself +for him to these two figures--figures of hate--figures against whom he +felt himself driven by a kind of headlong force, a force of destruction. + +How still the farm was, except for the movements of the cows inside the +shippen at his back, or of the horses in the stable! Rachel, no doubt, +was now asleep. In the old days he had often--enviously--watched her +tumble asleep as soon as her bright head was on the pillow; while in his +own case sleep had been for years a difficult business. + +Somebody else would watch her sleeping now. + +Yes, if he, the outcast, allowed it. And again the frenzied sense of +power swept through him. _If he allowed it_! It rested with him. + +The following day, Ellesborough set out in the early afternoon for Great +End Farm, the bearer of much news. + +The day was dark and rainy, with almost a gale blowing, but his spirits +had never been higher. The exultation of the great victory, the +incredible Victory, seemed to breathe upon him from the gusty wind, to be +driving the westerly clouds, and crying in all the noises of the woods. +Was it really over?--over and done?--the agony of these four years--the +hourly sacrifice of irreplaceable life--the racking doubt as to the +end--the torturing question in every conscious mind--"Is there a God in +Heaven--a God who cares for men--or is there not?" + +He could have shouted the answer aloud--"There is--there is a God! And He +is just." + +Faith was natural to him, and nourished on his new happiness no less than +on the marvellous issue of the war, it set his heart singing on this dull +winter's day. How should he find her? Threshing, perhaps, in the big +barn, and he would turn to, and work with her and the girls till work was +done, and they could have the sitting-room to themselves, and he could +tell her all his news. Janet--the ever-kind and thoughtful Janet--would +see to that. The more he saw of the farm-life the more he admired Janet. +She was a little slow. She was not clever; and she had plenty of small +prejudices which amused him. But she was the salt of the earth. Trust +her--lean upon her--she would never let you down. And now he was going to +trust his beloved to her--for a while. + +Yes--Rachel and the girls, they were all in the high barn, feeding the +greedy maw of the threshing machine; a business which strained muscles +and backs, and choked noses and throats with infinitesimal particles of +oil and the fine flying chaff. He watched Rachel a few minutes as she +lifted and pitched--a typical figure of a New Labour, which is also a New +Beauty, on this old earth. Then he drew her away, flung off his tunic, +and took her place, while she, smiling and panting, her hands on her +sides, leaned against the wall, and watched in her turn. + +Then when the engine stopped, and the great hopper full of grain lay +ready for the miller, they found themselves alone in the barn for a +minute. The girls and Janet had gone to milk, and Hastings with them. +There was a lantern in the barn, which showed Rachel in the swirl of the +corn dust with which the barn was full, haloed and golden with it, like a +Homeric goddess in a luminous cloud. Her soft brown head, her smile, +showing the glint of her white teeth, her eyes, and all the beauty of her +young form, in its semi-male dress--they set his blood on fire. Just as +he was, in his khaki shirt-sleeves, he came to her, and took her in his +arms. She clung to him passionately. + +"I thought you were never coming." + +It was one of the reproaches that have no sting. + +"I came at the first moment. I left a score of things undone." + +"Have you been thinking of me?" + +"Always--always. And you?" + +"Nearly always," she said teasingly. "But I have been making up my +accounts." + +"Avaricious woman!--thinking of nothing but money. Dear--I have several +bits of news for you. But let me wash!" He held out his hands--"I am +not fit to touch you!" + +She disengaged herself quietly. + +"What news?" + +"Some letters first," he said, smiling. "A budget and a half--mostly for +you, from all my home people. Can you face it?" + +"In reply to your cable?" + +"My most extravagant cable! On the top of course of sacks of letters!" + +"Before we were engaged?" + +He laughed as he thrust his arms into his tunic. + +"My mother seems to have guessed from my very first mention of you." + +"But--she doesn't know yet?" said Rachel, slowly. + +They had passed out of the range of the lantern. He could not see her +face, could only just hear her voice. + +"No, not yet, dear. My last long letter should reach her next week." + +Her hand lay close in his as they groped their way to the door. When he +unlatched it they came out into the light of a stormy sunset. The rain +had momentarily ceased, and there were fiery lines of crimson burning +their way through the black cloud masses in the western sky. The red +light caught Rachel's face and hair. But even so, it seemed to him that +she was pale. + +"I say--you've done too much threshing!" he said with energy. "Don't do +any more--get an extra man." + +"Can't find one," she said, laughing at him, but rather languidly. "I'll +go and get the tea ready." + +He went off to wash, and when he entered the sitting-room a little +later, she too was fresh and neat again, in a new frock of some soft +bluish-green stuff, which pleased his eye amazingly. Outside, the sunset +was dying rapidly, and at a sign from her, he drew down the blinds over +the two windows, and pulled the curtains close. He stood at the window +looking at the hill-side for a moment with the blind in his hand. He was +recalling the face he had seen, of which neither he nor any one else had +yet said a word to Rachel; recalling also his talk with one of the +Millsborough police the day before. "Nothing more heard of him, Captain. +Oh, we get queer people about these hills sometimes. It's a very +lonely bit of country. Why, a year ago, we were hunting a couple of +German prisoners about these commons for days!" + +"Any more ghosts?" he said lightly, glancing round at Rachel, as he drew +the curtains across. + +"Not that I know of. Come and have your tea." + +He took a cup from her hand, and leaning against the chimney surveyed the +room with a radiant face. Then he stooped over her and said:-- + +"I love this little room! Don't you?" + +She made a restless movement. + +"I don't know. Why do you love it?" + +"As if you didn't know!" Their eyes met, his intense and +passionate,--hers, less easy to read. "Darling, I have some other news +for you. I think you'll like it--though it'll separate us for a little." + +And drawing a letter from his pocket, he handed it to her. It was a +letter from the American Headquarters, offering him immediate work in the +American Intelligence Department at Coblentz. + +"Some friends of mine there, seem to have been getting busy about me. You +see I know German pretty well." + +And he explained to her that as a boy he had spent a year in Germany +before going to Yale. She scarcely listened, so absorbed was she in the +official letter. + +"When must you go?" she said at last, looking up. + +"At the end of next week, I'm afraid." + +"And how long will it be?" + +"That I don't know. But three or four months certainly. It will put off +our wedding, dearest, a bit. But you'd like me to go, wouldn't you? I +should be at the hub of things." + +The colour rushed into her cheeks. + +"_Must you go_?" + +Her manner amazed him. He had expected that one so ambitious and +energetic in her own way of life would have greeted his news with +eagerness. The proposal was really a great compliment to him--and a great +chance. + +"I don't see how I could refuse it," he said with an altered countenance. +"Indeed--I don't think I could." + +She dropped her face into her hands, and stared into the fire. In some +trouble of mind, he knelt down beside her, and put his arm round her. + +"I'll write every day. It won't be long, darling." + +She shook her head, and he felt a shudder run through her. + +"It's silly of me--I don't know why--but--I'm just afraid--" + +"Afraid of what?" + +She smiled at him tremulously--but he saw the tears in her eyes. + +"I told you--I can't always help it. I'm a fool, I suppose--but--" + +Then she threw her arms round his neck--murmuring in his ear: "You'll +have time to think--when you're away from me--that it was a great +pity--you ever asked me." + +He kissed and scolded her, till she smiled again. Afterwards she made a +strong effort to discuss the thing reasonably. Of course he must go--it +would be a great opening--a great experience. And they would have all the +more time to consider their own affairs. But all the evening afterwards +he felt in some strange way that he had struck her a blow from which she +was trying in vain to rally. Was it all the effect of her suffering at +that brute's hands--aided by the emotion and strain of the recent scenes +between herself and him? + +As for her, when she turned back from the gate where she had bid him +good-bye, she saw Janet in the doorway waiting for her almost with a +sense of exasperation. She had not yet said one word to Janet. That +plunge was all to take! + + + + +XIV + + +Rachel woke the following morning in that dreary mood when all the colour +and the glamour seem to have been washed out of life, and the hopes and +dreams which keep up a perpetual chatter in every normal mind are +suddenly dumb. + +How was she going to face Ellesborough's long absence? It had been +recently assumed between them that he would be very soon released from +his forestry post, that the infantry commission he had been promised +would come to nothing, now the Armistice was signed, and that in a very +few weeks they would be free to think only of themselves and their own +future. This offer of Intelligence work at the American Headquarters had +changed everything. + +In ten days, if nothing happened, he would be gone, and she would be left +behind to grapple alone with Roger--who might at any moment torment her +again; with the presence of Dempsey, who was thinking of settling in the +village, and for whom she would be called upon very soon to fulfil the +hopes she had raised in him; and finally, with the struggle and misery in +her own mind. + +But something must happen. As she was dressing by candle-light in the +winter dawn, her thoughts were rushing forward--leaping some unexplored +obstacles lying in the foreground--to a possible marriage before +Ellesborough went to France; just a quiet walk to a registry office, +without any fuss or any witness but Janet. If she could reach that +haven, she would be safe; and this dumb fever of anxiety, this terrified +conviction that in the end Fate would somehow take him from her, would be +soothed away. + +But how to reach it? For there was now between them, till they also were +revealed and confessed, a whole new series of events: not only the Tanner +episode, but Delane's reappearance, her interview with him, her rash +attempt to silence Dempsey. By what she had done in her bewilderment and +fear, in order to escape the penalty of frankness, she might only--as +she was now beginning to perceive--have stumbled into fresh dangers. It +was as though she stood on the friable edge of some great crater, some +gulf of destruction, on which her feet were perpetually slipping and +sinking, and only Ellesborough's hold could ultimately save her. + +And Janet's--Janet's first. Rachel's thought clung to her, as the +shipwrecked Southern sailor turns to his local saint to intercede for him +with the greater spiritual lights. Janet's counsel and help--she knew she +must ask for them--that it was the next step. Yet she had been weakly +putting it off day by day. And through this mist of doubt and dread, +there kept striking all the time, as though quite independent of it, the +natural thoughts of a woman in love. + +During the farm breakfast, hurried through by candle-light, with rain +beating on the windows, Rachel was thinking--"Why didn't _he_ propose +it?"--this scheme of marrying before he went. Wasn't it a most natural +thing to occur to him? She tormented herself all the morning with the +problem of his silence. + +Then--as though in rebuke of her folly--at midday came a messenger, a boy +on a bicycle, with a letter. She took it up to her own room, and read it +with fluttering breath--laughing, yet with tears in her eyes. + +"My Darling--What an idiot I was last night! This morning I have woke up +to a brilliant idea--why I didn't propose it to you yesterday I can't +imagine! Let us marry before I go. Meet me in London, a week to-day, and +let us go into the country, or to the sea, for a blessed forty-eight +hours, afterwards. Then you will see me off--and I shall know, wherever I +go, that you are my very, very own, and I am yours. I don't want to hurry +you. Take time to think, and write to me to-night, or wire me to-morrow +morning. But the very idea that you may say 'Yes' makes me the happiest +of men. Take time to think--but--all the same--don't keep me too long +waiting! + +"Your own, + +"G.E." + +All day she kept the letter hidden in the loose front of her dress. "I'll +wire to-morrow morning," she thought. But before that--something had got +to happen. Every now and then she would pause in her own work to watch +Janet--Janet butter-making, Janet feeding the calves, Janet cooking--for +on that homely figure in white cap and apron everything seemed to depend. + +The frost had come, and clear skies with it. The day passed in various +miscellaneous business, under shelter, in the big barn. + +And at night, after supper, Rachel stood on the front steps looking into +a wide starry heaven, moonless, cold, and still. Betty and Jenny had just +gone up to bed. Janet was in the kitchen, putting the porridge for the +morrow's breakfast which she had just made into the hay-box, which would +keep it steaming all night. But she would soon have done work. The moment +seemed to have come. + +Rachel walked into the kitchen and closed the door behind her. The supper +had been cleared away and the table on which they had eaten it shone +spotlessly clean and bare. The fire would soon be raked out for the +night, and Janet would lay the breakfast before she left the kitchen. +Everything was in the neatest possible order, and the brilliant polish of +a great stew-pan hanging on the wall particularly caught the eye. Janet +was humming to herself--one of the war tunes--when Rachel entered. + +"Janet, I want to speak to you." + +Janet looked up--startled. And yet something in her was not startled! She +had been strangely expectant all these days. It seemed to her she had +already seen Rachel come in like that--had already heard her say those +words. + +She shut up the hay-box, and came gently forward. + +"Here, Rachel?" + +"You've nearly done?" + +"In a few minutes. If you'll go into the sitting-room, I'll join you +directly." + +And while she hurried through the rest of her work, her mind was really +running forward in prophecy. She more or less knew what she was going +to hear. And as she closed the kitchen door behind her there was in her a +tremulous sense as though of some sacred responsibility. + +Rachel was crouching over the fire as usual, and Janet drew up a stool +beside her, and laid a hand on her knee. + +"What is it?" + +Rachel turned. + +"I told you one secret, Janet, the other day. Now this is another. And +it's--" She flushed, and broke off, beginning again after a moment--"I +didn't mean to tell you, or any one. I can't make up my mind whether I'm +bound to or not. But I want you to advise me, Janet. I'm awfully +troubled." + +And suddenly, she slipped to the floor, and laid her head against Janet's +knees, hiding her face. + +Janet bent over her, instinctively caressing the brown hair. She was only +three or four years older than Rachel, but she looked much older, and the +close linen cap she wore on butter-making afternoons, and had not yet +removed, gave her a gently austere look, like that of a religious. + +"Tell me--I'll do my best." + +"In the first place," said Rachel, in a low voice, "who do you think was +the ghost?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"The ghost--was Roger Delane!" + +Janet uttered an exclamation of surprise and horror--while fact after +fact rushed together in her mind, fitting into one explanatory whole. Why +had she never thought of that possibility, among all the others? + +"Oh, Rachel, have you ever seen him?" + +"Twice. He stopped me on the road, when I was coming back from +Millsborough on Armistice Day. And he came to see me the day after. You +remember you were astonished to find I had sent the girls to the +Shepherds' dance? I did it to get them out of the way--and if you hadn't +said you were going to that service I should have had to invent something +to send you away." + +"I always thought he was in Canada?" said Janet, in bewilderment. "What +did he want? Have you told Captain Ellesborough?" + +"No, I haven't told George. I don't know whether I shall. Roger wanted +money--as usual. I gave him some." + +"_You gave him some! Rachel!_" + +"I had to--I had to buy him off. And I've seen John Dempsey also without +your knowing. And I've had to bribe him too." + +Rachel was now sitting up, very hard and erect, her hands round her +knees. Her first object seemed to be to avoid emotion, and to prevent +Janet from showing any. Janet had gone very pale. The name "Dick Tanner" +was drumming in her ear. + +"I know you can't understand me, Janet," said Rachel, after a pause, "you +could never do what I've done. I dare say when you've let me tell you the +story you'll not be able to forgive me. You'll think I ought never to +have let you settle with me--that I told a lie when I said I wasn't a bad +woman--that I've disgraced you. I hope you won't. That--that would about +finish it." Her voice shook at last. + +Janet was speechless. But instinctively she laid a hand on Rachel's +shoulder. And at the touch, in a moment, the story came out. + +Confused and hardly intelligible! For Rachel herself could scarcely now +disentangle all the threads and motives of it. But certain things stood +out--the figure of a young artist, sensitive, pure-minded, sincere, with +certain fatal weaknesses of judgment and will, which had made him a +rolling stone, and the despair of his best friends, but, as compared with +Roger Delane after six months of marriage--Hyperion to a satyr; then the +attraction of such a man for his neighbour, a young wife, brought up in a +refined home, the child of a saint and dreamer, outraged since her +marriage in every fibre by the conduct and ways of her husband, and +smarting under the sense of her own folly; their friendship, so +blameless till its last moment, with nothing to hide, and little to +regret, a woman's only refuge indeed from hours of degradation and +misery; and finally the triumph of something which was not passion, at +least on Rachel's side, but of mere opportunity, strengthened, made +irresistible, by the woman's pain and despair: so the tale, the common +tale, ran. + +"I didn't love him," said Rachel at last, her hands over her eyes--"I +don't pretend I did. I liked him--I was awfully sorry for him--as he was +for me. But--well, there it is! I went over to his house. I honestly +thought his sister was there; but, above all, I wanted him to sympathize +with me--and pity me--because he knew everything. And she wasn't +there--and I stayed three days and nights with him. _Voilà _!" + +There was silence a little. Janet's thoughts were in a tumult. Rachel +began again: + +"Now, why am I telling you all this? I need never have told anybody--at +least up to a few days ago. Poor Dick was drowned just before I got my +divorce, in a boat accident on Lake Nipissing. He had gone there to +paint, and was camping out. If he hadn't been drowned, perhaps, he would +have made me marry him. So there was no one in the world who knew I was +ever with him except--" + +She turned sharply upon Janet-- + +"Except this man who turned up here in George's own camp--and in the +village, two months ago, but whom I never saw till this week--_this +week_--Armistice Day--John Dempsey. That was a queer chance, wasn't it? +The sort of thing nobody could have expected. I was coming back from +Millsborough. I was--well, just that evening, I was awfully happy. I +expected nothing. And then--within twenty minutes--" + +She told the story to Janet's astounded ears, of the two apparitions in +the road, of her two interviews--first with Dempsey, and the following +evening with Delane--and of her own attempts to bribe them both. + +And at that her composure broke down. + +"Why did I do it?" she said wildly, springing to her feet. "It was +idiotic! Why didn't I just accept the boy's story, and say quietly, 'Yes, +I was staying with the Tanners'? And why didn't I defy Roger--go straight +to George, and hand him over to the police? Don't you see why? Because it +is true!--_it's true!_--and I'm terrified. If I lost George, I should +kill myself. I never thought I should be--I could be--in love with +anybody like this. But yet I suppose it was in me all the time. I was +always seeking--reaching out--to somebody I could love with every bit of +me, soul and body--somebody I could follow--for I can't manage for +myself--I'm not like you, Janet. And now I've found him--and--Do you know +what that is?" + +She pulled a letter out of her pocket, and looked at Janet through a mist +of despairing tears. + +"It's a letter from George. It came this morning. He wants me to marry +him at once--next week. He's got some new work in France, and he saw that +I was miserable because he was going away. And why shouldn't I? _Why +shouldn't I?_ I love him. There's nothing wrong with me, except that +wretched story. Well, there are two reasons. First"--she spoke with slow +and bitter emphasis--"I don't believe for a moment Roger will keep his +word. I know him. He is frightfully ill. He says he's dying. He may +die--before he's got through this money. That would be the best thing +that could happen to me--wouldn't it? But probably he won't die--and +certainly he'll get through the money! Then he'll come back--and I shall +begin bribing him again--and telling lies to hide it from George--and +in the end it'll be no use--for Roger's quite reckless--you can't appeal +to him through anything but money. He'll see George, whatever I do, and +try it on with him. And then--George will know how to deal with _him_, I +dare say--but when we are alone--and he asks _me_--" + +She sank down again on the floor, kneeling, and put her hands on Janet's +knees. + +"You see, Janet, don't you? You see?" + +It was the cry of a soul in anguish. + +"You poor, poor thing!" + +Janet, trembling from head to foot, bowed her head on Rachel's, and the +two clung together, in silence, broken only by two deep sobs from Rachel. +Then Janet disengaged herself. She was pale, but no longer agitated, and +her blue eyes which were her only beauty were clear and shining. + +"You'll let me say just what I feel, Rachel?" + +"Of course." + +"You can't marry him without telling him. No, no--you couldn't do that!" + +Rachel said nothing. She was, sitting on the floor, her eyes turned away +from Janet. + +"You couldn't do that, Rachel," Janet resumed, as though she were +urgently thinking her way; "you'd never have a happy moment." + +"Oh, yes, of course," said Rachel, throwing up her head with a half +scornful gesture. "One says that--but how do you know? I might never +think of it again--if Roger and that man Dempsey were out of the way. +It's dead--it's _dead_! Why do we trouble about such things!" + +"It would be dead," said Janet in a low voice, "if you'd told him--and +he'd forgiven!" + +"What has he to do with it?" cried Rachel, stubbornly, "it was before he +knew me. I was a different being." + +"No--it is always the same self, which we are making, all the time. Don't +you see--dear, dear Rachel!--it's your chance now to put it all behind +you--just by being true. Oh, I don't want to preach to you--but I see it +so clearly!" + +"But it isn't as a man would see it--a man like George," said Rachel, +shaking her head. "Look there"--she pointed to a little bundle of letters +lying on the table--"there are letters from his people which he brought +me this morning. It's awful!--how they take me at his valuation--just +because he loves me. I must be everything that's good, because he says +so. And you can see what kind of people they are--what they think of +him--and what they imagine about me--what they think I _must_ be--for +him to love me. I don't mean they're prigs--they aren't a bit. It's just +their life coming out, quite naturally. You see what they are--quite +simply--what they can't help being, and what they expect from him and the +woman he marries. And he's got to take me home to them--some time--to +present me to them. The divorce is difficult enough. Even if they think +of me as quite innocent, it will be hard for them, that George should +marry a divorced woman." + +"What have they to do with it?" interrupted Janet. "It's only George that +matters--no other person has any right whatever to know! You needn't +consider anybody else." + +"Yes--but think of _him_. It's bad enough that I should know something he +doesn't know--but at least _he's_ spared. He can take me home to his +mother--whom he adores--and if _I_ know that I'm a cheat and a sham--he +doesn't--it will be all easy for him." + +Janet was silenced for the moment by the sheer passion of the voice. She +sat, groping a little, under the stress of her own thought, and praying +inwardly--without words--for light and guidance. + +"And think of _me_, please!" Rachel went on. "If I tell him, it's +done--for ever. He'll forgive me, I think. He may be everything +that's dear, and good, and kind"--her voice broke--"but it'd hit him +dreadfully hard. A man like that can't forget such a thing. When I've +once said it, I shall have changed everything between us. He must +think--some time--when he's alone--when I'm not there--'It was Dick +Tanner once--it will be some one else another time!' I shall have been +pulled down from the place where he puts me now--even after he knows +all about Roger and the divorce--pulled down for good and all--however +much he may pity me--however good he may be to me. It will be love +perhaps--but another kind of love. He can't trust me again. No one could. +And it's that I can't bear--I can't _bear_!" + +She looked defiantly at Janet, and the little room with its simple +furnishings seemed too small a stage for such an energy of fear and +distress. + +"Yes--that you could bear," said Janet quietly, "with him to help +you--and God. It would all straighten out in the end--because the first +step would be right." + +Rachel turned upon her. + +"Now that I've told you," she cried, "can _you_ ever think the same of me +again? You know you can't!" + +Janet caught her cold hands, and held them close, looking up to her. + +"Not the same--no, not the same! But if I cared for you before, Rachel--I +care for you ten thousand times more now. Don't you see?--it will be the +same with him?" + +Rachel shook her head. + +"No--a _man's_ different," she repeated, "a man's different!" + +"Anyway, you _must_," said Janet resolutely, "you know you must. You +don't need me to tell you." + +Rachel wrenched herself away with a little moan and hid her face in her +hands as she leaned against the mantelpiece. Janet, looking up, and +transfigured by that spiritual energy, that ultimate instinctive faith +which was the root force in her, went on, pleading. + +"Dear Rachel, one goes on living side by side--doing one's daily +work--and thinking just one's ordinary thoughts--and all the time one +never speaks of the biggest things of all--the only things that matter, +really. Isn't it God that matters--and the law in our hearts? If we break +it--if we aren't true--if we wrong those that love us--if we injure and +deceive--how will it be when we grow old--when we come to die? Whatever +our gain--we shall have lost our souls?" + +"You think I should injure him by marrying him?" cried Rachel. + +"No--no! A thousand times, no! But by deceiving him--by not trusting +him--with all your heart, and all your life--that would be the worst +injury." + +"How do you know all there may have been in his life?" said Rachel, +vehemently--"I don't ask." + +"I think you do know." + +Rachel considered the words, finally dropping her face again out of +sight. + +"Well, I dare say I do!" she said wearily. "Of course he's a hundred +times too good for me." + +"Don't turn it off like that! It's for oneself one has to think--one's +own fulfilling of the law. Love--_is_ the fulfilling of the law. And love +means trust--and truth." + +Janet's voice sank. She had said her say. Rachel was silent for some +time, and Janet sat motionless. The clock and the fire were the only +sounds. At last Rachel moved. With a long sigh, she pressed back the +ruffled hair from her temples, and standing tiptoe before a small mirror +that hung over the mantelpiece, she began to pin up some coils that had +broken loose. When that was done, she turned slowly towards Janet. + +"Very well. That's settled. How shall it be done? Shall I write it or say +it?" + +Janet gasped a little between laughing and crying. Then she caught +Rachel's cold unresisting hand, and laid it tenderly against her own +cheek. + +"Write it." + +"All right." The voice was that of an automaton. "How shall I send it?" + +"Would you--would you trust me to take it?" + +"You mean--you'd talk to him?" + +"If you gave me leave." + +Rachel thought a little, and then made a scarcely perceptible sign of +assent. A few more words passed as to the best time at which to find +Ellesborough at leisure. It was decided that Janet should aim at catching +him in the midday dinner hour. "I should bicycle, and get home before +dark." + +"And now let's talk of something else," said Rachel, imperiously. + +She found some business letters that had to be answered, and set to work +on them. Janet wrote up her milk records and dairy accounts. The fire +sank gently to its end. Janet's cat came with tail outstretched, and +rubbed itself sociably, first against Janet's skirts, and then against +Rachel. No trace remained in the little room, where the two women sat at +their daily work, of the scene which had passed between them, except in +Rachel's pallor, and the occasional shaking of her hand as it passed over +the paper. + +Then when Janet put up her papers with a look at the clock, which was +just going to strike ten o'clock, Rachel too cleared away, and with that +instinct for air and the open which was a relic of her Canadian life, and +made any closed room after a time an oppression to her, she threw a cloak +over her shoulders, and went out again to breathe the night. There was a +young horse who, on the previous day, had needed the vet. She went across +the yard to the stable to look at him. + +All was well with the horse, whose swollen hock had been comfortably +bandaged by Hastings before he left. But as she stood beside him, close +to the divided door, opening on the hill, of which both the horizontal +halves were now shut, she was aware of certain movements on the other +side of the door--some one passing it--footsteps. Her nerves gave a +jump. Could it be?--_again_! Impetuously she went to the door, threw open +the upper half, and looked out. Nothing--but the faint starlight on the +hill, and the woods crowning it. + +She called. + +"Who's there?" But no one answered. + +Fancy, of course. But with the knowledge she now had, she could not bring +herself to go round the farm. Instead she carefully closed the stable +shutter, and ran back across the yard into the shelter of the house, +locking the front door behind her, and going into the sitting-room and +the kitchen, to see that the windows were fastened. + +Janet was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. They kissed each +other gravely, in silence, like those who feel that the time for speech +is done. Then Rachel went into her room, and Janet heard her turn the +key. Janet herself slept intermittently. But whenever she woke, it seemed +to her that there was some slight sound in the next room--a movement or +a rustle, which showed that Rachel was still awake--and up? + +It was a night indeed which left Rachel with that sense of strange +illuminations, of life painfully enlarged and deepened, which love and +suffering may always bring to the woman who is capable of love and +suffering. She had spent the hours in writing to Ellesborough, and in +that letter she had unpacked her heart to its depths, Janet guessed. When +she received the letter from Rachel on the morrow, she handled it as a +sacred thing. + + + + +XV + + +The frost held. A sun of pearl and fire rose over the hill, as the stars +finally faded out in the winter morning, and a brilliant rime lay +sparkling on all the pastures and on the slopes of the down. The +brilliance had partly vanished from the lower grounds when Janet started +on her way; but on the high commons, winter was at its gayest and +loveliest. The distant woods were a mist of brown and azure, encircling +the broad frost-whitened spaces; the great single beeches and oaks under +which Spenser or Sidney--the great Will himself--might have walked, shot +up, magnificent, into a clear sky, proudly sheltering the gnarled thorns +and furze-bushes which marched beside and round them, like dwarfs in a +pageant. + +Half way up the hill, Janet came across old Betts bringing down a small +cart-full of furze for fodder, and she stopped to speak to him. A little +later on, nearer to the camp she overtook Dempsey, who rather officiously +joined her, and assuming at once that she was in quest of the Camp +Commandant, directed her to a short cut leading straight to +Ellesborough's quarters. There was a slight something in the manner of +both men that jarred on Janet--as though their lips said one thing and +their eyes another--furtive in the case of Betts, a trifle insolent +in that of Dempsey. She with her tragic knowledge guessed uncomfortably +at what it meant. Dempsey--as she had made up her mind after ten minutes' +talk with him--was a vain gossip. It had been madness on Rachel's part to +give him the smallest hold on her. Very likely he had not yet actually +betrayed her--his hope of favours to come might have been sufficient to +prevent that. But his self-importance would certainly show itself +somehow--in a hint or a laugh. He had probably already roused in the +village mind a prying curiosity, a suspicion of something underhand, +which might alter Rachel's whole relation to her neighbours. For once +give an English country-side reason to suspect a scandal, and it will +pluck it bare in time, with a slow and secret persistence. + +Well, after all, if the situation became disagreeable, Rachel would only +have to choose Ellesborough's country as her own, and begin her new life +there. + +_Supposing that all went well!_ Janet's mind went through some painful +alterations of confidence and fear, as she walked her bicycle along the +rough forest-track leading to Ellesborough's hut. She believed him to be +deeply in love with Rachel, and the spiritual passion in her seemed to +realize in the man's inmost nature, behind all his practical ability, +and his short business manner, powers of pity and tenderness like her +own. But if she were wrong? If this second revelation put too great a +strain upon one brought up in an exceptionally strict school where +certain standards of conduct were simply taken for granted? + +Mystic, and puritan as she was, there were moments when Janet felt +her responsibility almost unbearable. Rachel deserted--Rachel in +despair--Rachel turning on the woman who had advised her to her +undoing--all these images were beating on Janet's tremulous sense, as the +small military hut where Ellesborough and two of his junior officers +lived came into view, together with that wide hollow of the forestry camp +where he and Rachel had first met. The letter in her pocket seemed a +living and sinister thing. She had still power to retain it--to keep it +imprisoned. + +A lady in the dress of the Women's Forestry Corps appeared on another +path leading to Ellesborough's hut. Janet recognized Mrs. Fergusson, +and was soon greeted by a shout of welcome. + +"Well, so Miss Henderson's engaged to our Captain!" said Mrs. Fergusson, +with a smiling countenance, as they shook hands. "The girls here, and +I, are awfully interested. The camp began it! But do you want the +Captain? I'm afraid he isn't here." + +Janet's countenance fell. + +"I thought I should be sure to find him in the dinner hour." + +"No, he went up to town by the first train this morning on some business +with the Ministry. We expect him back about three." + +It was not one o'clock. Janet pondered what to do. + +"You wanted to see him?" said Mrs. Fergusson, full of sympathy. + +"I brought a letter for him. If I leave it, will he be sure to get it +directly he returns?" + +"His servant's in the hut. Let's talk to him." + +Mrs. Fergusson rapped at the door of the hut, and walked in. An elderly +batman appeared. + +"I have a letter for Captain Ellesborough--an important letter--on +business," said Janet. "I was to wait for an answer. But as he isn't +here, where shall I leave it, so that he will be certain to get it?" + +"On his table, if you please, ma'am," said the soldier, opening the door +of the Captain's small sitting-room--"I'll see that he gets it." + +"It'll be quite safe?" said Janet anxiously, placing it herself in a +prominent place on the writing-table. + +"Lor, yes, ma'am. Nobody comes in here but me, when the Captain's away. +I'll tell him of it directly he comes home." + +"May I just write a little note myself? I expected to find Captain +Ellesborough in." + +The servant handed her a sheet of paper. She wrote--"I brought Rachel's +letter, and am very disappointed not to see you. Come at once. Don't +delay. Janet Leighton." + +She slipped it into an envelope, which she addressed and left beside the +other. Then she reluctantly left the hut with Mrs. Fergusson. + +"I am so sorry you didn't find him," said that lady. "Was it something +about the wedding?" she added, smiling, her feminine curiosity getting +the better of her. + +"Oh, no--not yet," said Janet, startled. + +"Well, I suppose it won't be long," laughed Mrs. Fergusson. "He's +desperately in love, you know!" + +Janet smiled in return, and Mrs. Fergusson, delighted to have the chance, +broke out into praises of her Commandant. + +"You see, we women who are doing all this new work with men, we know a +jolly deal more about them than we ever did before. I can tell you, it +searches us out, this joint life--both women and men. In this camp you +can't hide what you are--the sort of man--or the sort of woman. And +there isn't a woman in this camp, if she's been here any time, who +wouldn't trust the Captain for all she's worth--who wouldn't tell him her +love-affairs, or her debts--or march up to a machine-gun, if he told her. +In a sense, they're in love with him, because--as you've no doubt found +out, he has a way with him! But they all know that he's never been +anything to them but the best of Commandants, and a good friend. Oh, I +could never have run this camp but for him. He and I'll go together! Of +course we're shutting up very soon." + +So the pleasant Irishwoman ran on, as she walked beside Janet and her +bicycle to the top of the hill. Janet listened and smiled. Her own mind +said ditto to it all. But nevertheless, the more Ellesborough was set on +a pinnacle by this enthusiastic friend and spectator of his daily life, +the more Rachel's friend trembled for Rachel. A lover "not too bright and +good" to understand--and forgive--that was what was wanted. + +She reached the farm-gate about two o'clock, and Rachel was there, +waiting for her. But before they met, Rachel watching her approach, saw +that there was no news for her. + +"He wasn't there?" she said, drearily, as Janet reached her. + +Janet explained, and they walked up the farm lane together. + +"I would have waited if I could," she said in distress. "But it would +have looked strange. Mrs. Fergusson would have suspected something +wrong." + +"Oh no, you couldn't have waited," said Rachel, decidedly. "Well!"--she +threw her arms out in a great stretch--"it's done. In half an hour he'll +be reading the letter. It's like waiting for one's execution, isn't it? +Nothing can stop it; I may be dead before tea!" She gave a wild laugh. + +"Rachel!" + +"Well, that's how I feel. If he gives me up, it will be death--though I +dare say I shall go on fussing round the farm, and people will still talk +to me as if I were alive. But!"--she shrugged her shoulders. + +"He won't give you up--" said Janet, much troubled--"because--because +he's a good man." + +"All the more reason. If I were he, I should give me up. Shall I tell you +a queer thing, Janet? I hate Roger, as much as I can hate anybody. It +would be a great relief to me if I heard he were dead. And yet at the +same time I see--oh yes, I see quite plainly--that I treated him badly. +He told me so the other night--and it is so--it's _true_. I never had the +least patience with him. And now he's dying--at least he says so--and +though I hate him--though I pray I may never, never see him again, yet +I'm sorry for him. Isn't that strange?" + +She looked at Janet with a queer flickering defiance, which was also a +kind of remorse, in her eyes. + +"No, it isn't strange." + +"Why not?--when I hate him?" + +"One can be sorry even for those one hates. I suppose God is," Janet +added, after a pause. + +Rachel made a little face of scorn. + +"Why should God hate any one? He made us. He's responsible. He must have +known what He was doing. If He really pitied us, would He have made us at +all?" + +Janet made a little protesting sound--a sound of pain. + +"Does it give you the shivers, old woman, when I talk like that?" Rachel +slipped her hand affectionately through Janet's arm. "Well, I won't, +then. But if--" she caught her breath a little--"if George casts me off, +don't expect me to sing psalms and take it piously. I don't know myself +just lately--I seem quite strange to myself." + +And Janet, glancing at her sideways, wondered indeed where all that +rosy-cheeked, ripe bloom had gone, which so far had made the constant +charm of Rachel Henderson. Instead a bloodless face, with pinched lines, +and heavy-lidded eyes! What a formidable thing was this "love," that she +herself had never known, though she had had her quiet dreams of husband +and children, like her fellows. + +Rachel, however, would not let herself be talked with or pitied. She +walked resolutely to the house, and went off to the fields to watch +Halsey cutting and trimming a hedge. + +"If he doesn't come before dark," she said, under her breath, to Janet, +before setting off--"it will be finished. If he does--" + +She hurried away without finishing the sentence, and was presently taking +a lesson from old Halsey, in what is fast becoming one of the rarest of +the rural arts. But in little more than half an hour, Janet bringing in +the cows, saw her return and go into the house. The afternoon was still +lovely--the sky, a pale gold, with thin bars of grey cloud lying across +it, and the woods, all delicate shades of brown and purple, with their +topmost branches clear against the gold. The old red walls and tiled +roofs of the farm, the fields, the great hay and straw stacks, were all +drenched in the soft winter light. + +Rachel went up to her room, and sat down before the bare deal +dressing-table which held her looking-glass, and the very few articles of +personal luxury she possessed; a pair of silver-backed brushes and a +hand-glass that had belonged to an aunt, a small leather case in which +she kept some modest trinkets--a pearl brooch, a bracelet or two, and a +locket that had been her mother's--and, standing on either side of the +glass, two photographs of her father and mother. + +There was a clock on the mantelpiece. "Nearly four o'clock--" she +thought--"I'll give it an hour. He'd send--if he couldn't come, and he +wanted to come--but if nothing happens--I shall know what to think." + +As this passed through her mind, she opened one of the drawers of the +dressing-table, in which she kept her gloves and handkerchiefs. Suddenly +she perceived at the back of the drawer a small leathern case. The colour +rushed into her face. She took it out and ran quickly down the stairs to +the kitchen. Janet and the girls were busy milking. The coast was clear. + +A bright fire which Janet had just made up was burning in the kitchen. +Rachel went up to it and thrust the leathern case into the red core of +it. Some crackling--a disagreeable smell--and the little thing had soon +vanished. Rachel went slowly upstairs again, and locked the door of her +room behind her. The drawer of the dressing-table was still open, and +there was visible in it the object she was really in search of, when the +little leathern case caught her eye--a small cloth-bound book marked +"Diary." + +She took it out, and sat with it in her hand, thinking. How was it she +had never yet destroyed that case? The Greek cameo brooch it held--Dick +Tanner's gift to her--how vividly she recalled her first evening alone at +the farm, when she had dropped it into the old well, and had listened to +the splash of it in the summer silence. She remembered thinking vaguely, +and no doubt foolishly, that the cameo would drop more heavily and more +certainly without the case, which was wood, though covered with leather, +and she had therefore taken the brooch out, and had probably put back the +case absently into her pocket. And thence it had found its way back among +her things, how she did not know. + +The little adventure had excited and unnerved her. It seemed somehow of +evil omen that she should have come across that particular thing at this +moment. Opening the diary with a rather trembling hand, she looked +through it. She was not orderly or systematic enough to keep a diary +regularly, and it only contained a few entries, at long intervals, +relating mostly to her married life--and to the death of her child. She +glanced through them with that strange sense of unreality--of standing +already outside her life, of which she had spoken to Janet. There were +some blank pages at the end of the book; and, in her restlessness, just +to pass the time and to find some outlet for the storm of feeling within, +she began to write, at first slowly, and then very rapidly. + +"He must have got my letter by now. I sent it by Janet this morning. He +wasn't there--but by now he must have got home--he is probably reading +it at this moment. Whatever happens to me--I want just to say this--to +write it down now, while I can--I shall never blame George, and I shall +always love him--with all my heart, with all my soul. He has the right to +say he can't trust me--I told him so in my letter this morning--that I am +not fit to be his wife. He has the right--and very likely he will say it. +The terrible thing is that I don't trust myself. If I look forward and +ask myself--shall I always feel as I do now?--I can't honestly be sure. +There is something in me that wants change--always something new--some +fresh experience. I can't even imagine the time when I shouldn't love +George. The mere thought of losing him is awful--unspeakable. But yet--I +will write it down frankly!--nothing has ever lasted with me very long. +It is like the farm. I used to love every minute of the day, every bit of +the work, however dull and dirty it was; and now--I love it still--but I +seem already--sometimes--to be looking forward to the day when I shall be +tired of it. + +"Why am I made like that? I don't know. But I can't feel that I am +responsible. + +"Perhaps if George forgives me, I shall be so happy that everything will +change--my own character first of all. That is my hope. For though I +suppose I am vain--though I like people to admire me and make much of +me--I am not really in love with myself at all. If I were, I couldn't be +in love with George--we are so different. + +"I don't feel yet that I know him. Perhaps now I never shall. I often +find myself wishing that he had something to confess to me. I would +hardly let him--he should never humble himself to me. But to feel that I +_could_ forgive him something, and that he would owe me something--would +be very sweet, very heavenly. I would make it so easy for him. Is he +feeling like that towards me? 'Poor child--she was very young--and so +miserable!' + +"I mustn't write like this--it makes me cry. There is a beautiful yellow +sunset outside, and the world seems very still. He must be here soon--or +a messenger. Janet asked him not to wait. + +"After all, I don't think I am so changeable. I have just been running +myself down--but I don't really believe I could ever change--towards him. +Oh, George!--George!--my George!--come to me!--don't give me up. George, +darling, you could do anything with me you liked--don't despair of me! +In the Gospel, it was the bad women who were forgiven because they loved +'much.' Now I understand why. Because love makes new. It is so terribly +_strong_. It is either a poison--or life--immortal life. I have never +been able to believe in the things Janet believes in. But I think I do +now believe in immortality--in something within you that can't die--when +once it has begun to live." + + * * * * * + +And then she laid her pencil down--and sat with the book on her +knee--looking towards the gold and grey of the sky--the tears running +quietly down her cheeks. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, Hastings had come hurriedly into the shippen, where Janet and +the two girls were milking. He came to stand beside her, silent, but +fidgeting so, that she presently looked up in astonishment. + +"Did you want me?" + +"I wanted to tell you something," he said in a low voice, stooping over +her--"Don't let the girls hear. But that man's been seen again. The +tramp." + +Janet started. She jumped up, asked Betty, who had finished, to take her +place, and went with Hastings out of the barn. + +"There are two or three people think they've seen him lately," he said +hurriedly. "A man from Dobson's farm"--(the farm which lay between +Great End and the village)--"who was on the hill yesterday evening, just +before dark, was certain he saw somebody hanging about the back of the +farm in a queer way--" + +"Last night?" echoed Janet. + +"Yes. And there are two people who remember meeting a man on the X--road +who said he was going to Walton End. And the police have been inquiring, +but nobody at Walton End knows anything about such a man. However, they +have a description of him at last. A tall, dark fellow--gentlemanly +manners--seems delicate. I don't like the look of it, Miss Janet. Seems +to me as though it weren't just a tramp, hanging about for what he can +steal. Do you know of anybody who has a down on Miss Henderson--who'd +like to frighten her, or put blackmail on her?" + +Janet considered. She was tempted to take the faithful fellow to some +extent into her confidence, but she rapidly decided against it. She +suggested that he should himself sleep for a few nights at the +farm, and carefully examine the neighbourhood of it, last thing; and that +she should bicycle over to Millsborough at once, and have some further +talk with the Superintendent of Police there. + +"Besides--I'd like to be out of the way," she thought. "They won't want +anybody hanging round!" + +For there was steadily growing up in her a blissful confidence that all +would be once more settled and settled for good, before the night fell. +Spectators were entirely out of place! Nor would she disturb Rachel's +mind by any talk just then of what seemed to be a fresh attempt at +terrorism on the part of her wretched husband. Hastings would be in +charge for the moment, and Ellesborough would be on the spot for +consultation before darkness had really set in. + +So as before, she told Hastings not to alarm Miss Henderson. But he was +not to leave the farm-buildings, and possibly the Superintendent of +Police would return with her. "And then--either Rachel or the Captain +will have to tell the police the truth!" Just as she was starting, Rachel +came downstairs in some surprise. + +"Where are you off to?" + +"I have forgotten something I wanted from Millsborough. I shall be back +in an hour or so." + +Rachel abstractedly nodded assent. The golden light from the west +transfigured her, as she stood in the doorway. She was pale, but it +seemed to Janet that she was no longer excited--that there was in her +too something of the confidence which had sprung up in the heart of her +friend. She had the look of one for whom the Valley of the Shadow is +past, and her beauty had never struck Janet as it struck her at that +moment. Its grosser elements seemed all refined away. The girlish look +was quite gone; she seemed older and graver; but there breathed about +her "a diviner air." + +Janet, who was much the shorter, mounted on the step to kiss her. +Caresses were not at all common between them, but Rachel returned it, and +their eyes met in a quiet look which said what her lips forbore. Then +Janet departed, and Rachel waved to her as she passed through the gate. + +Hastings crossed the yard, and Rachel called to him. + +"Are you off soon?" + +"No, Miss. I shall sleep over the stable. That horse wants looking +after." + +Rachel acquiesced, with a vague feeling of satisfaction, and Hastings +disappeared within the stable opposite. + +She went back into the sitting-room, which was still flooded with the +last reflections from the western sky beyond the fields, though the light +was fading rapidly, and the stars were coming out. What a strange effect +it was--she suddenly noticed it afresh--that of the two large windows +exactly facing each other in so small a room! One had an odd sense of +being indoors and out, at the same time; the down on one side, the +farm-yard on the other, and in the midst, the fire, the table and chairs, +the pictures, and the red carpet, seemed all parts of the same scene. + +She made up the fire. She brought in a few Xmas roses, from a border +under the kitchen window, and arranged them in a glass on the table. It +was then time to draw the blinds. But she could not make up her mind to +shut out the saffron sky, or the view of the road. + +Something in the distance!--an approaching figure, and the noise of a +motor-bicycle. She caught at a chair a moment, as though to steady +herself; and then she went to the window, and stood there watching. He +saw her quite plainly in the level light, and leaving his bicycle at the +gate, he came towards her. There was no one in the yard, and before he +entered he stood a moment, bare-headed, gazing at her, as she stood +framed in the window. Everything that she wished to know was written in +his face. A little sob broke the silence of the sitting-room. + +Then he opened the doors and closed them behind him. Without a word she +seemed to glide over the room towards him; and now, she was on his +breast, gathered close against the man's passionately beating heart. +Neither spoke--neither was able to speak. + +Then--suddenly--a crash of breaking glass--a shot. The woman he was +holding fell from Ellesborough's arms; he only just caught her. Another +shot--which grazed his own coat. + +"Rachel!" + +It was a cry of horror. Her eyes were closing. But she still smiled at +him, as he laid her on the floor, imploring her to speak. There was a +stain of blood on the lips, and through them came a few shuddering +gasps. + +Hastings rushed into the room-- + +"Good God, Sir!" + +"A doctor!--Go for a doctor!" said Ellesborough hoarsely--"No--she's +gone!" + +He sank down beside her, putting his ear to her lips. In vain. No sound +was there. The smiling mouth had settled and shut. Without a murmur or +a sigh, Rachel had passed for ever from this warm world and the arms of +her lover, at the bidding of the "fierce workman Death." + +When Janet, a doctor, and the Superintendent of Police arrived, it was +to find Ellesborough sitting motionless beside the body, while the two +girls, a blanched and shivering pair, watched for Janet at +the door. + +"Can you throw any light upon it, Sir?" said the Superintendent, +respectfully, at last, when the Doctor had finished his examination, and +still Ellesborough did not speak. + +The Captain looked up. + +"Her husband did it"--he said, quietly--"the man who was her husband." + +A shudder of surprise ran through the room. + +"Did I hear you right, Sir?" said the Superintendent. "Miss Henderson +passed for unmarried." + +"She married a man called Roger Delane in Canada," said Ellesborough, +in the same monotonous voice. "She divorced him--for cruelty and +adultery--two years ago. A few days since he waylaid her in the dark, and +threatened her. I didn't know this till she wrote to me to-day. She said +that she was afraid of him--that she thought he was mad--and I came over +at once to see how I could protect her. We were engaged to be married." + +The Superintendent drew a furtive hand across his eyes. Then he produced +his note-book, and took the evidence in order. Hastings came in from a +lantern search of the farm-buildings, the hill-side, and the nearest +fringes of wood, to report that he had found no trace of the murderer. +The news, however, had by this time spread through the village, and the +kitchen was full of persons who had hurried to the farm--Old Halsey and +John Dempsey among them--to tell what they knew, and had seen. +Ellesborough roused himself from his stupor, and came to assist the +police in the preliminary examination of witnesses and inspection of the +farm. Once he and Janet passed each other, but they did not attempt to +speak. Each indeed shrank from the other. A word of pity would have been +merely a deepened agony. + +But the farm emptied at last. A body of police had been sent out to scout +the woods, to watch the roads and the railway stations. Ellesborough and +Hastings had lifted the dead woman upon a temporary bier which had been +raised in the sitting-room. Then Hastings had drawn Ellesborough +away, and Janet, with a village mother, had rendered the last offices. + +When Ellesborough re-entered, he found a white vision, lying in a bare +room, from which all traces of ordinary living had been as far as +possible cleared away. Only the Christmas roses which Rachel had +gathered that afternoon were now on her breast. Her hands were folded +over them. Her beautiful hair lay unbound on the pillow--Janet's +trembling hands had refused to cut it. + +At sight of Ellesborough, Janet rose from her kneeling posture beside the +dead, as white and frozen almost as Rachel herself--with something in her +hand--a small book. She held it out to Ellesborough. + +"The Superintendent asked my leave to go into her room--in case there was +anything which could help them. He brought me this. She had been writing +in it--He asked me to look at it. I did--just enough to see--that no one +had any right to it--but you. She wrote it I think about an hour before +you came. It was her last word." + +"I have her letters also"--said Ellesborough, almost inaudibly, as he +took the book--"You brought it--you kind woman! You were her good +angel--God reward you!" + +Then at last a convulsion of weeping showed in Janet's face. She laid her +hand in his, and went noiselessly away. + +Ellesborough sat beside his dead love all night. The farm was peaceful +again after that rush of the Furies through it, which had left this wreck +behind. Rachel's diary and letter lay before him. They were as her still +living voice in his ears, and as the words sank into memory they pierced +through all the rigidities of a noble nature, rending and kneading as +they went. He recalled his own solitary hour of bitterness after her +letter reached him. The story it contained had gone very hard with him, +though never for one moment had he even in thought forsaken her. There +was some comfort in that. But the memory which upheld him, which +alone kept him from despair, was the memory of her face at the window, +the sense still lingering in his own physical pulses of her young +clinging life in his arms, of the fluttering of her poor heart against +his breast, the exquisite happiness of her kiss--the kiss which death cut +short. + +No--he had not failed her. That was all he had to live by. And without +it, it seemed to him, he could not have endured to live. + + * * * * * + +The two girls had sobbed themselves to sleep at last. But Janet did not +sleep. Tears came naturally as the hours went by--tears and the agonized +relief of prayer to one for whom prayer was a daily need of the soul. And +in the early morning there flooded in upon her a strange consciousness of +Rachel's spirit in hers--a strange suspicion that after all the gods had +not wrought so hardly with Rachel. A few days before she had attended the +funeral in the village church, of a young wife just happily married, who +had died in three days, of virulent influenza. Never had the words of the +Anglican service pleased her so little. What mockery--what fulsome +mockery--to thank God because "it hath pleased Thee to deliver this our +sister, out of the miseries of this troublesome world." But the words +recurred to her now--mysteriously--with healing power. Had it been after +all "deliverance" for Rachel, from this "troublesome world," and the +temptations that surround those who are not strong enough for the +wrestle that Fate sets them--that a God appoints them? She had met her +lover--after fear and anguish; and had known him hers, utterly and wholly +hers, for one supreme moment. And from that height--that perfection--God +had called her. No lesser thing could ever touch her now. + +Such are the moments of religious exaltation which cheat even the +sharpest griefs of men and women. Janet would decline from her Pisgah +height only too soon; but, for the time, thoughts like these gave her the +strength to bear. + +When the house began to move again, she went down to Ellesborough. She +drew him into the kitchen--made a fire, and brought him food. Presently +she found calm enough to tell him many details of the previous days. And +the man's sound nature responded. Once he grasped her hand, and kissed +it--as though he thanked her dumbly again, for himself and Rachel. It +seemed to Janet indeed, as she sat by him, that Rachel had left her a +trust. She took it up instinctively--from this first desolate morning. +For there are women set apart for friendship--Janet was one of them--as +others are set apart for love. + + * * * * * + +And with the first break of light on the new November day, the search +parties in the hills came upon what they sought. Some one remembered the +deserted hut--and from that moment the hunt was easy. Finally in the +dripping heart of the wood the pursuers found the murderer lying face +downwards in front of the dead fire, with the revolver beside him with +which he had taken first Rachel's life, and then his own. Some sheets of +paper were scattered near him, on which he had written an incoherent and +grandiloquent confession. But of such acts there is no real explanation. +They are the product of that black seed in human nature which is born +with a man, and flowers in due time, through devious stages, into such a +deed as that which destroyed Rachel Henderson. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13801 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..348970c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #13801 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13801) diff --git a/old/13801-8.txt b/old/13801-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d108137 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13801-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8791 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Harvest, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Harvest + +Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Release Date: October 19, 2004 [eBook #13801] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARVEST*** + + +E-text prepared by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and +the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +HARVEST + +by + +MRS. HUMPHRY WARD + +Author of _Robert Elsmere_, _Lady Rose's Daughter_, _Missing_, +_Helena_, etc. + +1920 + + + + + + + +I + + +Two old labourers came out of the lane leading to Great End Farm. Both +carried bags slung on sticks over their shoulders. One, the eldest and +tallest, was a handsome fellow, with regular features and a delicately +humorous mouth. His stoop and his slouching gait, the gray locks also, +which straggled from under his broad hat, showed him an old man--probably +very near his old-age pension. But he carried still with him a look +of youth, and he had been a splendid creature in his time. The other +was short of stature and of neck, bent besides by field work. A +broadly-built, clumsy man, with something gnome-like about him, and the +cheerful look of one whose country nerves had never known the touch of +worry or long sickness. The name of the taller man was Peter Halsey, and +Joseph Batts was his companion. + +It was a fine July evening, with a cold north wind blowing from the plain +which lay stretched to their right. Under the unclouded sun, which by its +own "sun-time" had only reached half-past four in the afternoon, though +the clock in the village church had already struck half-past five, the +air was dry and parching, and the fields all round, the road itself, and +the dusty hedges showed signs of long drought. + +"It du want rain," said Peter Halsey, looking at a crop of oats through +an open gate, "it du want rain--_bad_." + +"Aye!" said the other, "that it du. Muster Shenstone had better 'a read +the prayer for rain lasst Sunday, I'm thinkin', than all them long ones +as ee _did_ read." + +Halsey was silent a moment, his half-smiling eyes glancing from side to +side. At last he said slowly,-- + +"We du be prayin' a lot about ower sins, and Muster Shenstone is allus +preachin' about 'em. But it's the sins o' the _Garmins_ I be thinkin' of. +If it hadn't a bin for the sins o' the Garmins my Tom wouldn't ha' lost +'is right hand." + +"An' ower Jim wouldn't be goin' into them trenches next November as ever +is," put in Batts. "It's the sins o' the Garmins as ha' done _that_, an' +nothin' as you or I ha' done, Peter." + +Halsey shook his head assentingly. + +"Noa--for all that pratin', pacifist chap was sayin' lasst week. I +didn't believe a word ee said. 'Yis,' I says, 'if you want this war to +stop, I'm o' your mind,' I says, 'but when you tells me as _England_ +done it--you'm--'" + +The short man burst into a cackling laugh. + +"'You'm a liar!' Did you say that, Peter?" + +Peter fenced a little. + +"There be more ways nor one o' speakin' your mind," he said at last. "But +I stood up to un. Did you hear, Batts, as Great End Farm is let?" + +The old man turned an animated look on his companion. + +"Well, for sure!" said Batts, astonished. "An' who's the man?" + +"It's not a man. It's a woman." + +"A woman!" repeated Batts, wondering. "Well, these be funny times to live +in, when the women go ridin' astride an' hay-balin', an' steam-ploughin', +an' the Lord knows what. And now they must be takin' the farms, and +turnin' out the men. Well, for sure." + +A mild and puzzled laughter crossed the speaker's face. + +Halsey nodded. + +"An' now they've got the vote. That's the top on't! My old missis, she +talks poltiks now to me of a night. I don't mind her, now the childer be +all gone. But I'd ha' bid her mind her own business when they was yoong +an' wanted seein' to." + +"Now, what can a woman knoa about poltiks?" said Batts, still in the same +tone of pleasant rumination. "It isn't in natur. _We_ warn't given the +producin' o' the babies--we'd ha' cried out if we 'ad been!" + +A chuckle passed from one old man to the other. + +"Well, onyways the women is all in a flutter about the votin'," said +Halsey, lighting his pipe with old hands that shook. "An' there's chaps +already coomin' round lookin' out for it." + +"You bet there is!" was Batts's amused reply. "But they'll take their +toime, will the women. 'Don't you try to hustle-bustle me like you're +doin',' say my missus sharp-like to a Labour chap as coom round lasst +week, 'cos yo' won't get nothin' by it.' And she worn't no more +forthcomin' to the Conservative man when ee called." + +"Will she do what _you_ tell her, Batts?" asked Halsey, with an evident +interest in the question. + +"Oh, Lord, no!" said Batts placidly, "shan't try. But now about this +yoong woman an' Great End?--" + +"Well, I ain't heared much about her--not yet awhile. But they say as +she's nice-lookin', an' Muster Shentsone ee said as she'd been to college +somewhere, where they'd larn't her farmin'." + +Batts made a sound of contempt. + +"College!" he said, with a twitching of the broad nostrils which seemed +to spread over half his face. "_They_ can't larn yer farmin'!" + +"She's been on a farm too somewhere near Brighton, Muster Shenstone says, +since she was at college; and ee told me she do seem to be terr'ble +full o' new notions." + +"She'd better be full o' money," said the other, cuttingly. "Notions is +no good without money to 'em." + +"Aye, they're wunnerfull costly things is notions. Yo'd better by a long +way go by the folk as know. But they do say she'll be payin' good wages." + +"I dessay she will! She'll be obleeged. It's Hobson's choice, as you +might say!" said Batts, chuckling again. + +Halsey was silent, and the two old men trudged on with cheerful +countenances. Through the minds of both there ran pleasant thoughts +of the contrast between the days before the war and the days now +prevailing. Both of them could remember a wage of fifteen and sixteen +shillings a week. Then just before the war, it had risen to eighteen +shillings and a pound. And now--why the Wages Board for Brookshire had +fixed thirty-three shillings as a weekly minimum, and a nine-hours' day! +Prices were high, but they would go down some day; and wages would not go +down. The old men could not have told exactly why this confidence lay so +deep in them; but there it was, and it seemed to give a strange new +stability and even dignity to life. Their sons were fighting; and they +had the normal human affection for their sons. They wished the war to +end. But, after all, there was something to be said for the war. +They--old Peter Halsey and old Joe Batts--were more considered and more +comfortable than they would have been before the war. And it was the +consideration more even than the comfort that warmed their hearts. + +The evening grew hotter, and the way to the village seemed long. The old +men were now too tired to talk; till just as they came in sight of the +first houses, they perceived the village wagonette coming towards them. + +"There she be! I did hear as Webb wor to meet her at the station. He's +took her over once before," said old Halsey, raising his eyes for a +moment and then dropping them again. Batts did the same. The glance was +momentary. But both men had the same impression of a pleasant-faced young +woman sitting erect behind Jonathan Webb, the decrepit driver of the +wagonette, and looking straight at them as they passed her. There was a +general effect of youth and bright colour; of pale brown hair, too, +over very dark eyes. + +"Aye, she be quite nice-lookin'," said Batts, with unction, "rayther +uncommon. She minds me summat o' my missis when she wor a young 'un." +Halsey's mouth twitched a little, but though his thoughts were ironical, +he said nothing. It was generally admitted by the older people that Mrs. +Batts had been through many years the village beauty, but her fall from +that high place was now of such ancient date that it seemed foolish of +Batts to be so fond of referring to it. + +The wagonette passed on. The woman sitting in it carefully took note of +the scene around her, in a mood of mingled hope and curiosity. She was to +live in this valley without a stream, under these high chalk downs with +their hanging woods, and within a mile or so of the straggling village +she had just driven through. At last, after much wandering, she was to +find a home--a real home of her own. The word "home" had not meant +much--or much at least that was agreeable--to her, till now. Her large +but handsome mouth took a bitter fold as she thought over various past +events. + +Now they had left the village behind, and were passing through fields +that were soon to be her fields. Her keen eyes appraised the crops +standing in them. She had paid the family of her predecessor a good +price for them, but they were worth it. And just ahead, on her left, was +a wide stretch of newly-ploughed land rising towards a bluff of grassy +down-land on the horizon. The ploughed land itself had been down up to a +few months before this date; thin pasture for a few sheep, through many +generations. She thought with eagerness of the crops she was going to +make it bear, in the coming year. Wheat, or course. The wheat crops all +round the village were really magnificent. This was going to be the +resurrection year for English farming, after fifty years of "death and +damnation"--comparatively. And there would be many good years to come +after. + +Yes, Mr. Thomas Wellin, whose death had thrown the farm which she had now +taken on the market, had done well for the land. And it was not his fault +but the landlord's that the farmhouse and buildings had been allowed to +fall into such a state. Mr. Wellin had not wanted the house, since he was +only working the land temporarily in addition to his own farm half a mile +away. But the owner, Colonel Shepherd, ought to have looked after the +farmhouse and buildings better. Still, they were making her a fair +allowance for repairs. + +She was longing to know how the workmen from Millsboro had been getting +on. Hastings, the Wellins' former bailiff, now temporarily hers, had +promised to stay behind that evening to meet her at the farm. She only +meant to insist on what was absolutely necessary. Even if she had wished +for anything more, the lack of labour would have prevented it. + +The old horse jogged on, and presently from a row of limes beside the +road, a wave of fragrance, evanescent and delicious, passed over the +carriage. Miss Henderson sniffed it with delight. "But one has never +_enough_ of it!" she thought discontentedly. And then she remembered how +as a child--in far-away Sussex--she used to press her face into the +lime-blossom in her uncle's garden--passionately, greedily, trying to get +from it a greater pleasure than it would ever yield. For the more she +tried to compel it, by a kind of violence, the more it escaped her. She +used to envy the bees lying drunk among the blooms. They at least were +surfeited and satisfied. + +It struck her that there was a kind of parable in it of her whole +life--so far. + +But now there was a new world opening. The past was behind her. She drew +herself stiffly erect, conscious through every limb of youth and +strength, and filled with a multitude of vague hopes. Conscious, too, of +the three thousand pounds that Uncle Robert had so opportunely left her. +She had never realized that money could make so much difference; and she +thought gratefully of the elderly bachelor, her mother's brother, who had +unexpectedly remembered her. It had enabled her to get her year's +training, and to take this farm with a proper margin of capital. She +wished she had been able to tell Uncle Robert before he died what it +meant to her. + +They passed one or two pairs of labourers going home, then a group of +girls in overalls, then a spring cart containing four workmen behind a +ragged pony, no doubt the builder's men who had been at work on the Great +End repairs. They all looked at her curiously, and Rachel Henderson +looked back at them--steadily, without shyness. They were evidently aware +of who she was and where she was going. Some of them perhaps would soon +be in her employ. She would be settling all that in a week or two. + +Ah, there was the house. She leant forward and saw it lying under the +hill, the woods on the slope coming down to the back of it. Yes, it was +certainly a lonely situation. That was why the house, the farm lands, +too, had been so long unlet, till old Wellin, the farm's nearest +neighbour, having made a good deal of money, had rented the land from +Colonel Shepherd, to add to his own. The farm buildings, too, he had made +some use of, keeping carts and machines, and certain stores there. But +the house he had refused to have any concern with. It had remained empty +and locked up for a good many years. + +The wagonette turned into the rough road leading through the middle of a +fine field of oats to the house. The field was gaily splashed with +poppies, which ran, too, along the edges of the crop, swayed by the +evening breeze, and flaming in the level sun. Though lonesome and +neglected, the farm in July was a pleasant and picturesque object. It +stood high and the air about it blew keen and fresh. The chalk hill +curved picturesquely round it, and the friendly woods ran down behind to +keep it company. Rachel Henderson, in pursuit of that campaign she was +always now waging against a natural optimism, tried to make herself +imagine it in winter--the leafless trees, the solitary road, the treeless +pasture or arable fields, that stretched westward in front of the farm, +covered perhaps with snow; and the distant stretches of the plain. There +was not another house, not even a cottage, anywhere in sight. The +village had disappeared. She herself, in the old wagonette, seemed the +only living thing. + +No, there was a man emerging from the farm-gate, and coming to meet +her--the bailiff, George Hastings. She had only seen him once before, on +her first hurried visit, when, after getting a rough estimate from him of +the repairs necessary to the house and buildings, she had made up her +mind to take the farm, if the landlord would agree to do them. + +"Yon's Muster Hastings," said Jonathan Webb, turning on her a benevolent +and wrinkled countenance, with two bright red spots in the midst of each +weather-beaten cheek. Miss Henderson again noticed the observant +curiosity in the old man's eyes. Everybody, indeed, seemed to look at her +with the same expression. As a woman farmer she was no doubt just a +freak, a sport, in the eyes of the village. Well, she prophesied they +would take her seriously before long. + +"I'm afraid I haven't as much to show you, miss, as I'd like," said +Hastings, as he helped her to alight. "It's cruel work nowadays trying to +do anything of this kind. Two of the men that began work last week have +been called up, and there's another been just 'ticed away from me this +week. The wages that some people about will give are just mad!" He threw +up his hands. "Colonel Shepherd says he can't compete." + +Miss Henderson replied civilly but decidedly that somehow or other the +work would have to be done. If Colonel Shepherd couldn't find the wages, +she must pay the difference. Get in some time, during August, she must. + +The bailiff looked at her with a little sluggish surprise. He was not +used to being hustled, still less to persons who were ready to pay rather +than be kept waiting. He murmured that he dared say it would be all +right, and she must come and look. + +They turned to the right up a stony pitch, through a dilapidated gate, +and so into the quadrangle of the farm. To the left was a long row of +open cow-sheds, then cow-houses and barns, the stables, a large shed in +which stood an old and broken farm cart, and finally the house, fronting +the barns. + +The house was little more than a large cottage built in the shabbiest way +forty years ago, and of far less dignity than the fine old barn on which +it looked. It abutted at one end on the cart-shed, and between it and the +line of cow-sheds was the gate into the farmyard. + +Miss Henderson stepped up to the house and looked at it. + +"It is a poor place!" she said discontentedly; "and those men don't seem +to have done much to it yet." + +Hastings admitted it. But they had done a little, he said, shamefacedly, +and he unlocked the door. Miss Henderson lingered outside a moment. + +"I never noticed," she said, "that the living room goes right through. +What draughts there'll be in the winter!" + +For as she stood looking into the curtainless window that fronted the +farm-yard, she saw through it a further window at the back of the room, +and beyond that a tree. Both windows were large and seemed to take up +most of the wall on either side of the small room. The effect was +peculiarly comfortless, as though no one living in the room could +possibly enjoy any shred of privacy. There were no cosy corners in it +anywhere, and Miss Henderson's fancy imagined rows of faces looking in. + +Inside a little papering and whitewashing had been done, but certainly +the place looked remarkably unviting. A narrow passage ran from front +to back, on one side of which was the living room with the two windows, +while on the other were the kitchen and scullery. Upstairs there were two +good-sized bedrooms with a small third room in a lean-to at the back, the +lower part of which was occupied by a wash-house. Through the windows +could be seen a neglected bit of garden, and an untidy orchard. + +But when she had wandered about the rooms a little, Rachel Henderson's +naturally buoyant temperament reasserted itself. She had brought some +bright patterns of distemper with her which she gave to Hastings with +precise instructions. She had visions of casement curtains to hide the +nakedness of the big windows with warm serge curtains to draw over them +in the winter. The floors must be stained. There should be a deep +Indian-red drugget in the sitting-room, with pigeon-blue walls, and she +thought complacently of the bits of old furniture she had been +collecting, which were stored in a friend's flat in town. An old dresser, +a grandfather's clock, some bits of brass, two arm-chairs, an old oak +table--it would all look very nice when it was done, and would cost +little. Then the bedrooms. She had brought with her some rolls of flowery +paper. She ran to fetch them from the wagonette, and pinned some pieces +against the wall. The larger room with the south aspect should be +Janet's. She would take the north room for herself. She saw them both in +her mind's eye already comfortably furnished; above all fresh and bright. +There should be no dirt or dinginess in the house, if she could help it. +In the country whitewash and distemper are cheap. + +Then Hastings followed her about through the farm buildings, where her +quick eye, trained in modern ways, perceived a number of small +improvements to be made that he would never have noticed. She was always +ready, he saw, to spend money on things that would save labour or lessen +dirt. But she was not extravagant, and looking through the list of her +directions and commissions, as he hastily jotted them down, he admitted +to himself that she seemed to know what she was about. And being an +honest man himself, and good-tempered, though rather shy and dull, he +presently recognized the same qualities of honesty and good temper in +her; and took to her. Insensibly their tone to each other grew friendly. +Though he was temporarily in the landlord's employ, he had been for some +years in the service of the Wellin family. Half-consciously he contrasted +Miss Henderson's manner to him with theirs. In his own view he had been +worse treated than an ordinary farm labourer throughout his farming life, +though he had more education, and was expected naturally to have more +brains and foresight than the labourer. He was a little better paid; but +his work and that of his wife was never done. He had got little credit +for success and all the blame for failure. And the Wellin women-folk had +looked down on his wife and himself. A little patronage sometimes, and +worthless gifts, that burnt in the taking; but no common feeling, no real +respect. But Miss Henderson was different. His rather downtrodden +personality felt a stimulus. He began to hope that when she came into +possession she would take him on. A woman could not possibly make +anything of Great End without a bailiff! + +Her "nice" looks, no doubt, counted for something. Her face was, perhaps, +a little too full for beauty--the delicately coloured cheeks and the +large smiling mouth. But her brown eyes were very fine, with very dark +pupils, and marked eyebrows; and her nose and chin, with their soft, +blunted lines, seemed to promise laughter and easy ways. She was very +lightly and roundly made; and everything about her, her step, her +sunburn, her freckles, her evident muscular strength, spoke of open-air +life and physical exercise. Yet, for all this general aspect of a comely +country-woman, there was much that was sharply sensitive and individual +in the face. Even a stranger might well feel that its tragic, as well as +its humorous or tender possibilities, would have to be reckoned with. + +"All right!" said Miss Henderson at last, closing her little notebook +with a snap, "now I think we've been through everything. I'll take +over one cart, and Mrs. Wellin must remove the other. I'll buy the +chaff-cutter and the dairy things, but not the reaping machine--" + +"I'm afraid that'll put Mrs. Wellin out considerably!" threw in Hastings. + +"Can't help it. I can't have the place cluttered up with old iron like +that. It's worth nothing. I'm sure _you_ wouldn't advise me to buy it!" + +She looked with bright decision at her companion, who smiled a little +awkwardly, and said nothing. The old long habit of considering the Wellin +interest first, before any other in the world, held him still, though he +was no longer their servant. + +Miss Henderson moved back towards the house. + +"And you'll hurry these men up?--as much as you can? They _are_ +slow-coaches! I must get in the week after next. Miss Leighton and I +intend to come, whatever happens." + +Hastings understood that "Miss Leighton" was to be Miss Henderson's +partner in the farm, specially to look after the dairy work. Miss +Henderson seemed to think a lot of her. + +"And you must please engage those two men you spoke of. Neither of them, +you say, under sixty! Well, there's no picking and choosing now. If they +were eighty I should have to take them! till the harvest's got in. There +are two girls coming from the Land Army, and you've clinched that other +girl from the village?" + +Hastings nodded. + +"Well, I dare say we shall get the harvest in somehow," she said, +standing at the gate, and looking over the fields. "Miss Leighton and I +mean to put our backs into it. But Miss Leighton isn't as strong as I +am." + +Her eyes wandered thoughtfully over the wheat-field, ablaze under the +level gold of the sun. Then she suddenly smiled. + +"I expect you think it a queer business, Mr. Hastings, women taking to +farming?" + +"Well, it's new, you see, Miss Henderson." + +"I believe it's going to be very common. Why shouldn't the women do it!" +She frowned a little. + +"Oh, no reason at all," said Hastings hurriedly, thinking he had offended +her. "I've nothing against it myself. And there won't be men enough to go +round, after the war." + +She looked at him sharply. + +"You've got a son in the war?" + +"Two, and one's been killed." + +"Last year?" + +"No, last month." + +Miss Henderson said nothing, but her look was full of softness. "He was +to have been allowed home directly," Hastings went on, "for two or three +months. He was head woodman before the war on Lord Radley's property." He +pointed to the wooded slopes of the hill. "And they were to have given +him leave to see to the cutting of these woods." + +"These woods!" Miss Henderson turned a startled face upon him. "You don't +mean to say they're coming down!" + +"Half of them commandeered," said Hastings, with a shrug. "The Government +valuers have been all over them these last weeks. They're splendid +timber, you know. There's been a timber camp the other side of the hills +a long while. They've got Canadians, and no doubt they'll move on here." + +Miss Henderson made another quick movement. She said nothing, however. +She was staring at the woods, which shone in the glow now steadily +creeping up the hill, and Hastings thought she was protesting from the +scenery point of view. + +"Well, the Government must have the wood," he said, with resignation. +"We've got to win the war. But it does seem a pity." + +"I don't know that I should have taken the farm," she said, under her +breath-- + +"If you had known? I wish I'd thought to tell you. But it was really only +settled a few days ago." + +"I don't like having a lot of strange men about the farm," she said +abruptly, "especially when I have girls to look after." + +"Oh, the camp's a long way from the farm," he said consolingly. "And +these woods will come last." + +Still Miss Henderson's face did not quite recover its cheerfulness. She +looked at her watch. + +"Don't let me keep you, Mr. Hastings. I'll lock up the house, if you'll +tell me where to leave the key." + +He showed her where to put it, in a corner of the stable, for him to find +on the morrow. Then, in her rapid way, Miss Henderson offered him the +post of bailiff on the farm, from the date of her entry. He agreed at +once; his salary was settled, and he departed with a more cheerful aspect +than when he arrived. The hopefulness and spring of youth had long since +left him, and he had dreaded the new experience of this first meeting +with a woman-farmer, from whom he desired employment simply because he +was very badly off, he was getting old, and Mr. Wellin's widow had +treated him shabbily. He had lost his nerve for new ventures. But Miss +Henderson had made things easy. She had struck him as considerate and +sensible--a "good sort." He would do his best for her. + +Rachel Henderson, left to herself, did not immediately re-enter the +house. She went with a face on which the cloud still rested to look at +the well which was to be found under the cart-shed, at the eastern end of +the house. + +It was covered with a wooden lid which she removed. Under the shed roof +there was but little light left. A faint gleam showed the level of the +water, which, owing to the long drought, was very low. Hastings had told +her that the well was extremely deep---150 feet at least, and +inexhaustible. The water was chalky but good. It would have to be pumped +up every morning for the supply of the house and stables. + +The well had a brick margin. Rachel sat down upon it, her eyes upon that +distant gleam below. The dusk was fast possessing itself of all the farm, +and an evening wind was gustily blowing through the cart-shed, playing +with some old guano sacks that had been left there, and whistling round +the corners of the house. Outside, Rachel could hear the horse fidgeting, +and old Jonathan coughing--no doubt as a signal to her that she had kept +him long enough. + +Still, she sat bent together on the margin of the well. Then she drew off +her glove, and felt for something in the leather bag she carried on her +wrist. She took it out, and the small object sparkled a little as she +held it poised for a moment--as though considering. Then with a rapid +movement, she bent over the well, and dropped it into the water. There +was a slight splash. + +Rachel Henderson raised herself and stood up. + +"That's done with!" she said to herself, with a straightening of all her +young frame. + +Yet all the way back to London she was tormented by thoughts of what she +had declared was "done with"; of scenes and persons, that is, which she +was determined to forget, and had just formally renounced for ever by her +symbolic action at the well. + + + + +II + + +"You do seem to have hit on a rather nice spot, Rachel, though lonesome," +said Miss Henderson's friend and partner, Janet Leighton, as they stood +on the front steps of Great End Farm, surveying the scene outside, on an +August evening, about a week after she and Rachel had arrived with their +furniture and personal belongings to take possession of the farm. + +During that week they had both worked hard--from dawn till dark, both +outside and in. The harvest was in full swing, and as the dusk was +filling, Janet Leighton, who had just returned herself from the fields, +could watch the scene going on in the wheat-field beyond the farm-yard, +where, as the reaping machine steadily pared away the remaining square of +wheat, two or three men and boys with guns lay in wait outside the square +for the rabbits as they bolted from their fast lessening shelter. The +gold and glow of harvest was on the fields and in the air. At last the +sun had come back to a sodden land, after weeks of cold and drenching +showers which, welcomed in June, had by the middle of August made all +England tremble for the final fate of the gorgeous crops then filling the +largest area ever tilled on British soil with their fat promise. Wheat, +oats, and barley stood once more erect, roots were saved, and the young +vicar of Ipscombe was reflecting as he walked towards Great End Farm that +his harvest festival sermon might now after all be rather easier to write +than had seemed probable during the foregoing anxious weeks of chill and +storm. + +Rachel Henderson, who had thrown herself--tired out--into a chair in the +sitting-room window, which was wide open, nodded as she caught her +friend's remark and smiled. But she did not want to talk. She was in that +state of physical fatigue when mere rest is a positive delight. The sun, +the warm air, the busy harvest scene, and all the long hours of hard but +pleasant work seemed to be still somehow in her pulses, thrilling through +her blood. It was long since she had known the acute physical pleasure of +such a day; but her sense of it had conjured up involuntarily +recollections of many similar days in a distant scene--great golden +spaces, blinding sun, and huge reaping machines, twice the size of that +at work in the field yonder. The recollections were unwelcome. Thought +was unwelcome. She wanted only food and sleep--deep sleep--renewing +her tired muscles, till the delicious early morning came round again, and +she was once more in the fields directing her team of workers. + +"Why, there's the vicar!" said Janet Leighton, perceiving the tall and +willowy figure of Mr. Shenstone, as its owner stopped to speak to one of +the boys with the guns who were watching the game. + +Rachel looked round with a look of annoyance. + +"Oh, dear, what a bore," she said wearily. "I suppose I must go and tidy +up. Nobody ought to be allowed to pay visits after five o'clock." + +"You asked him something about a village woman to help, didn't you?" + +"I did, worse luck!" sighed Rachel, gathering up her sunbonnet and +disappearing from the window. Janet heard her go upstairs, and a hasty +opening of cupboards overhead. She herself had come back an hour earlier +from the fields than Rachel in order to get supper ready, and had slipped +a skirt over the khaki tunic and knickerbockers which were her dress--and +her partner's--when at work on the farm. She wondered mischievously what +Rachel would put on. That her character included an average dose of +vanity, the natural vanity of a handsome woman, Rachel's new friend was +well aware. But Janet, Rachel's elder by five years, was only tenderly +amused by it. All Rachel's foibles, as far as she knew them, were +pleasant to her. They were in that early stage of a new friendship when +all is glamour. + +Yet Janet did sometimes reflect, "How little I really know about her. She +is a darling--but a mystery!" + +They had met at college, taken their farm training together, and fallen +in love with each other. Janet had scarcely a relation in the world. +Rachel possessed, it seemed, a brother in Canada, another in South +Africa, and some cousins whom she scarcely knew, children of the uncle +who had left her three thousand pounds. Each had been attracted by the +loneliness of the other, and on leaving college nothing was more natural +than they should agree to set up together. Rachel, as the capitalist, was +to choose the farm and take command. Janet went to a Cheshire dairy farm +for a time to get some further training in practical work; and she was +now responsible for the dairy at Great End, with the housekeeping and the +poultry thrown in. She was a thin, tall woman with spectacles, and had +just seen her thirty-second birthday. Her eyes were honest and clear, her +mouth humorous. She never grudged other women their beauty or their +success. It always seemed to her she had what she deserved. + +Meanwhile the vicar approached, and Miss Leighton descended the steps and +went to meet him at the gate. His aspect showed him apologetic. + +"I have come at an unearthly hour, Miss Leighton. But I thought I should +have no chance of finding Miss Henderson free till the evening, and I +came to tell you that I think I have found a woman to do your work." + +Janet bade him come in, and assured him that Rachel would soon be +visible. She ushered him into the sitting-room, which he entered on a +note of wonderment. + +"How nice you have made it all," he said, looking round him. "When I +think what a deserted hole this has been for years. You know, the village +people firmly believe it is haunted? Old Wellin never could get anybody +to sleep here. But tramps often used it, I'm certain. They got in through +the windows. Hastings told me he had several times found a smouldering +fire in the kitchen." + +"What sort is the ghost?" Janet inquired, as she pointed him to a chair, +devoutly hoping that Rachel would hurry herself. + +"Well, there's a story--but I wonder whether I ought to tell you--" + +"I assure you as to ghosts--I have no nerves!" said Janet with a +confident laugh, "and I don't think Rachel has either. We are more +frightened of rats. This farm-yard contains the biggest I've ever seen. +I dream of them at night." + +"It's not exactly the ghost--" said the vicar, hesitating. + +"But the story that produced the ghost? What--a murder?" + +"Half a century ago," said the vicar reassuringly; "you won't mind that?" + +"Not the least. A century ago would be romantic. If it was just the other +day, we should feel we ought to have got the farm cheaper. But half a +century doesn't matter. It's a mid-Victorian, just a plain, old-fashioned +murder. Who did it?" + +The vicar opened his eyes a little. Miss Leighton was, he saw, a lady, +and perhaps clever. Her spectacles looked like it. No doubt she had been +at Oxford or Cambridge before going to Swanley? These educated women in +new professions were becoming a very pressing and common fact! As to the +murder, he explained that it had been just an ordinary poaching affair. +An old gamekeeper on the Shepherd estate had been attacked by a gang of +poachers in the winter of 1866. He had been shot in one of the woods, and +though mortally wounded had been able to drag himself to the outskirts of +the farm where his strength had failed him. He was found dead under the +cart-shed which backed on the stables, and the traces of blood on the +hill marked the stages of his struggle for life. Two men were suspected, +one of them a labourer on the Great End Farm; but there was no evidence. +The suspected labourer had gone to Canada the year after the murder, and +no one knew what had happened to him. + +But having told the tale the vicar was again seized with compunction. + +"I oughtn't to have told you--I really oughtn't; just on your settling +in--I hope you won't tell Miss Henderson?" + +Janet's amused reply was interrupted by Rachel's entrance. The vicar +arose with eagerness to receive her. He was evidently attracted by his +new parishioners and anxious to make a good impression on them. Miss +Henderson's reception of the vicar, however, was far more guarded. The +easy friendliness of manner which had attracted the bailiff Hastings was, +at first at any rate, entirely absent. Her attitude was almost that of a +woman defending herself against possible intrusion, and Janet Leighton, +looking on, and occasionally sharing in the conversation, was surprised +by it, as indeed she was by so many things concerning Rachel now that +their acquaintance was deepening; surprised also, as though it were a new +thing, by her friend's good looks as she sat languidly chatting with the +vicar. Rachel had merely put on a blue overall above her land-worker's +dress. But her beautiful head, with its wealth of brown hair, and her +face, with its sensuous fulness of cheek and lip, its rounded lines, and +lovely colour--like a slightly overblown rose--were greatly set off by +the simple folds of blue linen; and her feet and legs, shapely but not +small, in their khaki stockings and shoes, completed the general effect +of lissom youth. The flush and heat of hard bodily work had passed away. +She had had time to plunge her face into cold water and smooth her hair. +But the atmosphere of the harvest field, its ripeness and glow, seemed to +be still about her. A classically minded man might have thought of some +nymph in the train of Demeter, might have fancied a horn of plenty, or a +bow, slung from the sunburnt neck. + +But the vicar had forgotten his classics. _En revanche_, however, he was +doing his best to show himself sympathetic and up-to-date with regard to +women and their new spheres of work--especially on the land. He had +noticed three girls, he said, working in the harvest field. Two of them +he recognized as from the village; the third he supposed was a stranger? + +"She comes from Ralstone," said Rachel. + +"Ah, that's the village where the new timber camp is. You really must see +that camp, Miss Henderson." + +"I hate to think of the woods coming down," she said, frowning a little. + +"We all do. But that's the war. It can't be helped, alack! But it's +wonderful to see the women at work, measuring and checking, doing the +brain work, in fact, while the men do the felling and loading. It makes +one envious." + +The vicar sighed. A flush appeared on his young but slightly cadaverous +face. + +"Of the men--or the women?" + +"Oh, their work, I mean. They're doing something for the war. I've done +my best. But the Bishop won't hear of it." + +And he rather emphatically explained how he had applied in vain for an +army chaplaincy. Health and the shortage of clergy had been against him. +"I suppose there must be some left at home," he said with a shrug, "and +the doctors seem to have a down on me." + +Janet was quite sorry for the young man--he was so eagerly apologetic, so +anxious to propitiate what he imagined ought to be their feelings about +him. And Rachel all the time sat so silent and unresponsive. + +Miss Leighton drew the conversation back to the timber camp; she would +like to go and see it, she said. Every one knew the Canadians were +wonderful lumbermen. + +The Vicar's eyes had travelled back to Rachel. + +"Were you ever in Canada, Miss Henderson?" The question was evidently +thrown out nervously at a venture, just to evoke a word or a smile from +the new mistress of the farm. + +Rachel Henderson frowned slightly before replying. + +"Yes, I have been in Canada." + +"You have? Oh, then, you know all about it." + +"I know nothing about Canadian lumbering." + +"You were on the prairies?" + +"I lived some time on a prairie farm." + +"Everything here must seem very small to you," said the vicar +sympathetically. But this amiable tone fell flat. Miss Henderson still +sat silent. The vicar began to feel matters awkward and took his hat from +the floor. + +"I trust you will call upon me for any help I can possibly be to you," he +said, turning to Janet Leighton. "I should be delighted to help in the +harvest if you want it. I have a pair of hands anyway, as you see!" He +held them out. + +He expatiated a little more on his disappointment as to the front. Janet +threw in a few civil words. Rachel Henderson had moved to the window, and +was apparently looking at the farm-girls carrying straw across the yard. + +"Good-night, Miss Henderson," said the young man at last, conscious of +rebuff, but irrepressibly effusive and friendly all the time. "I hope you +will let your Ralstone girl come sometimes to the clubroom my sister and +I have in the village? We feel young people ought to be amused, +especially when they work hard." + +"Thank you, but it's so far away. We don't like them to be out late." + +"Certainly not. But in the long evenings--don't you know?" The vicar +smiled persuasively. "However, there it is--whenever she comes she will +be welcome. And then, as to your seat in church. There is a pew that has +always belonged to the farm. It is about half-way up." + +"We don't go to church," said Rachel, facing him. "At least, I don't." +She looked at her companion. + +"And I can't be counted on," said Janet, smiling. + +The vicar flushed a little. + +"Then you're not Church of England?" + +"I am," said Rachel indifferently; "at least I'm not anything else. Miss +Leighton is a Unitarian." Then her eyes lit up with a touch of fun, and +for the first time she smiled. "I'm afraid you'll think us dreadful +heathens, Mr. Shenstone!" + +What the vicar did think was that he had never seen a smile transform a +face so agreeably. And having begun to smile, Rachel perversely continued +it. She walked to the gate with her visitor, talking with irrelevant +animation, inviting him to come the following day to help in the +"carrying," asking questions about the village and its people, and +graciously consenting to fix a day when she and her friend would go to +tea with Miss Shenstone at the vicarage. The young man fairly beamed +under the unexpected change, and lingered at the gate as though unable to +tear himself away; till with a little peremptory nod, though still +smiling, Rachel dismissed him. + +Janet Leighton meanwhile watched it all. She had seen Rachel treat a new +male acquaintance before as she had just treated the vicar. To begin +with, the manners of an icicle; then a sudden thaw, just in time to save +the situation. She had come with amusement to the conclusion that, +however really indifferent or capricious, her new friend could not in the +long run resign herself to be disliked, even by a woman, and much more in +the case of a man. Was it vanity, or sex, or both? Temperament perhaps; +the modern word which covers so much. Janet remembered a little niece of +her own who in her mother's absence entertained a gentleman visitor with +great success. When asked for his name, she shook her pretty head. "Just +a man, mummy," she said, bridling. Janet Leighton suspected that similar +tales might have been told of Miss Henderson in her babyhood. + +And yet impressions recurred to her of another kind--of a sensitive, +almost fierce delicacy--a shrinking from the ugly or merely physical +facts of life, as of one who had suffered some torment in connection with +them. + +Janet's eyes followed the curly brown head as its possessor came slowly +back from the gate. She was thinking of a moment when, one evening, while +they were both still at college, they had realized their liking for each +other, and had agreed to set up in partnership. Then Rachel, springing to +her feet, with her hands behind her, and head thrown back, had said +suddenly: "I warn you, I have a story. I don't want to tell you, to tell +anybody. I shan't tell you. It's done with. I give you my word that I'm +not a bad woman. But if you don't want to be my partner on these terms, +say so!" + +And Janet had felt no difficulty whatever in becoming Rachel Henderson's +partner on these terms. Nor had she ever yet regretted it. + +The light farm cart which had been sent to the station for stores drove +up to the yard gate as Rachel left it. She turned back to receive some +parcels handed out by the "exempted" man who drove it, together with some +letters which had been found lying at the village post office. Two of the +letters were for Janet. She sent them up to the house, and went herself +towards the harvest field. + +There they stood--the rows of golden "shocks" or stooks. The "shockers" +had just finished their day's work. She could hear the footsteps of the +last batch, a cheerful chatter, while talk and laughter came softened +through the evening air. The man who had been driving the reaping machine +was doing some rough repairs to it in a far corner of the field, with a +view to the morrow, and she caught sight of her new bailiff, Hastings, +who had waited to see everybody off, disappearing towards his own +cottage, which stood on a lonely spur of the down. The light was fast +going, but the deep glow of the western sky answered the paler gold of +the new-made stubble and the ranged stooks, while between rose the dark +and splendid masses of the woods. + +Rachel stood looking at the scene, possessed by a pleasure which in her +was always an ardour. She felt nothing by halves. The pulse of life beat +in her still with an energy, a passion, that astonished herself. She was +full of eagerness for her new work and for success in it, full of +desires, too, for vague, half-seen things, things she had missed so +Far--her own fault. But somewhere in the long, hidden years, they must, +they should be waiting for her. + +The harvest was magnificent. She had paid the Wellins a high price for +the standing crops, but there was going to be a profit on her bargain. +Her mind was full of schemes, if only she could get the labour to carry +them out. Farming was now on the up-grade. She had come into it at the +very best moment, and England would never let farming go down again, +after the war, for her own safety's sake. + +_The War_! She felt towards it as to some distant force, which, so far as +she personally was concerned, was a force for good. Owing to the war, +farming was booming all over England, and she was in the boom, taking +advantage of it. Yet she was ashamed to think of the war only in that +way. She tried to tame the strange ferment in her blood, and could only +do it by reminding herself of Hastings's wounded son, whose letter he had +showed her. And then--in imagination--she began to see thousands of +others like him, in hospital beds, or lying dead in trampled fields. Her +mood softened, the tears came into her eyes. + +Suddenly--a slight whimper--a child's whimper--close beside her. She +paused in amazement, looking round her, till the whimper was renewed; and +there, almost at her feet, cradled in the fragrant hollow of a wheat +stook, she saw a tiny child--a baby about a year old, a fair, plump +thing, just waking from sleep. + +At sight of the face bending over her, the child set up a louder cry, +which was not angry, however, only forlorn. The tears welled fast into +her blue eyes. She looked piteously at Rachel. + +"Mummy, mummy!" + +"You poor little thing!" said Rachel. "Whose are you?" + +One of the village women who had been helping in the "shocking," she +supposed, had brought the child. She had noticed a little girl playing +about the reapers in the afternoon--no doubt an elder sister brought to +look after the baby. Between the mother and the sister there must have +been some confusion, and one or other would come running back directly. + +But meanwhile she took up the child, who at first resisted passionately, +fighting with all its chubby strength against the strange arms. But +Rachel seemed to have a way with her--a spell, which worked. She bent +over the little thing, soothing and cooing to her, and then finding a few +crumbs of cake in the pocket of her overall, the remains of her own lunch +in the field, she daintily fed the rosy mouth, till the sobs ceased and +the child stared upwards in a sleep wonder, her blue eyes held by the +brown ones above her. + +"Mummy!" she repeated, still whimpering slightly. + +"Mummy's coming," said Rachel tenderly. "What a duck it is!" + +And bending, she kissed the soft, downy cheek greedily, with the same +ardour she had just been throwing into her own dreams of success. + +She carried the child, now quiet and comforted, towards the house. The +warm weight upon her arms was delicious to her. Only as she neared the +gate in the now moonlit dusk, her lips quivered suddenly, and two tears +rolled down her cheeks. + +"I haven't carried a child," she thought, "since--" + +Suddenly there was a shout from the farther gate of the harvest field, +and a girl came running at top speed. It was the little one's elder +sister, and with a proper scolding, Rachel gave up her prize. + +The two land-girls had finished giving food and water to the cattle and a +special mush to new-born calves. Everything was now in order for the +night, and Janet, standing on the steps of the farm-house, rang a bell, +which meant that supper would be ready in a few minutes. The two partners +and their employees were soon gathered round the table in the kitchen, +which was also the dining-room. It was a cold meal of bacon, with +lettuce, bread and jam, some tea made on a "Tommy's cooker," and potatoes +which Janet, who was for the present housekeeper and cook, produced hot +and steaming from the hay-box to which she had consigned them after the +midday dinner. A small oil-lamp had been lit, and through the open +windows afterglow and moonrise streamed in to mingle with its light. +There was a pot of flowers on the table--purple scabious, and tall +cow-parsley, gathered from the orchard, where no one had yet had time to +cut the ragged hay beneath the trees. + +The scene was typical of a new England. Women governing--and women +serving--they were all alike making their way through new paths to new +ends. It was no household in the ordinary sense. The man was wanting. The +two elder women were bound to the two younger by a purely business tie, +which might or might not develop into something more personal. The two +land-lasses had come to supper in their tunics and breeches, while Rachel +Henderson and Janet had now both put on the coloured overalls which +disguised the masculine garb beneath, and gave them something of the +usual feminine air. Rachel's overall, indeed, was both pretty and +artistic, embroidered a little here and there, and showing a sunburnt +throat beneath the rounded chin. + +The talk turned on the day's work, the weather prospects, the vagaries of +the cows at milking time, and those horrid little pests the "harvesters," +which haunt the chalk soils. The two "hands" were clear by now that they +liked Miss Leighton the best of the two ladies, they hardly knew why. +Betty Rolfe, the younger of them, who came from Ralstone, was a taking +creature, with deep black, or rather violet, eyes, small features framed +in curly hair, and the bloom of ripe fruit. She was naturally full of +laughter and talk, and only spoilt by her discoloured and uneven teeth, +which showed the usual English neglect of such things in childhood. + +Her companion, Jenny Harberton, was a much more ordinary type, with broad +cheeks, sandy hair, and a perpetual friendly grin, which generally served +her instead of speech, at least in her employer's presence. She was a +capital milker, and a good honest child. Her people lived in the village, +and her forebears had always lived there. They were absolutely indigenous +and autochthonous--a far older Brookshire family than any of the dwellers +in the big houses about. + +Then in the midst of a loving report by Betty on the virtues and docility +of a beautiful Jersey cow who was the pride of Miss Henderson's new herd, +Janet Leighton remembered one of her letters of the evening and drew it +out of her pocket. + +"Who do you think is going to be--is already--the commandant of the +timber girls in the new camp?" + +Rachel couldn't guess. + +"You remember Mrs. Fergusson--at College?" + +Rachel raised her eyebrows. + +"The Irish lady? Perfectly." + +"Well, it's she. She writes to me to say she is quite settled, with +thirty girls, that the work is fascinating, and they all love it, and you +and I _must_ go over to see her." + +Rachel looked irresponsive. + +"It's a long way." + +"Oh, Miss," said Jenny Harberton timidly, "it's not so very far. An' it's +lovely when you get there. Father was there last week, drivin' some +officers. He says it _is_ interestin'!" + +Jenny's father, a plumber in the village, owned a humble open car which +was in perpetual request. + +"There are a hundred Canadians apparently," said Janet Leighton, looking +at her letter, "and German prisoners, quite a good few, and these thirty +girls. Mrs. Fergusson begs us to come. Sunday's no good because we +couldn't see the work, but--after the harvest? We could get there with +the pony quite well." + +Rachel said nothing. + +Janet Leighton dropped the subject for the moment, but after supper, with +her writing-desk on her knee, she returned to it. + +"Can't you go without me?" said Rachel, who was standing with her back to +the room, looking out of the window. + +"Well, I could," said Janet, feeling rather puzzled, "but I thought you +were curious to see these new kinds of work for women?" + +"So I am. It isn't the women." + +"The German prisoners, then?" laughed Janet. + +"Heavens, no!" + +"The Canadians?" asked Janet--in wonder--after a moment. Rachel turned +abruptly towards her. + +"Well, I didn't have exactly a good time in Canada," she said, as though +the admission was dragged out of her; adding immediately, "but of course +I'll go--sometime--after the harvest." + +On which she left the room, and presently Janet saw her wandering among +the stooks in the gloaming, her hands behind her back. She seemed in her +ripe and comely youth to be somehow the very spirit of the harvest. + +A little later, just before ten o'clock, while the sunset glow was still +brooding on the harvest fields, the two farm-girls, after a last visit to +the cows, slipped into the little sitting-room. Janet, who was mending +her Sunday dress, greeted them with a smile and a kind word. Then she +moved to the table and took up a New Testament that was lying there. She +was an ardent and mystically-minded Unitarian, and her mind was much set +towards religion. + +"Shall we have prayers at night?" she had said quite simply to the f +arm-girls on their arrival. "Don't if you don't want to." And they had +shyly said "yes"--not particularly attracted by the proposal, but willing +to please Miss Leighton, who was always nice to them. + +So Janet read some verses from the sixth chapter of St. John: "Verily, +verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me hath everlasting +life ... I am the Bread of Life ... I am the living Bread which came down +from Heaven ... The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they +are life." + +Closing the book, while her quiet eyes shone in the gleaming dusk, she +said a few simple things about the Words of Christ, and how the human +soul may feed on them--the Word of Love--the Word of Purity--the Word of +Service. While she was still speaking, the door opened and Rachel came +in. It had been agreed between her and Janet that although she had no +objection to the prayers, she was not to be asked to take part in them. +So that Janet's pulses fluttered a little when she appeared. But there +was no outward sign of it. The speaker finished what she had to say, +while the eyes of her three hearers were sometimes on her face and +sometimes on the wide cornfield beyond the open window, where the harvest +moon, as yet only a brilliant sickle, was rising. The Earth Bread +without--the "Bread of Life" within; even in Jenny's primitive mind, +there was a mingling of the two ideas, which brought a quiet joy. She sat +with parted lips, feeling that she liked Miss Leighton very much, and +would try to please her with the cows. + +Betty, meanwhile, beside her, passed into a waking dream. She was +thinking of a soldier in the village: the blacksmith's son, a tall, +handsome fellow, who had just arrived on leave for ten days. She had +spent Sunday evening wandering in the lanes with him. She felt +passionately that she must see him again--soon. + +The little reading passed into the Lord's Prayer. Then it was over and +the two girls disappeared to bed. Janet felt a little awkward when she +was left alone with Rachel, but she went back to her sewing and began to +talk of the day's news of the war. Rachel answered at random, and very +soon said good-night. + +But long after everybody else in the solitary farmhouse was asleep, +Rachel Henderson was sitting up in bed, broad awake, her hands round her +knees. The window beside her was open. She saw the side of the hill and +the bare down in which it ended, with the moonlight bright upon it, and +the dark woods crowning it. There were owls calling from the hill, and +every now and then a light wind rustled through the branches of an oak +that stood in the farm-yard. + +She was thinking of what Janet had said about the "Words" of Christ--the +Word of Purity--and the Word of Love. How often she had heard her +father read and expound that chapter! very differently as far as +phraseology--perhaps even as far as meaning--went, yet with all his +heart, like Janet. He was an Anglican clergyman who had done missionary +service in the Canadian West. He had been dead now three years, and her +mother five. She had bitterly missed them both when she was in her worst +need; yet now she was thankful they had died--before-- + +What would her father think of her now? Would he grant that she was free, +or would he still hold to those rigid, those cruel views of his? Oh, he +must grant it! She _was_ free! Her breast shook with the fervour of her +protest. She had been through passion and wrong, through things that +seared and defiled. She knew well that she had been no mere innocent +sufferer. Yet now she had her life before her again; and both heart and +senses were hungry for the happiness she had so abominably missed. And +her starved conscience--that, too, was eagerly awake. She had her +self-respect to recover--the past to forget. + +_Work_! that was the receipt--hard work! And this dear woman, Janet +Leighton, to help her; Janet, with her pure, modest life and her high +aims. So, at last, clinging to the thought of her new friend like a +wearied child, Rachel Henderson fell asleep. + + + + +III + + +"A jolly view!" + +Janet assented. She was sitting behind the pony, while Rachel had walked +up the hill beside the carriage, to the high point where both she and the +pony--a lethargic specimen of the race--had paused to take breath. + +They were on a ridge whence there was a broad bit of the world to see. To +the north, a plain rich in all the diversities of English land--field and +wood, hamlet and church, the rising grounds and shallow depressions, the +small enclosures and the hedgerow timber, that make all the difference +between the English midlands and, say, the plain of Champagne, or a +Russian steppe. Across the wide, many-coloured scene, great clouds from +the west were sweeping, with fringes of rain and sudden bursts of light +or shadow, which in their perpetual movement--suggesting attack from the +sky and response from the earth--gave drama and symbol to the landscape. + +On the south--things very different! First, an interlocked range of +hills, forest-clothed, stretching east and west, and, at the very feet of +the two women, a forest valley offering much that was strange to English +eyes. Two years before it had been known only to the gamekeeper and the +shooting guests of a neighbouring landowner. Now a great timber camp +filled it. The gully ran far and deep into the heart of the forest +country, with a light railway winding along the bottom, towards an unseen +road. The steep sides of the valley--Rachel and Janet stood on the edge +of one of them--were covered with felled trees, cut the preceding winter, +and left as they fell. The dead branch and leaf of the trees had turned +to a rich purple, and dyed all the inside of the long deep cup. But along +its edges stretched the forest, still untouched, and everywhere, in the +bare spaces left here and there by the felling among the "rubble and +woody wreck," green and gold mosses and delicate grasses had sprung up, +a brilliant enamel, inlaid with a multitude of wild flowers. + +"Look!" cried Rachel. + +For suddenly, down below them, a huge trunk began to move as though of +its own accord. Hissing and crashing like some gray serpent, it glided +down the hill-side, till it approached a group of figures and horses +congregated at the head of the valley, near an engine puffing smoke. Then +something invisible happened, and presently a trolley piled high with +logs detached itself from the group, and set out on a solitary journey +down the railway, watched here and there by men in queer uniforms with +patches on their backs. + +"German prisoners!" said Janet, and strained her eyes to see, thinking +all the time of a letter she had received that morning from her soldier +brother fighting with the English troops to the west of Rheims:-- + +"The beggars are on the run! Foch has got them this time. But, oh, Lord, +the sight they've made of all this beautiful country! Trampled, and +ruined, and smashed! all of it. Deliberate loot and malice everywhere, +and tales of things done in the villages that make one see red. We +captured a letter to his wife on a dead German this morning: 'Well, the +offensive is a failure, but we've done one thing--we've smashed up +another bit of France!' How are we ever going to live with this people in +the same world after the war?" + +And there below, in the heart of this remote English woodland, now being +sacrificed to the war, moved the sons of this very people, cast up here +by the tide of battle. Janet had heard that nobody spoke to them during +the work, except to give directions; after work they had their own wired +camp, and all intercourse between them and the Canadian woodmen, or the +English timber girls, was forbidden. But what were they saying among +themselves--what were they thinking--these peasants, some perhaps from +the Rhineland, or the beautiful Bavarian country, or the Prussian plains? +Janet had travelled a good deal in Germany before the war, using her +holidays as a mistress in a secondary school, and her small savings, in a +kind of wandering which had been a passion with her. She had known +Bavarians and Prussians at home. But here, in this corner of rural +England, with this veil of silence drawn between them and the nation +which at last, in this summer of 1918, was grimly certain, after four +years of vengeance and victory, what ferments were, perhaps, working in +the German mind? + +Yes, there was the German camp, and beyond it under the hill the Canadian +forestry camp; whilst just beneath them could be seen the roof of the +large women's hostel. + +Another exclamation from Rachel, as, on their left, another great tree +started for the bottom of the hollow. + +"But haven't you seen all this before?" asked Janet. + +"No, I never saw anything of lumbering." + +The tone showed the sudden cooling and reserve that were always apparent +in Rachel's manner when any subject connected with Canada came into +conversation. Yet Janet had noticed with surprise that it was Rachel +herself who, when the harvest was nearly over, had revived the subject of +the camp, and planned the drive for this Saturday afternoon. It had +seemed to Janet once or twice that she was forcing herself to do it, as +though braving some nervousness of which she was ashamed. + +The rough road on which they were driving wound gradually downward +through the felled timber. Soon they could hear the clatter of the +engine, and the hissing of the saws which seized the trees on their +landing, and cut and stripped them in a trice, ready for loading. Round +the engine and at the starting-place of the trolleys was a busy crowd: +lean and bronzed Canadians; women in leather breeches and coats, busily +measuring and marking; a team of horses showing silvery white against the +purple of the hill; and everywhere the German prisoner lads, mostly quite +young and of short stature. The pony carriage passed a group of them, and +they stared with cheerful, furtive looks at the two women. + +Then the group of timber girls below perceived the approaching visitors, +and a figure, detaching itself from the rest, came to meet the carriage. +A stately woman, black-haired, in coat and breeches like the rest, with a +felt hat, and a badge of authority, touches of green besides on the khaki +uniform. Janet recognized her at once as Mrs. Fergusson, their comrade +for a time at college, and much liked both by her and Rachel. + +She came laughing, with hands outstretched. + +"Well, here we meet again! Jolly to see you! A new scene, isn't it? Life +doesn't stand still nowadays! One of my girls will take the carriage for +you." + +A stalwart maiden unharnessed the pony and let him graze. + +Mrs. Fergusson took possession of her visitors, and walked on beside +them, describing the different stages of the work, and sections of the +workers. + +"You see those tall fellows farthest off? Those work the saws and cut up +the trees as they come down. Then the horses bring them to the rollers, +and the Canadians guide them with those hooks till the crane seizes hold +of them and lifts them on to the trolley. But before the hooks get +them--you see the girls there?--they do all the measuring; they note +everything in their books and they mark every log. All the payments of +the camp, the wages paid, the sums earned by the trolley contractor who +takes them to the station, the whole finance in fact, depends on the +_women_. I've trained scores besides and sent them out to other camps! +But now come, I must introduce you to the commandant of the camp." + +"A Canadian?" asked Janet. + +"No, an American! He comes from Maine, but he had been lumbering in +Canada, with several mills and, camps under him. So he volunteered a year +ago to bring over a large Forestry battalion--mostly the men he had been +working with in Quebec. Splendid fellows! But he's the king!" + +Then she raised her voice,-- + +"Captain Ellesborough!" + +A young man in uniform, with a slouch hat, came forward, leaping over the +logs in his path. He gave a military salute to the two visitors, and a +swift scrutinizing look to each of them. Rachel was aware of a thin, +handsome face bronzed by exposure, a pair of blue eyes, rather pale in +colour, to which the sunburn of brow and cheek gave a singular +brilliance, and a well-cut, determined mouth. The shoulders were those of +an athlete, but on the whole the figure was lightly and slenderly built, +making an impression rather of grace and elasticity than of exceptional +strength. + +"You would like to see the camp?" he said, looking at Rachel. + +"Aren't you too busy to show it?" + +"Not at all. I am not wanted just now. Let me help you over those logs." +He held out his hand. + +"Oh, thank you, I don't want any help," said Rachel a little scornfully. +He smiled in approving silence, and she followed his lead, leaping and +scrambling over the piles of wood, with a deer's sureness of foot, till +he invited her to stop and watch the timber girls at their measuring. As +the two visitors approached, land-women and forest-women eyed each other +with friendly looks, but without speech. For talk, indeed, the business +in hand was far too strenuous. The logs were coming in fast; there must +be no slip in measurement or note. The work was hard, and the women doing +it had been at it all day. But on the whole, what a comely and energetic +group, with the bright eyes, the clear skins, the animation born of open +air and exercise. + +"They can't talk to you now!" said Mrs. Fergusson in Janet's ear, amid +the din of the engines, "but they'll talk at tea. And there's a dance +to-night." + +Janet looked round the wild glen in wonder. + +"Who come?" + +"Oh, there's an Air Force camp half a mile away--an Army Service camp on +the other side. The officers come--some of them--every Saturday. We take +down the partitions in our huts. You can't think what pretty frocks the +girls put on! And we dance till midnight." + +"And you've no difficulty with the men working in the camp?" + +"You mean--how do they treat the girls?" laughed Mrs. Fergusson. "They're +_charming_ to the girls! Chivalrous, kind, everything they should be. But +then," she added proudly, "my girls are the pick--educated women all of +them. I could trust them anywhere. And Captain Ellesborough--you won't +get any mischief going on where he is." + +Meanwhile the captain, well out of earshot of Mrs. Fergusson's praise, +was explaining the organization of the camp to Rachel as they slowly +climbed the hill, on the opposite side from that by which she and Janet +had descended. + +"Which works hardest, I wonder?" she said at last, as they paused to look +down on the scene below. "We on our farm, or you here? I've never had +more than five hours' sleep through the harvest? But now things are +slacker." + +He threw his head back with a laugh. + +"Why, this seems to me like playing at lumbering! It's all so tiny--so +babyish. Oh, yes, there's plenty of work--for the moment. But it'll be +all done, in one more season; not a stick left. England can't grow a real +forest." + +"Compared to America?" + +"Well, I was thinking of Canada. Do you know Canada?" + +"A little." Then she added hastily: "But I never saw any lumbering." + +"What a pity! It's a gorgeous life. Oh, not for women. These women +here--awfully nice girls, and awfully clever too--couldn't make anything +of it in Canada. I had a couple of square miles of forest to look +after--magnificent stuff!--Douglas fir most of it--and two pulping mills, +and about two hundred men--a rough lot." + +"But you're not Canadian?" + +"Oh, Lord, no! My people live in Maine. I was at Yale. I got trained +at the forest school there, and after a bit went over the Canadian +frontier with my brother to work a big concession in Quebec. We did very +well--made a lot of money. Then came the war. My brother joined up with +the Canadian army. I stayed behind to try and settle up the business, +till the States went in, too. Then they set me and some other fellows to +raise a Forestry battalion--picked men. We went to France first, and last +winter I was sent here--to boss this little show! But I shan't stay here +long! It isn't good enough. Besides, I want to fight! They've promised me +a commission in our own army." + +He looked at her with sparkling eyes, and her face involuntarily answered +the challenge of his; so much so that his look prolonged itself. She was +wonderfully pleasant to look upon, this friend of Mrs. Fergusson's. And +she was farming on her own? A jolly plucky thing to do! He decided that +he liked her; and his talk flowed on. He was frank about himself, and +full of self-confidence; but there was a winning human note in it, and +Rachel listened eagerly, talking readily, too, whenever there was an +opening. They climbed to the top of the hill where they stood on the +northern edge of the forest, looking across the basin and the busy throng +below. He pointed out to her a timber-slide to their right, and they +watched the trees rushing down it, dragged, as he now saw plainly, by the +wire cable which was worked by the engine in the hollow. A group of +German prisoners, half-way down, were on the edge of the slide, guiding +the logs. + +"We don't have any trouble with them," said the captain carelessly. +"They're only too thankful to be here. They've two corporals of their own +who keep order. Oh, of course we have our eyes open. There are some sly +beggars among them. Our men have no truck with them. I shouldn't advise +you to employ them. It wouldn't do for women alone." + +His smile was friendly, and Rachel found it pleasant to be advised by +him. As to employing prisoners, she said, even were it allowed, nothing +would induce her to risk it. There were a good many on Colonel Shepherd's +estate, and she sometimes met them, bicycling to and from their billets +in the village, in the evening after work. "Once or twice they've jeered +at me," she said, flushing. + +"Jeered at you!" he repeated in surprise. + +"At my dress, I mean. It seems to amuse them." + +"I see. You wear the land army dress like these girls?" + +"When I'm at work." + +"Well, I'm glad you don't wear it always," he said candidly. "These girls +here look awfully nice of an evening. They always change." + +He glanced at her curiously. Her dress of dark blue linen, her pretty hat +to match, with its bunch of flowers, not to speak of the slender ankles +and feet in their blue stockings and khaki shoes, seemed to him +extraordinarily becoming. But she puzzled him. There was something about +her quite different from the girls of the hostel. She appeared to be +older and riper than they; yet he did not believe she was a day more than +five-and-twenty, and some of them were older than that. Unmarried, he +supposed. "Miss Henderson?" Yes, he was sure that was the name Mrs. +Fergusson had mentioned. His eyes travelled discreetly to her bare, left +hand. That settled it. + +"Well, if I came across these fellows jeering at an Englishwoman, I'd +know the reason why!" he resumed hotly. "You should have complained." + +She shook her head, smiling. "One doesn't want to be a nuisance in war +time. One can always protect oneself." + +He smiled. + +"That's what women always say, and--excuse me--they can't!" + +She laughed. + +"Oh, yes, we can--the modern woman." + +"I don't see much difference between the modern woman and the +old-fashioned woman," he said obstinately. "It isn't dress or working at +munitions that makes the difference." + +"No, but--what they signify." + +"What?--a freer life, getting your own way, seeing more of the world?" +The tone was a trifle antagonistic. + +"_Knowing_ more of the world," she said, quietly. "We're not the ignorant +babes our grandmothers were at our age. That's why we can protect +ourselves." + +And again he was aware of something sharp or bitter in her--some note of +disillusionment--that jarred with the soft, rather broad face and dreamy +eyes. It stirred him, and they presently found themselves plunged in a +free and exciting discussion of the new place and opportunities of women +in the world, the man from the more conservative, the women from the more +revolutionary point of view. Secretly, he was a good deal repelled by +some of his companion's opinions, and her expression of them. She quoted +Wells and Shaw, and he hated both. He was an idealist and a romantic, +with a volume of poems in his pocket. She, it seemed, was still on a +rising wave of rebellion, moral and social, like so many women; while his +wave had passed, and he was drifting in the trough of it. He supposed she +had dropped religion, like everything else. Well, the type didn't attract +him. He believed the world was coming back to the old things. The war had +done it--made people think. No doubt this girl had rushed through a lot +of things already, and thought she knew everything. But she didn't. + +Then, as their talk went on, this first opinion dropped in confusion. For +instead of presenting him with a consistent revolutionist, his companion +was, it appeared, full of the most unexpected veins and pockets of +something much softer and more appealing. She had astonishing returns +upon herself; and after some sentiment that had seemed to him silly or +even outrageous, a hurried "Oh, I dare say that's all nonsense!" would +suddenly bewilder or appease a marked trenchancy of judgment in himself +which was not accustomed to be so tripped up. + +The upshot of it was that both Rachel and her new acquaintance enjoyed +an agreeable, an adventurous half hour. They got rapidly beyond +conventionalities. One moment she thought him rude, the next delightful; +just as she alternately appeared to him feminist and feminine. Above them +the doomed beech trees, still green in the late August afternoon, spread +their canopy of leaf, and through their close stems ran dark aisles of +shadow. Below them was the tree-strewn hill-side. In the hollow Rachel +could see Janet Leighton and Mrs. Fergusson among the measuring girls; +the horses moving to and fro; the Canadian lumber-men catching at and +guiding the logs; the trolleys descending the valley; while just opposite +to them trunk after trunk was crashing down the hill, the line of the +steel cable gleaming now and then in a fitful sunshine which had begun +to slip out below a roof of purple cloud. Only one prisoner was left to +look after the slide. The others had just gone down the hill, at a +summons from below. Suddenly Ellesborough sprang to his feet. + +"Good Heavens! what's that?" For a loud cry had rung out, accompanied by +what sounded like a report. The man who had been standing among the dead +brushwood on the other side of the descending timber, about a hundred +yards away, had disappeared; and the huge beech just launched from above +had ceased to move. + +Another cry for help. + +"The cable's broken!" said Ellesborough, starting at full speed for the +slide. Rachel rushed after him, and presently caught him up where he +knelt beside a man lying on the ground, and writhing in great pain. The +prisoner's cap had fallen off, and revealed a young German lad of +nineteen or twenty, hardly conscious, and groaning pitifully at +intervals. As he lay crouched on his face, the red patches on his back, +intended to guide the aim of an armed guard in case of any attempt to +escape, showed with a sinister plainness. + +"The cable snapped, and has caught him round the body," Ellesborough +explained. "Give him this brandy, please, while I try and make out--" + +With skilled and gentle fingers he began to explore the injury. + +"A rib broken, I think." He looked with anxiety at some blood that had +begun to appear on the lips. "I must go down and get some men and a +stretcher. They won't know what to do without me. My second in command is +off duty for the day. Can you look after him while I go? Awfully sorry +to--" + +He gave her a swift, investigating glance. + +She interrupted him. + +"Tell me what to do, and I'll do it." + +He loosened the boy's collar and very gently tried to ease his position. + +"Mamma!" murmured the boy, with the accent of a miserable child in a bad +dream. Ellesborough's face softened. He bent over him and said something +in German. Rachel did not understand it--only the compassionate look in +the man's blue eyes. + +"Give him more brandy if you can, and try and keep him still," said +Ellesborough as he rose to his feet. "I shall be back directly." + +Her glance answered. By this time there was commotion below, the engine +had stopped working and men were running up the hill. Ellesborough went +bounding down the steep slope to meet them. They turned back with him, +and Rachel supposed they had gone to fetch a stretcher, and if possible a +doctor, from the small camp hospital which Mrs. Fergusson had pointed out +to her near the gate. Meanwhile, for a few minutes, she was alone with +this suffering lad. Was he fatally hurt--dying? She managed to get some +brandy down, and then he lay groaning and unconscious, murmuring +incoherent words. She caught "Mamma" again, then "Lisa," "Hans," and +broken phrases that meant nothing to her. Was his mind back in some +German home, which, perhaps, he would never see again? + +All sorts of thoughts passed through her: vague memories gathered +from the newspapers, of what the Germans had done in Belgium and +France--horrible, indescribable things! Oh, not this boy, surely! +He could not be more than nineteen. He must have been captured in the +fighting of July, perhaps in his first action. Captain Ellesborough had +said to her that there was no fighting spirit among any of the prisoners. +They were thankful to find themselves out of it, "safely captured," as +one of them had had the bravado to say, and with enough to eat. No doubt +this boy had dreamt day and night of peace, and getting back to Germany, +to "Mamma" and "Lisa" and "Hans." To die, if he was to die, by this +clumsy accident, in an enemy country, was hard! + +Pity, passionate pity sprang up in her, and it warmed her heart to +remember the pity in the face of Captain Ellesborough. She would have +hated him if he had shown any touch of a callous or cruel spirit towards +this helpless creature. But there had been none. + +In a few more minutes she was aware of Mrs. Fergusson and Janet climbing +rapidly towards her. And behind them came stretcher-bearers, the captain, +and possibly a doctor. + + * * * * * + +The accident broke up the working afternoon. The injured lad was carried +to hospital, where the surgeon shook his head, and refused to prophesy +till twenty-four hours were over. + +Captain Ellesborough disappeared, while Rachel and Janet were given tea +at the woman's hostel and shown the camp. Rachel took an absorbed +interest in it all. This world of the new woman, with its widening +horizons, its atmosphere of change and discovery, its independence of +men, soothed some deep smart in her that Janet was only now beginning +to realize. And yet, Janet remembered the vicar, and had watched the talk +with Ellesborough. Clearly to be the professed enemy of man did not +altogether disincline you for his company! + +At any rate it seemed quite natural to Janet Leighton that, when it was +time to go, and a charming girl in khaki with green facings caught the +pony, and harnessed it for Mrs. Fergusson's parting guests, Ellesborough +should turn up, as soon as the farewells were over; and that she should +find herself driving the pony-carriage up the hill, while Ellesborough +and Rachel walked behind, and at a lengthening distance. Once or twice +she looked back, and saw that the captain was gathering some of the +abounding wild flowers which had sprung up on the heels of the retreating +forest, and that Rachel had fastened a bunch of them into her hat. She +smiled to herself, and drove steadily on. Rachel was young and pretty. +Marriage with some man--some day--was certainly her fate. The kind, +unselfish Janet intended to "play up." + +Then, with a jerk, she remembered there was a story. Nonsense! An unhappy +love affair, no doubt, which had happened in her first youth, and in +Canada. Well, such things, in the case of a girl with the temperament of +Rachel, are only meant to be absorbed in another love affair. They are +the leaf mould that feeds the final growth. Janet cheerfully said to +herself that, probably, her partnership with Rachel would only be a short +one. + +The pair behind were, indeed, much occupied with each other. The tragic +incident of the afternoon seemed to have carried them rapidly through the +preliminary stages of acquaintance. At least, it led naturally to talk +about things and feelings more real and intimate than generally haunt the +first steps. And in this talk each found the other more and more +congenial. Ellesborough was now half amused, half touched, by the mixture +of childishness and maturity in Rachel. One moment her ignorance +surprised him, and the next, some shrewd or cynical note in what she was +saying scattered the _ingénue_ impression, and piqued his curiosity +afresh. She was indeed crassly ignorant about many current affairs in +which he himself was keenly interested, and of which he supposed all +educated women must by now have learnt the ABC. She could not have given +him the simplest historical outline of the great war; he saw that she was +quite uncertain whether Lloyd George or Asquith were Prime Minister; and +as to politics and public persons in Canada, where she had clearly lived +some time, her mind seemed to be a complete blank. None the less she had +read a good deal--novels and poetry at least--and she took a queerly +pessimistic view of life. She liked her farm work; she said so frankly. +But on a sympathetic reply from him to the effect that he knew several +other women who had taken to it, and they all seemed to be "happy" in it, +she made a scornful mouth. + +"Oh, well--'happy'?--that's a different thing. But it does as well as +anything else." + +The last thing she wanted, apparently, was to talk about Canada. He, +himself, as a temporary settler in the Great Dominion, cherished an +enthusiasm for Canada and a belief in the Canadian future, not, perhaps, +very general among Americans; but although her knowledge of the country +gave them inevitably some common ground, she continually held back from +it, she entered on it as little as she could. She had been in the +Dominion, he presently calculated, about seven or eight years; but she +avoided names and dates, how adroitly, he did not perceive till they had +parted, and he was thinking over their walk. She must have gone out to +Canada immediately after leaving school. He gathered that her father had +been a clergyman, and was dead; that she knew the prairie life, but had +never been in British Columbia, and only a few days in Montreal and +Toronto. That was all that, at the end of their walk, he knew; and all +apparently she meant him to know. Whereas she on her side showed a +beguiling power of listening to all he had to say about the mysterious +infinity of the Canadian forest-lands and the wild life that, winter or +spring, a man may live among them, which flattered the very human conceit +of a strong and sensitive nature. + +But at last they had climbed the tree-strewn slope, and were on the open +ridge with the northern plain in view. The sun was now triumphantly out, +just before his setting; the clouds had been flung aside, and he shone +full upon the harvest world--such a harvest world as England had not seen +for a century. There they lay, the new and golden fields, where, to north +and south, to east and west, the soil of England, so long unturned, had +joyously answered once more to its old comrade the plough. + +"'An enemy hath done this,'" quoted Ellesborough, with an approving +smile, as he pointed towards the plain. "But there was a God behind him!" + +Rachel laughed. "Well, I've got three fields still to get in," she said. +"And they're the best. Goodnight." + +She gave him her hand, standing transfigured in the light, the wind +blowing her beautiful hair about her. + +"May I come and see you?" he asked, rather formally. + +She smiled assent. + +"Next week _everything_ will be in, and some of it threshed. I shall be +freer then. You'll like our place." + +He pressed her hand, and she was off, running like a fawn after the +retreating pony carriage. + +He turned away, a little dazzled and shaken. The image of her on the +ridge remained; but what perhaps had struck deepest had been the +sweetness of her as she hung above the injured boy. He went slowly +towards the camp, conscious that the day now departing had opened a new +door in the House of Life. + + + + +IV + + +Ellesborough allowed a week to pass before making the call at Great End +he had arranged with Rachel. But at last, when he thought that her +harvesting would be really over, he set out on his motor bicycle, one +fine evening, as soon as work at the camp was over. According to summer +time it was about seven o'clock, and the sun was still sailing clear +above the western woods. + +Part of his way lay over a broad common chequered with fine trees and +groups of trees, some of them of great age; for the rest he ran through a +world where harvest in its latest stages was still the governing fact. In +some fields the corn was being threshed on the spot, without waiting for +the stacks; in others, the last loads were being led; and everywhere in +the cleared fields there were scattered figures of gleaners, casting long +shadows on the gold and purple carpet of the stubble. For Ellesborough +the novelty of this garden England, so elaborately combed and finished in +comparison with his own country, was by no means exhausted. There were +times when the cottage gardens, the endless hedge-rows, and miniature +plantations pleased him like the detail in those early Florentine +pictures in the Metropolitan Museum, for which, business man as he was, +and accustomed to the wilds, he had once or twice, on visits to New York, +discovered in himself a considerable taste. He was a man, indeed, of many +aptitudes, and of a loyal and affectionate temper. His father, a country +doctor, now growing old, his mother, still pretty at sixty, and his two +unmarried sisters were all very dear to him. He wrote to them constantly, +and received many letters from them. They belonged to one of the old +Unitarian stocks still common in New England; and such stocks are +generally conspicuous for high standards and clean living. "Discipline" +was among the chief marks of the older generation. A father or mother +dreaded an "undisciplined" child, and the word was often on their lips, +though in no Pharisaical way; while the fact was evident in their lives, +and in those private diaries which they were apt to keep, wherein, up to +old age, they jealously watched their own daily thoughts and actions from +the same point of view. + +And though the younger generation, like the younger generation of +Quakers, shows change and some disintegration, the old Puritan +traditions and standards are still, as we all know, of great effect +among them. Especially with regard to women, and all that concerns them. +Among the Ellesborough clan, which was a large one, there prevailed, +along with the traditional American consideration for women, and +especially among the women of the family themselves--a strict and even +severe standard of sexual morals. There was no hypocrisy in it; they +talked of it but little, but they lived by it; and their men were brought +up in the atmosphere created by it. And as affection and tenderness and +self-sacrifice were freely mixed with the asceticism, there was +no rebellion--at any rate no open rebellion--among their men folk. The +atmosphere created led, no doubt, to certain evasions of the hard +problems of life; and to some quiet revaluations of things and persons +when the sons of the family came to men's estate. But in general the "ape +and tiger," still surviving in the normal human being, had been really +and effectively tamed in the Ellesborough race. There was also a +sensitive delicacy both of thought and speech among them; answering to +more important and tested realities. Their marriages were a success; +their children were well brought up, under light but effective control; +and, if it be true, as Americans are ready to say, that the old +conception of marriage is being slowly but profoundly modified over large +sections of their great Commonwealth, towards a laxity undreamt of half a +century ago, the Ellesboroughs could neither be taxed nor applauded in +the matter. They stood by the old ways, and they stood by them +whole-heartedly. + +Ellesborough himself, no doubt, had knocked about the world more than +most of his kindred, and had learnt to look at many things differently. +But essentially, he was the son of his race. His attitude towards women +was at once reverential and protective. He believed women were better +than men, because practically he had found it so in his own circle; but +he held also very strong beliefs, seldom expressed, as to their social +disadvantages and their physical weakness. The record of the Germans +towards women in France and Flanders, a record he had verified for +himself, had perhaps done more than anything else to feed the stern flame +of war in his own soul. At thirty-two, he would probably have already +been a married man, but for the war. He rather fiercely held that it was +a man's duty to marry and have children. But beyond a few passing fancies +he had never been in love; and since the American declaration of war, he +had been, like his President, out to "make the world safe for democracy"; +and the ardour of the struggle had swept his private interests out of +sight. + +All the same here he was, walking his motor cycle up the field road +leading to Great End Farm, and looking eagerly about him. A lonely +position, but beautiful! On the woods behind the house he turned a +professional eye. Fine timber! The man who was to succeed him at Ralstone +would no doubt have the cutting of it. The farm quadrangle, with its +sixteenth century barn, out of which the corn seemed to be actually +bursting from various open doors and windows, appeared to him through +that glamour which, for the intelligent American, belongs to everything +that medieval and Elizabethan England has bequeathed to the England of +the present. He will back himself, he thinks, to plan and build a modern +town better than the Britisher--in any case quicker. But the mosses and +tiles of an old Brookshire barn beat him. + +Ellesborough paused at the gate to watch two land lassies carrying +pails of milk across the yard towards a prolongation of the farm-house, +which he supposed was the dairy. Just beyond the farm-yard, two great +wheat-stacks were visible; while in the hayfields running up to the +woods, large hay-stacks, already nearly thatched, showed dimly in the +evening light. And all this was run by women, worked by Women! Well, +American women, so he heard from home, were doing the same in the fields +and farms of the States. It was all part, he supposed, of a world +movement, by which, no less than by the war itself, these great years +would be for ever remembered. + +The farm-house itself, however, seemed to him from the outside a poor, +flimsy thing, unworthy of the old farm buildings. He could see that the +walls of it were only a brick thick, and in spite of the pretty curtains, +he was struck by the odd feature of the two large windows exactly +opposite each other, so that a spectator on either side of the house +might look right through it. + +"Seems like being in the street. However, if there's nobody to look at +you, I suppose it don't matter." + +Then he laughed, for just as he led his motor cycle into the yard, and +passed the sitting-room window, he was struck by the appearance of two +large sheep, who seemed to be actually in the sitting-room, at its +farther end. They were standing, he presently perceived, upon the steep +down beyond the house, on the slope of which the farm was built; which on +the southern side of the farm quadrangle came right up to the house wall. +At the same moment he saw a woman inside get up and shoo them from the +open window, so that they ran away. + +But when Jenny Harberton had admitted him, and he was waiting in the +sitting-room, from which the woman he had seen had disappeared, he was in +the mood to admire everything. How nice the two women had made it! His +own rough life, both before and since the war, had only increased a +natural instinct for order and seemliness. The pretty blue paper, the +fresh drugget, the photographs on the wall, the flowers, and the delicate +neatness of everything delighted him. He went round looking at the +pictures and the few books, perfectly conscious that everything which he +saw had a more than common interest for him. The room seemed to be +telling a story--opening points of view. + +"Ah!" + +He paused, a broad smile overspreading his bronzed face. + +For he had perceived a popular History of the War lying open and face +downwards on the table, one that he had recommended to the mistress of +the farm. So she had followed his advice. It pleased him particularly! He +had gathered that she was never a great reader; still, she was an +educated woman, she ought to know something of what her country had done. + +And there was actually a piano! He wondered whether she played, or her +friend. + +Meanwhile Rachel was changing her dress upstairs--rather deliberately. +She did not want to look too glad to see her visitor, to flatter him by +too much hurry. When he arrived she had just come in from the fields +where she had been at the threshing machine all day. It had covered her +with dirt and chaff; and the process of changing was only half through +when she heard the rattle of Ellesborough's cycle outside. She stood now +before the glass, a radiant daughter of air and earth; her veins, as it +were, still full of the sheer pleasure of her long day among the stubbles +and the young stock. She was tired, of course; and she knew very well +that the winter, when it came, would make a great difference, and that +much of the work before her would be hard and disagreeable. But for the +moment, her deep satisfaction with the life she had chosen, the congruity +between it and her, gave her a peculiar charm. She breathed content, and +there is no more beautifying thing. + +She had thought a good deal about Ellesborough since their meeting; yet +not absorbingly, for she had her work to do. She was rather inclined to +quarrel with him for having been so long in making his call; and this +feeling, perhaps, induced her to dawdle a little over the last touches of +her toilet. She had put on a thin, black dress, which tamed the +exuberance of her face and hair, and set off the brilliance and fineness +of her skin where the open blouse displayed it. The beautiful throat was +sunburnt, indeed, but not unbecomingly so; and she was about to fasten +round it a slender gold chain, when she suddenly dropped the chain. Some +association had passed through her mind which made her shrink from it. + +She chose instead a necklace of bluish-green beads, long, and curiously +interwoven, which gave a touch of dignity to the plain dress. Then she +paused to consider the whole effect, in a spirit of meditation rather +than mere vanity. "_I wish he knew_!" she thought, and the glass +reflected a frown of perplexity. Had she been wise, after all, to make +such a complete mystery of the past? People in and about Ipscombe would +probably know some time--what all her Canadian friends knew. And then, +the thought of the endless explanations and gossip, of the horrid +humiliation involved in any renewed contact whatever with the ugly things +she had put behind her, roused a sudden, surging disgust. + +"Yes, I was quite right," she thought vehemently. "I was quite right!" + +Voices in the room downstairs! That meant that Janet had gone in to greet +the visitor. Should they ask him to stay for supper? The vicar was +coming, and his pious little sister. There would be quite enough to eat. +Cold ham, potatoes and salad, with their own butter and bread--Janet made +beautiful bread--was enough for anybody in war time. Rachel was in the +mood to feel a certain childish exultation in the plenty of the farm, +amid the general rationing. The possession of her seven milch cows, the +daily pleasure of the milk, morning and evening, the sight of the rich +separated cream, and of the butter as it came fresh from the churn, the +growing weight and sleekness of the calves; all these things gave her a +warm sense of protection against the difficulties and restrictions of the +war. She and Janet were "self-suppliers." No need to bother about ounces +of butter, or spoonfuls of cream. Of course they sold all they could, but +they could still feed their few guests well--better, perhaps, than any of +the folk in the villa houses round Millsborough. + +"Yes! and no one's leave to ask!" + +She threw out her arms in a vehement gesture as she turned away from the +glass. It was the gesture of a wild bird taking flight. + +By which, however, she was not hurling defiance at the gentle but most +efficient little lady who represented the Food Control of the +neighbourhood, and the mere sight of whom was enough to jog uneasy +consciences in the matter of rations. Rachel was long since on the best +of terms with her. + + * * * * * + +Captain Ellesborough was asked to stay to supper, and gladly accepted. +The vicar and his young sister arrived and were introduced to the +American. Betty and Jenny, alarmed at so much company and the quality of +it, hurriedly asked to be allowed to take their meal in the tiny scullery +behind the living room. But the democratic and dissenting Janet would not +hear of it. There was room for everybody, she said, and while she lived +in it there should only be one table for all who worked on the farm. If +the vicar and Miss Shenstone objected, she was sorry for them. But they +wouldn't object. + +So the small living room of the farm was soon full of a merry company: +the two mistresses, in their Sunday frocks, the land girls in their +uniforms, the young vicar in a short coat and round collar, his little +sister of nineteen, who was training to be a missionary, and carried +about with her already the sweet and dedicated look of her calling; and +Ellesborough, a striking and manly figure in full khaki. Ellesborough was +on Rachel's right, the vicar on Janet's; Miss Shenstone sat between the +two girls, and was so far from objecting to their company that she no +sooner found she was to sit next the daughter of her brother's handy-man +than her childish face flushed with pleasure. She had seen Jenny already +at her brother's Bible-class, and she had been drawn to her. Something in +the character of the labourer's daughter seemed to make a special appeal +to the delicate and mystical temper of the vicar's sister, in whom the +ardour of the "watcher for souls" was a natural gift. Jenny seemed to be +aware of it. She was flushed and a little excited, alternately shy and +communicative--like the bird under fascination, already alive to the +signal of its captor. At any rate, Margaret Shenstone kept both her +companions happy through the meal. + +The vicar employed himself in vigorously making friends with Janet +Leighton, keenly alive all the time to that vivid and flower-like vision +of Miss Henderson at the farther end of the table. But some instinct +warned him that beside the splendid fellow in khaki his own claim on her +could be but a modest one. He must watch his opportunity. It was natural +that certain misgivings had already begun to rise in the mind of his +elder sister, Eleanor, who was his permanent companion and housekeeper at +the vicarage. For why should her brother be so specially assiduous in the +harvest operations at Great End? She was well aware that it was the right +and popular thing for the young clergy who were refused service at the +front to be seen in their shirt sleeves as agricultural volunteers, or in +some form of war work. A neighbouring curate in whom she was greatly +interested spent the greater part of his week, for instance, on munition +work at a national factory. She thought him a hero. But if it was to be +harvesting, then it seemed to her that her brother should have divided +his help more evenly among the farms of the village. She was afraid of +"talk." And it troubled her greatly that neither Miss Henderson nor Miss +Leighton came to church. + +Meanwhile, the vicar, like a wise man, was securing the position with +Janet. What he wished, what he was really driving at, he would not let +himself inquire. What he _knew_ was that no woman had ever fluttered his +quiet mind as Miss Henderson had fluttered it during these summer weeks. +To watch her, erect and graceful, "pitching" the sheaves on to the +harvest cart, where he and a labourer received and packed them; to be +privileged to lead the full cart home, with her smile and thanks at the +barn door for reward, or to stand with her while she proudly watched her +new reaping machine, with the three fine horses abreast, sweeping round +her biggest field, while the ripe sheaves fell beside it, as of old they +fell beside the reapers that Hoephoestus wrought in gleaming gold on the +shield of Achilles; and then perhaps to pay a last visit with her to the +farm buildings in the warm dusk and watch the cattle coming in from the +fields and the evening feed, and all the shutting up for the night after +the long, hot, busy day: these things had lately made a veritable idyll +of the vicar's life. He felt as though a hundred primitive sensations and +emotions, that he had only talked of or read about before, had at last +become real to him. Oxford memories revived. He actually felt a wish to +look at his Virgil or Theocritus again, such as had never stirred in him +since he had packed his Oxford books to send home, after the sobering +announcement of his third class. After all, it seemed these old fellows +knew something about the earth and its joys! + +So that a golden light lay over these past weeks. And in the midst of it +stood the figure of a silent and--as far as he was concerned--rather +difficult woman, without which there would have been no transfiguring +light at all. He confessed to himself that she had never had much to say +to him. But wherever she was she drew the male creature after her. There +was no doubt as to that. She was a good employer--fair, considerate, +intelligent; but it was the _woman_--so the vicar believed--who got her +way. + +From which it will be seen that Miss Eleanor Shenstone had some reason +for misgiving, and that the vicar's own peace of mind was in danger. His +standards also were no longer what they were. He had really ceased to +care that Miss Leighton was a Unitarian! + +"I suppose you have been horribly busy?" said Rachel to Ellesborough, +when, thanks to the exertions of Janet and the two girls, everybody had +been provided with a first course. + +"Not more than usual. Do you mean--" He looked at her, smiling, and +Rachel's eyebrows went up slightly. "Ah, I see--you thought I had +forgotten?" + +"Oh, no," she said indifferently. "It is a long way to come." + +He flushed a little. + +"That never occurred to me for a moment!" he said with emphasis. "But you +said you would have finished with the harvest in a week. So I waited. I +didn't want to be a nuisance." + +At which she smiled, a smile that overflowed eyes and lips, and stirred +the senses of the man beside her. + +"How is the prisoner?" + +"Poor boy! He died the day before yesterday. We did everything we could, +but he had no chance from the first. Hard lines!" + +"Why, he might have been home next year!" + +"He might, indeed. Yes, Miss Henderson, it'll be peace next year--perhaps +this year! Who knows! But I hope I'll have a look in first. I've got my +orders. As soon as they've appointed my successor here, I'm off. About a +month, I suppose. They've accepted me for the Air Force." + +His eyes glowed. Rachel said nothing. She felt hurt that he expressed no +regret at going. Then the vicar struck into the conversation with some +enthusiastic remarks about the steady flowing in of the American army. +That, indeed, was the great, the overpowering fact of these August days. +Ellesborough responded eagerly, describing the huge convoy with which he +himself had come over; and that amazing, that incredible march across +three thousand miles of sea and land, which every day was pouring into +the British Isles, and so into France, some 15,000 men--the flower of +American manhood, come to the rescue of the world. He told the great +story well, with the graphic phrases of a quick mind, well fed on facts, +yet not choked by them. The table hung on him. Even little Jenny, with +parted lips, would not have missed a word. + +He meanwhile was led on--for he was not a man of facile or boastful +speech--by the eyes of Rachel Henderson, and those slight gestures or +movements by which from time to time when the talk flagged she would set +it going again. + +Margaret Shenstone was particularly stirred. + +"What friends we shall be!" she said presently, with a long, quivering +breath--"I mean America and England. Friends for ever! And we quarrelled +once. That's so wonderful. That shows good does come out of evil!" + +"I should jolly well think so," said Ellesborough, looking kindly at the +young girl. "Why, if it hadn't been for this war, millions of these boys +who are coming over now would never have seen England or Europe at all. +It'll change the face of everything!" + +"Only we must play up," said the vicar anxiously. "We must get rid of our +abominable shyness, and let your people really see how we really welcome +them." + +Rachel gave a little defiant shake of the head. + +"America's got to thank us, too!" she said, with a challenging look at +Ellesborough. "We've borne it for four years. Now it's your turn!" + +"Well, here we are," said Ellesborough quietly, "up to the neck. But--of +course--don't thank us. It's our business just as much as yours." + +The talk dropped a moment, and Janet took advantage of it to bring in +coffee as a finish to the meal. Under cover of the slight bustle, +Ellesborough said to Rachel, in a voice no longer meant for the table,-- + +"Could you spare me a letter sometimes, Miss Henderson--at the front?" + +He had both elbows on the table, and was playing with a cigarette. There +was nothing the least patronizing or arrogant in his manner. But there +was a male note in it--perhaps a touch of self-confidence--which +ruffled her. + +"Oh, I am a bad letter-writer," she said, as she got up from the table. +"Shall we go and look at the cows?" + +They all went out into the warm September night. Ellesborough followed +Rachel, cigarette in hand, his strong mouth twisting a little. The night +was almost cloudless. The pale encircling down, patched at intervals with +dark hanging woods, lay quiet under a sky full of faint stars. The scent +of the stubblefields, of the great corn-stack just beyond the farmyard, +of the big barn so full that the wide wooden doors could not be closed, +was mingled with the strong ammonia smells of the farm-yard, and here +and there with the sweetness left in the evening air by the chewing cows +on their passage to the cow-house on the farther side of the yard. + +Rachel led the way to the cow-house--a vast fifteenth-century barn, with +an interlacing forest of timber in its roof, where the six cows stood +ranged, while Janet and the two land lassies, with Hastings the bailiff +to help them, were changing the litter and filling up the racks with hay. +Rachel went along the line pointing out the beauties of each separate +beast to Ellesborough, and caressing two little calves whom Jenny was +feeding by hand. Ellesborough was amused by her technical talk and her +proprietor's airs. It seemed to him a kind of play-acting, but it +fascinated him. Janet had brought in a lantern, and the light and shade +of it seemed to have been specially devised to bring into relief Rachel's +round and tempting beauty, the bright brown of her hair where it curled +on the temples, and the lovely oval of the cheeks. Ellesborough watched +her, now passing into deep shadow, and now brilliantly lit up, as the +light of the lantern caught her; overhead, the criss-cross of the arching +beams as of some primitive cathedral, centuries old; and on either side +the dim forms of the munching cattle, and the pretty movements of the +girls busy with their work. + +"Take care," laughed Rachel as she passed him. "There are horrid holes in +this floor. I haven't had time to mend them." + +As she spoke, she slipped and almost fell. Ellesborough threw out a quick +hand and caught her by the arm. She smiled into his face. + +"Neatly done!" she said composedly, submitting to be led by him over a +very broken bit of pavement near the door. His hand held her firmly. Nor +did she make any effort to release herself till they were outside. Here +were the vicar and his sister waiting to say good-night--the vicar much +chagrined that he had seen so little of his chief hostess, and inclined +to feel that his self-sacrificing attention to Miss Leighton at supper +had been but poorly rewarded. Rachel, however, saw that he was out of +humour, and at once set herself to appease him. And in the few minutes +which elapsed before she parted with him at the gate she had quite +succeeded. + +Then she turned to Ellesborough. + +"Shall we go up the hill a little?" + +They slipped through a side gate of the farmyard, crossed a field, and +found themselves on an old grass road leading gently upward along the +side of the down into the shadow of the woods. The still, warm night held +them enwrapped. Rachel had thrown a white scarf over her head and throat, +which gave a mysterious charm to the face within it. As she strolled +beside her hew friend she played him with all the arts of a woman +resolved to please. And he allowed himself to be handled at her will. +He told her about his people, and his friends, about the ideas and +ambitions, also, with which he had come to Europe, which were now in +abeyance, but were to spring to active life after the war. Forestry on a +great scale; a part to be played in the preservation and development of +the vast forest areas of America which had been so wilfully wasted; +business and patriotism combined; fortune possible; but in any case the +public interest served. He talked shrewdly, but also with ardour and +imagination; she was stirred, excited even; and all the time she liked +the foreignness of his voice, the outline of his profile against the sky, +and all the other elements of his physical presence. + +But in the midst of his castle-building he broke off. + +"However, I'm a silly fool to talk like this. I'm going out to the front +directly. Perhaps my bullet's waiting for me." + +"Oh, no!" she said involuntarily--"no!" + +"I hope not. I don't want to die just yet. I want to get married, for one +thing." + +He spoke lightly, and she laughed. + +"Well, that's easy enough." + +He shook his head, but said nothing. They walked on till they reached the +edge of the hill, when Rachel, out of breath, sat down on a fallen log to +rest a little. Below them stretched the hollow upland, with its +encircling woods and its white stubble fields. Far below lay the dark +square of the farm, with a light in one of its windows. + +Rachel pointed to the grass road by which they had come. + +"We haven't seen the ghost!" + +He asked her for the story, and she told it. By now she had pieced it all +together; and it seemed to Ellesborough that it had a morbid fascination +for her. + +"He dragged himself down this very path," she said. "They tracked him by +the blood stains; his wounds dripped all along it. And then he fell, just +under my cart-shed. It was a horrible, bitter night. Of course the silly +people here say they hear groans and dragging steps: That's all nonsense, +but I sometimes wish it hadn't happened at my farm." + +He couldn't help laughing gently at her foolishness. + +"Why, it's a great distinction to have a ghost!" + +She disagreed--decidedly. + +"Any one can have my ghost that wants. I'm awfully easily scared." + +"Are you?" There was a deep note in his voice. "No, I don't believe that. +I'm sure you're a plucky woman. I know you are!" + +She laughed out. + +"How do you know?" + +"Why, no one but a plucky woman could have taken this farm and be working +it as you're doing." + +"That's not pluck," she said, half scornfully. "But if it is--well, I've +got plenty of pluck of that kind. But I am often scared, downright +scared, about nothing. It's just fear, that's what it is." + +"Fear of what?" + +"I don't know." + +She spoke in a sombre, shrinking tone, which struck him uncomfortably. +But when he tried further to discover what she meant, she would say +nothing more. He noticed, indeed, that she would often seem to turn the +talk upon herself, only to cut it short again immediately. She offered +him openings, and then he could make nothing of them; so that when they +reached the outskirts of the farm on their return, he had given her all +the main outlines of his own history, and she had said almost nothing of +hers. + +But all the same the walk had drawn them much nearer. + +He stopped her at the little gate to say,-- + +"I'm going to ask you again--I want you to write to me when I'm in +France." + +And this time she said almost eagerly,-- + +"Yes, I'll write; indeed I'll write! But you'll come over again before +you go?" + +"Rather," he said joyously; "rather! Why, there's a month. You'll be +tired of me before you've done." + +A few minutes later she was standing in her own little room, listening to +the retreating rush of his motor-cycle down the road. There was a great +tumult in her mind. + +"Am I falling in love with him? Am I--am I?" + +But in the dark, when she had put out her light, the cry that shaped +itself in her mind was identical with that sudden misgiving of the +afternoon, when on Ellesborough's arrival she had first heard his voice +downstairs talking to Janet. + +"_I wish he knew_!" But this time it was no mere passing qualm. It had +grown into something intense and haunting. + + * * * * * + +On this same September afternoon, a dark-eyed, shabby woman, with a +little girl, alighted at Millsborough Station. They were met by a man who +had been lounging about the station for some time and whose appearance +had attracted some attention. "See him at a distance, and you might take +him for a lord; but get him close, my word!--" said the station-master to +the booking-clerk, with a shrug, implying many things. + +"Wouldn't give a bob for his whole blessed turn-out," said the +booking-clerk. "But right you are, when you sort of get the hang of him, +far enough away on the other platform, might be a dook!" + +Meanwhile, the man had shouldered some of the bags and parcels brought by +the woman and the child, though hardly his fair share of them; and they +finally reached the exit from the station. + +"If you're going into the town, the bus will be here in a few minutes," +said a porter civilly to the woman. "It'll help you with all those +things." + +The man gruffly answered for her that they preferred to walk, and they +started, the woman and the child dragging wearily beside him. + +"Now, you've got to be content with what I've found for you," he said to +her roughly as they reached the first houses of the town. "There isn't +scarcely a lodging or a cottage to be had. Partly it's the holidays +still, and partly it's silly folk like you--scared of raids." + +"I couldn't go through another winter like last, for Nina's sake," said +the woman plaintively. + +"Why, you silly goose, there won't be any raids this winter. I've told +you so scores of times. We've got the upper hand now, and the Boche will +keep his planes at home. But as you won't listen to me, you've got to +have your way, I suppose. Well, I've got you rooms of a sort. They'll +have to do. I haven't got money enough for anything decent." + +The woman made no reply, and to the porter idly looking after them they +were soon lost from sight in the gathering dusk of the road. + + + + +V + + +The little town of Millsborough was _en fête_. There was a harvest +festival going on, and the County Agricultural Committee had taken the +opportunity to celebrate the successful gathering of the crops, and the +part taken in it by the woman land-workers under their care. They had +summoned the land lasses from far and wide; in a field on the outskirts +of the town competitions had been in full swing all the morning, and now +there were to be speeches in the market-place, and a final march of land +girls, boy scouts, and decorated wagons to the old Parish Church, where a +service was to be held. + +All Millsborough, indeed, was in the streets to look at the procession, +and the crowd was swelled by scores of cadets from a neighbouring camp, +who were good-heartedly keeping the route, and giving a military air to +the show. But the flower-decked wagons were the centre of interest. The +first in the line was really a brilliant performance. It was an old wagon +of Napoleonic days, lent by a farmer, whose forebears had rented the same +farm since William and Mary. Every spoke of the wheels blazed with red +geraniums; there was a fringe of heather along the edge of the cart, +while vegetables, huge marrows, turnips, carrots, and onions dangled from +its sides, and the people inside sat under a nodding canopy of tall and +splendid wheat, mixed with feathery barley. But the passengers were +perhaps the most attractive thing about it. They were four old women in +lilac sunbonnets. They were all over seventy, and they had all worked +bravely in the harvest. The crowd cheered them vociferously, and they +sat, looking timidly out on the scene with smiling eyes and tremulous +lips, their grey hair blowing about their wrinkled, wholesome faces. + +Beside the wagon walked a detachment of land girls. One of them was the +granddaughter of one of the old women, and occasionally a word would +pass between them. + +"Eh, Bessie, but I'd like to git down! They mun think us old fools, +dizened up this way." + +"No, gran; you must ride. You're the very best bit of the show. Why, just +listen how the folk cheer you!" + +The old woman sighed. + +"I'd like to look at it mysel'," she said with a childish plaintiveness. +But her tall granddaughter, in full uniform, with a rake over her +shoulder, thought this a foolish remark, and made no reply. + +In the second wagon, Rachel Henderson in full land-dress--tunic, +knee-breeches, and leggings--stood in the front of the cart, guiding two +white horses, their manes and tails gaily plaited with ribbons, and +scarlet badges on their snowy heads. + +"Eh, but yon's a fine woman!" said an old farmer of the humbler sort to +his neighbour. "Yo'll not tell me she's a land lassie?" + +"Noa, noa; she's the new farmer at Great End--a proud body, they say, an' +a great hustler! The men say she's allus at 'em. But they don't mind +her neither. She treats 'em well. Them's her two land girls walking +beside." + +For Betty and Jenny mounted guard, their harvest rakes on their +shoulders, beside their mistress, who attracted all eyes as she passed, +and knew it. Behind her in the cart sat Janet Leighton; and the two +remaining seats were filled by the Vicar of Ipscombe and Lady Alicia +Shepherd, the wife of the owner of Great End Farm and of the middle-sized +estate to which the farm belonged. + +Lady Alicia was a thin woman, with an excitable temperament, to judge +from her restless mouth and eyes, which were never still for a moment. +She was very fashionably dressed and held a lace parasol. The crowd +scarcely recognized her, which annoyed her, for in her own estimation she +was an important member of the Women's Committee which looked after the +land girls. The war had done a great deal for Lady Alicia. It had dragged +her from a sofa, where she was rapidly becoming a neurasthenic invalid, +and had gradually drilled her into something like a working day. She +lived in a flurry of committees; but as committees must exist, and Lady +Alicias must apparently be on them; she had found a sort of vocation, and +with the help of other persons of more weight she had not done badly. + +She did not quite understand how it was that she found herself in Miss +Henderson's wagon. The committee had refused to have a wagon of its own, +and the good-natured vicar had arranged it for her. She did not herself +much like Miss Henderson. Her husband had sent her to call upon the new +tenants, and she had been much puzzled. They were ladies, she supposed. +They spoke quite nicely, and Miss Henderson seemed to be the daughter of +a clergyman. But she was afraid they were dreadful Socialists! She had +talked to Miss Henderson about the awful--the _wicked_--wages that the +Brookshire board had just fixed for the labourer. + +"My husband says they'll simply crush the life out of farming. We shall +all be ruined, and where will the labourer be then?" + +And Miss Henderson had looked quite unpleasant. It was high time, she +said, that the labourer should have enough to live on--_decently_; really +thrown the word at you. And Colonel Shepherd had told his wife that he +understood from Hastings Miss Henderson had raised her wages before the +award of the Wages Board. Well, he only hoped the young woman had got +some money behind her, otherwise she would be finding herself in Queer +Street and he would be whistling for his rent. + +The wagons drew up in the centre of the market-place, and the band which +the cadets had brought with them struck up "God Save the King." Lady +Alicia rose at once and nudged her little boy, whom she had brought with +her, to take off his cap. She looked approvingly over the crowd, which +was growing denser and denser every moment. It was so that she really +enjoyed the populace--at a safe distance--and ready to lend itself to the +blandishments of its natural leaders. Where was her husband, Colonel +Shepherd? Of course they would want him to speak at some time in the +proceedings. But she looked for him in vain. + +Meanwhile, the speaking was beginning from the first cart. A land girl +who had played a rousing part in the recruiting campaign of the early +summer was speaking in a high voice, clearly heard by the crowd. She +was tall and pretty, and spoke without a sign of hesitation or +self-consciousness. She gloried in the harvest, in the splendid news from +the war, in the growth of the Woman's Land Army. "We've just been proud +to do our bit at home while our boys have been fighting over there. +They'll be home soon, perhaps, and won't we give them a welcome! And +we'll show them the harvest that we've helped to reap--the biggest +harvest that England's ever known!--the harvest that's going to beat the +Boche." The young simple voice flowed on, with its simple story and its +note of enthusiasm, and sometimes of humour. "It's hard work, but we love +it! It's cold work often, but we love it! The horses and the cows and the +pigs--they're naughty often, but they're nice!---yes, the pigs, too. It's +the beasts and the fields and the open air we love!" + +Betty looked at Jenny with a grin. + +"Jenny!--them pigsties yesterday; d'ye think she's ever cleaned one out?" + +"I know she has," said Jenny confidentially. "She's Farmer Green's girl, +out Ralstone way. Ee says there ain't nothing she can't do. Ee don't +want no men while he's got 'er. They offered him soldiers, and ee +wouldn't have 'em." + + * * * * * + +"Silly, sentimental young woman," said a tall man, with a pipe in his +mouth, who had just lounged up to the outskirts of the crowd, from a side +street. "Who's she going to take in here? What's the good of talking +poetry about farming to a lot of country people? A London shop-girl, I +guess. What does she know about it?" + +"You bets she knows a lot," said a young man beside him, who, to judge +from his uniform, was one of the Canadians employed at Ralstone camp. +He had been taken with the "sentimental young woman," and was annoyed by +the uncivil remarks of his neighbour. "Wonder what farm she's on?" + +"Oh, you know these parts?" said the other, removing his pipe for a +moment and looking down on his companion. + +"Well, not exactly." The reply was hesitating. "My grandfather went out +to Canada from a place near here sixty years ago. I used to hear him and +my mother talk about Millsborough." + +"Beastly hole!" said the other, replacing his pipe. + +"I don't agree with you at all," said the other angrily. "It's as nice a +little town of its size as you'd find anywhere." + +The other shrugged his shoulders. A man a few yards off in the crowd +happened at that moment to be looking in the direction of the two +speakers. It was the ticket-collector at the station, enjoying an +afternoon off. He recognized the taller of the two men as the "dook" he +had seen at Millsborough station about a week ago. The man's splendid +carriage and iron-grey head were not to be mistaken--also his cadaverous +and sickly look, and his shabby clothes. The ticket-collector saw that +the man was holding the dark-eyed, "furrin-looking" child by the hand, +which the woman he met had brought down with her. "Furriners," he +supposed, all of them; part of that stream of fugitives from air raids +that had been flowing out of London during the preceding winter, and was +now flowing out again, as the next winter approached, though in less +volume. Every house and lodging in Millsborough was full, prices had gone +up badly, and life in Millsborough was becoming extremely uncomfortable +for its normal inhabitants--"all along o' these panicky aliens!" thought +the ticket-collector, resentfully, as he looked at the tall man. + +The tall man, however, was behaving as though the market-place belonged +to him, talking to his neighbours, who mostly looked at him askance, and +every now and then breaking into a contemptuous laugh, provoked +apparently by the eloquence of the young woman in the wagon. Meanwhile +the little girl whose hand he held was trying to pull him into a better +place for seeing the rest of the procession. For from the place where +they stood on the outskirts of the crowd, the foremost wagon with its +nodding wheat and sheaves, its speaker, its old women, and its bodyguard +of girls entirely hid the cart behind it. + +"Dis way, pappa, dis way," said the child, dragging him. He let her draw +him, and suddenly from behind the speaker's cart there emerged the second +wagon with its white horses; Rachel Henderson, the observed of all +beholders, standing flushed and smiling, with the reins in her hands, the +vicar just behind her, and Lady Alicia's lace parasol. + +"My God!" said the man. + +His sudden start, and clutch at the child's hand made the child cry out. +He checked her with a savage word, and while she whimpered unheeded, he +stood motionless, sheltering himself behind a girl with a large hat who +stood in front of him, his eyes fixed on the Great End wagon. A ghastly +white had replaced the patchy red on his cheeks, and had any careful +observer chanced to notice him at the moment, he or she would have been +struck by the expression of his face--as of some evil, startled beast +aware of its enemy, and making ready to spring. + +But the expression passed. With a long breath, Roger Delane pulled +himself together. + +"Hold your noise, Nina," he said roughly to the child. "If you'll be a +good girl, I'll put you on my shoulder." + +The child stopped crying at once, and Delane, raising her on to his +shoulder, pulling his own soft hat over his eyes and placing the child so +that her dress concealed his own features. Then he resumed an excited +scrutiny of the Great End wagon. At the same moment he saw a man in +uniform making his way through the crowd towards Miss Henderson who was +waving to him. An officer--an American officer. Delane recognized at once +the high collar and the leathern peak to the cap. + +The crowd had already begun to cheer him. He reached the Great End wagon, +and its mistress, all smiles, bent over to speak to him. She and the +vicar seemed to be giving directions, to which the American with a +laughing shrug assented, going off to the front wagon, evidently in +obedience to orders. There the girl speaker had just sat down amid a +hearty cheer from the crowd; and the chairman of the meeting, a burly +farmer, eagerly came to the side of the wagon, and helped the American +officer into the cart. Then with a stentorian voice the chairman +announced that Captain Ellesborough from Ralstone camp had come "to tell +us what America is doing!" A roar from the crowd. Ellesborough saluted +gaily, and then his hands in his pockets began to talk to them. His +speech, which was a racy summary of all that America was doing to help +the Allies, was delivered to a ringing accompaniment of cheers from the +thronged market-place, rising to special thunder when the captain dwelt +on the wheat and bacon that America was pouring across the Atlantic +to feed a hungry Europe. + +"We've tightened our own belts already; we can tighten them, I dare say, +a few holes more. Everybody in America's growing something, and making +something. When a man thinks he's done enough, and wants to rest a bit, +the man next him gets behind him with a bradawl. There's no rest for +anybody. We've just registered _thirteen million_ men. That sounds like +business, doesn't it? No slacking there! Well, we mean business. And you +mean business. And the women mean business." + +Then a passage about the women, which set the land girls grinning at each +other, and at the men in the crowd, ending in three cheers for Marshal +Foch and Sir Douglas Haig, which came echoing back from the Fourteenth +Century church and the old houses which ringed the market-place. + +All eyes were on the speaker, no one noticed the tall man with the +olive-skinned child on his shoulder. He himself, with thumping pulses, +never ceased to watch the figures and movements in the second wagon. He +saw Miss Henderson sit down and another woman also in tunic and knickers +take her place. He watched her applauding the speaker, or talking with +the clergyman behind her, or the lady with the lace parasol. And when the +speech was over, amid a hurricane of enthusiasm, when the resolution had +been put and carried, and the bells in the old church-tower began to ring +out a deafening joy-peal above the dispersing crowd, he saw the American +officer jump down from the speaker's wagon and return to Miss Henderson. +Steps were brought, and Captain Ellesborough handed out the ladies. Then +he and Rachel Henderson went away side by side, laughing and talking, +towards the porch of the church, where Delane lost them from sight. + +The market-place emptied rapidly. The decorated wagons moved off to the +field where the competitions had been held in the morning, and some +of the crowd with them. Another portion streamed into the church, and +soon only a few scattered groups were left. + +The tall man put down the child, and was seized with a fit of coughing, +which left him more pallid and sunken-eyed than before. When it was over, +he noticed a group of elderly labourers. They had come late into the +meeting, and were making for the bar of the Cow-roast Inn, but before +they entered it Delane went up to one of them. + +"I'm a stranger here," he said carelessly. "Can you tell me who all these +people were in the wagons?" + +The man addressed--who was old Halsey--gave the speaker a reconnoitring +look. + +"Well, I dunno neither," he said cautiously, "leastways, many of 'em. +There was my old missus, in the first one. She didn't want to go, dressed +up in them sunbonnets. But they made such a fuss of her, she had to. +There was Farmer Broughton I seed, an' I don't know nobody else." + +"Well, but the second wagon?" said Delane impatiently. + +"Oh, the second wagon. Why, that was Miss Henderson. Don't ye know 'er? I +works for 'er?" + +"Is she on the land?" + +The old man laughed. + +"That she be! She's a farmer, is Miss Henderson, an' she frames pretty +fair. She don't know much yet, but what she don't know Hastings tells, +her." + +"Who's Hastings?" + +"Why, her bailiff, to be sure. You do be a stranger, not knowin' Muster +Hastings?" + +"I'm just here for a few weeks. It's a rum business, isn't it, this of +women taking farms?" + +Halsey nodded reflectively. + +"Aye, it's a queer business. But they do be cleverer at it than ye'd +think. Miss Henderson's a good head-piece of her own." + +"And some money, I suppose?" + +"Well, that's not my look out, is it, so long as I gits my wages? I +dessay Colonel Shepherd, ee sees to that. Well, good-day to you. I'm +goin' in to get summat to drink. It's a dryin' wind to-day, and a good +bit walk from Ipscombe." + +"Is that where you live?" + +"Aye--an' Miss Henderson's place is just t'other side. A good mile to +Ipscombe, and near a mile beyont. I didn't want to come, but my old woman +she nagged me to come an' see her 'ome." + +And with another nod, the old man turned into the public, where his mates +were already enjoying the small beer of the moment. + +For a few minutes, Delane strolled down the main road in silence, the +child playing at his heels. Then he turned abruptly, called the child, +and went up the side street from which he had appeared when the +meeting began. + +A quarter of an hour later he returned to the market-place alone. The +service in the church was still going on. He could hear them singing, the +harvest hymn: "We plough the fields and scatter--The good seed on the +land." But he did not stop to listen. He walked on rapidly in the +direction of Ipscombe. + +Delane found the main line from Millsborough to Ipscombe dotted +at intervals with groups of persons returning from the harvest +festival--elderly women with children, a few old labourers, a few +soldiers on leave, with a lively fringe of noisy boys and girls +skirmishing round and about their elders, like so many young animals on +the loose. The evening light was failing. The pools left by a passing +shower, gleamed along the road, and the black elms and oaks, scarcely +touched as yet by autumn gold, stood straight and sharp against a rainy +sky. + +The tall, slouching man scrutinized the various groups as he passed them, +as though making up his mind whether to address them or not. He wore a +shabby greatcoat, warmer than the day demanded, and closely buttoned +across the chest. The rest of his dress, felt hat, dark trousers, and tan +boots, had all of it come originally from expensive shops, but was now +only just presentable. The one thing in good condition about him was the +Malacca cane he carried, which had a carved jade handle, and was +altogether out of keeping with his general appearance. + +All the same there was something striking in that appearance. Face, +figure and dress represented the wreck of more than one kind of +distinction. The face must once have been exceptionally handsome, before +an underlying commonness and coarseness had been brought out or +emphasized by developments of character and circumstance. The mouth was +now loose and heavy. The hazel eyes had lost their youth, and were +disfigured by the premature wrinkles of either ill-health or dissipation. +None the less, a certain carriage of the head and shoulders, a certain +magnificence in the whole general outline of the man, especially in the +defiant eyes and brow, marked him out from the crowd, and drew attention +of strangers. + +Many persons looked at him, as he at them, while he swung slowly along +the road. At last he crossed over towards an elderly man in company with +a young soldier, who was walking lamely with a stick. + +"Excuse me," he said, formally, addressing the elder man, "but am I right +for Ipscombe?" + +"That you are, muster. The next turnin' to the right'll bring yer to it." +Peter Betts looked the stranger over as he spoke, with an inquisitive +eye. + +"You've come from the meeting, I suppose?" + +"Ay. We didn't go to the service. That worn't in our line. But we heerd +the speeches out o' doors." + +"The carts were fine!--especially the second one." + +"Ay--that's our missis. She and the two girls done the dressin' o' the +cart." + +"What's her name?" + +"Well, her name's Henderson," said the old man, speaking with an amiable, +half careless detachment, the manner rather of a philosopher than a +gossip. + +"She's the farmer's wife?" + +"Noa, she ain't. She's the farmer herself--'at's what she is. She's took +the farm from Colonel Shepherd--she did--all on her own. To be sure +there's Miss Leighton as lives with her. But it do seem to me as Miss +Henderson's--as you might say--the top 'un. And me an' James Halsey works +for her." + +"_Miss_ Henderson? She's not married?" + +"Not she!" said old Betts emphatically. "She's like a lot o' women +nowadays, I guess. They doan't want to be married." + +"Perhaps nobody 'as wanted to marry 'em, dad!" said his elder son, +grinning at his own stale jest. + +Betts shook a meditative head. + +"Noa--yo'll not explain it that way," he said mildly. "Some of 'em's +good-looking--Miss Henderson 'ersel', by token. A very 'andsome +up-standin' young woman is Miss Henderson." + +Delane followed all these remarks with close attention, and continued a +rather skilful examination. He learnt that Great End was a farm of about +two hundred and fifty acres, that Miss Henderson seemed to have "lots o' +money," and had sold her autumn crops very well, that Miss Leighton +managed the stock and the dairy with the help of two land-girls, and it +was thought by the village that the two ladies "was doin' fine." + +Arrived at the village, Betts turned into his cottage, with a nod to his +companion, and Delane went on his way. + +The lane on the farther side of the village was dark under branching +trees. Delane stumbled along it, coughing at intervals, and gripped by +the rising chill of the September evening. A little beyond the trees he +caught sight of the farm against the hill. Yes, it was lonesome, as the +old man said, but a big, substantial-looking place. Rachel's place! And +Rachel had "lots o' money"--and as to her health and well-being, why the +sight of her on that cart was enough. That vision of her indeed--of the +flushed, smiling face under the khaki hat, of the young form in the trim +tunic and leggings, and, not least, of the admiring crowd about her, kept +returning upon the man's furious sense as something not to be borne, a +recurrent blow from which he could not escape. + +And that American chap--that Yankee officer who had walked off with her +to the church--what was the meaning of that? They were not strangers, +that was plain. She had beckoned to him from the cart. The manner of +their short conversation, indeed, showed them well acquainted. She told +him to go and speak--and he had gone--with alacrity--smiling back at her. +Courting, no doubt! Rachel could never let a man alone--or live, without +a man after her. A brutal phrase shaped itself--a vile epithet or +two--flung into the solitude of the lane. + +When he emerged from the trees into a space of greater light between two +stubble fields, Delane suddenly drew a letter from his pocket. While +Rachel was flaunting with "lots of money"--this was how his affairs were +going. + +"DEAR ROGER,--I can do nothing for you. Your demands are simply +insatiable. If you write me any more begging letters, or if you attempt +again to force your way into my house as you did last week, I shall tell +the bank to cancel your allowance, and wash my hands of you altogether. +My husband's determined to stop this kind of thing. Don't imagine you can +either threaten us, or come round us. We have tried again and again to +help and reform you. It is no good--and now we give you up. You have +worn us out. If you are wise, you will not answer this--and if you keep +quiet the allowance shall be continued. MARIANNE TILNEY." + +That was a nice letter to get from a man's only sister! Allowance! What +was £100 a year to a woman as rich as Marianne? And what was the use +of £100 a year to him, with living at the price it was now? His wretched +pittance besides, doled out to him by his father's trustees under his +father's will, brought his whole income up to £300 a year. How was a man +to live on that, and support a woman and child? + +And here was Rachel--free--bursting with health--and possessed of "lots +of money." She thought, no doubt, that she had done with him--thrust him +out of her life altogether. He'd let her see! Whose fault was it that he +had taken up with Anita? Nagging, impossible creature!--with her fine +ladyisms and her tempers, and her insolent superior ways! + +He walked on, consumed with a bitterness which held him like a physical +anguish. By now he had reached the farm gate. The sunset had cleared and +deepened. Great rosy thunder-clouds topped the down, and strong lights +were climbing up the bronzed masses of wood behind the house. No one to +be seen. At Millsborough they could hardly be out of church yet. He had +time before him. He walked cautiously up the farm-lane, diverging to the +left as he reached the buildings so as to escape the notice of any one +who might be left in charge. As he slipped under the large cart-shed +which backed on the cow-house, he heard somebody whistling inside. It was +old Halsey, who had done the afternoon milking in the absence of the +girls. Delane could hear the movements of the labourer, and the munching +of the cows. A little farther on was the stable, and two horses' heads, +looking pensively out from the open half of the door. Delane peered into +the stable with the eye of one to whom all farming matters were familiar. +Three fine horses--d---d fine horses!--must have cost £100 a piece at +least. No doubt the cows were equally good stuff. And he had noticed +under the outer cart-shed a brand-new reaper and binder, and other farm +implements and machines of the best quality. Rachel was doing the thing +in style. + +But where was the farm-house? Then as he crept round the third side of +the rough quadrangle, he became aware of a large window with white +curtains. Looking through it with his face against the glass, he was +startled to find that he was looking straight into the farm-yard through +another window of equal size on the other side of the room. And at the +moment Halsey came out of the cow-shed carrying a pail of milk in either +hand. Delane drew hastily back into the shelter of an old holly that grew +against the wall, till the old man had disappeared. Then he eagerly +examined the room, which was still suffused by the sunset. Its prettiness +and comfort were so many fresh exasperations. He contrasted it inwardly +with the wretched lodging from which he had just come. Why, he knew the +photographs on the walls--her father, the old parson, and her puritanical +mother, whom Rachel had always thrown in his teeth. Her eldest brother, +too, who had been drowned at sea. And that engraving--that sentimental +thing by Watts, "Love and Death," that Rachel had bought once on a visit +to Toronto, and he had scolded her for buying. There it was, as large as +life. How did it come there? Was it her property or his? He believed he +could claim it, if he chose. Gad!--what would she say if she knew where +he was at that moment, and what he was doing! + +For eighteen months she had hidden herself so cleverly that he had +entirely lost sight of her. When her lawyers communicated with him in the +spring they had been careful to give no address. On the whole he had +believed her to be still in Canada. She, on the other hand, unless she +were a greater fool than he thought her, _must_ have guessed that he +would get back to England somehow. Why, the farm had ended in bankruptcy, +and what else was there to do but to come home and dun his relations! +Yet she had not been afraid to come home herself, and set up in this +conspicuous way. She supposed, of course, that she had done with him for +good--kicked him off like an old shoe! The rage in his blood set his +heart beating to suffocation. Then his cough seized him again. He stifled +it as best he could, flattened against the wall, in the shadow of a +yew-tree. + +The sound, however, was apparently heard, for there were rapid steps +across the farm-yard, and a gate opened. "Hallo--who's there?" The voice +was, no doubt, that of the labourer he had seen. Delane slipped +noiselessly along the wall, and to the back of the stables, till all was +quiet again within the farm. + +But outside in the road there were persons approaching. He mounted the +hill a little way into the shelter of the trees which covered the steep +face of the down, and ran up into the great woods along the crest. +Through the gathering dusk he saw the large farm-cart clattering up the +lane with several figures in it. The cart carried lamps, which sent +shafts of light over the stubbles. There was a sound of talk and +laughter, and alongside the cart he saw a man leading a motor-bicycle, +and apparently talking to the women in the cart. A man in uniform. +The American, no doubt! + +The cart drew up at the farm-yard gates, and the old labourer came to +open them. Everybody dismounted, except one of the girls, who, standing +in the wagon, drove the horses. Then, for a time, Delane could see +nothing more. The farm quadrangle had absorbed the party. Occasionally a +light flashed, or a voice could be heard calling, or laughter came +floating up the hill through an open door or window. But in a little +while all was silence. + +Delane sat down on a fallen trunk, and watched. All kinds of images were +rushing through his brain--wide wheat fields with a blazing sun on the +stooks--a small frame house set nakedly on the flat prairie with a bit of +untidy garden round it--its living room in winter, with a huge fire, and +a woman moving about--the creek behind it, and himself taking horses down +to water. They were images of something that had once meant happiness and +hope--a temporary break or interlude in a dismal tale which had closed +upon it before and after. + +Darkness came down. The man on the hill said to himself, "Now they are +having supper," and he crept down again to the farm, and crouching and +wriggling along he made his way again to the big window, over which the +curtains had been drawn. There was no one in the sitting-room, however, +to judge from the silence, but from the kitchen across the passage came a +rush of voices, together with a clatter of plates. The kitchen looked out +on the front of the farm, and a wooden shutter had been fastened across +the window. But the wood of the shutter was old and full of chinks, and +Delane, pressing his face to the window, was able to get just a glimpse +of the scene within--Rachel at the head of the table, the man in uniform +beside her--three other women. A paraffin lamp threw the shadow of the +persons at the table sharply on the white distempered wall. There were +flowers on the table, and the meal wore a home-like and tempting air to +the crouching spy outside. Rachel smiled incessantly, and it seemed to +Delane that the handsome man beside her could not take his eyes from her. +Nor could Delane. Her brown head and white throat, her soft, rose-tinted +face emerging from the black dress, were youth itself--a vision of youth +and lusty-hood brilliantly painted on the white wall. + +Delane looked his fill. Then he dropped down the bank on which the farm +stood, and avoiding the open track through the fields, he skirted a hedge +which led down to the road, and was lost in the shadows of advancing +night. + + + + +VI + + +Rain!--how it pelted the September fields day after day and week after +week, as though to remind a world still steeped in, still drunk with the +most wonderful of harvests, that the gods had not yet forgotten their old +jealousy of men, and men's prosperity. Whenever a fine day came the early +ploughing and seeding was in full swing, and Rachel on one side of the +largest field could watch the drill at work, and on the other the harrow +which covered in the seed. In the next field, perhaps, she would find +Betty and Jenny lifting potatoes, and would go to help with them, digging +and sorting, till every limb ached and she seemed to be a part herself of +the damp brown earth that she was robbing of its treasure. For a time +when the harvest was done, when the ricks were thatched ready for +threshing, there had been a moment of ease. But with the coming of +October, the pressure began again. The thought of the coming frost and of +all those greedy mouths of cattle, sheep, and horses to be filled through +the winter, drove and hunted the workers on Great End Farm, as they have +driven and hunted the children of earth since tilling and stock-keeping +began. Under the hedges near the house, the long potato caves had been +filled and covered in; the sheep were in the turnips, and every two or +three days, often under torrents of rain, Rachel and the two girls must +change the hurdles, and put the hungry, pushing creatures on to fresh +ground. On the top of the down, there was fern to be cut and carted for +the winter fodder, and fallen wood to be gathered for fuel, under the +daily threats of the coal-controller. + +Rachel worked hard and long. How she loved the life that once under other +skies and other conditions she had loathed! Ownership and command had +given her a new dignity, in a sense a new beauty. Her labourers and her +land girls admired and obeyed her, while--perhaps!--Janet Leighton had +their hearts. Rachel's real self seemed to be something that no one knew; +her companions were never quite at ease with her; and yet her gay, +careless ways, the humanity and natural fairness of her mind, carried a +spell that made her rule sit light upon them. + +Yes!--after all these weeks together, not even Janet knew her much +better. The sense of mystery remained; although the progress of the +relation between her and Ellesborough was becoming very evident, not only +indeed to Janet, but to everybody at the farm. His departure for France +had been delayed owing to the death in action of the officer who was to +have been sent home to replace him. It might be a month now before he +left. Meanwhile, every Sunday he spent some hours at the farm, and +generally on a couple of evenings in the week he would arrive just after +supper, help to put the animals to bed, and then stay talking with Rachel +in the sitting-room, while Janet tidied up in the kitchen. Janet, the +warm-hearted, had become much attached to him. He had been at no pains to +hide the state of his feelings from her. Indeed, though he had said +nothing explicit, his whole attitude to Rachel's friend and partner was +now one of tacit appeal for sympathy. And she was more than ready to +give it. Her uprightness, and the touch of austerity in her, reached +out to similar qualities in him; and the intellectual dissent which she +derived from her East Anglican forbears, from the circles which in +eighteenth-century Norwich gathered round Mrs. Opie, the Martineaus, and +the Aldersons, took kindly to the same forces in him; forces descended +from that New England Puritanism which produced half the great men--and +women--of an earlier America. Rachel laughed at them for 'talking +theology,' not suspecting that as the weeks went on they talked--whenever +they got a chance--less and less of theology, and more and more of +herself, through the many ingenious approaches that a lover invents and +the amused and sympathetic friend abets. + +For clearly Ellesborough was in love. Janet read the signs of it in the +ease with which he had accepted the postponement of his release from the +camp, eager as he was to get to the fighting line. She heard it in his +voice, saw it in his eyes; and she was well aware that Rachel saw it. +What Rachel thought and felt was more obscure. She watched for +Ellesborough; she put on her best frocks for him; she was delighted to +laugh and talk with him. But she watched for Mr. Shenstone, too, and +would say something caustic or impatient if he were two or three days +without calling. And when he called, Rachel very seldom snubbed him, as +at first. She was all smiles; the best frocks came out for him, too; and +Janet, seeing the growing beatitude of the poor vicar, and the growing +nervousness of his sister, was often inclined to be really angry with +Rachel. But they were not yet on such terms as would allow her to +remonstrate with what seemed to her a rather unkind bit of flirtation; +seeing that she did not believe that Rachel had, or ever would have, a +serious thought to give the shallow, kindly little man. + +But though she held her tongue, Janet showed her feeling sometimes by a +tone, or a lifted eyebrow, and then Rachel would look at her askance, +turning the vicar's head none the less on the next occasion. Was it that +she was deceiving herself, as well as trying, very unsuccessfully, to +deceive the lookers-on? The progress of the affair with Ellesborough made +on Janet a curious and rather sinister impression, which she could hardly +explain to herself. She seemed to see that Ellesborough's suit steadily +advanced; that Rachel made no real attempt to resist his power over her. +But all the same there was no happy, spontaneous growth in it. Rachel +seemed to take her increasing subjection hardly, to be fighting obscurely +against it all the time, as though she were hampered by thought and +motives unknown to the other two. Ellesborough, Janet thought, was often +puzzled by the cynical or bitter talk with which Rachel would sometimes +deliberately provoke him. And yet it was clear that he possessed the +self-confidence of a strong man, and did not really doubt his ultimate +power to win and hold the woman he was courting. + +One bitterly cold evening at the very end of September, Ellesborough, +arriving at the farm, was welcomed by Janet, and told that all hands were +in the fields "clamping" potatoes. She herself left a vegetable stew +ready for supper, safely simmering in a hay-box, and walked towards the +potato field with Ellesborough. On the way they fell in with Hastings, +the bailiff, who was walking fast, and seemed to be in some excitement. + +"Miss Leighton--that old fool Halsey has given notice!" + +Janet stopped in dismay. Halsey was a valuable man, an old-fashioned +labourer of many aptitudes, equally good as a woodman, as an expert in +"fagging" or sickling beaten-down corn, as a thatcher of roofs or ricks, +as a setter of traps for moles, or snares for rabbits. Halsey was the +key-stone of the farm labour. Betts was well enough. But without Halsey's +intelligence to keep him straight--Janet groaned. + +"What on earth's the matter, Hastings? We raised his wages last week--and +we did it before the county award was out!" + +Hastings shook his head. + +"It's not wages. He says he's seen the ghost!" + +Janet exclaimed, and Ellesborough laughed. + +"What, the defunct gamekeeper?" + +Hastings nodded. + +"Vows he's seen him twice--once on the hill--on the green path--and once +disappearing round the corner of the farm. He declares that he called to +the man--who was like nobody he had ever seen before--and the man took no +notice, but went along, all hunched up--as they say the ghost is--and +talking to himself--till all of a sudden he vanished. I've argued with +him. But nothing'll hold him--old idiot! He vows he'll go---and if he +talks to the others they'll all go." + +"Has he gone home?" asked Janet. + +"Long ago. He left the horses to Jenny, and just marched off. In the lane +he met me, and gave notice. Such a cock-and-bull story as you never +heard! But I couldn't do anything with him." + +"I'll go and tackle him," said Janet at once. "We can't lose him. The +work will go to smash." + +She waved a farewell to Ellesborough, and ran back to the house. The +others, watching, saw her emerge on her bicycle and disappear towards the +village. + +"Well, if anybody can move the old fellow, I suppose it's Miss Leighton," +said Hastings disconsolately. "She's always managed to get the right side +of him so far. But I'm nearly beat, captain! Things are getting too hard +for me. You can't say a word to these men--they're off in a moment. And +the wages!--it's sinful!" + +"We're supposed only to be fighting a war, Hastings," said Ellesborough +with a smile as they walked on together. "But all the time there's +revolution going on beside it--all over the world!" + +Hastings made a face. + +"Right you are, captain. And how's it going to work out?" + +"Don't ask me!" laughed Ellesborough--"we've all got to sit tight and +hope for the best. All I know is that the people who work with their +hands are going to get a bit of their own back from the people who work +with their heads--or their cheque-books. And I'm glad of it! But ghosts +are a silly nuisance. However, I dare say Miss Leighton will get round +the old man." + +Hastings looked doubtful. + +"I don't know. All the talk about the murder has come up again. They say +there's a grandson come home of the man that was suspected sixty years +ago--John Dempsey. And some people tell me that this lad had the whole +story of the murder from his grandfather--who confessed it--only last +year, when the man died." + +"Well, if he's dead all right, and has owned up to it, why on earth does +the ghost make a fuss?" + +Hastings shook his head. + +"People get talking," he said gloomily. "And when they get talking, +they'll believe anything--and see anything. It'll be the girls next." + +Ellesborough tried to cheer him, but without much success. The "poor +spirit" of the bailiff was a perpetual astonishment to the American, in +the prime of his own life and vigour. Existence for Hastings was always +either drab or a black business. If the weather was warm, "a bit of cold +would ha' been better": if a man recovered from an illness, he'd still +got the "bother o' dyin' before him." He was certain we should lose the +war, and the rush of the September victories did not affect him. And if +we didn't lose it, no matter--prices and wages would still be enough to +ruin us. Rachel grew impatient under the constant drench of pessimism. +Janet remembered that the man was a delicate man, nearing the sixties, +with, as she suspected, but small provision laid up for old age; with an +ailing wife; and bearing the marks in body and spirit of years of +overwork. She never missed an opportunity of doing him a kindness; and +the consequence was that Hastings, always faithful, even to his worst +employers, was passionately faithful to his new mistresses, defending +them and fighting for their interests, as they were sometimes hardly +inclined to fight for themselves. + +After showing Ellesborough the way to the "clamps," Hastings left him. In +succession to the long days of rain there had been a sudden clearing in +the skies. The day had been fine, and now, towards sunset, there was a +grand massing of rosy cloud along the edge of the down, and windy lights +over the valley. Rachel, busy with the covering of the potato "clamps," +laid down the bundle of bracken she had been handing to Peter Betts, and +came quickly to meet her visitor. Her working dress was splashed with +mire from neck to foot, and coils of brown hair had escaped from her +waterproof cap, and hung about her brilliant cheeks. She looked happy, +but tired. + +"Such a day!" she said, panting, as they met. "The girls and I began at +six this morning--lifting and sorting. It was so important to get them +in. Now they're safe if the frost does come. It's a jolly crop!" + +Ellesborough looked at her, and her eyes wavered before the ardour in +his. + +"I say! You work too hard! Haven't you done enough? Come and rest." + +She nodded. "I'll come!" + +She ran to say a word to the others and rejoined him. + +They went back to the farm, not talking much, but conscious through every +nerve of the other's nearness. Rachel ran upstairs to change her dress, +and Ellesborough put the fire together, and shut the windows. For the sun +had sunk behind the hill, and a bitter wind was rising. When Rachel came +down again, the wood-fire glowed and crackled, the curtains drawn, and +she stared in astonishment at a small tea-tray beside the fire. + +Ellesborough hurriedly apologized. + +"I found some boiling water in the kettle, and I know by now where Miss +Janet keeps her tea." + +"Janet brought us tea to the field." + +"I dare say she did. That was four--this is six. You felt cold just now. +You looked cold. Be good, and take it easy!" He pointed to the only +comfortable chair, which he had drawn up to the fire. + +"Are you sure it boiled?" she said sceptically, as she sank into her +chair, her eyes dancing. "No man knows when a kettle boils." + +"Try it! For five winters on the Saguenay, I made my own tea--and baked +my own bread. Men are better cooks than women when they give their minds +to it!" He brought her the cup, hot and fragrant, and she sipped it in +pure content while he stood smiling above her, leaning against the +mantelpiece. + +"I wanted to see you," he said presently. "I've just got my marching +orders. Let's see. This is October. I shall have just a month. They've +found another man to take over this job, but he can't come till +November." + +"And--peace?" said Rachel, looking up. + +For Prince Max of Baden had just made his famous peace offer of October +5th, and even in rural Brookshire there was a thrilling sense of opening +skies, of some loosening of those iron bonds in which the world had lain +for four years. + +"There will be no peace!" said Ellesborough with sudden energy, "so long +as there is a single German soldier left in Belgium or France!" + +She saw him stiffen from head to foot--and thrilled to the flame of +avenging will that suddenly possessed him. The male looked out upon her, +kindling--by the old, old law--the woman in her. + +"And if they don't accept that?" + +"Then the war will go on," he said briefly, "and I shall be in for the +last lap!" + +His colour changed a little. She put down her cup and bent over the fire, +warming her hands. + +"If it does go on, it will be fiercer than ever." + +"Very likely. If our fellows set the pace there'll be no dawdling. +America's white hot." + +"And you'll be in it?" + +"I hope so," he said quietly. + +There was a pause. Then he, looking down upon her, felt a sudden and +passionate joy invade him--joy which was also longing--longing +irresistible. His mind had been wrestling with many scruples and +difficulties during the preceding days. Ought he to speak--on the eve of +departure--or not? Would she accept him? Or was all her manner and +attitude towards him merely the result of the new freedom of women? +Gradually but surely his mounting passion had idealized her. Not only +her personal ways and looks had become delightful to him, but the +honourable, independent self in him had come to feel a deep admiration +for and sympathy with her honourable independence, for these new powers +in women that made them so strong in spite of their weakness. She had +become to him not only a woman but a heroine. His whole heart approved +and admired her when he saw her so active, so competent, so human. And +none the less the man's natural instinct hungered to take her in his +arms, to work for her, to put her back in the shelter of love and +home--ith her children at her knee.... + +And how domestic was this little scene in which they stood--the +firelight, the curtained room, the tea-things, her soft, bending form, +with the signs of labour put away!... + +The tears rushed to his eyes. He bent over her, and spoke her name, +almost unconsciously. + +"Rachel!" + +His soul was in the name! + +She started, and looked up. While he had been thinking only of her, her +thoughts had gone wandering--far away. And they seemed to have brought +back--not the happy yielding of a woman to her lover--but distress and +fear. A shock ran through him. + +"Rachel!--" He held out his hands to her. He could not find words, but +his eyes spoke, and the agitation in every feature. + +But she drew back. + +"Don't--don't say anything--till--" + +His look held her--the surprise in it--the tender appeal. She could not +take hers from it. But the disturbance in him deepened. For in the face +she raised to him there was no flood of maidenly joy. Suddenly--her eyes +were those of a culprit examining her judge. A cry sprang to his lips. + +"Wait!--wait!" she said piteously. + +She fell back in her chair, covering her face, her breast heaving. He saw +that she was trying to command herself, to steady her voice. One of those +forebodings which are the children of our half-conscious observation shot +through him. But he would not admit it. + +He stooped over her and tried again to take her hand. But she drew it +away, and sat up in her chair. She was very white, and there were tears +in her eyes. + +"I've got something to say to you," she said, with evident difficulty, +"which--I'm afraid--will surprise you very much. Of course I ought to +have told you--long ago. But I'm a coward, and--and--it was all so +horrible. I am not what you suppose me. I'm--a married woman--at least I +was. I divorced my husband--eighteen months ago. I'm quite free now. I +thought if you really cared about me--I should of course have to tell you +some time--but I've been letting it go on. It was very wrong of me--I +know it was very wrong!" + +And bowing her face on her knees, she burst into a passion of weeping, +the weeping of a child who was yet a woman. The mingled immaturity and +intensity of her nature found its expression in the very abandonment of +her tears. + +Ellesborough, too, had turned pale. He was astounded by what +she said. His thoughts rushed back over the six weeks of their +friendship--recalling his first impressions of something mysterious +and unexplained. + +But of late, he had entirely forgotten them. She had talked so frankly +and simply of her father and mother--of her father's missionary work in +Canada, and her early journeys with him; and of her brother in Ontario, +his children and his letters. Once she had handed him a letter from this +brother to read, and he had been struck by the refined and affectionate +tone of it. Here were the same family relations as his own. His heart, +his taste were satisfied. If Rachel Henderson accepted him he would be +bringing his mother a daughter she would find it easy to love. + +And all the time--instead of an unmarried girl, with the experiences +of love and marriage before her--she had been already married--and +divorced! Another man had loved and possessed her--and even if she were +innocent--but of course she was innocent!--there must be some ugly story +involved. + +He tried to collect his thoughts--but all his consciousness seemed to be +bruised and in pain. He could only put his hand on her hair, and say +incoherent things,-- + +"Don't cry so, dear--don't cry!" + +And even as he spoke he felt with bewilderment how--in a moment--their +respective attitudes had changed. She checked her sobs. + +"Sit there!" she said, pointing peremptorily to a seat opposite. Then she +looked round her. + +"Where is Janet?" + +"She went to the village." + +Rachel dried her eyes, and with trembling hands smoothed her hair back +from her face. + +"I'll try and tell it shortly. It's a horrible tale." + +"Do you feel able to tell it?" + +For he was aghast at her pallor--the alteration in her whole aspect. + +"I must," she wailed. "Weren't you--weren't you just going to ask me to +marry you?" + +Strange question!--strange frowning eyes! + +"I was," he said gravely. "Didn't you know I should?" + +"No, no, I didn't know!" she said piteously. "I was never _sure_--till +you looked at me then. I wouldn't be sure!" + +He said nothing. Speech was ice-bound till he had heard what she had to +say. + +"It all began to happen three years ago," she said hurriedly, hiding her +face from him with her hand while she hung over the fire. "I was living +with my brother, who was then near Winnipeg. He offered me a home after +my father died. But he was married, and I didn't get on with his wife. I +dare say it was my fault, but I wasn't happy, and I wanted to get away. +Then a man--an Englishman--bought the next section to us, and we began +to know him. He was a gentleman--he'd been to Cambridge--his father had +some land and a house in Lincolnshire. But he was the third son, and +he'd been taught land agency, he said, as a training for the colonies. +That was all we knew. He was very good-looking, and he began courting me. +I suppose I was proud of his being a University man--a public school boy, +and all that. He told me a lot of stories about his people, and his +money--most of which were lies. But I was a fool--and I believed them. My +brother tried to stop it. Well, you know from his letters what sort of +man he is," and again she brushed the sudden tears away. "But his wife +made mischief, and I was set on having a place of my own. So I stuck to +it--and married him." + +She rose abruptly from her seat and began to move restlessly about the +room, taking up a book or her knitting from the table, and putting them +down again, evidently unconscious of what she was doing. Ellesborough +waited. His lean, sharply-cut face revealed a miserable, perhaps an +agonized suspense. This crisis into which she had plunged him so suddenly +was bringing home to him all that he had at stake. That she mattered to +him so vitally he had never known till this moment. + +"What's the good of going into it!" she said at last desperately. "You +can guess--what it means"--a sudden crimson rushed to her cheeks--"to +be tied to a man--without honour--or principle--or refinement--who +presently seemed to me vile all through--in what he said--or what he did. +And I was at his mercy. I had married him in such a hurry he had a right +to despise me, and he used it! And when I resisted and turned against +him, then I found out what his temper meant." She raised her shoulders +with a gesture which needed no words. "Well--we got on somehow till my +little girl was born--" + +Ellesborough started. Rachel turned on him her sad, swimming eyes. But +the mere mention of her child had given her back her dignity and strength +to go on. She became visibly more composed, as she stood opposite to him, +her beautiful dark head against the sunset clouds outside. + +"She only lived a few weeks. Her death was largely owing to him. But +that's a long story. And after her death I couldn't stand it any more. I +ran away. And soon I heard that he had taken up with an Italian girl. +There was a large camp of Italians on the C.P.R., quite close to us. She +was the daughter of one of the foremen. So then my brother made me go to +his lawyers in Winnipeg. We collected evidence very easily. I got my +divorce eighteen months ago. The decree was made absolute last February. +So, of course, I'm quite free--quite--_quite_ free!" + +She spoke the last words almost savagely, and after them she moved away +to the window looking on the down, and stood gazing through it, as though +she had forgotten Ellesborough's presence. + +"The action was not defended?" he asked, in a low voice. + +She shook her head without speaking. But after a minute she added,-- + +"I can show you the report." + +There was silence. Ellesborough turned round, put his hands on the +mantelpiece, and buried his face on them. Presently she approached him, +looked at him with a quivering lip, and said in broken sentences,-- + +"It has all come so suddenly--hasn't it? I had been in such good +spirits to-day, not thinking of those horrible things at all. I don't +know what I meant to do, if you did ask me--for of course I knew you +_might_. I suppose I intended to put off telling you--so as to be sure +first--_certain_--that you loved me. And then--somehow--when you looked +down on me like that, I felt--that _I_ cared--much more than I had +thought I cared--too much to let you speak--before you knew--before I'd +told you. It's always been my way--to--put off disagreeable things. And +so I thought I could put this off. But every night I have been awake +thinking--'if only he knew!'--and I was wretched--for a while--because +you didn't know. But then it went away again--and I forgot it. One does +forget things--everything--when one is hard at work. But I'm awfully +sorry. And now--I think--we'd better say good-bye." + +Her voice faltered against her will. He raised himself quickly. + +"No--no," he said passionately, "we won't say good-bye. But you must let +me think--for you, as well as for myself." + +"It would be better to say good-bye," she persisted. "I'm afraid--you +expect in me--what I haven't got. I see that now. Because I'm keen about +this work, and I can run this farm, you think--perhaps--I'm a strong +character. But I'm not. I've no judgment--not in moral things. I give +in--I'm weak--and then--I could kill myself!" + +She had grown very white again--and her eyes were strangely fixed on him. +The words seemed to him incoherent, out of touch somehow even with their +tragic conversation. But his first passing bewilderment was lost in pity +and passion. He stopped, took her hand, and kissed it. He came nearer. + +But again she drew back. + +"There's Janet!" she said, "we can't talk any more." + +For she had caught sight of Janet in the farm-yard, leading her bicycle. + +"Can you meet me to-morrow evening--on the Common?" he said. "I could be +there about six." + +She frowned a little. + +"Is it worth while?" + +"I beg you!" he said huskily. + +"Very well--I'll come. We shall be just friends, please." + +"But, of course, I'll tell you more--if you wish." + +Janet's voice and step were heard in the passage. How Ellesborough got +through the next ten minutes he never remembered. When they were over, he +found himself rushing through the cool and silence of the autumn night, +thankful for this sheltering nature in which to hide his trouble, his +deep, deep distress. + + + + +VII + + +The October night rang stormily round Great End Farm. The northwest wind +rushing over the miniature pass just beyond the farm, where the road +dropped from the level of the upland in which Ipscombe lay, to the level +of the plain, was blowing fiercely on the square of buildings which stood +naked and undefended against weather from that quarter of the heaven, +while protected by the hills and the woods from the northeast. And +mingled with the noisy or wailing gusts came the shrieking from time to +time of one of the little brown owls that are now multiplying so fast in +the English midlands. + +The noise of the storm and the clamour of the owl were not the cause of +Rachel's wakefulness; but they tended to make it more feverish and +irritable. Every now and then she would throw off the bed-clothes, and +sit up with her hands round her knees, a white and rigid figure lit by +the solitary candle beside her. Then again she would feel the chill of +the autumn night, and crouch down shivering among the bed-clothes, pining +for a sleep that would not come. Instead of sleep, she could do nothing +but rehearse the scene with Ellesborough again and again. She watched the +alterations in his face--she heard the changes in his voice--as she told +her story. She was now as sorry for him as for herself! The tears came +flooding into her eyes as she thought of him. In her selfish fears of his +anger she had forgotten his suffering. But the first true love of her +life was bringing understanding. She realized the shock to him, and wept +over it. She saw, too, that she had been unjust and cowardly in letting +the situation go so far without speaking; and that there was no real +excuse for her. + +Would he give her up? She had told him that all was at an end between +them; but that was only pride--making a virtue of a necessity. Oh, no, +no, he must not give her up! It was only six weeks since their first +meeting, and though it would be untrue to say that since the meeting he +had wholly possessed her thoughts, she had been capable all through them +of that sort of dallying with the vicar which Janet thought unkind. She +had been able to find plenty of mind for her work, and for the ambitions +of her new profession, and had spent many a careless hour steeped in the +sheer physical pleasure of the harvest. Yet, from the beginning, his +personality had laid its grip on hers. She had never been able to forget +him for long. One visit from him was no sooner over than she was +calculating on and dreaming of the next. And as the consciousness +of some new birth in her had grown, and sudden glimpses had come to her +of some supreme joy, possibly within her grasp, so fear had grown, and +anxiety. She looked back upon her past, and knew it stained--knew that it +must at some point rise as an obstacle between her and him. + +But how great an obstacle? She was going to tell him, faithfully, +frankly, all the story of her marriage--accuse her own rash self-will in +marrying Delane, confess her own failings as a wife; she would tell no +hypocritical tale. She would make it plain that Roger had found in her no +mere suffering saint, and that probably her intolerance and impatience +had contributed to send him to damnation. But, after all, when it was +told, what could Ellesborough do but pity her?--take her in his arms--and +comfort her--for those awful years--and her lost child? + +The tears rained down her cheeks. He loved her! She was certain of that. +When he had once heard the story, he could not forsake her! She already +saw the pity in his deep grey eyes; she already felt his honest, +protecting arms about her. + +Ah--_but then_? Beyond that imagined scene, which rose, as though +it were staged, before her, Rachel's shrinking eyes, in the windy +darkness, seemed to be penetrating to another--a phantom scene in a dim +distance--drawn not from the future, but the past. Two figures moved in +it. One was herself. The other was not Roger Delane. + +The brown owl seemed to be shrieking just outside her window. Her +nerves quivered under the sound as though it were her own voice. Why was +life so cruel, so miserable? Why cannot even the gods themselves make +undone what is done? She was none the worse--permanently--for what had +happened in that distant scene--that play within a play? How was she the +worse? She was "not a bad woman!"--as she had said so passionately to +Janet, when they joined hands. There was no lasting taint left in mind +and soul--nothing to prevent her being a pure and faithful wife to George +Ellesborough, and a good mother to his children. It was another Rachel to +whom all that had happened, a Rachel she had a right to forget! She was +weak in will--she had confessed it. But George Ellesborough was strong. +Leaning on him, and on kind Janet, she could be all, she would be all, +that he still dreamed. The past--_that_ past--was dead. It had no +existence. Nothing--neither honour nor love--obliged her to disclose it. +Except in her own mind it was dead and buried--as though it had never +been. No human being shared her knowledge of it, or ever would. + +And yet the Accuser came closer and closer, wrestling with her shrinking +heart. "You can't live a lie beside him all your life!" "It won't be a +lie. All that matters to him is what I am now--not what I was. And it +wasn't I!--it was another woman--a miserable, battered creature who +couldn't help herself." "It will rise up between you, and perhaps--after +all--in some way--he will discover it." "How can he? Dick and I--who in +all the world knew, but us two?--and Dick is dead." "Are you sure that no +one knew:--that no one saw you? Think!" + +A pale face grew paler in the dim light, as thought hesitated:-- + +"There was that wagon--and the boy--in the storm." "Yes--what then?" +"Well--what then? The boy scarcely saw me." "He did see you." "And if he +did--it is the commonest thing in a Canadian winter to be caught by a +storm, to ask shelter from a neighbour." "Still--even if he drew no +malicious conclusion, he saw you--alone in that farm with Dick Tanner, +and he probably knew your name." "How should he know my name?" "He had +seen you before--you had seen him before." "I didn't know his name--I +don't know it now." "No--but in passing your farm once, he had dropped a +parcel for a neighbour--and you had seen him once--at a railway station." +"Is it the least likely that I shall ever see him again--or that he +remembers seeing me at Dick Tanner's door?" "Not likely, perhaps--but +possible--quite possible." + +And while this question and answer passed through the brain, the woman +sitting up in bed seemed to be transported to a howling wintry scene of +whirling snow--a November twilight--and against that background, the hood +of a covered wagon, a boy holding the reins, the heavy cape on his +shoulders white with snow, the lamps of the wagon shining dimly on him, +and making a kind of luminous mist round the cart. She heard a parley, +saw a tall and slender man with fair hair go out to the boy with hot +milk and bread, caught directions as to the road, and saw herself as a +half-hidden figure in the partially open door. + +And then afterwards--the warm farm kitchen shutting out the storm--a man +at her knees--his arms round her--his kisses on her cheek. + +And again the irrevocableness of it closed down upon her. It could +_never_ be undone: that was the terrible commonplace which held her in +its grasp. It could never be wiped out from one human mind, which must +bear the burden of it as best it could, till gradually--steadily--the +life, had been killed out of the ugly, haunting thing, and it had been +buried--drowned, out of sight and memory. + +But the piteous dialogue began again. + +"How _could_ I have resisted? I was so miserable--so lonely--so weak!" +"You didn't love him!" "No--but I was alone in the world." "Well, then, +tell George Ellesborough--he is a reasonable man--he would understand." +"I can't--I _can't_! I have deceived him up till now by passing as +unmarried. If I confess this, too, there will be no chance for me. He'll +never trust me in anything!--he'll suspect everything I do or say--even +if he goes on loving me. And I couldn't bear it!--nor could he." + +And so at last the inward debate wore itself out, and sleep, sudden and +deep, came down upon Rachel Henderson. When she woke in the morning it +was to cleared skies both in her own mind and in the physical world. The +nightmare through which she had passed seemed to her now unreal, even a +little absurd. Her nerves were quieted by sleep, and she saw plainly what +she had to do. That "old, unhappy, far-off thing" lurking in the +innermost depth of memory had nothing more to do with her. She would look +it calmly in the face, and put it finally--for ever--away. But of her +marriage she would tell everything--everything!--to George Ellesborough, +and he should deal with her as he pleased. + + * * * * * + +The day was misty and still. October, the marvellous October of this +year, was marching on. Every day, Foch on the battlefield of France and +Belgium was bringing down the old Europe, and clearing the ground for the +new. In English villages and English farms, no less than in the big +towns, there was ferment and excitement, though it showed but little. +Would the boys be home by Christmas--the sons, the brothers, the +husbands? What would the change be like--the life after the war? If there +were those who yearned and prayed for it--there were those who feared it. +The war had done well for some, and hideously for others. And all through +the play of individual interests and desires, and even in the dullest +minds there ran the intoxicating sense of Victory, of an England greater +and more powerful than even her own sons and daughters had dared to +dream--an England which knew herself now, by the stern test of the four +years' struggle, to be possessed of powers and resources, spiritual, +mental, physical, which amazed herself. In all conscious minds, brooding +on the approaching time, there rose the question: "What are we going to +do with it?" and even in the unconscious, the same thought was present, +as a vague disturbing impulse. + +Janet had just read the war telegrams to Rachel, who had come down late, +complaining of a headache; but when Janet--the reserved and equable +Janet--after going through the news of the recapture of Ostend, +Zeebrugge, and Bruges, broke into the passionate, low-spoken comment: +"The Lord is King--be the people never so unquiet!" or could not, for +tears, finish the account of the entry into recaptured Lille, and the joy +of its inhabitants, Rachel sat irresponsive--or apparently so. + +How would it affect Ellesborough--this astounding news? Would it take him +from her the sooner, or delay his going? That was all she seemed capable +of feeling. + +Janet was troubled by her look and attitude, and being well aware that +the two had had a long _tête-à-tête_ the day before, wondered how things +were going. But she said nothing; and after breakfast Rachel joined the +two girls in the potato-field, and worked as hard as they, hour after +hour. But her usual gaiety was gone, and the girls noticed at once the +dark rims under her eyes. They wondered secretly what Miss Henderson's +"friend" had been doing. For that the "Cap'n" was courting their employer +had long been plain to them. Betty, of course, had a "friend," the young +soldier whose sick leave was nearly up, and the child's deep velvety eyes +were looking nearly as tired as Miss Henderson's. While Jenny, too, the +timid, undeveloped Jenny had lately begun to take an interest in a +"friend," a young fellow belonging to Ellesborough's forestry camp whom +she had met in Millsborough the day of the Harvest Festival. They had +hardly exchanged half an hour's real conversation. But he had bought her +some sweets at Millsborough, and walked a bit of the way home with her. +Then she had seen him in the village once or twice. He had some relations +there--there was some talk of him, and that old murder at the farm--she +didn't know rightly what it was. But she felt somehow that Miss Henderson +wouldn't want to have him about--Miss Henderson didn't like talk of the +murder--so Jenny had never asked him to look her up. But her raw, +childish mind was full of him, and the ferments of sex were stirring. +In the secret opinion of both girls, "friends" were quite as much pain as +pleasure. No girl could do without them; but they were pretty certain to +cause heart-aches, to make a girl wish at some time or other that she had +never been born. A London factory-girl would have expressed it in the +Cockney way: "Blokes are no good--but you must have a bloke!" + +The two girls then concluded that Captain Ellesborough had been causing +trouble, as all men did, at some point; and being sympathetic little +souls, they worked especially hard in the potato-field, and would not +allow Rachel to carry the heavier baskets to the "clamp." + +Meanwhile Janet had been wrestling with old Halsey, till he had very +reluctantly yielded to her persuasion, and returned to work. + +"I'm not the man I wor," he confided to Peter Betts, as they were eating +their dinner under a hedge in the damp October sunshine. "When I wor a +young man, I wouldn't ha' minded them things, not if it was iver so. But +now they do give me the shivers in my inside." + +"What do?" said Peter Betts, with a mouthful of cold bacon. He was still +greatly in the dark as to why Halsey had left work so early in the +afternoon the day before, and why he was now in such a gruff and gloomy +mood. There was indeed a rumour in the village that old Halsey had seen +"summat," but as Halsey had gone to bed immediately after Miss Leighton +had had her say with him, and had refused to be "interviewed" even by +his wife, there was a good deal of uncertainty even in the mind of his +oldest pal, Peter Betts. + +"Why--ghostisses!" said Halsey, with a frown, removing his pipe for a +moment to give emphasis to the word. "I don't see as a man can be +expected to deal with ghostisses. Anythin' else yer like in a small +way--mad dogs, or bulls, or snakes, where they keep 'em, which, thank the +Lord, they don't in these parts--but not _them_." + +"What did yer see?" said Betts, after a few ruminating pulls. + +"Well, I saw old Watson, the keeper, as was murdered sixty years since, +'at's what I saw," said Halsey with slow decisiveness. + +"An' what might be like?" asked Betts, with equal deliberation. The day +was mild and sunny; the half-ploughed field on which they had been +working lay alternatively yellow in the stubbles and a rich brown purple +in the new turned furrows under the autumn noon. A sense of well-being +had been diffused in the two old men by food and rest. Halsey's tongue +grew looser. + +"Well, I saw a man come creepin' an' crouchin' down yon grass road"--(it +was visible from where they sat, as a green streak on the side of the +hill)--"same as several people afore me 'as seen 'um--same as they allus +say old Watson must ha' come after Dempsey shot 'im. He wor shot in the +body. The doctors as come to look at 'im fust foun' that out. An' if +ye're shot in the body, I understan', yo naterally double up a bit if yo +try to walk. Well--that's jes' how I saw 'im--crouchin' along. Yo +remember it wor a dull evenin' yesterday--an' it wor gettin' dark, though +it worn't dark. It wor not much after fower, by my old watch--but I +couldn't see 'im at all plain. I wor in Top-End field--you know?--as +leads up to that road. An' I watched 'im come along making for that +outside cart-shed--that 'un that's back to back wi' the shippen, where +they foun' Watson lyin'. An' I wor much puzzled by the look on 'im. I +didn't think nothink about old Watson, fust of all--I didn't know what to +think. I was right under the hedge wi' the horses; 'ee couldna' ha' seen +me--an' I watched 'im. He stopped, onst or twice, as though he wor +restin' hisself--pullin' 'isself together--and onst I 'eered 'im cough--" + +Halsey looked round suddenly on his companion as though daring him to +mock. + +Betts, however, could not help himself. He gave an interrupting and +sceptical chuckle. + +"Ghostisses don't cough, as ever I 'eered on." + +"And why shouldn't they?" said Halsey testily. "If they can do them +other things they'd used to do when livin'--walkin' an' seein' an' +such-like--why not coughin'?" + +Betts shook his head. + +"Never 'eered on it," he said, with conviction. + +"Well, anyways I seed him come down to that shed, an' then I lost 'im. +But I 'ad the creeps somehow and I called to Jenny to come an' take the +'orses. An' then I went after 'im. But there was all the field an' the +lane to cross, and when I come to the shed, there wasn't no one and +nothink to be seen--excep'--" + +The old man paused, and again looked doubtfully at his companion. + +"Well?" said Betts eagerly, his philosophic attitude giving way a little. + +"Excep'--a large patch o' blood--_fresh blood_--I touched it--on one of +them ole sacks lyin' near the cart," said Halsey slowly. "An' it worn't +there in the afternoon, for I moved the sacks mysel'." + +Betts whistled softly. Halsey resumed,-- + +"There was nothin' moved--or taken away--nothin' at all!--only that +patch. So then I went all round the farm, and there was nobody. I thought +'ee might ha' turned back by the grass road, p'raps, without my seein' +'im, so I went that way, and there was nothin'--until--a little way up +the road--there was blood again"--the old man's voice dropped--"every +couple o' yards or so--a drop or two here--an' a drop or two there--just +as they tracked old Watson by it, up the hill, and into yon wood--where +Dempsey set on him." + +The two old men looked at each other. Betts was evidently impressed. + +"Are you sure it was blood?" + +"Sure. Last night, Hastings said it was sheep-dip! After I tole 'im, when +'ee went to look under the shed, it wor so dark 'ee couldn't see nothin'. +Well, 'ee knew better this mornin'. 'Ee fetched me, an' asst me if I'd +said anythin' to Miss Janet. And I said, no. So then he tole me I wasn't +to say nothin' to the ladies, nor the girls, nor anybody. An' 'ee'd done +summat wi' the sack--I dunno what. But 'ee might ha' held 'is tongue last +night about sheep-dip! Who's been dippin' sheep about here? 'As Miss +Henderson got any ruddle anywhere about the farm? I know she ain't!--an' +Muster Hastings knows she ain't." + +"Why didn't yer tell Miss Janet?--about the bleedin'?" + +"Well, I was a bit skeered. I thought I'd sleep on't, before I got +talkin' any more. But on the way 'ome, as I tellt yer, I met Hastings, +an' tole '_im_, an' then give 'im notice." + +"That wor a bit hasty, worn't it?" said Betts after a moment, in a +judicial tone. But he had been clearly much exercised by his companion's +account, and his pipe hanging idly from his hands showed that his +thoughts were active. + +"Well, it might ha' bin," Halsey admitted, "but as I said afore, I'm +gettin' an old man, and I don't want no truck wi' things as I don't +unnerstan'. It give me the wust night as I've had since I had that bad +turn wi' the influenza ten year ago." + +"You didn't see his face?" + +"No." + +"An' 'ee didn't mind you of anybody?" + +Halsey hesitated. + +"Well, onst I did think I'd seen one o' the same build--soomwhere. But I +can't recolleck where." + +"As for the blood," said Betts reflectively, "it's as curous as the +coughin'. Did you iver hear tell as ghosts could bleed?" + +Hastings shook his head. Steeped in meditation, the two men smoked +silently for a while. Then Betts said, with the explosiveness of one who +catches an idea,-- + +"Have yer thought o' tellin' John Dempsey?" + +"I hain't thought o' tellin' nobody. An' I shouldn't ha' told Miss +Leighton what I did tell her, if she 'adn't come naggin' about my givin' +notice." + +"You might as well tell John Dempsey. Why, it's his business, is old +Watson! Haven't yer seen 'im at all?" + +Halsey said "No," holding his handsome old head rather high. Had he +belonged to a higher station in life, his natural reticence, and a +fastidious personal dignity would have carried him far. To a modern +statesman they are at least as valuable as brains. In the small world +of Ipscombe they only meant that Halsey himself held rather scornfully +aloof from the current village gossip, and got mocked at for his pains. +The ordinary human instinct revenged itself, however, when he was +_tête-à-tête_ with his old chum Peter Betts. Betts divined at any rate +from the expression in the old man's eyes that _he_ might talk, and +welcome. + +So he poured out what he knew about John Dempsey, a Canadian lad working +in the Forestry Corps at Ralstone, who turned out to be the grandson of +the Dempsey who had always been suspected of the murder of Richard Watson +in the year 1859. This young Dempsey, he said, had meant to come to +Ipscombe after the war, and put what he knew before the police. But +finding himself sent to Ralstone, which was only five miles from +Ipscombe, he saw no reason to wait, and he had already given all the +information he could to the superintendent of police at Millsborough. His +grandfather had signed a written confession before his death, and John +Dempsey had handed it over. The old man, it appeared, had "turned pious" +during a long illness before his death, and had wished to square matters +with his conscience and the Almighty. When his grandson had volunteered +for the war, and was about to sail for Europe, old Dempsey had sent for +him, had told him the story, and charged him, when he was able, to place +his confession in the proper hands. And having done that, he died "very +quiet and comfortable"--so John Dempsey reported. + +"Which is more than poor Jem Watson did," growled Halsey. He felt neither +respect nor sympathy for a man who, having set up a secret, couldn't +keep it; and the confession itself, rather than the crime confessed, +confirmed the poor opinion he had always held of the elder Dempsey when +they were young men in the village together. But he agreed to let Betts +bring "young John" to see him. And thereupon they went back to the sowing +of one of Miss Henderson's big fields with winter wheat. + +When the milking was done, and work was nearly over for the day, a note +brought by messenger arrived at the farm for Miss Henderson. It was from +Ellesborough--a few scribbled words. "I am prevented from coming this +evening. The Chief Forestry Officer of my district has just arrived, and +stays the night. I hope to come over to-morrow between six and seven. +Shall I find you?" + +Rachel scribbled an answer, which a small boy on a bicycle carried off. +Then she went slowly back to the sitting-room, so disappointed and +unnerved that she was on the brink of tears. Janet who had just come in +from milking, was standing by the table, mending a rent in her +waterproof. She looked up as Rachel entered, and the needle paused in her +hand. + +"I say, Rachel!--you do look overdone! You've been going at it too hard." + +For all day long Rachel had been lifting, and sorting, and carrying, in +the potato-field, finding in the severe physical exertion the only relief +from restlessness. She shook her head irritably and came to stand by the +wood fire which Janet had just lit, a welcome brightness in the twilight +room. + +"Suppose you knock up--" began Janet in a tone of remonstrance. Rachel +cut her short. + +"I want to speak to you--please, Janet." + +Janet looked round in astonishment and put down her work. Rachel was +standing by the fire, with her hands behind her back, her eyes fixed on +Janet. She was still in the graceful tunic and knee-breeches, in which +her young and splendid youth seemed always most at home. But she had +taken off her cap, and her brown hair was falling round a pale face. + +"Janet--you know Captain Ellesborough and I had a long talk last night?" + +Janet smiled. + +"Of course I do. And of course I have my own thoughts about it!" + +"I don't know what they are," said Rachel slowly. "But--I'd better tell +you--Captain Ellesborough asked me to marry him." + +She paused. + +"Did you think that would be news to any of us?" said Janet, laughing, +and then stopped. The sudden contraction of pain in Rachel's face, and +something like a sob startled her. + +"Don't, Janet, please. I told him something--which made him +wonder--whether he did want to marry me after all." + +Janet's heart gave an uncomfortable jump. A score of past conjectures and +misgivings rushed back upon her. + +"What did you tell him?" + +"What I see now I ought to have told you--as well as him--long ago. +Henderson is my maiden name. I was a married woman for three years. I +had a child which died. I divorced my husband, and he's still alive." + +The colour had flamed back into her cheeks. Janet sat silent, her eyes +fixed on Rachel's. + +"I did tell you I had a story, didn't I?" said Rachel insistently. + +"You did. I took my chance. It was you who--who brought the action?" + +"I brought the action. There was no defence. And the judge said--I'd been +awfully badly treated--it was no wonder I wanted--to get free. Well, +there it is. I'm sorry I deceived you. I'm sorry I deceived him." + +"You didn't deceive me," said Janet. "I had practically guessed it." +She rose slowly, and going up to Rachel, she put her hands on her +shoulders,-- + +"Why didn't you tell me, you poor thing!" Her voice and eyes were full of +emotion--full of pity. But Rachel shrank away a little from her touch, +murmuring under her breath, "Because I wanted never to hear of it--or +think of it again." Then, after a pause, she added, "But if you want to +know more, I'll tell you. It's your right. My married name was Delane." + +"Don't tell me any more!" said Janet peremptorily. "I don't want to hear +it. But you ought to be--quite frank--with _him_." + +"I know that. Naturally--it was a great shock to him." + +There was something very touching in her attitude. She stood there like a +shamefaced boy, in her quasi-male dress; and the contrast between her +strong young beauty, and the humility and depression of her manner +appealed with singular force to Janet's mind, so constantly and secretly +preoccupied with spiritual things. Rachel seemed to her so much cleverer +and more vigorous than herself in all matters of ordinary life. Only in +the region of religious experience did Janet know herself the superior. +But Rachel had never made any outward sign that she cared in the least to +know more of that region, whether in Janet or other people. She had held +entirely aloof from it. But self-reproach--moral suffering--are two of +the keys that lead to it. And both were evident here. Janet's heart went +out to her friend. + +"When is he coming?" + +"To-morrow evening. I dare say he'll give me up." + +Janet marvelled at the absence of self-assertion--the touch of +despair--in words and tone. So it had gone as deep as this! She blamed +herself for lack of perception. An ordinary love-affair, about to end +in an ordinary way--that was how it had appeared to her. And suddenly it +seemed to her she had stumbled upon what might be tragedy. + +No, no--there should be no tragedy! She put her arms round Rachel. + +"My dear, he won't give you up! As if I hadn't seen! He worships the +ground you tread upon!" + +Rachel said nothing. She let her face rest on Janet's shoulder. When she +raised it, it was wet. But she kissed Janet quietly, and went away +without another word. + + + + +VIII + + +Four grown-ups and a child were gathered in the living-room of Halsey's +cottage. The cottage was old like its tenant and had all the +inconveniences of age; but it was more spacious than the modern cottage +often is, since it and its neighbours represented a surviving fragment +from an old Jacobean house--a house of gentlefolks--which had once stood +on the site. Most of the house had been pulled down, but Colonel +Shepherd's grandfather had retained part of it, and turned it into two +cottages--known as 1 and 2 Ipscombe Place--which for all their drawbacks +were much in demand in the village, and conferred a certain distinction +on their occupants. Mrs. Halsey's living room possessed a Tudor +mantelpiece in moulded brick, into which a small modern kitchener had +been barbarously fitted; and three fine beams with a little incised +ornament ran across the ceiling. + +Mrs. Halsey had not long cleared away the tea, and brought in a paraffin +lamp, small but cheerful. She was a middle-aged woman, much younger than +her husband--with an ironic half-dreamy eye, and a native intelligence +much superior to her surroundings. She was suffering from a chronic +abscess in the neck, which had strange periodic swellings and +subsidences, all of which were endlessly interesting to its possessor. +Mrs. Halsey, indeed, called the abscess "she," wrapped it lovingly in red +flannel, describing the evening dressing of it as "putting her to bed," +and talked of "her" qualities and oddities as though, in the phrase of +her next-door neighbour, "it'd a been a christened child." She had +decided views on politics, and was a match for any political agent who +might approach her with an eye to her vote, a commodity which she kept, +so to speak, like a new shilling in her pocket, turning it from time +to time to make sure it was there. + +But independent as she was, she rarely interfered with the talk of Halsey +and his male friends. And on this occasion when the three men--Halsey, +Peter Betts, and young Dempsey--had gathered smoking round the fire, she +settled herself with her knitting by the table and the lamp, throwing in +every now and then a muttered and generally sarcastic comment, of which +her husband took no notice--especially as he knew very well that the +sarcasms were never aimed at him, and that she was as proud of him as she +was generally contemptuous of the rest of the world. + +Halsey had just finished a rather grudging description of his experiences +two days before for John Dempsey's benefit. He was conscious that each +time he repeated them, they sounded more incredible. He didn't want to +repeat them; he didn't mean to repeat them; after this, nobody should get +any more out of him at all. + +Young Dempsey's attitude was certainly not encouraging. Attentive at +first, he allowed himself, as Halsey's talk developed, a mild, +progressive grin, which spread gradually over his ugly but honest face, +and remained there. In face of it, Halsey's speech became more and more +laconic, till at last he shut his mouth with a snap, and drawing himself +up in his chair, re-lit his pipe with the expression that meant, "All +right--I've done--you may take it or leave it." + +"Well, I don't see that what you saw, Mr. Halsey, was so very uncommon!" +Dempsey began, still smiling, in spite of a warning look from Betts. +"You saw a man come down that road? Well, in the first place, why +shouldn't a man come down that road--it's a reg'lar right of way--" + +"It's the way, mind ye, as the ghost of old Watson has allus come!" put +in Peter Betts, chivalrously anxious to support his friend Halsey, as far +as he could, against a sceptical stranger. "An' it's been seen twice on +that road already, as I can remember: once when I was a little boy, by +old Dan Holt, the postmaster, and once about ten years ago." + +Dempsey looked at the speaker indulgently. To his sharpened transatlantic +sense, these old men, in this funny old village, seemed to him a +curiously dim and feeble folk. He could hardly prevent himself from +talking to them as though they were children. He supposed his grandfather +would have been like that if he'd stayed on at Ipscombe. He thanked +the stars he hadn't! + +But since he had been summoned to consult, as a person who had a vested +interest, of a rather blood-curdling sort, in the Great End ghost, he had +to give his opinion; and he gave it, while Halsey listened and smoked in +a rather sulky silence. For it was soon evident that the murderer's +grandson had no use at all for the supposed ghost-story. He tore it +ruthlessly to pieces. In the first place, Halsey described the man seen +on the grass-road as tall and lanky. But according to his grandfather's +account, the murdered gamekeeper, on the contrary, was a broadly-built, +stumpy man. In the next place--the coughing and the bleeding!--he laughed +so long and loudly at these points in the story that Halsey's still black +bushy eyebrows met frowningly over a pair of angry eyes, and Betts tried +hurriedly to tame the young man's mirth. + +"Well, if yer don't think that man as Halsey saw _was_ the ghost, what do +you s'pose 'ee was doin' there?" asked Betts, "and where did he go? +Halsey went right round the farm. The hill just there is as bare as my +hand. He must ha' seen the man--if it _wor_ a man--an' he saw nothin'. +There isn't a tree or a bush where that man could ha' hid hisself--if +he _wor_ a man." + +Dempsey declared he should have to go and examine the ground himself +before he could answer the question. But of course there was an answer +to it--there must be. As to the man--why Millsborough, and Ipscombe too, +had been full of outlandish East Enders, flying from the raids, Poles +and Russians, and such like--thievin' fellows by all accounts. Why +couldn't it be one of them--prowling round the farm for anything he could +pick up--and frightened off, when he saw Halsey? + +Betts, smoking with prodigious energy, inquired what he made of the +_blood_. Didn't he know the old story of how Watson was tracked down to +the cart-shed? Dempsey laughed again. + +"Well, it's curious, grant ye. It's real funny! But where are you going +to get blood without a body? And if a thing's a body, it isn't a ghost!" + +The two old men were silent. Halsey was lost in a hopeless confusion of +ideas, and Betts was determined not to give his pal away. + +But here--say what you like!--was a strange man, seen, on the road, which +had been used, according to village tradition, on several previous +occasions, by the authentic ghost of Watson; his course was marked by +traces of blood, just as Watson's path of pain had been marked on the +night of the murder; and on reaching the spot where Watson had breathed +his last, the apparition, whatever it was, had vanished. Perplexity, +superstition, and common sense fought each other. Halsey who knew much of +his Bible by heart was inwardly comparing texts. "A spirit hath not flesh +and blood"--True--but on the other hand what about the "bodies of the +saints"--that "arose"? While, perhaps, the strongest motive of all in the +old man's mind was the obstinate desire to prove himself right, and so to +confound young scoffers like Dempsey. + +Dempsey, however, having as he thought disposed of Halsey's foolish tale +was determined to tell his own, which had already made a great impression +in certain quarters of the village, and ranked indeed as the chief +sensation of the day. To be able to listen to the story of a murder told +by the grandson of the murderer, to whom the criminal himself had +confessed it, and that without any fear of unpleasant consequences to any +one, was a treat that Ipscombe had seldom enjoyed, especially as the +village was still rich in kinsfolk of both murdered and murderer. + +Dempsey had already repeated the story so often that it was by now +perfect in every detail, and it produced the same effect in this lamplit +kitchen as in other. Halsey, forgetting his secret ill-humour, was +presently listening open-mouthed. Mrs. Halsey laid down her knitting, and +stared at the speaker over the top of her spectacles; while across +Betts's gnome-like countenance smiles went out and in, especially at the +more gruesome points of the tale. The light sparkled on the young +Canadian's belt, the Maple Leaf in the khaki hat which lay across his +knees, on the badge of the Forestry Corps on his shoulder. The old +English cottage, with its Tudor brick-work, and its overhanging beams, +the old English labourers with the stains of English soil upon them, made +the setting; and in the midst, sat the "new man," from the New World, +holding the stage, just as Ellesborough the New Englander was accustomed +to hold it, at Great End Farm. All over England, all over unravaged +France and northern Italy similar scenes at that moment were being +thrown on the magic sheet of life; and at any drop in the talk, the +observer could almost hear, in the stillness, the weaving of the Great +Loom on which the Ages come and go. + +There was a pause, when Dempsey came to a dramatic end with the last +breath of his grandfather; till Mrs. Halsey said dryly, fixing the young +man with her small beady eyes,-- + +"And you don't mind telling on your own grandfather?" + +"Why shouldn't I?" laughed Dempsey, "when it's sixty years ago. They've +lost their chance of hanging him anyhow." + +Mrs. Halsey shook her head in inarticulate protest. Betts said +reflectively,-- + +"I wouldn't advise you to be tellin' that tale to Miss Henderson." + +Dempsey's expression changed at the name. He bent forward eagerly. + +"By the way, who is Miss Henderson? Do you know where she comes from?" + +The others stared. + +"Last winter," said Betts at last, "she wor on a farm down Devonshire +way. And before that she wor at college--with Miss Janet." + +"Was she ever in Canada?" + +"Yes!" said Halsey with sudden decision, "she wor--for she told me +one day when I wor mendin' the new reaper and binder, that we in this +country didn't know what harvest meant. 'Why, I've helped to reap a +field--in Canada,' she ses, 'fower miles square,' she ses, 'six teams o' +horses--an' six horses to the team,' she ses--'that's somethin' like.' So +I know she's been in Canada." + +"Ah!" said Dempsey, staring at the carpet. "And she's not married? You're +sure she's not married?" + +"Married?" said all the others, looking at him in disapproving +astonishment. + +"Well, if she ain't, I saw her sister--or her double--twice--about +two-and-a-half year ago--at a place thirty miles from Winnipeg. I could +ha' sworn I'd seen her before!" + +"Well, you can't ha' seen her before," said Betts positively; "cause +she's Miss, not Missis." + +"Ah!" said Dempsey again in a non-committal voice, looking hard this time +into the fire. + +"Where have you seen her--in these parts?" asked Mrs. Halsey. + +"At the Harvest Festival, t'other day. But I must have been +mistaken--that's all. I think I'm going to call upon her some day." + +"Whatever for?" + +"Why--to tell her about my grandfather!" said Dempsey, looking round at +Mrs. Halsey, with an air of astonishment that any one should ask him the +question. + +"You won't be welcome." + +"Why not?" + +"Because she don't want to hear nothin' about Watson's murder. And +whatever's the good on it, anyhow?" said Mrs. Halsey with sudden +emphasis. "You've told us a good tale, I'll grant ye. But yer might as +well be pullin' the old feller 'isself out of his grave, as goin' round +killin' 'im every night fresh, as you be doin'. Let 'im be. Skelintons is +skelintons." + +Dempsey, feeling rather indignantly that his pains had been wasted, and +his audience was not worthy of him, rose to take his departure. Halsey's +face cleared. He turned to look at his wife, and she winked in return. +And when the young forester had taken his departure, Mrs. Halsey stroked +the red flannel round her swollen neck complacently. + +"I 'ad to pike 'im out soomhow. It's 'igh time she wor put to bed!" + +That same evening, Ellesborough left the Ralstone camp behind him about +six o'clock, and hurried through the late October evening towards Great +End Farm. During the forty-eight hours which had elapsed since his +interview with Rachel he had passed through much suffering, and agonies +of indecision. He had had to reconstruct all his ideas of the woman he +loved. Instead of the proud and virginal creature he had imagined himself +to be wooing, amid the beautiful setting of her harvest fields, he had to +think of her as a woman dimmed and besmirched by an unhappy marriage with +a bad man. For himself, he certainly resented the concealment which had +been practised on him. Yet at the same time he thought he understood the +state of exasperation, of invincible revolt which had led to it. And he +kept reminding himself that, after all, her confession had anticipated +his proposal. + +Nevertheless such men as he have ideas of marriage, both romantic and +austere. They are inclined to claim what they give--a clean sheet, and +the first-fruits of body and soul. In Rachel's case the first-fruits +had been wasted on a marriage, of which the ugly and inevitable +incidents haunted Ellesborough's imagination. One moment he shrank from +the thought of them; the next he could not restrain the protesting rush +of passion--the vow that his love should put her back on that pinnacle of +honour and respect from which fate should never have allowed her to fall. + +Well, she had promised to tell him her story in full. He awaited it. +As to his own people, they were dear, good women, his mother and +sisters--saints, but not Pharisees. + +It was a dark and lowering evening, with tempest gusts of wind. But from +far away, after he had passed Ipscombe, a light from one of the windows +of the farm shone out, as though beckoning him to her. Suddenly from the +mouth of the farm, he saw a bicycle approaching. The rider was Janet +Leighton. She passed him with a wave and a smile. + +"Going to a Food meeting! But Rachel's at home." + +What a nice woman! Looking back over the couple of months since he had +known the inmates of the farm, he realized how much he had come to like +Janet Leighton. So unselfish, so full of thought for others, so modest +for herself! There couldn't be a better friend for Rachel; her friendship +itself was a testimonial; he reassured himself by the mere thought of +her. + +When he drew up at the farm, Hastings with a lantern in his hand was just +disappearing towards the hill, and the two girls, Betty and Jenny, passed +him, each with a young man, two members, in fact, of his own Corps, John +Dempsey and another. They explained that they were off to a Red Cross +Concert in the village hall. Ellesborough's pulse beat quicker as he +parted from them, for he realized that he would find Rachel alone in the +farm. + +Yes, there she was at the open door, greeting him with a quiet face--a +smile even. She led the way into the sitting-room, where she had just +drawn down the blinds and closed the curtains of the window looking on +the farm-yard. But his arrival had interrupted her before she could do +the same for the window looking on the Down. Neither of them thought of +it. Each was absorbed in the mere presence of the other. + +Rachel was in her black Sunday dress of some silky stuff. Her throat was +uncovered, and her shapely arms showed through the thin sleeves. The +black and white softened and refined something overblown and sensuous in +her beauty. Her manner, too, had lost its confident, provocative note. +Ellesborough had never seen her so adorable, so desirable. But her +self-command dictated his. He took the seat to which she pointed him; +while she herself brought a chair to the other side of the fire, putting +on another log with a steady hand, and a remark about the wind that was +whistling outside. Then, one foot crossed over the other, her cheek +reddened by the fire, propped on her hand, and her eyes on the fresh +flame that was beginning to dance out of the wood, she asked him,--"You'd +like to hear it all?" + +He made a sign of assent. + +So in a quiet, even voice, she began with an account of her family and +early surroundings, more detailed than anything she had yet given him. +She described her father (the striking apostolic head of the old man hung +on the wall behind her) and his missionary journeys through the prairie +settlements in the early days of Alberta; how, when he was old and weary, +he would sometimes take her, his latest child, a small girl of ten or +twelve, on his pastoral rounds, for company, perched up beside him in his +buggy; and how her mother was killed by the mere hardships of the prairie +life, sinking into fretful invalidism for two years before her death. + +"I nursed her for years. I never did anything else--I couldn't. I never +had any amusements like other girls. There was no money and no time. She +died when I was twenty-four. And three months after, my father died. He +didn't leave a penny. Then my brother asked me to go and live with him +and his wife. I was to have my board and a dress allowance, if I would +help her in the house. My brother's an awfully good sort--but I couldn't +get on with his wife. I just couldn't! I expect it was my fault, just as +much as hers. It was something we couldn't help. Very soon I hated the +sight of her, and she never missed a chance of making me feel a worm--a +useless, greedy creature, living on other people's work. If only there +had been some children, I dare say I could have borne it. But she and I +could never get away from each other. There were no distractions. Our +nerves got simply raw--at least mine did." + +There was a pause. She lifted her brown eyes, and looked at Ellesborough +intently. + +"I suppose my mother would have borne it. But girls nowadays can't. Not +girls like me, anyway. Mother was a Christian. I don't suppose I am. I +don't know what I am. I just _had_ to live my own life. I couldn't exist +without a bit of pleasure--and being admired--and seeing men--and all +that!" + +Her cheeks had flushed. Her eyes were very bright and defiant. + +Ellesborough came nearer to her, put out a strong hand and enclosed hers +in it. + +"Well then--this man Delane--came to live near you?" + +He spoke with the utmost gentleness, trying to help her out. + +She nodded, drawing her hand away. + +"I met him at a dance in Winnipeg first--the day after I'd had a horrid +row with my sister-in-law. He'd just taken a large farm, with a decent +house on it--not a shack--and everybody said his people were rich and +were backing him. And he was very good-looking--and a Cambridge man--and +all that. We danced together almost all the evening. Then he found out +where I lived, and used to be always coming to see me. My brother never +liked him. He said to me often, 'Why do you encourage that unprincipled +cad? I'm certain there's a screw loose about him!' And I wasn't in love +with Roger--not really--for one moment. But I _think_ he was in love with +me--yes, I'm sure he was--at first. And he excited and interested me. I +was proud, too, of taking him away from other girls, who were always +running after him. And my sister-in-law was just mad to get rid of me! +Don't you understand?" + +"Of course I do!" + +Her eyelids wavered a little under the emotion of his tone. + +"Well, then, we got married. My brother tried to get out of him what his +money-affairs were. But he always evaded everything. He talked a great +deal about this rich sister, and she did send him a wedding present. But +he never showed me her letter, and that was the last we ever heard of +her while I knew him...." + +Her voice dropped. She sat looking at the fire--a grey, pale woman, from +whom light and youth had momentarily gone out. + +"Well, it's a hateful story--and as common!--as common as dirt. We began +to quarrel almost immediately. He was jealous and tyrannical, and I +always had a quick temper. I found that he drank, that he told me all +sorts of lies about his past life, that he presently only cared about me +as--well, as his mistress!"--and again she faced Ellesborough with hard, +insistent eyes--"that he was hopelessly in debt--a gambler--and +everything else. When the baby came, I could only get the wife of a +neighbouring settler to come and look after me. And Roger behaved so +abominably to her that she went home when the baby was a week old--and I +was left to manage for myself. Then when baby was three months old, she +caught whooping-cough, and had bronchitis on the top. I had a few pounds +of my own, and I gave them to Roger to go in to Winnipeg and bring out a +doctor and medicines. He drank all the money on the way--that I found out +afterwards--he was a week away instead of two days--and the baby died. +When he came back he told me a lie about having been ill. But I never +lived with him--as a wife--after that. Then, of course, he hated me, and +one night he nearly killed me. Next morning he apologized--said that he +loved me passionately--and that kind of stuff--that I was cruel to +him--and what could he do to make up? So then I suggested that he should +go away for a month--and we should both think things over. He was +rather frightened, because--well--he'd knocked me about a good deal in +the horrible scene between us--and he thought I should bring my brother +down on him. So he agreed to go, and I said I would have a girl friend to +stay with me. But, of course, as soon as he was gone, I just left the +house and departed. I had got evidence enough by then to set me +free--about the Italian girl. I met my brother in Winnipeg. We went to +his lawyers together, and I began proceedings--" + +She stopped abruptly. "The rest I told you.--_No!_--I've told you the +horrible things--now I'll say something of the things which--have made +life worth living again. Till the divorce was settled I went back to my +brother in Toronto. I dropped my married name then and called myself +Henderson. And then I came home--because my mother's brother, who was a +manufacturer in Bradford, wrote to ask me. But when I arrived he was +dead, and he had left me three thousand pounds. Then I went to Swanley +and got trained for farm-work. And I found Janet Leighton, and we made +friends. And I love farm-work--and I love Janet--and the whole world +looks so different to me! Why, of course, I didn't want to be reminded of +that old horrible life! I didn't want people to say, 'Mrs. Delane? Who +and where is her husband? Is he dead?' 'No--she's divorced.' 'Why?' +There's!--don't you see?--all the old vile business over again! So I cut +it all!" + +She paused--resuming in another voice--hesitating and uncertain,-- + +"And yet--it seems--you can't do a simple thing like that +without--hurting somebody--injuring somebody. I can't help it! I didn't +mean to deceive _you_. But I had a right to get free from the old life +if I could!" + +She threw back her head proudly. Her eyes were full of tears. Then she +rose impetuously. + +"There!--I've told you. I suppose you don't want to be friends with me +any more. It was rotten of me, I know, for, of course--I saw--you seemed +to be getting to care for me. I told Janet when we set up work together +that I wasn't a bad woman. And I'm not. But I'm weak. You'd better not +trust me. And besides--I fell into the mud--and I expect it sticks to me +still!" + +She spoke with passionate animation--almost fierceness. While through her +inner mind there ran the thought, "I've told him!--I've told him! If he +doesn't understand, it's not my fault. I can always say, 'I _did_ tell +you--about Roger--_and the rest_!--as much as I was bound to tell you.' +Why should I make him miserable--and destroy my own chances with him for +_nothing_?" + +They stood fronting each other. Over the fine bronzed face of the +forester there ran a ripple of profound emotion--nostril and lip--and +eye. Then she found herself in his arms--with no power to resist or free +herself. Two or three deep, involuntary sobs--sobs of excitement--shook +her, as she felt his kisses on her cheek. + +"Darling!--I'll try and make up to you--for all you've suffered. Poor +child!--poor little Rachel!" + +She clung to him, a great wave of passion sweeping through her also. She +thought, "Now I shall be happy!--and I shall make him happy, too. Of +course I shall!--I'm doing quite right." + +Presently he put her back in her chair, and sat beside her on the low +fender stool, in front of the fire. His aspect was completely +transformed. The triumphant joy which filled him had swept away the +slightly stiff and reserved manner which was on the whole natural to him. +And it had swept away at the same time all the doubts and hesitations of +his inner mind. She had told her story, it seemed to him, with complete +frankness, and a humility which appealed to all that was chivalrous and +generous in a strong man. He was ready now to make more excuses for her, +in the matter of his own misleading, than she seemed to wish to make for +herself. How natural that she should act as she had acted! The thought of +her suffering, of her ill-treatment was intolerable to him--and of the +brute who had inflicted it. + +"Do you know where that man is now?" he said to her presently. She had +fallen back in her chair--pale and shaken, but dressed, for his eyes, in +a loveliness, a pathos, that was every moment strengthening her hold upon +him. + +"Roger? No, I have no idea. I always suppose he's in Canada still. He +never appeared when the case was tried. But the summons had to be served +on him, and my lawyers succeeded in tracking him to a lodging in Calgary, +where he was living--with the Italian girl. But after that we never heard +any more of him--except that I had a little pencil note--unsigned, +undated, delivered by hand--just before the trial came on. It said I +should repent casting him off--that I had treated him shamefully--that I +was a vile woman--and though I had got the better of him for the time, he +would have his revenge before long." + +Ellesborough shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. + +"Threats are cheap! I hope you soon put that out of your mind?" + +She made a little restless movement. + +"Yes, I--I suppose so. But I did tell you once, didn't I, that--I often +had fears--about nothing?" + +"Yes, you did tell me," he said, smiling. "Don't have any more fears, +darling! I'll see to that." + +He took her hands again, and raised them to his lips and kissed them. It +astonished him to feel them so cold, and see her again so excited and +pale. Was she really afraid of the villain she had escaped from? The +dear, foolish woman! The man in his self-confident strength loved her the +more for the vague terrors he felt himself so well able to soothe. + +For half an hour more they sat together, in that first intimacy of love, +which transfigures men and women, so that when they pass back from it +into ordinary life they scarcely recognize life or themselves again. They +talked much less of the past than of the future--and that in the light of +the glorious war news coming in day by day. Austria was on the point of +surrender--the German landslide might come at any moment--then +_peace_!--incredible word. Ellesborough would hardly now get to France. +They might be able to marry soon--within a few weeks. As to the farm, he +asked her, laughing, whether she would take him in as a junior partner +for a time, till they could settle their plans. "I've got a bit of money +of my own. But first you must let me go back, as soon as there are ships +to go in--to see after my own humble business. We could launch out--get +some fine stock--try experiments. It's a going concern, and I've got a +good share in it. Why shouldn't you go, too?" + +He saw her shrink. + +"To Canada? Oh, no!" + +He scourged himself mentally for having taken her thoughts back to the +old unhappy times. But she soon recovered herself. Then it was time for +him to go, and he stood up. + +"I should like to have seen Janet!" he said joyously. "She'll have to get +used to Christian names. How soon will you tell her? Directly she +comes in?" + +"Certainly not. I shall wait--till to-morrow morning." + +He laughed, whispering into her ear, as her soft, curly head lay against +his breast. + +"You won't wait ten minutes--you couldn't! Well, I must be going, or +they'll shut me out of the camp." + +"Why do you hurry so?" + +"Hurry? Why, I shall be an hour late, anyway. I shall have to give myself +C.B. to-morrow." + +She laughed--a sound of pure content. Then she suddenly drew herself +away, frowning at him. + +"You do love me--you do--you will always!--whatever people may say?" + +He was surprised at the note almost of violence in her voice. He answered +it by a passionate caress, which she bore with trembling. Then she +resolutely moved away. + +"Do go!" she said to him, imploringly. "I'd like to be a few +minutes--alone--before they come back." + +He saw her settle herself by the fire, her hands stretched out to the +blaze. Seeing that the fire was low, and remembering the chill of her +hands in his, he looked around for the wood-basket which was generally +kept in a corner behind the piano. + +His movement was suddenly arrested. He was looking towards the +uncurtained window. The night had grown pitch dark outside, and there +were splashes of rain against the glass. But he distinctly saw as he +turned a man's face pressed against the glass--a strained, sallow, face, +framed in straggling black hair, a face with regular features, and eyes +deeply set in blackened orbits. It was a face of hatred; the lips tightly +drawn over the teeth, seemed to have a curse on them. + +The vision lasted only a moment. Ellesborough's trained instinct, the +wary instinct of the man who had parsed days and nights with nature in +her wilder and lonelier places, checked the exclamation on his lips. And +before he could move again, the face had disappeared. The old holly bush +growing against the farm wall, from which the apparition seemed to have +sprung, was still there, some of its glossy leaves visible in the bright +light of the paraffin lamp which stood on the table near the window. And +there was nothing else. + +Ellesborough quietly walked to the window, drew down the blind, and +pulled the curtains together. Rachel looked around at the sound. + +"Didn't I do that?" she said, half dreamily. + +"We forgot!" He smiled at her. "Now it's all cosy. Ah, there they are! +Perhaps I'll get Janet to come as far as the road with me." For voices +were approaching--Janet talking to the girls. Rachel looked up, +assenting. The colour had rushed back to her face. Ellesborough took in +the picture of her, sitting unconscious by the fire, while his own +pulse was thumping under the excitement of what he had seen. + +With a last word to her, he closed the sitting-room door behind him, and +went out to meet Janet Leighton in the dark. + + + + +IX + + +It was a foggy October evening, and Berkeley Square, from which the +daylight had not yet departed, made a peculiarly dismal impression on +the passers-by, under the mingled illumination of its half-blinded lamps, +and of a sunset which in the country was clear and golden, and here in +west London could only give a lurid coppery tinge to the fog, to the +eastern house-fronts, and to the great plane-trees holding the Square +garden, like giants encamped. Landsowne House, in its lordly seclusion +from the rest of the Square, seemed specially to have gathered the fog to +itself, and was almost lost from sight. Not a ray of light escaped the +closely-shuttered windows. The events of the _mensis mirabilis_ were +rushing on. Bulgaria, Austria, Turkey, had laid down their arms--the +German cry for an armistice had rung through Europe. But still London lay +dark and muffled. Her peril was not yet over. + +In the drawing-room of one of the houses on the eastern side, belonging +to a Warwickshire baronet and M.P.--Sir Richard Winton by name--a lady +was standing in front of a thrifty fire, which in view of the coal +restrictions of the moment, she had been very unwilling to light at all. +The restrictions irritated her; so did the inevitable cold of the room; +and most of all was she annoyed and harassed by the thought of a visitor +who might appear at any moment. She was tall, well-made, and plain. One +might have guessed her age at about thirty-five. She had been out in the +earlier afternoon, attending a war meeting on behalf of some charities in +which she was interested, and she had not yet removed a high and stately +hat with two outstanding wings and much jet ornament, which she had worn +at the meeting, to the huge indignation of her neighbours. The black of +her silk dress was lightened by a rope of pearls, and various diamond +trinkets. Her dress fitted her to perfection. Competence and will were +written in her small, shrewd eyes and in the play of a decided mouth. + +There was a knock at the door. At Lady Winton's "Come in!" a stout, +elderly maid appeared. She came up to her mistress, and said in a lowered +voice,-- + +"You'll see Mr. Roger here?" + +"Why, I told you so, Nannie!" was the impatient answer. "Is everybody out +of the way?" + +The maid explained that all was ready. Jones the butler had been +sent with a note to the City, and the housemaid was sitting with the +kitchen-maid, who was recovering from the flu. + +"I told them I'd answer the bell. And I'll keep an eye that no one comes +down before he's gone. There he is!" + +For the bell had rung, and the maid hastened to the hall door to answer +it. + +A tall man entered--coughing. + +"Beastly night, Nannie!" he said, as soon as the cough would let him. +"Don't suit my style. Well?--how are you? Had the flu, like everybody +else?" + +"Not yet, Mr. Roger--though it's been going through the house. Shall I +take your coat?" + +"You'd better not. I'm too shabby underneath." + +"Sir Richard's in the country, Mr. Roger." + +"Oh, so her ladyship's alone? Well, that's how I generally find her, +isn't it?" + +But Nannie--with her eye on the stairs--was not going to allow him any +lingering in the hall. She led him quickly to the drawing-room, opened +it, and closed it behind him. Then she herself retreated into a small +smoking-den at the farther end of the hall, and sat there, without a +light, with the door open--watching. + +Roger Delane instinctively straightened himself to his full height as he +entered his sister's drawing-room. His overcoat, though much worn, was of +an expensive make and cut; he carried the Malacca cane which had been his +companion in the Brookshire roads; and the eyeglass that he adjusted as +he caught sight of his sister completed the general effect of shabby +fashion. His manner was jaunty and defiant. + +"Well, Marianne," he said, pausing some yards from her. "You don't seem +particularly glad to see me. Hullo!--has Dick been buying some more +china?" + +And before his sister could say anything, he had walked over to a table +covered with various bric-a-brac, where, taking up a fine Nankin vase, he +looked closely at the marks on its base. + +Lady Winton flushed with anger. + +"I think you had better leave the china alone, Roger. I have only got a +very few minutes. What do you want? Money, I suppose--as usual! And yet I +warned you in my last letter that you would do this kind of thing once +too often, and that we were _not_ going to put up with it!" She struck +the table beside her with her glove. + +Delane put down the china and surveyed her. + +"The vase is Ming all right--better stuff than Dick generally buys. I +congratulate him. Well, I'm sorry for you, my dear Marianne--but you +_are_ my sister--and you can't help yourself!" + +He looked at her, half-smiling, with a quiet bravado which enraged her. + +"Don't talk like that, Roger! Tell me directly what it is you want. You +seem to think you can force me to see you at any time, whatever I may be +doing. But--" + +"Your last letter was 'a bit thick'--you see--it provoked me," said +Delane calmly. "Of course you can get the police to chuck me out if you +like. You would be quite in your rights. But I imagine the effect on the +aristocratic nerves of Berkeley Square would be amusing. However--" + +He looked round him-- + +"As Carlyle said to the old Queen, 'I'm getting old, madam, and with your +leave I'll take a chair--'" + +He pushed an arm-chair forward. + +"And let me make up the fire. It's beginning to freeze outside." + +Lady Winton moved quickly to the fireplace, holding out a prohibiting +hand. + +"There is quite enough fire, thank you. I am going out presently." + +Delane sat down, and extended a pair of still shapely feet to the slender +flame in the grate. + +"Dick's boots!" he said, tapping them with his cane, and looking round at +his sister. "What a lot of wear I've got out of them since he threw them +away! His overcoat, too. And now that it's the thing to be shabby, Dick's +clothes are really a godsend. I defraud Jones. But I have no doubt that +Jones gets a good deal more than is good for him." + +"Look here, Roger!--suppose you stop talking this nonsense and come to +business," said Marianne Winton, in pale exasperation. "I've sent Jones +out with a note--but he'll be back directly. And I've got an appointment. +What are you doing? Have you got any work to do?" + +She took a seat not far from her brother, who perceived from her tone +that he had perhaps gone as far as was prudent. + +"Oh, dear, no, I've got no work to do," he said, smiling. "That's not a +commodity that comes my way. But I must somehow manage to keep a roof +over Anita and the child. So what can I do but count on your assistance, +my dear? My father left you a great deal of money which in equity +belonged to me--and I am bound to remind you of it." + +"You know very well why he left you so little!" said Lady Winton. "We +needn't go into that old story. I ask you again, what do you want?" She +took out her watch. "I have just ten minutes." + +"What do I want?" He looked at her with a slow, whimsical laugh. "Money, +my dear, money! Money means everything that I must have--food, coals, +clothes, doctor, chemist, buses--decent houseroom for Anita and myself--" + +A shiver of revulsion ran through his sister. + +"Have you married that woman?" + +He laughed. + +"As you seemed to think it desirable, Anita and I did take a trip to a +Registry Office about a month ago. It's all lawful now--except for our +abominable English law that doesn't legitimize the children. But"--he +sprang to his feet with a movement which startled her--"whom do you think +I've seen lately?" + +His sister stared at him, amazed at the change in him--the animation, the +rush of colour in the hollow, emaciated face. + +"_Rachel_!--my wife--my former--precious--wife. I thought she was in +Canada. No doubt she thought the same of me. But I've stumbled upon her +quite by chance--living close to the place where I had taken lodgings for +Anita and the babe, in September, in case there were more raids this +winter. What do you think of that?" + +"It doesn't interest me at all," said Lady Winton coldly. + +"Then you have no dramatic sense, my dear. Just think! I stroll out, for +want of anything better to do, with Anita, into the market-place of a +beastly little country town, to see a silly sort of show--a mixture of a +Harvest Festival and a Land Girls' beano--when without a moment's +warning--standing up in a decorated wagon--I behold--_Rachel_!--handsomer +than ever!--in a kind of khaki dress--tunic, breeches, and +leggings--enormously becoming!--and, of course, the observed of all +observers. More than that!--I perceive a young man, in an American +uniform, dancing attendance upon her--taking her orders--walking her off +to church--Oh, a perfectly clear case!--no doubt about it at all. And +there I stood--within a few yards of her--and she never saw me!" + +He broke off, staring at his sister--a wild, exultant look--which struck +her uncomfortably. Her face showed her arrested, against her will. + +"Are you sure she didn't see you?" + +"Sure. I put the child on my shoulder, and hid behind her. Besides--my +dear--even Rachel might find it difficult to recognize her discarded +husband--in this individual!" + +He tapped his chest lightly. Lady Winton could not withdraw her +own eyes from him. Yes, it was quite true. The change in him was +shocking--ghastly. He had brought it entirely on himself. But she +could not help saying, in a somewhat milder tone,-- + +"Have you seen that doctor again?" + +"To whom you so obligingly sent me? Yes, I saw him yesterday. One lung +seems to have finally struck work--_caput_! as the Germans say. The other +will last a bit longer yet." + +A fit of coughing seized him. His sister instinctively moved farther away +from him, looking at him with frightened and hostile eyes. + +"Don't be alarmed," he said, as soon as he had found his voice again, +"I'm drenched in disinfectant. I take all proper precautions--for the +child's sake. Now then"--he rose with an effort to his feet--"what are +you going to do for me?" + +His aspect had altered, had assumed a sinister and passionate intensity. +His sister was conscious of the menace in it, and hastily taking up a +small hand-bag lying near her, she produced a purse from it. + +"I have saved twenty pounds for you--out of my own money--with _great_ +difficulty," she said, with indignant emphasis. "If I were to tell +Richard, he would be furious. And I cannot--do--_anything_--more for you, +beyond the allowance I give you. Everything you suffer from, you have +brought upon, yourself. It is hopeless to try and help you." + +He laughed. + +"Well, then, I must try Rachel!" he said carelessly, as he looked for his +hat. + +"That I think would be the lowest depth!" said Lady Winton, breathing +quick, "to beg money from the wife who divorced you!" + +"I am ready to beg for money--requisition is the better word--from +anybody in the world who has more of it than I. I am a Bolshevist. You +needn't talk to me about property, or rights. I don't acknowledge them. +I want something that you've got, and I haven't. I shall take it if I +find the opportunity--civilly if I can, uncivilly, if I must." + +Lady Winton made no reply. She stood, a statue of angry patience waiting +for him to go. He slowly buttoned on his coat, and then stepped coolly +across the room to look at an enlarged photograph of a young soldier +standing on the piano. + +"Handsome chap! You're in luck, Marianne. I suppose you managed to get +him into a staff job of some sort, out of harm's way?" + +He turned to her with a sneer on his lips. His sister was still silent. + +The man moving about the room was perhaps the thing she feared and +hated most in the world. Every scene of this kind--and he forced them +on her, in spite of her futile resistance, at fairly frequent +intervals--represented to her an hour of torture and humiliation. How to +hide the scenes and the being who caused them, from her husband, her +servants, her friends, was becoming almost her chief preoccupation. +She was beginning to be afraid of her brother. For some time she had +regarded him as incipiently insane, and as she watched him this evening +he seemed to her more than ever charged with sinister possibilities. It +appeared to be impossible to influence or frighten him; and she realized +that as he seemed not to care a fig whether she caused a scandal or not, +and she cared with every pulse of her being, she was really in his power, +and it was no good struggling. + +"Well, good-night, Edith," he said at last, taking up his hat. "This'll +last for a bit--but not very long, I warn you--prices being what they +are. Oh, by the way, my name just now is Wilson--make a note of it!" + +"What's that for?" she said disdainfully. + +"Some Canadian creditors of mine got wind of me--worse luck. I had to +change my quarters, and drop the old name--for a bit. However--what's +in a name?" He laughed, and held out his hand. + +"Going to shake hands, Edie? You used to be awfully fond of me, when you +were small." + +She stood, apparently unmoved, her hands hanging. The pathetic note had +been tried on her too often. + +"Good-night, Roger. Nannie will show you out." + +The door closed on him, and Lady Winton dropped on a sofa by the fire, +her face showing white and middle-aged in the firelight. She was just +an ordinary woman, only with a stronger will than most; and as an +ordinary woman, amid all her anger and fear, she was not wholly proof +against such a spectacle as that now presented by her once favourite +brother. It was not his words that affected her--but a hundred little +personal facts which every time she saw him burnt a little more deeply +into her consciousness the irreparableness of his personal ruin--physical +and moral. Idleness, drink, disease--the loss of shame, of self-respect, +of manners--the sense of something vital gone for ever--all these fatal +things stared out upon her, from his slippery emaciated face, his +borrowed clothes, his bullying voice--the scent on him of the mews in +which he lived! + +She covered her face with her hands and cried a little. She could +remember when he was the darling and pride of the family--especially of +his father. How had it happened? He had said to her once, "There must +have been a black drop somewhere in our forbears, Edie. It has reappeared +in me. We are none of us responsible, my dear, for our precious selves. I +may be a sinner and a loafer--but that benevolent Almighty of yours made +me." + +That was wicked stuff, of course; but there had been a twist in him from +the beginning. Had _she_ done her best for him? There were times when her +conscience pricked her. + +The clock struck seven. The sound brought her to her feet. She must go +and dress. Richard would be home directly, and they were dining out, to +meet a distinguished General, in London for a few days' leave from the +front. Dick must, of course, know nothing of Roger's visit; and she must +hurriedly go and look up the distinguished General's career in case she +had to sit next him. Vehemently she put the preceding hour out of her +mind. The dinner-party to which she was going flattered her vanity. It +turned her cold to think that Roger might some day do something which +would damage that "position" which she had built up for herself and her +husband, by ten years' careful piloting of their joint lives. She knew +she was called a "climber." She knew also that she had "climbed" +successfully, and that it was Roger's knowledge of the fact, combined +with a horrid recklessness which seemed to be growing in him, that made +the danger of the situation. + +Meanwhile Delane stepped out into the fog, which, however, was lifting a +little. He made his way down into Piccadilly, which was crowded with +folk, men and women hurrying home from their offices, and besieging the +omnibuses--with hundreds of soldiers too, most of them with a girl beside +them, and smart young officers of every rank and service--while the whole +scene breathed an animation and excitement, which meant a common +consciousness, in the crowd, of great happenings. All along the street +were men with newspapers, showing the headlines to passers-by. "President +Wilson's answer to the German appeal expected to-morrow." "The British +entry into Lille." + +Delane bought an _Evening News_, glanced at the headlines, and threw it +away. What did the war matter to him?--or the new world that fools +supposed to be coming after it? Consumptives had a way, no doubt, of +living longer than people expected--or hoped. Still, he believed that a +couple of years or so would see him out. And that being so, he felt +a kind of malignant indifference towards this pushing, chattering world, +aimlessly going about its silly business, as though there were any real +interest or importance in it. + +Then, as he drifted with the crowd, he found himself caught in a +specially dense bit of it, which had gathered round some fallen horses. A +thin slip of a girl beside him, who was attempting to get through the +crush, was roughly elbowed by a burly artilleryman determined to see the +show. She protested angrily, and Delane suddenly felt angry, too. "You +brute, you,--let the lady pass!" he called to the soldier, who turned +with a grin, and was instantly out of reach and sight. "Take my arm," +said Delane to the girl--"Where are you going?" The little thing looked +up--hesitated--and took his arm. "I'm going to get a bus at the Circus." +"All right. I'll see you there." She laughed and flushed, and they walked +on together. Delane looked at her with curiosity. High cheek-bones--a red +spot of colour on them--a sharp chin--small, emaciated features, and +beautiful deep eyes. Phthisical!--like himself--poor little wretch! He +found out that she was a waitress in a cheap eating-house, and had very +long hours. "Jolly good pay, though, compared to what it used to be! Why, +with tips, on a good day, I can make seven and eight shillings. That's +good, ain't it? And now the war's goin' to stop. Do you think I want it +to stop? I don't think! Me and my sister'll be starvin' again, I +suppose?" + +He found out she was an orphan, living with her sister, who was a typist, +in Kentish town. But she refused to tell him her address, which he idly +asked her. "What did you want with it?" she said, with a sudden frown. +"I'm straight, I am. There's my bus! Night! night!--So long!" And with a +half-sarcastic wave of her tiny hand, she left him, and was soon engulfed +in the swirl round a north-bound bus. + +He wandered on along Regent Street, and Waterloo Place, down the Duke of +York's steps into the Mall, where some captured guns were already in +position, with children swarming about them; and so through St. James's +Park to the Abbey. The fog was now all but clear, and there were frosty +stars overhead. The Abbey towers rose out of a purple haze, etherially +pale and moon-touched. The House of Commons was sitting, but there was +still no light on the Clock Tower, and no unmuffling of the lamps. London +was waiting, as the world was waiting, for the next step in the vast +drama which had three continents for its setting; and meanwhile, save for +the added movements in the streets, and a new something in the faces of +the crowds hurrying along the pavements, there was nothing to show that +all was in fact over, and the war won. + +Delane followed a stream of people entering the Abbey through the north +transept. He was carried on by them, till a verger showed him into a seat +near the choir, and he mechanically obeyed, and dropped on his knees. + +When he rose from them, the choir was filing in, and the vergers with +their pokers were escorting the officiating Canon to his seat. Delane had +not been inside a church for two or three years, and it was a good deal +more since he had stood last in Westminster Abbey. But as he watched the +once familiar spectacle there flowed back upon him, with startling force, +old impressions and traditions. He was in Cambridge again, a King's man, +attending King's Chapel. He was thinking of his approaching Schools, and +there rose in his mind a number of figures, moving or at rest, Cambridge +men like himself, long since dismissed from recollection. Suddenly memory +seemed to open out--to become full, and urgent, and emphatic. He appeared +to be living at a great rate, to be thinking and feeling with peculiar +force. Perhaps it was fever. His hands burnt. + +"_My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my +Saviour!_" + +As the chant rose, and he recognized the words, he felt extraordinarily +exalted, released, purified. Why not think away the past? It has no +existence, except in thought. + +"I am what I conceive myself to be--who can prove me to be anything else? +What am I then! An educated man, with a mind--an intelligence. I have +damaged it, but there it is--still mine." + +His eyes wandered, during the Lesson, to the line of sculptured Statesmen +in the north transept. He had taken History honours, and his thoughts +began to play with matter still stored in them: an essay on Dizzy and +Cobden he had written for a Cambridge club--or Gladstone's funeral, which +he had seen as a boy of seventeen. He had sat almost in this very place, +with his mother, who had taken pains to bring him to see it as an +historic spectacle which he might wish to remember. A quiet, dull woman, +his mother--taciturn, and something of a bookworm. She had never +understood him, nor he her. But she had occasionally shown moments of +expansion and emotion, when the soul within glowed a little through its +coverings; and he remembered the look in her eyes as the coffin +disappeared into the earth, amid the black-coated throng of Lords and +Commons. She had been for years a great though silent worshipper of Mr. +Gladstone, to the constant amusement of her Tory husband and sons. + +Then, suddenly, a face, a woman's pretty face, in the benches of the +north transept, caught his eye, and with a leap, as of something +unchained, the beast within him awoke. It had reminded him of Rachel; and +therewith the decent memories of the distant past disappeared, engulfed +by the seething, ugly, mud-stained present. He was again crouching on the +hill-side, in the shelter of the holly, watching the scene within: Rachel +in that man's arms! Had the American seen him? He remembered his own +backward start of alarm, as Ellesborough suddenly turned and walked +towards the window. He had allowed himself, in his eagerness to see, to +press too near. He had exposed himself? He did not really believe that he +had been discovered--unless the American was an uncommonly cool hand! Any +way, his retreat to the wooded cover of the hill had been prompt. Once +arrived in the thick plantation on the crest, he had thrown himself down +exhausted. But as he sat panting there, on the fringe of the wood, he had +fancied voices and the flash of a light in the hollow beneath him. These +slight signs of movement, however, had quickly disappeared. Darkness and +silence resumed possession of the farm, and he had had no difficulty in +finding his way unmolested through the trees to the main road, and to the +little town, five miles nearer to London than Millsborough, at which he +had taken a room, under his present name of Wilson. + +The wooded common, indeed, with its high, withered bracken, together with +the hills encircling the farm, had been the cover from which he had +carried out his prying campaign upon his former wife. As he sat or knelt, +mechanically, under the high and shadowy spaces of the Abbey, his mind +filled with excited recollections of that other evening when, after +tearing his hand badly on some barbed wire surrounding one of Colonel +Shepherd's game preserves, so that it bled profusely, and he had nothing +to bandage it with, he had suddenly become aware of voices behind him, +and of a large party of men in khaki--Canadian foresters, by the look +of them, from the Ralstone timber camp, advancing, at some distance, in a +long extended line through the trees; so that they were bound to come +upon him if he remained in the wood. He turned back at once, faced the +barbed wire again, with renewed damage both to clothes and hands, and +ran, crouching, down the green road leading to the farm, his wound +bleeding as he ran. Then he had perceived an old labourer making for him +with shouts. But under the shelter of the cart-shed, he had first +succeeded in tying his handkerchief so tightly round his wrist, with his +teeth and one hand, as to check the bleeding, which was beginning to make +him feel faint. Then, creeping round the back of the farm, he saw that +the upper half of the stable door was open, and leaping over it, he had +hidden among the horses, just as Halsey came past in pursuit. The old +man--confound him!--had made the circuit of the farm, and had then gone +up the grass road to the hill. Delane, looking out from the dark stable, +had been able to watch him through the dusk, keeping an eye the while to +the opposite door opening on the farm-yard. But the labourer disappeared, +and in the dark roomy stable, with its beamed roof, nothing could be +heard but the champing and slow tramping movements of the splendid +cart-horses. Rachel's horses! Delane passed his free hand over two of +them, and they turned their stately heads and nosed him in a quiet way. +Then he vaulted again over the half door, and hurried up the hill, in the +gathering darkness. + +He was aware of the ghost-story. He had heard it and the story of the +murder from a man cutting bracken on the common; and he had already +formed some vague notions of making use of it for the blackmailing of +Rachel. It amused him to think that perhaps his sudden disappearance +would lead to a new chapter of the old tale. + +Then at the recollection of Rachel's prosperity and peace, of her sleek +horses and cows, her huge hay and corn stacks, her comfortable home, and +her new lover, a fresh shudder of rage and hatred gripped him. She had +once been his thing--his chattel; he seemed to see her white neck and +breast, her unbound hair on the pillow beside him--and she had escaped +him, and danced on him. + +Of course she had betrayed him--of course she had had a lover! What other +explanation was there of her turning against him?--of her flight from his +house? But she had been clever enough to hide all the traces of it. He +recalled his own lame and baffled attempts to get hold of some evidence +against her, with gnashing of teeth.... + + * * * * * + +"_For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are +not seen are eternal!_" + +He caught the words staring at him from the page of the open prayer book +beside him, and automatically the Greek equivalent suggested itself. He +had always done well in "divinners"! Then he became aware that the +blessing had been given, that the organ was playing, and the congregation +was breaking up. + + * * * * * + +Twenty-four hours later, Delane found himself on a road leading up from +the town where he was lodging to the summit of the wide stretch of common +land on the western side of which lay Great End Farm. Half way up a long +hill, he came upon a young man in uniform, disconsolately kneeling beside +a bicycle which he seemed to be vainly trying to mend. As Delane came up +with him, he looked up and asked for a light. Delane produced a match, +and the young man, by the help of it, inspected his broken machine. + +"No go!" he said with a shrug, "I shall have to walk." + +He rose from the ground, put up the tool he had been using, and buttoned +up his coat. Then he asked Delane where he was going. Delane named a +little village on the farther edge of the common. + +"Oh, well, that's straight ahead. I turn off to the right," said the +young soldier, "at the cross road." + +They walked on together, Delane rather unwillingly submitting to the +companionship thus sprung upon him. He saw from the badge on the man's +shoulder that he belonged to one of the Canadian Forestry Corps in the +district, and was at once on his guard. They started in silence, till +Delane, pulling his mind back with a jerk, asked his companion if he was +going to Ipscombe. + +"No--only to Great End Farm." + +Darkness hid the sudden change in Delane's countenance. + +"You know some one there?" + +"No, but I want to see one of the ladies about something. There's two of +them running the farm. But Miss Henderson's the boss." + +Cautiously, with assumed indifference, Delane began to ask questions. + +He discovered that his companion's name was Dempsey; and before many +minutes had passed the murderer's grandson was in the full swing of his +story. Delane, despising the young man for a chattering fool, listened, +nevertheless, with absorbed attention to every item of his tale. +Presently Dempsey said with a laugh,-- + +"There's been people in Ipscombe all these years as always would have it +old Watson walked. I know the names of three people at least as have +sworn to seein' 'im. And there's an old fellow in Ipscombe now that +declares he's seen him, only t'ther day." + +Delane lit his pipe, and nonchalantly inquired particulars. + +Dempsey gave a mocking account of Halsey's story. + +"He's an old fool! Did you ever hear of a ghost bleedin' before!" The +speaker threw back his head and laughed. "That's all rot! Besides, I +don't believe in ghosts--never did. But as Miss Henderson's farmin' the +very land where old Watson was done in, I thought she'd like to have the +true story and first hand. And there's no one but me knows it--not first +hand. So I wrote to her, and said as I would call at six o'clock this +evening." + +"You know her?" + +"No--o," said the young man, hesitating. "But I somehow fancy as I may +have seen her before." + +"Where?" + +"Why, in Canada. I was living on a farm, not far from Winnipeg"--he named +the place. Delane suddenly dropped his pipe, and stooped to pick it up. + +"All right," he said, "go on." + +"And there was a man--a sort of gentleman--his name was Delane--on +another farm about ten miles from where I was working. People talked +of him no end--he was a precious bad lot! I never saw him that I know +of--but I saw his wife twice. They say he was a brute to her. And she was +awfully handsome. You couldn't forget her when you'd once come across +her. And when I saw Miss Henderson drivin' one of the wagons in the +Millsborough Harvest Festival, a fortnight ago, I could have sworn it was +Mrs. Delane. But, of course, it was my mistake." + +"Where did you see Mrs. Delane?" + +"Once at her own place. I was delivering some poultry food that Delane +had bought of my employer--and once at a place belongin' to a man +called Tanner." + +"Tanner?" + +"Tanner. He was somethin' the same sort as Delane. We've a lot of them in +Canada--remittance men, we call them--men as can't get on in the old +country--and their relations pay 'em to go--and pay 'em to keep away. But +Tanner was a nice sort of fellow--quite different from Delane. He painted +pictures. I remember his showin' some o' them in Winnipeg. But he was +always down on his luck. He couldn't make any money, and he couldn't +keep it." + +"You saw Miss Henderson there?" + +Dempsey gave a guffaw. + +"Oh, Lor, no! I don't say that. Why, I'd get into trouble--shouldn't I? +But I saw Mrs. Delane. I was driving past Tanner's place, with two +horses, and a heavy load, November two years ago--just before we passed +our Military Service Act, and I joined up. And an awful storm came on--a +regular blizzard. Before I got to Tanner's I was nearly wore out, an' the +horses, too. So I stopped to ask for a hot drink or somethin'. You +couldn't see the horses' heads for the snow. And Tanner brought me out +some hot coffee--I'm a teetotaller, you see--an' a woman stood at the +door, and handed it to him. She was holdin' a lamp, so I saw her quite +plain. And I knew her at once, though she was only there a minute. It was +Mrs. Roger Delane." + +He stopped to light a cigarette. No sound came from his companion. All +round them spread the great common, with its old thorns, its clumps of +fir, its hollows and girdling woods, faintly lit by a ghostly moonlight +that was just beginning to penetrate the misty November dusk. The +cheerful light of Dempsey's cigarette shone a moment in the gloom. Delane +was conscious of an excitement which it took all his will to master. But +he spoke carelessly. + +"And what was Mrs. Delane doing there?" + +Dempsey chuckled. + +"How should I know? Tanner used to have a sister staying with him +sometimes. Perhaps she and Mrs. Delane were friends. But I saw that woman +quite plain. It was Mrs. Delane--that I'll swear. And Miss Henderson is +as like her as two peas. It might have been her sister. Miss Henderson's +very uncommon-looking. You don't often see that complexion and that hair. +And she has lived in Canada." + +"How do you know?" + +"She told old Halsey. Well, there's my road, just ahead. And if you're +going to Moor End, you keep straight on. The moon's coming up. It won't +be very dark." And with a careless good-night, the Canadian turned a +corner, and disappeared along a road which diverged at a right angle from +the main road, and led, as Delane knew, direct to Ipscombe. + +He himself walked on, till he found a lane tunnelled through one of the +deep woods that on their western side ran down to Great End Farm. In the +heart of that wood there was a keeper's hut, disused entirely since the +war. Delane had discovered it, and was quite prepared to spend a night +there at a pinch. There was a rude fireplace in it, and some old sacks. +With some of the fallen wood lying about, a man could make a fire, and +pass a winter night in very tolerable comfort. + +He made his way in, managed to prop a sack against the small cobwebbed +window, fastened the door with a rusty bolt, and brought out an electric +torch he always carried in his pocket. + +There was not a house within a long distance. There were no keepers now +on Colonel Shepherd's estate. Darkness--the woods--and the wild creatures +in them--were his only companions. Half a mile away, no doubt, Rachel in +her smart new parlour was talking to the Canadian fellow. + +_Tanner!_ Ye gods! At last he had the clue to it all. + + + + +X + + +Dempsey did not find Rachel Henderson at home when he called at Great End +Farm, after his meeting with his unknown companion on the common. + +Ellesborough and Rachel had gone to London for the day. Ellesborough's +duties at the Ralstone camp were in a state of suspended animation, +since, in these expectant days before the signing of the armistice, there +had been a general slackening, as though by silent and general consent, +in the timber felling due to the war throughout the beautiful district +in which Millsborough lay. Enough damage had been done already to the +great wood-sanctuaries. On one pretext or another men held their hands. + +Ellesborough then was free to take time off when he would, and to spend +it in love-making. The engagement had been announced, and Ellesborough +believed himself a very happy man--with the slight drawbacks that may be +imagined. + +In the first place--although, as he became better acquainted with +Rachel's varying moods and aspects, he fell more and more deeply under +the charm of her temperament--a temperament at once passionate and +childish, crude, and subtle, with many signs, fugitive and surprising, of +a deep and tragic reflectiveness; he became also more and more conscious +of what seemed to him the lasting effects upon her of her miserable +marriage. The nervous effects above all; shown by the vague "fears" of +which she had spoken to him, on one of their early walks together; and by +the gulfs of depression and silence into which she would often fall, +after periods of high, even wild spirits. + +It was this constant perception of a state of nervous suffering and +irritability in this splendid physical creature--a state explained, as he +thought, by her story, which had put him instantly on his guard, when +that sinister vision at the window had sprung for a moment out of the +darkness. Before almost he could move towards it, it had gone. And with a +farewell smile at the woman he had just been holding in his arms, a smile +which betrayed nothing, he had hurried away from her to investigate the +mystery. A hasty word to Janet Leighton in the kitchen, and he was making +a rapid circuit of the farm, and searching the farm-yard; with no results +whatever. + +Then he, Janet, and Hastings had held a hurried and secret colloquy in a +corner of the great cow-shed, as far from Rachel's sight and hearing as +possible. Clearly some one was haunting the farm for some malicious +purpose. Hastings, for the first time, told the story of the blood-marks, +and of two or three other supposed visions of a man, tall and stooping, +with a dark sallow face, which persons working on the farm, or walking +near it on the hill, had either seen or imagined. Ellesborough finally +had jumped on his motor-bicycle and ridden off to the police depot at +Millsborough. Some wind of the happenings at Great End Farm had already +reached the police, but they could throw no light on them. They arranged, +however, with Ellesborough to patrol the farm and the neighbourhood after +dark as often as their diminished force would allow. + +They were inclined to believe that some half-witted person was concerned, +drawn, perhaps, from the alien population which had been floating through +the district, and bent on mischief or robbery--or a mixture of both. + +Rachel meanwhile knew nothing of these consultations. After her +engagement was made public, she began to look so white, so tired and +tremulous, that both Ellesborough and Janet were alarmed. Overwork, +according to Janet, with the threshing, and in the potato-fields. Never +had Rachel worked with such a feverish energy as in these autumn weeks. +Add the excitement of an engagement, said Janet, and you see the result. + +She would have prescribed bed and rest; but Rachel scouted the advice. +The alternative was amusement--change of scene--in Ellesborough's +company. Here she was more docile, feverishly submissive and happy, +indeed, so long as Ellesborough made the plans, and Ellesborough watched +over her. Janet wondered at certain profound changes in her. It was, she +saw, the first real passion of Rachel's life. + + * * * * * + +So Dempsey called in vain. Miss Henderson was in town for a theatre and +shopping. But he saw Janet Leighton, to whom with all the dramatic +additions and flourishes he had now bestowed upon it, he told his story. +Janet, who, on a hint from Hastings, had expected the visitation, was at +any rate glad that Rachel was out of the way, seeing what a strong and +curious dislike she had to the ghost-story, and also to any talk of the +murder from which it originated. + +Janet, however, listened, and with a growing and fascinated attention, to +the old tale. Was there some real connection, she wondered, between it +and the creature who had been prowling round the farm? Was some one +personating the ghost, and for what reason? The same queries were +ardently in the mind of Dempsey. He reported Halsey's adventure, +commenting on it indignantly. + +"It's some one as knows the story, and is playin' the fool with it. It's +a very impudent thing to do! It's not playing fair, that's what it isn't; +and I'd like to get hold of him." + +Janet's mouth twitched. The young man's proprietorial interest in his +grandfather's crime, and annoyance that any one should interfere with it, +turned the whole thing to comedy. Moreover, his fatuous absorption in +that side of the matter made him useless for any other purpose: so that +she soon ceased from cross-examining him, and he rose to go. + +"Well, I'm sorry not to have seen Miss Henderson," he said awkwardly, +twisting his cap. "I'd like to have had a talk with her about Canada. It +was old Halsey told me she'd lived in Canada." + +"Yes," said Janet irresponsively. + +Dempsey smiled broadly and seemed embarrassed. At last he said with a +jerk:-- + +"I wonder if Miss Henderson ever knew a man called Tanner--who lived near +Winnipeg?" + +"I never heard her speak of him." + +"Because"--he still twirled--"when I saw Miss Henderson at Millsborough +that day of the rally, I thought as I'd seen her before." + +"Oh?" said Janet ardently. But some instinct put her on her guard. + +"Dick Tanner, they called him, was a man--an artist chap--who lived not +far from the man I was with--and I once saw a lady there just like Miss +Henderson." + +"Did you?" + +Dempsey grew bolder. + +"Only it couldn't have been Miss Henderson, you see--because this lady I +saw was a Mrs. Delane. But was Mrs. Delane perhaps a relation of Miss +Henderson? She was just like Miss Henderson." + +"I'll ask Miss Henderson," said Janet, moving towards the door, as a +signal to him to take his leave. "But I expect you're confusing her with +some one else." + +Dempsey, however, began rather eagerly to dot the i's. The picture of the +snowstorm, of the woman at the door, various points in his description +of her, and of the solitary--apparently bachelor--owner of the farm, +began to affect Janet uncomfortably. She got rid of the chatter-box as +soon as possible, and went slowly to the kitchen, to get supper ready. As +she fried the bacon, and took some vegetables out of the hay-box, she was +thinking fast. + +Tanner? No--she had never heard Rachel mention the name. But it happened +that Dempsey had given a precise date. It was in the "November before +they Passed Conscription" in Canada, _i.e._ before he himself was called +up--that he saw Mrs. Delane, at night, in Dick Tanner's house. And Janet +remembered that, according to the story which as they two sat by the fire +alone at night, when the girls were gone to bed, Rachel had gradually +built up before her. It was in that same month that Rachel had been +deserted by Delane; who had gone off to British Columbia with the Italian +girl, as his wife afterwards knew, leaving Rachel alone on the farm--with +one Japanese servant. + +Why shouldn't she have been staying on Mr. Tanner's farm? There was no +doubt some one else there--whom the boy didn't see. Perhaps she had +herself taken refuge there during the storm. But all the same Janet felt +vaguely troubled. + + * * * * * + +It was nearly seven o'clock, and the moon, now at the full, was rising +over the eastern hill, and balancing the stubbles and the new-turned +plough-lands in the upland cup to a pearly whiteness as they lay under +the dark woods and a fleecy sky. There was a sound of a motor in the +lane--the village taxi bringing the travellers home. + +In a few more minutes they were in the sitting-room, Rachel throwing off +her thick coat with Ellesborough's help, and declaring that she was not +the least tired. + +"Don't believe her!" said Ellesborough, smiling at Janet. "She is not a +truthful woman!" + +And his proud eyes returned to Rachel as though now that there was light +to see her by he had no other use for them. + +Rachel, indeed, was in a radiant mood. Pallor and depression had +vanished; she was full of chatter about the streets, the crowds, the +shops. + +"But it's hopeless to go shopping with a man! He can't make up his mind +one bit!" + +"He hadn't a mind to make up!" murmured Ellesborough, looking up at her +as she perched above him on a corner of the table. + +She laughed. + +"That, I suppose, was what made him want to buy the whole place! If I'd +taken his advice, Janet, I should have been just cleaned out!" + +"What's the good of being economical when one's going to be married!" +said Ellesborough, joyously. "Why--" + +Rachel interrupted him--with a hand on his shoulder. + +"And we've settled our plans, Janet--that is, if you're agreeable. Will +you mind looking after the farm for six months?" + +"You see, if the armistice is signed--and we shall know to-morrow," said +Ellesborough, "I shall be free in a month or so, and then we propose to +marry and get a passage before Christmas. I must go home, and she says +she'll come with me!" + +A shadow had fallen suddenly, it seemed to Janet, over Rachel's aspect, +but she at once endorsed what Ellesborough had said. + +"We can't settle things--can we?--till we've seen his people. We've got +to decide whether I'll go to America, or he'll come here." + +"But we want to say"--Ellesborough turned gravely to Janet--"that first +and foremost, we wish to do the best for you." + +The sudden tears came into Janet's eyes. But they did not show. + +"Oh, that'll be all right. Don't bother about me." + +"We shall bother!" said Rachel with energy, "but I'll tell you all about +it presently. He won't stay to supper." + +She descended from the table, and Ellesborough rose. After a little more +chat about the day and its doings, he said good-night to Janet. + +"How do you get back?" + +"Oh, I left my bike in the village. I shall walk and pick it up there." + +Rachel took up her thick coat and slipped it on again. She would walk +with him to the road, she said--there were some more things to say. + +Janet watched them go out into the wide frosty night, where the sky was +shedding its clouds, and the temperature was falling rapidly. She +realized that they were in that stage of passion when everything is +unreal outside the one supreme thing, and all other life passes like a +show half-seen. And all the while the name Tanner--Dick Tanner--echoed +in her mind. Such a simple thing to put a careless question to Rachel! +Yet perhaps--after all--not so simple. + +Meanwhile the two lovers were together on the path through the stubbles, +walking hand-in-hand through the magic of the moonlight. + +"Will you write a little line to my mother to-morrow?" + +"Yes, of course. But--" + +He caught her long breath. + +"I have prepared the way, darling. I promise you--it will be all right." + +"But why--why--didn't I see you first?" It was a stifled cry, which +seemed somehow to speak for them both. And she added, bitterly, "It's no +good talking--it can't ever be the same--to you, or to your people." + +"It shall be the same! Or rather, we shall owe you a double share of love +to make up to you--for that horrible time. Forget it, dear--make yourself +forget it. My mother would tell you so at once." + +"Isn't she--very strict about divorce?" + +Ellesborough hesitated--just a moment. + +"She couldn't have any doubts about your case--dearest--who could? You +fell among thieves, and--" + +"And you're picking me up, and taking me to the inn?" + +He pressed her hand passionately. They walked in silence till the gate +appeared. + +"Go back, dearest. I shall be over on Sunday." + +"Not till then?" + +"I'm afraid not. If the peace news comes tomorrow, the camp'll go mad, +and I shall have to look after them." + +They paused at the gate, and he kissed her. She lay passive in his arms, +the moonlight touched her brown hair, and the beautiful curves of her +cheek and throat. + +"Wasn't it heavenly to-day?" she whispered. + +"Heavenly! Go home!" + +She turned back towards the farm, drawing her cloak and its fur collar +close round her, against the cold. And indeed Ellesborough was no sooner +gone, the rush of the motor cycle along the distant road had no sooner +died away, than a shiver ran through her which was more than physical. So +long as he was there, she was happy, excited, hopeful. And when he was +not there, the protecting screen had fallen, and she was exposed to all +the stress and terror of the storm raging in her own mind. + +"Why can't I forget it all--_everything_! It's dead--_it's dead_!" she +said to herself again and again in an anguish, as she walked back through +the broad open field where the winter-sown corn was just springing in the +furrows--the moon was so bright that she could see the tiny green spears +of it. + +And yet in reality she perfectly understood why it was that, instead of +forgetting, memory was becoming more and more poignant, more and more +persecuting. It was because the searching processes of love were going +deeper and deeper into her inmost soul. This good man who loved her, who +was going to take her injured life into his keeping, to devote to her all +his future, and all the harvest of his upright and hard-working past--she +was going to marry him with a lie between them, so that she could never +look him straight in the face, never be certain that, sometime or other, +something would not emerge like a drowned face from the dark, and ruin +all their happiness. It had seemed, at the beginning, so easy to keep +silence, to tell everything but the one miserable fact that she couldn't +tell! And now it was getting intolerably hard, just because she knew +for the first time what love really meant, with its ardour for +self-revelation, for an absolute union with the beloved. By marrying him +without confession, she would not only be wronging him, she would be +laying up probable misery for herself--and him--through the mere action +of her own temperament. + +For she knew herself. Among the girls and women she had been thrown with +during the preceding year and a half, there were some moral anarchists, +with whose views she had become strikingly familiar. Why, they said, make +so much of these physical facts? Accept them, and the incidents that +spring from them. Why all this weeping and wailing over supposed shames +and disgraces? The sex-life of the present is making its own new codes. +Who knows what they will ultimately be? And as for the indelible traces +and effects of an act of weakness or passion that the sentimental and +goody-goody people talk of, in the majority of cases they don't exist. +After it, the human being concerned may be just the same as before. + +Rachel was quite aware of this modern gospel. Only she was shut out from +adopting it in her own case by an invincible heredity, by the spirit of +her father in her, the saintly old preacher, whose uncompromising faith +she had witnessed and shared through all her young years. She might and +did protest that the faith was no longer hers. But it had stamped her. +She could never be wholly rid of its prejudices and repulsions. What +would her father have said to her divorce?--he with his mystical +conception of marriage? She dreaded to think. And as to that other +fact which weighed on her conscience, she seemed to hear herself +pleading--with tears!--"Father!--it wasn't my will--it was my +_weakness_!--Don't look at me so!" + +And now, in addition, there was the pressure upon her of Ellesborough's +own high ideals and religious temper; of the ideals, also, of his family, +as he was tenderly and unconsciously revealing them. And, finally, there +was the daily influence of Janet's neighbourhood--Janet, so austere for +herself, so pitiful for others: Janet, so like Ellesborough in the +unconscious sternness of her moral outlook, so full, besides, of an +infinite sorrow for the sinner. + +And between these two stood this variable, sensuous, woman's nature, so +capable both of good and evil. Rachel felt the burden of their virtues +too much for her, together with the sting of her own secret knowledge. + +In some moments, even, she rebelled against her own passion. She had such +a moment of revolt, in this moonlit dark, as her eyes took in the farm, +the dim outlines of the farm buildings, the stacks, the new-ploughed +furrows. Two months earlier her life had been absorbed in simple, clear, +practical ambitions: how to improve her stock--how to grow another bushel +to the acre--how and when to build a silo--whether to try +electrification: a score of pleasant riddles that made the hours fly. And +now this old fever had crept again into her blood, and everything had +lost its savour. There were times when she bitterly, childishly, +regretted it. She could almost have hated Ellesborough, because she loved +him so well; and because of the terror, the ceaseless preoccupation that +her love had begun to impose upon her. + +Janet, watching her come in, saw that the radiance had departed, and that +she crept about again like a tired woman. When, after nine o'clock, they +were alone by the fire, again and again it was on the tip of Janet's +tongue to say, "Tell me, who was Dick Tanner?" Then, in a sudden panic +fear, lest the words should slip out, and bring something irreparable, +she would get up, and make a restless pretence of some household work or +other, only to sit down and begin the same inward debate once more. But +she said nothing, and Rachel, too, was silent. She sat over the fire, +apparently half asleep. Neither of them moved to go to bed till nearly +midnight. + +Then they kissed each other, and Janet raked out the fire. + +"To-morrow!" she said, her eyes on the red glow of the embers, +"_to-morrow_!--Will it be peace?" + +And then Rachel remembered that all the civilized world was waiting for +the words that would end the war. Somewhere in a French château there was +a group of men conferring, and on the issue of this night depended the +lives of thousands, and the peace of Europe. + +Janet raised her clasped hands, and her plain, quiet face shone in the +candle-light. She murmured something. Rachel guessed it was a prayer. But +her own heart seemed dead and dumb. She could not free it from its load +of personal care; she could not feel the patriotic emotion which had +suddenly seized on Janet. + +The morning broke grey and misty. The two labourers and the girls went +about their work--raising their heads now and then to listen. And at +eleven came the signal. Out rang the bells from Ipscombe Church tower. +Labourers and girls threw down what they were doing, and gathered in the +farm-yard round Janet and Rachel, who were waving flags on the steps of +the farm-house. Then Rachel gave them all a holiday for the rest of the +day, and very soon there was no one left on the farm premises but the two +women and the bailiff. + +"Don't stay, Hastings," said Rachel. "I'll get the horse and cart +myself." + +For it was market day at Millsborough, and peace or no peace, she had +some business that must be done there. + +"Oh, I've no call to go, Miss," said Hastings. "I'd rather stay and look +after things." + +His eyes met Janet's, and she nodded imperceptibly. She was relieved to +think of Hastings--good, faithful, unassuming creature!--remaining on +guard. The very desertion of the farm-houses on this great day might +tempt marauders--especially that thief or madman who had been haunting +their own premises. She hoped the police would not forget them either. +But Hastings' offer to stay till the girls came back from the +Millsborough crowds and bands at about nine o'clock quite eased her mind. +And meanwhile she and Hastings, as had been agreed, kept their anxieties +from Rachel. + +Rachel went off at twelve o'clock in her khaki suit, driving a spirited +young horse in a high cart, which was filled with farm produce. She was +to take early dinner with some new friends, and then to go and look at a +Jersey cow which Janet coveted, in a farm on the other side of +Millsborough. + +"Don't wait tea for me," she said to Janet, "I shall get some somewhere." +And then with a smile to them both she was off. Janet stood looking after +her, lost in a painful uncertainty. "Can't you let it alone?" Lord +Melbourne was accustomed to say suavely to those members of the Cabinet +who brought him grievances or scandals that wanted seeing to. One half of +Janet's mind was saying, "Can't you let it alone?" to the other half. + + + + +XI + + +The daylight had all gone when Rachel at last got into her cart in the +yard of the Rose and Thistle at Millsborough and took the reins. But +there was a faint moonrise struggling through the mist in which the +little town and countryside were shrouded. And in the town, with its +laughing and singing crowds, its bright shop windows, its moist, +straggling flags, the mist, lying gently over the old houses, the moving +people, the flashes and streamers of light, was extraordinarily romantic +and beautifying. + +Rachel drove slowly through the streets, delighting in the noise and +excitement, in the sheer new pleasure of everything, the world--human +beings--living--the end of the war. And out among the fields, and in the +country road, the November sun was still beautiful; what with the pearly +mist, and the purple shapes of the forest-covered hills. She had been +much made of in Millsborough. People were anxious to talk to her, to +invite her, to do business with her. Her engagement, she perceived, had +made her doubly interesting. She was going to be prosperous, to +succeed--and all the world smiled upon her. + +So that her pulses were running fast as she reached Ipscombe, where, in +the mild fog, a few groups were standing about, and a few doors were +open. And now--there was home!--in front of her. And--Heavens! what had +Janet done? Rachel pulled up the horse, and sat enchanted, looking at the +farm. For there it lay, pricked out in light, its old Georgian lines +against the background of the hill. Every window had a light in it--every +blind was drawn up--it was Janet's illumination for the peace. She had +made of the old house "an insubstantial faery place," and Rachel laughed +for pleasure. + +Then she drove eagerly on into the dark tunnel of trees that lay between +her and the house. + +Suddenly a shape rushed out of the hedge into the light of the lamps, and +a man laid a violent hand upon the horse's reins. The horse reared, and +Rachel cried out,-- + +"What are you doing? Let go!" + +But the man held the struggling horse, at once coercing and taming +it, with an expert hand. A voice!--that sent a sudden horror through +Rachel,-- + +"Sit where you are--hold tight!--don't be a fool!--he'll quiet down." + +She sat paralysed; and, still holding the reins, though the trembling +horse was now quiet, a man advanced into the light of the left-hand lamp. + +"Well--do you know me?" he said quietly. + +She struggled for breath and self-control. + +"Let those reins alone!--what are you doing here?" + +And snatching up her whip, she bent forward. But he made a spring at it, +snatched it easily with a laugh, and broke it. + +"You know you never were strong enough to get the better of me. Why do +you try? Don't be an idiot. I want to make an appointment with you. You +can't escape me. I've watched you for weeks. And see you alone, too. +Without that fellow you're engaged to." + +Her passion rose, in spite of her deadly fear. + +"He'll take care of that," she said, "and the police. I'm not helpless +now--as I used to be." + +"Ah, but you'd better see me. I've got a great deal to say that concerns +you. I suppose you've told that American chap a very pretty story about +our divorce? Well, it took me a long time to get to the bottom of it +myself. But now I'm--well, disillusioned!" + +He came closer, close to the rail of the cart and the lamp, so that she +saw clearly the haggard wreck of what once had been Roger Delane, and the +evil triumph in his eyes. + +"Who stayed the night alone, with Dick Tanner, on his place, when I was +safely got rid of?" he said, in a low but clear voice. "And then who +played the innocent--who did?" + +"Liar!" + +"Not at all. I've got some new evidence now--some quite fresh light on +the scene--which may be useful to me. I want money. You seem to have a +lot. And I want to be paid back a little of what I'm owed. Oh, I can hold +my tongue, if it's made worth my while. I don't suppose you've told your +American young man anything about Dick Tanner--eh?" + +"Let go the horse!" she said fiercely, trying to recapture the reins. +"You've nothing to do with me any more." + +"Haven't I? Oh, by all means tell your Yankee that I've waylaid you. I +shouldn't at all object to an interview with him. In fact, I rather think +of asking for it. But if you want to prevent it, you've got to do what +you're told." + +He came closer, and spoke with slow emphasis. "You've got to arrange a +time--when I can see you--_alone?_ When shall it be?" + +Silence. But far ahead there were sounds as of some one approaching. +Delane leapt on the step of the cart. + +"This is Monday. Wednesday night--get rid of everybody! You can do it if +you like. I shall come at nine. You've got to let me in." + +Her white, quivering face was all his answer. + +"Don't forget," he said, jumping down. "Good-night!" + +And in a second he was gone, where, she could not tell. + +The reins fell from her grasp. She leant back in the cart, half fainting. +The horse, finding the reins on his neck, strayed to the grassy side of +the road, and began grazing. A short time passed. In another minute or +two the left wheel would have gone done into a deep ditch. + +"Hallo!" cried a man's voice. "What the matter?" + +Rachel tried to rouse herself, but could only murmur inarticulately. The +man jumped off his bicycle, propped it against a tree, and came running +to her. + +He saw a woman, in a khaki felt hat and khaki dress, sitting hunched up +in a fainting state on the seat of a light cart. He was just in time to +catch the horse and turn it back to the road. Then in his astonishment +John Dempsey altogether forgot himself. + +"Don't be frightened, Mrs. Delane! Why, you've had a faint. But never +mind. Cheer up! I'll get you home safe." + +And Rachel, reviving, opened her heavy eyes to see stooping over her the +face of the lad in the hooded cart whom she had last seen in the night of +that November snowstorm, two years before. + +"What did you say?" she asked stupidly. Then, raising herself, with an +instinctive gesture she smoothed back her hair from her face, and +straightened her hat. "Thank you, I'm all right." + +Dempsey's mouth as he retreated from her shaped itself to an involuntary +grin. + +"I beg your pardon, ma'am--but I think I've seen you in Canada. Didn't I +once come to your place, with a parcel from Mr. Grimes--that was my +employer--of Redminster? I remember you had a Jap servant. And there was +another time, I think"--the lad's eyes fixed her, contracted a little, +and sharp with curiosity--"when you and Mr. Dick Tanner gave me that +fizzling hot coffee--don't you remember?--in that awful blizzard two +years ago? And Mr. Tanner gave the horses a feed, too. Awfully good chap, +Mr. Tanner. I don't know what I should have done without that coffee." + +Rachel was still deathly white, but she had recovered possession of +herself, and her mind was working madly through a score of possibilities. + +"You're quite mistaken," she said coldly, "I never saw you before that I +am aware of. Please let go the reins. I can manage now quite well. I +don't know what made me feel ill. I'm all right now." + +"You've got the reins twisted round the shaft, miss," said Dempsey +officiously. "You'd better let me put 'em right." + +And without waiting for a reply, he began to disentangle them, not +without a good deal of fidgeting from the horse, which delayed him. His +mouth twitched with laughter as he bent over the shaft. Deny that she was +Mrs. Delane! That was a good one. Why, now that he had seen her close, he +could swear to her anywhere. + +Rachel watched him, her senses sharpening rapidly. Only a few minutes +since Roger had been there--and now, this man. Had they met? Was there +collusion between them? There must be. How else could Roger know? No one +else in the world but this youth could have given him the information. +She recalled the utter solitude of the snow-bound farm--the heavy +drifts--no human being but Dick and herself--till that evening when the +new snow was all hard frozen, and they two had sleighed back under the +moon to her own door. + +What to do? She seemed to see her course. + +"What is your name?" she asked him, endeavouring to speak in her ordinary +voice, and bending over the front of the cart, she spoke to the horse, +"Quiet, Jack, quiet!" + +"My name's John Dempsey, ma'am." He looked up, and then quickly withdrew +his eyes. She saw the twitching smile that he now could hardly restrain. +By this time he had straightened the reins, which she gathered up. + +"It's curious," she said, "but you're not the first person who's mistaken +me for that Mrs. Delane. I knew something about her. I don't want to be +mistaken for her." + +"I see," said Dempsey. + +"I would rather you didn't speak about it in the village--or anywhere. +You see, one doesn't like to be confused with some people. I didn't like +Mrs. Delane." + +The lad looked up grinning. + +"She got divorced, didn't she?" + +"I dare say. I knew very little about her. But, as I said, I don't want +to be mistaken for her." + +Then, tying the reins to the cart, she jumped down and stood beside him. + +His hand went instinctively to the horse's mouth, holding the restive +animal still. + +"And I should be very much obliged to you if you would keep what you +thought about me to yourself. I don't want you to talk about it in the +village or anywhere. Come up and see me--at the farm--and I'll tell you +why I dislike being mixed up with that woman--why, in fact, I should mind +it dreadfully. I can't explain now, but--" + +The young man was fairly dazzled by the beauty of the sudden flush on her +pale cheeks, of her large pleading eyes, her soft voice. And this--as old +Betts had only that afternoon told him--was the lady engaged to his own +superior officer, Captain Ellesborough, the Commandant of Ralstone Camp, +whom he heartily admired, and stood in considerable awe of! His vanity, +of which he possessed so large a share, was much tickled; but, also, his +feelings were touched. + +"Why, of course, ma'am, won't say anything. I didn't mean any harm." + +"All right," said Rachel, scrambling back to her seat. "If you like to +come up to-morrow morning, I shall be pleased to see you. It's a bargain, +mind!" + +He saluted, smiling. She nodded to him, and drove off. + +"Well, that's the rummiest go!" said the bewildered Dempsey to himself, +as he walked towards his bicycle. "Mistake be damned! She _was_ Mrs. +Delane, and what's she up to now with my captain? And what the deuce was +she doing at Tanner's?" + +Never did a person feel himself more vastly important than Dempsey as he +bicycled back to the Ralstone camp, whence he had started in the morning, +after the peace news, to go and see a cousin living some distance beyond +Great End Farm. To be his grandfather's grandson was much--but _this_! + +Rachel drove, with hands unconscious of the reins, along the road and up +the farm lane leading through her own fields. The world swam around her +in the mist, but there, still in front of her, lay the illuminated farm, +a house of light standing in air. As she neared it, the front door opened +and sounds of singing and laughter came out. + +The "Marseillaise"! _Allons, enfants de la patrie!_--Janet was playing +it, singing vigorously herself, and trying to teach the two girls the +French words, a performance which broke down every other minute in +helpless laughter from all three. Meanwhile, Hastings, who had been +standing behind the singers, his hands in his pockets, a rare and +shamefaced pleasure shining from his care-worn face, thought he heard the +cart, and looked out. Yes, it was the Missis, as he liked to call Miss +Henderson, and he ran down to meet her. + +"Well, I suppose there were fine doings at Millsborough, Miss," he said, +as he held the horse for her to get down. + +"Yes--there were a lot of people. It was very noisy." + +"We thought you'd hear our noise, Miss, as far as the road! Miss +Leighton, she's been keeping us all alive. She took the girls to +church--to the Thanksgiving Service, while I looked after things." + +"All right, Hastings," said Miss Henderson, in a voice that struck his +ear strangely. "Thank you. Will you take the cart?" + +He thought as he led the horse away, "She's been overdoin' it again. The +Cap'n will tell her so." + +Rachel climbed the little slope to the front door. It seemed an Alp. +Presently she stood on the threshold of the sitting-room, in her thick +fur coat, looking at the group round the piano. Janet glanced round, +laughing. "Come and join in!" And they all struck up "God Save the +King"--a comely group in the lamplight, Jenny and Betty lifting their +voices lustily. But they seemed to Rachel to be playing some silly game +which she did not understand. She closed the door and went upstairs to +her own room. It was cold and dark. She lit a candle, and her own face, +transformed, looked at her from the glass on the dressing-table. She gave +a weary, half-reflective sigh. "Shall I be like that when I'm old?" + +She took off her things, and changed mechanically into an afternoon +dress, her mind, like a hunted thing, running hither and thither all the +time. + +Presently she got up and locked the door. She must think--_think_--by +herself. + +It would be quite easy to defy Roger--quite easy to lie, and lie +successfully, if only she was sure of herself, and her own will to carry +things through. Roger could prove nothing--or that vulgar boy--or +anybody. She had only to say, "I went to find Lucy Tanner, who was my +friend--she wasn't there--I was overtaken by the storm--and Dick Tanner +looked after me till I could get home." + +It was the most natural--the most plausible story. If Delane forced +himself on George with any vile tale, Ellesborough would probably give +him in charge for molesting his former wife. There was absolutely nothing +to fear, if she handled the thing in a bold, common-sense way, and told a +consistent and clever lie. + +And yet, she had weakly made appointments with both her tormentors!--made +it plain to them that she was afraid! She called herself a coward, and a +fool--and then as she leant her head against the side of her bed, the +tears ran down her face, and her heart cried out for Ellesborough. + +"How _can_ I go on lying to him--now--and all my life?" It was the same +cry as before, but more intense, more passionate with every day's living. +The need for lying had now doubled; yet her will could less and less +steel itself to it, because of sheer love and remorse towards the man who +loved her. + +"He would forgive me. I know he would--I know he would!" she kept on +murmuring to herself, while her eyes rained in the semi-darkness. + +Yes, but it would change everything! Their love--his feeling towards +her--could never be the same again. After Roger Delane--Dick Tanner. Why +not another--and another? Would he not always be watching her, dreading +some new discovery! Suspecting her, even while he loved her? + +No. She must choke off Delane--with money--the only way. And invent some +story--some bribe, too--for that odious young man who had caught her +unawares. + +So again she hardened herself, despairingly. It could not be allowed +her--the balm and luxury of confession! It was too dangerous. Her all +was in it. + +Meanwhile, the singing continued below. Janet had struck up "Tipperary," +and the small flute-like voices of the girls, supported by her harsher +one, mounted joyously through every crevice of the slightly-built house. + +"It's a long, long way to Tipperary, +And my heart's right there." + +The beautiful tune, interwoven for our generation with all that is most +poignant in its life, beat on Rachel's nerves. It was being sung all over +England that Armistice Day, as it had been sung in the first days of the +war, joyously, exultingly, yet with catching breath. There was in it more +than thousands of men and women dared to probe, whether of joy or sorrow. +They sang it, with a sob in the throat. To Rachel, also, sunk in her own +terrors, it was almost unbearable. The pure unspoilt passion of it--the +careless, confident joy--seemed to make an outcast of her, as she sat +there in the dark, dragged back by the shock and horror of Delane's +appearance into the slime and slough of old memories, and struggling with +them in vain. Yes, she was "damaged goods"--she was unfit to marry George +Ellesborough. But she would marry him! She set her teeth--clinging to him +with all the energy of a woman's deepening and maturing consciousness. +She had been a weak and self-willed child when she married Delane--when +she spent those half miserable, half wild days and nights with Dick +Tanner. Now she trusted a good man--now she looked up and adored. Her +weakness was safe in the care of George Ellesborough's strength. Well, +then, let her fight for her love. + +Presently Janet knocked at the door. The singing downstairs had ceased. + +"Are you tired, Rachel? Can't I help you?" + +"Just a bit tired. I'm resting. I'll be down directly." + + * * * * * + +But the interruption had started fresh anxieties in her mind. She had +paid the most perfunctory attention to the few words Janet had said about +Dempsey's call at the farm, two nights before. She understood at the time +that he had come to chatter about the murder, and was very glad that she +had been out of the way. + +But now--what was it that he had said to Janet--and why had Janet said so +little about his visit? + +Instead of resting she walked incessantly up and down. This uncertainty +about Janet teased her; but after all it was nothing to that other +mystery--how did Roger know?--and to the strange and bewildering effect +of the juxtaposition of the two men--their successive appearance in the +darkness within--what?--ten minutes?--a quarter of an hour?--while the +cloud was on her own brain--without apparently any connection between +them--and relevance to each other. There must have been some connection! +And yet there had been no sign of any personal knowledge of Roger Delane +in Dempsey's talk; and no reference whatever to Dempsey in Delane's. + +She went down to supper, very flushed and on edge. Little Jenny eyed her +surreptitiously. For the first time the child's raw innocence was +disturbed or jealous. What did John Dempsey want with calling on Miss +Henderson--and why had he made a rather teasing mystery of it to her, +Jenny? "Wouldn't you like to know, Miss Inquisitive?" Yes, Jenny would +like to know. Of course Miss Henderson was engaged to Captain +Ellesborough, and all that. But that was no reason why she should carry +off Jenny's "friend," as well as her own. Jenny's heart swelled within +her as she watched Miss Henderson from the other end of the table. Yes, +of course, she was nice-looking, and her clothes were nice. Jenny thought +that she would get a new best dress soon, now that peace was come; and a +new hat with a high silk crown to match the dress. Dempsey had admired a +hat like that on a girl in the village. He had said it was "real smart." +And to be "smart" Jenny thought was to be happy. + +After supper, Janet and the girls washed up and put all tidy for the +night. Rachel worked at accounts in the sitting-room. She had sold the +last hay she had to spare wonderfully well, and potatoes showed a good +profit. Threshing charges were very high, and wages--appalling! But on +the whole, they were doing very well. Janet's Jersey cow had been +expensive, but they could afford her. + +They had never yet drawn out so good an interim balance sheet without +delight, and rosy dreams for the future. Now her mood was leaden, and she +pushed the papers aside impatiently. As she was sitting with her hands +round her knees, staring into the fire, or at the chair where +Ellesborough had sat while she told her story, Janet came into the room. +She paused at the door, and Rachel did not see her look of sudden alarm +as she perceived Rachel's attitude of depression. Then she came up to the +fire. The two girls could be heard laughing overhead. + +"So my cow's a good one?" she said, with her pleasant voice and smile. + +"A beauty," said Rachel, looking up, and recapitulating the points and +yield of the Jersey. + +Janet gave a shrug--implying a proper scepticism. + +"It doesn't seem to be quite as easy to tell lies about cows as about +horses," she said, laughing; "that's about all one can say. We'll hope +for the best." Then--after a moment,-- + +"I never told you much about that man Dempsey's visit. Of course he came +to see you. He thought when he saw you at Millsborough that you were a +Mrs. Delane he had seen in Canada. Were you perhaps a relation of hers? I +said I would ask you. Then I inquired how often he had seen Mrs. Delane. +He said twice--perhaps three times--at her home--at a railway +station--and at a farm belonging to a man called Tanner." + +"Yes," said Rachel, indifferently. "I knew Lucy Tanner, his sister. She +was an artist like him. I liked them both." + +There was silence. In Rachel's breast there was beating a painful tide of +speech that longed to find its way to freedom--but it was gripped and +thrust back by her will. There was something in Janet as in Ellesborough +that wooed her heart, that seemed to promise help. + +But nothing more passed, of importance. Janet, possessed by vague, yet, +as they seemed to herself, quite unreasonable anxieties, gave some +further scornful account of Dempsey's murder talk, to which Rachel +scarcely listened; then she said, as she turned to take up her +knitting,-- + +"I'm going over to-morrow to a little service--a Thanksgiving service--at +Millsborough. I took the girls to church to-day--but I love my own +people!" Her face glowed a little. + +"Unitarian service, you mean?" + +"Yes--we've got a little 'cause' there, and a minister. The service will +be about six, I think. The girls will manage. The minister and his wife +want me to stay to supper--but I shall be back in good time." + +"About ten?" + +"Oh, yes--quite by then. I shall bicycle." + +Through Rachel's mind there passed a thrill of relief. So Janet would be +out of the way. One difficulty removed. Now, to get rid of the girls? + + * * * * * + +Rachel scarcely slept, and the November day broke grey and misty as +before. After breakfast she went out into the fields. Old Halsey was +mole-catching in one of them. But instead of going to inspect him and his +results, she slipped through a tall hedge, and paced the road under its +shelter, looking for Dempsey. + +On the stroke of eleven she saw him in the distance. He came up with the +same look, half embarrassed, half inclining to laugh, that he had worn +the day before. Rachel, on the other hand, was entirely at her ease, and +the young man felt her at once his intellectual and social superior. + +"You seem to have saved me and my horse from a tumble into that ditch +last night," she said, with a laugh, as she greeted him. "Why I turned +faint like that I can't imagine. I do sometimes when I'm tired. Well, now +then--let us walk up the road a little." + +With her hands in her pockets she led the way. In her neat serge suit and +cap, she was the woman-farmer--prosperous and competent--all over. +Dempsey's thoughts threw back in bewilderment to the fainting figure of +the night before. He walked on beside her in silence. + +"I wanted to tell you," said Miss Henderson calmly--"because I'm sure +you're a nice fellow, and don't want to hurt anybody's feelings--why +I asked you to hold your tongue about Mrs. Delane. In the first +place, you're quite mistaken about myself. I was never at Mr. Tanner's +farm--never in that part of Canada; and the person you saw there--Mrs. +Delane--was a very favourite cousin of mine, and extraordinarily like me. +When we were children everybody talked of the likeness. She had a very +sad story, and now--she's dead." The speaker's voice dropped. "I've been +confused with her before--and it's a great trouble to me. The confusion +has done me harm, more than once, and I'm very sensitive about it. So, as +I said last night, I should be greatly obliged if you would not only not +spread the story, but deny it, whenever you can." + +She looked at him sharply, and he coloured crimson. + +"Of course," he stammered, "I should like to do anything you wish." + +"I do wish it, and--" she paused a moment, as though to think--"and +Captain Ellesborough wishes it. I would not advise you, however, to say +anything at all about it to him. But if you do what we ask you, you may +be sure we shall find some way--some substantial way--of showing that we +appreciate it." + +They walked on, she with her eyes on the ground as though she were +thinking out some plan for his benefit--he puzzled and speechless. + +"What do you want to do, now the war's over?" she said at last, with a +smile, looking up. + +"I suppose I want to settle down--somewhere--on land, if I had the +money." + +"Here?--or in Canada?" + +"Oh, at home." + +"I thought so. Well, Mr. Dempsey, Captain Ellesborough and I shall be +quite ready to help you in any scheme you take up. You understand?" + +"That's awfully kind of you--but--" + +"Quite ready," she repeated. "Let me know what your plans are when you've +worked them out--and I'll see what can be done." Then she stopped. There +was a gate near into one of her own fields. Their eyes met--hers +absolutely cool and smiling--his wavering and excited. + +"You understand?" she repeated. + +"Oh, yes--I understand." + +"And you agree?" she added, emphasizing the words. + +"Oh, yes, I--I--agree." + +"Well, then, that's all right--that's understood. A letter will always +find me here. And now I must get back to my work. Good-morning." + +And with a nod, she slipped through the gate, and was half way across the +fallow on the other side of it before he had realized that their strange +conversation was at an end. + + + + +XII + + +The vicar and his sister Eleanor were sitting at breakfast in the small +Georgian house, which, as the vicarage, played a still important +part in the village of Ipscombe. The Church may be in a bad way, as her +own children declare; revolution may be in sight, as our English +Bolshevists love to believe--not too seriously; but meanwhile, if a +stranger in any normal English village wants to lay his finger on the +central ganglion of its various activities, he will still look for the +church and the vicarage--or rectory, as the case may be. If the parson is +bad or feeble, the pulse of the village life will show it; and if he is +energetic and self-devoted, his position will give him a power in the +community--power, tempered of course by the necessary revolts and +reactions which keep the currents of life flowing--not to be easily +attained by other energetic and self-devoted persons. The parson may +still easily make himself a tyrant, but only to find, in the language of +the Greek poet, that it was "folly even to wish" to tyrannize. + +The vicar had come downstairs that morning in a mood of depression, +irritable--almost snappish depression. His sister Eleanor had seldom seen +him so unlike himself. Being an affectionate sister, she was sorry for +him; though, as she rightly guessed, it was that very news which had +brought such great relief of mind to herself which was almost certainly +responsible for her brother's gloom. Miss Henderson was engaged to +Captain Ellesborough. There was therefore no question of her becoming +Mrs. Shenstone, and a weight was lifted from the spirits of the vicar's +sister. Towards Rachel, Eleanor Shenstone felt one of those instinctive +antipathies of life which are far more decisive than any of the ordinary +causes of quarrel. Miss Shenstone was thin, methodical, devoted; of small +speech and great virtue. Such persons so securely anchored and +self-determined can have but small sympathy for the drifters of this +world. And that Rachel Henderson was--at least as compared with herself +and her few cherished friends--morally and religiously adrift, Miss +Shenstone had decided after half an hour's conversation. + +The vicar knew perfectly well that his sister was relieved. It was that +which had secretly affected a naturally sweet temper. He was suffering +besides from a haunting sense of contrast between these rainy November +days, and the glowing harvest weeks in which he had worked like a navvy +for and with Rachel Henderson. It was over, of course. None of the nice +things of life ever came his way for long. But he did feel rather sorely +that during his short spell of favour with her, Miss Henderson had +encouraged him a good deal. She had raised him up--only to cast him down. +He thought of her smiles, and her sudden softness, of the warm grip of +her hand, and the half mocking, half inviting look in her eyes, with the +feeling of a child shut out from a garden where he well knows the ripe +apples are hanging; only not for him. The atmosphere of sex which +environed her--was it not that which had beguiled the vicar, while it had +repelled his sister? And yet Eleanor Shenstone did most honestly wish +her brother to marry--only not--not anything so tempting, troubling, and +absorbing as Rachel Henderson. + +"Haven't we a tiresome meeting to-night?" said the vicar with an +impatient sigh, as he sat languidly down to the couple of sardines which +were all his sister had allowed him for breakfast. + +"Yes--Miss Hall is coming to speak." + +Miss Hall was a lady who spoke prodigiously on infant welfare, and had a +way of producing a great, but merely temporary effect on the mothers of +the village. They would listen in a frightened silence while she showed +them on a blackboard the terrifying creatures that had their dwelling in +milk, and what a fly looks like when it is hideously--and in the mothers' +opinion most unnecessarily--magnified. But when she was gone came +reaction. "How can she know aught about it--havin' none of her own?" +said the village contemptuously. None the less the village ways were +yielding, insensibly, little by little; and the Miss Halls were after all +building better than they knew. + +The vicar, however, always had to take the chair at Miss Hall's meetings, +and he was secretly sick and tired of babies, their weights, their foods, +their feeding-bottles, and everything concerned with them. His sister +considered him and like a wise woman, offered him something sweet to +make up for the bitter. + +"Do you think you could possibly take a note for me to Miss Leighton this +morning--when you go to see old Frant?" + +"Old Frant" was a labourer on the point of death to whom the vicar was +ministering. + +He pricked up his ears. + +"Great End's hardly in old Frant's direction." + +_Camouflage_, of course. Miss Shenstone understood perfectly. + +"It won't take you far out of your way. I want Miss Leighton to send +those two girls to the Armistice dance to-night if they'd like to come. +Lady Alicia writes that several of her maids are down with the flu, and +she asks me to give away two or three more tickets." + +"Why doesn't Lady Alicia let the servants manage the thing themselves +when she gives them a party? _They_ ought to invite. I wouldn't be bossed +if I were they," said the vicar, with vivacity. + +"She's so particular about character, dear." + +"So would they be. She hasn't been so very successful in her own case." + +For the Shepherds' eldest daughter had just been figuring in a divorce +case to the distress of the Shepherds' neighbours. + +Miss Shenstone showed patience. + +"I'll have the note ready directly." + +And when it was ready, the vicar took it like a lamb. He walked first to +Great End, meditating as he went on Miss Henderson's engagement. He had +foreseen it, of course, since the day of the Millsborough "rally." A fine +fellow, no doubt--with the great advantage of khaki. But it was to be +hoped we were not going to be altogether overrun with Americans--carrying +off English women. + +At the gate of the farm stood a cart into which two young calves had just +been packed. Hastings was driving it, and Rachel Henderson, who had just +adjusted the net over the fidgety frightened creatures, was talking to +him. + +She greeted Shenstone rather shyly. It was quite true that in the early +stages of her acquaintance with Ellesborough she had amused herself a +good deal with the vicar. And in his note of congratulation to her on her +engagement, she had detected just the slightest touch of reproach. + +"I wish I had guessed it sooner." That meant, perhaps--"Why did you make +a fool of me?" + +Meanwhile Miss Shenstone's note was duly delivered, and Rachel, holding +it in her hand, opened the wicket gate. + +"Won't you come in?" + +"Oh, no, I mustn't waste your time," said the vicar, with dignity. +"Perhaps you'll give me a verbal answer." + +Rachel opened the note, and the vicar was puzzled by the look which +crossed her face as she read it. It was a look of relief--as though +something fitted in. + +"Very kind of Lady Alicia. Of course the girls shall come. They will be +delighted. You really won't come in? Then I'll walk to the road with +you." + +What was the change in her? The vicar perceived something indefinable; +and before they had walked half the distance to the road he had forgotten +his own grievance. She looked ill. Janet Leighton, meeting him in the +village a few days before, had talked of her partner as "done up." Was it +the excitement of falling in love?--combined perhaps with the worry of +leaving her work and the career just begun? + +He asked a few questions about her plans. She answered him very gently, +with a subtle note of apology in her voice; but yet, as it seemed to him, +from rather far away. And when they parted, he realized that he had never +known more of her than an outer self, which offered but little clue to +the self within. + +Rachel walked back to the farm with Miss Shenstone's note in her pocket. +She had told the vicar that her land-girls should certainly come to the +Shepherds' servants' party--but she said nothing about it to them--till +Janet Leighton had safely bicycled away in the early afternoon. The +invitation, however, was a godsend. For Rachel had begun to realize that +there was a good deal of watching going on--watching of the farm, and +watching over herself. She understood that Halsey had been scared by some +tramp or other whom he took for the ghost; and she saw that Janet was +unwilling that any one should be alone after dark in the farm. Nobody +had talked to her--Rachel--about it--no doubt by Ellesborough's +wish--because she was supposed to be out of sorts--run down. She had +accepted the little conspiracy of silence as a proof of his tenderness, +and had obediently asked no questions. + +And it had not yet occurred to her to connect the stories floating +about the farm with Delane's reappearance. The stunning fact of the +reappearance, with all that it might mean to her, absorbed her mind--for +a few hours yet. + +But as soon as Janet was safely off the premises, she hurried across to +the shippen, where Betty and Jenny were milking. + +"Girls!--would you like to go to the Shepherds' dance to-night? I've got +an invitation for you?" + +Stupefaction--and delight! The invitations had been very sparing and +select, and the two little maidens had felt themselves Cinderellas +indeed, all the sorer in their minds seeing that Dempsey and Betty's +young man were both going. + +But _frocks_! Jenny at least had nothing suitable. Rachel at once offered +a white frock. The milking and dairy work were hurried through, and then +came the dressing, as the dance began at seven. Betty, knowing herself to +be a beauty, except for her teeth, had soon finished. A white blouse, a +blue cotton skirt, a blue ribbon in her mop of brown hair--and she looked +at herself exultantly in Miss Henderson's glass. Jenny was much more +difficult to please. She was crimson with excitement, and the tip of her +little red tongue kept slipping in and out. But Rachel patted and +pinned--in a kind of dream. Jenny's red hair, generally worn in the +tightest wisps and plaits, was brushed out till it stood like a halo +round her face and neck, and she was secretly afraid that Dempsey +wouldn't know her. + +Then Rachel wrapped them up in their land-army waterproofs, and saw them +off, carrying an electric torch to guide them safely through the bit of +lane under the trees. But there was a moon rising, and the fog was less. + +"Ain't she just kind?--don't you just love her?" said Jenny ecstatically +to Betty, as they turned back to wave their farewells again to the figure +standing in the doorway. + +Betty assented. But they were both greatly astonished. For Rachel did not +in general take much personal notice of them. + +They were no sooner out of sight than Rachel went to look at the clock in +the kitchen. Ten minutes to seven. Two hours to wait. How were they +going to be got through? + +She went out aimlessly into the farm-yard, where the farm buildings stood +in a faintly luminous mist, the hill-side behind them, and the climbing +woods. To her left, across the fields ran the road climbing to the +miniature pass, whence it descended steeply to the plain beyond. And on +the further side of the road lay her own fields, with alternating bands +of plough-land and stubble, and the hedge-row trees standing ghostly and +separate in the light haze. + +She was alone in the farm, in all that landscape the only living thing at +the moment, except for the animals. A tense energy of will seemed to +possess her. She was defending herself--defending Ellesborough--and +their joint lives. How was she going to do it? She didn't know. But the +passion in her blood would give her strength--would see her through. + +In the old barn, the cows were munching peacefully. The air was sweet +with their breath, and with the hay piled in their cribs. Rachel wandered +noiselessly amongst them, and they turned their large eyes slowly to look +at her, and the small lantern she carried. In the stables, too, not a +sound, but an occasional swishing and champing. Rachel hung up the +lantern, and sat down on a truss of hay, idly watching the rays of light +striking up into the cross-beams of the roof, and on the shining flanks +of the horses. Her mind was going at a great speed. And all in a +moment--without any clear consciousness of the strange thoughts that had +been running through her brain--an intuition struck through her. + +_Roger_!--it was he who had been playing the ghost--he who had been seen +haunting the farm--who had scared Halsey--_Roger_! come to spy upon +her and her lover! Once the idea suggested itself, she was certain of +it--it must be true. + +The appearance in the lane had been cleverly premeditated. She had been +watched for days, perhaps for weeks. + +Ellesborough had been watched, too, no doubt. + +She drew a shuddering breath. She was afraid of Roger Delane. From the +early days of her marriage she had been afraid of him. There was about +him the incalculable something which means moral insanity--abnormal +processes of mind working through uncontrolled will. You could never +reason with or influence him, where his appetites or his passions were +concerned. A mocking spirit looked out upon you, just before his blow +fell. He was a mere force--inhuman and sinister. + +Well, she had got to fight it and tame it! She shut up the cow-house and +stable, and stood out awhile in the farm-yard, letting the mild wind play +on her bare head and hot cheeks. The moon was riding overhead. The night +seemed to her very silent and mysterious--yet penetrated by something +divine to which she lifted her heart. What would Ellesborough say over +there--in his forester's hut, five miles beyond the hills, if he knew +what she was doing--whom she was expecting? She shut her eyes, and saw +his lean, strong face, his look-- + +The church clock was striking, and surely--in the distance, the sound of +an opening gate? She hurried back to the house, and the sitting-room. The +lamp was low. She revived it. She made up the fire. She felt herself +shivering with excitement, and she stooped over the fire, warming her +hands. + +She had purposely left the front door unlocked. A hand tried the handle, +turned it--a slow step entered. + +She went to the sitting-room door and threw it open-- + +"Come in here." + +Roger Delane came in and shut the door behind him. They confronted each +other. + +"You've managed it uncommonly well," he said, at last. "You've dared it. +Aren't you afraid of me?" + +"Not the least. What do you want?" + +They surveyed each other--with hatred, yet not without a certain +passionate curiosity on both sides. When Delane had last seen Rachel she +was a pale and care-worn creature, her youth darkened by suffering and +struggle, her eyes still heavy with the tears she had shed for her lost +baby. He beheld her now rounded and full-blown, at the zenith of her +beauty, and breathing an energy, physical and mental, he had never yet +seen in her. She had escaped him, and her life had put out a new flower. +He was suddenly possessed as he looked at her, both by the poisonous +memory of old desire, and by an intolerable sense of his impotence, and +her triumph. And the physical fever in his veins made self-control +difficult. + +On her side, she saw the ruin of a man. When she married him he had been +a moral wreck. But the physical envelope was still intact, still +splendid. Now his clothes seemed to hang upon a skeleton; the hollows in +the temples and cheeks, the emaciation of the face and neck, the scanty +grey hair, struck horror, but it was a horror in which there was not +a trace of sympathy or pity. He had destroyed himself, and he would, if +he could, destroy her. She read in him the thirst for revenge. She had to +baffle it, if she could. + +As she defied him, indeed, she saw his hand steal to his coat-pocket, and +it occurred to her that the pocket might contain a revolver. But the +thought only nerved her--gave her an almost exultant courage. + +"What do I want?" he repeated, at last with-drawing his eyes. "I'll tell +you. I've come--like Foch--to dictate to you certain terms, which you +have only to accept. We had better sit down. It will take time." + +Rachel pointed to a chair. He took it, crossed one knee over the other, +rested his arm on the table near, and watched her with a sneering smile, +while she seated herself. + +He broke the silence. + +"I confess you were very clever about Dick Tanner--and I was a precious +fool! I never suspected." + +"I have not the least idea what you mean." + +"A lie!" he said, impetuously. "You were in Dick Tanner's house--staying +with him alone--at night--after I left you. You were seen there--by +a man--a Canadian--from whom I had the story--only two days ago. He +doesn't know my name, nor I his. We met on the common, two nights ago, +after dark. And by the merest chance he was coming to the farm, and he +began to talk of you. Then this came out. But of course I always knew +that it--or something like it--would come out. Your puritanical airs +never deceived me--for a moment." + +"I suppose you are talking of John Dempsey?" The scorn in her voice +enraged him. + +"I know nothing about John Dempsey. Of course I can track the man who +told me, if I want to--with the greatest ease. He was coming here to +call. He saw either you or your partner. And I shall track him--if you +force me." + +She was silent--and he smiled. + +"Assume, please, that I have my witness at hand. Well, then, he saw you +alone--at night--in Dick Tanner's charge, a few days apparently, after +you and I quarrelled. What were you doing there?" + +"It was during that great snowstorm, I suppose," she said, in her most +ordinary voice, taking up her knitting. "I remember going over to the +Tanners' to ask for something--and being snow-bound. Lucy Tanner was +always ready to help me--and be sorry for me." + +At this he laughed out, and the note of the laugh dismayed her. + +"Lucy Tanner? Yes, that's good. I thought you'd play her! Now, I'll +tell you something. The day after I left you, I was on the train going +to Regina. We stopped a long time. I don't remember why--at Medicine +Hat--and walking up and down the platform was--_Lucy Tanner_! Does that +surprise you? She told me she couldn't stand the Manitoba climate, and +was going to a friend at Kamloops for the winter. Is that news to you?" + +Rachel had turned white, but he saw no other sign of discomposure. + +"Not at all. Naturally, I went over expecting to find her. But as you +say, she was gone, and Mr. Tanner drove me back, when the storm went +down." + +Then she threw down her knitting and faced him. + +"What's the use of talking like this, Roger? You won't make anything out +of this story you're so proud of. Hadn't you better come to business? +Why have you been spying on me, and dogging me like this? You know, of +course, I could give you in charge to-morrow, or I could get Captain +Ellesborough to do it. And I will--unless you give me your solemn promise +to leave this place, to go out of my life altogether, and stop molesting +me in this scandalous way. Now, of course, I understand who it is that +has been prowling about the farm all these weeks. And I warn you the +police too know all about it, and are on the watch. They may have +tracked you here to-night for all I know." + +"Not they! I passed one bobby fellow on the hill, going safely away +north, as I came down. I was scarcely three yards from him, and he never +twigged. And the other's gone to Millsborough. You could hardly be more +alone, more entirely at my mercy--than you are at this moment, Miss +Henderson!" He laid an ironic emphasis on the name. + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +"All the same the people who live with me in this house will soon be +back. I recommend you to make haste. I ask you again--what is it you +want?" + +She had stood up pluckily--he admitted it. But, as he observed her +closely it seemed to him that the strain on her nerves was telling. She +was beginning to look pinched, and her hand as it lay beside her +knitting shook. + +"Well, I'll tell you," he said coolly. He took a half sheet of note-paper +out of the breast-pocket of his coat, drew the lamp on the table towards +him, and looked at certain figures and notes written on the paper. + +"I went this morning in town to look up your uncle's will. Of course I +remember all about that old chap at Manchester. I often speculated on +what he was going to leave you. Unfortunately for me he lived just a +little too long. But I find from the copy of the will that he left +you--three--thousand--pounds. Not bad, considering that you were never at +all civil to him. But three thousand pounds is more than you require to +run this small farm on. You owe me damages for the injury you inflicted +on me by the loss of--first, your society; second, your financial +prospects. I assess it at five hundred pounds. Pay me that small sum, +and--well, I engage to leave you henceforth to the Captain,--and +your conscience." + +He bent forward across the table, his mocking eyes fixed intently upon +her. There was silence a moment--till she said:-- + +"And if I refuse?" + +"Oh, well, then--" he lifted a paper-knife and balanced it on his hand as +though considering--"I shall of course have to work up my case. What do +you call this man?--John Dempsey? A great fool--but I dare say I shall +get enough out of him. And then--well, then I propose to present the +story to Captain Ellesborough--for his future protection." + +"He won't believe a word of it." + +But her lips had blanched--her voice had begun to waver--and with a cruel +triumph he saw that he had won the day. + +"I dare say not. That's for him to consider. But if I were you, I +wouldn't put him to the test." + +Silence again. He saw the fluttering of her breath. With a complete +change of tone, he said, smiling, in a low voice:-- + +"Rachel!--when did you begin to prefer Dick Tanner to me? No doubt you +had a jolly time with him. I suppose I can't undo the divorce--but you +would never have got it, if I hadn't been such an innocent." + +She sprang up, and he saw that he had gone too far. + +"If you say any more such things to me, you will get nothing from me--and +you may either _go_--" she pointed passionately to the door--"or you may +sit there till my people come back--which you like." + +He looked at her, under his eyebrows, smiling mechanically--weighing the +relative advantages of prudence or violence. Prudence carried the day. + +"You are just the same spitfire, I see, as you used to be! All right. I +see you understand. Well, now, how am I to get my money--my damages?" +She turned away, and went quickly to an old bureau that had been her +uncle's. He watched her, exultant. It was all true, then. Dick Tanner had +been her lover, and Ellesborough knew nothing. He did not know whether to +be the more triumphant in her tacit avowal, or the more enraged by the +testimony borne by her acquiescence to her love for Ellesborough. He +hated her; yet he had never admired her so much, as his eyes followed her +stooping over the drawers of the bureau, her beautiful head and neck +in a warm glow of firelight. + +Then, suddenly, he began to cough. She, hunting for her cheque-book, took +no notice at first. But the paroxysm grew; it shook the very life out of +him; till at last she stood arrested and staring-while he fell back in +his chair like a dead man, his eyes shut, his handkerchief to his lips. + +"Shall I--shall I get you some brandy?" she said, coldly. He nodded +assent. She hurriedly looked for her keys, and went to a cupboard in the +kitchen, where Janet kept a half bottle of brandy for medical use if +needed. + +He drank off what she brought--but it was some time before he recovered +speech. When he did it was in a low tone that made the words a curse:--- + +"That's your doing!" + +Her only answer was a gesture. + +"It is," he insisted, speaking in gasps. "You never showed me any real +love--any forbearance. You never cared for me--as you know I cared for +you. You told me so once. You married me for a home--and then you +deserted--and betrayed me." + +There was a guilty answer in her consciousness which made her speak +without anger. + +"I know my own faults very well. And now you must go--we can't either of +us stand this any more. Do you give me your solemn promise that you will +trouble me no more---or the man I am going to marry--if I do this for +you?" + +"Give me a piece of paper--" he said, huskily. + +He wrote the promise, signed it, and pushed it to her. Then he carefully +examined the self cheque "to bearer" which she had written. + +"Well, I dare say that will see me out--and bury me decently. I shall +take my family down to the sea. You know I've got a little girl--about +three? Oh, I never told any lies about Anita. I've married her now." + +Rachel stood like a stone, without a word. Her one consuming anxiety was +to see him gone, to be done with him. + +He rose slowly--with difficulty. And the cough seized him again. Rachel +in a fevered exasperation watched him clinging to the table for support. +Would he die--or faint--then and there--and be found by Janet, who must +now be on her way home? She pressed brandy on him again. But he pushed +it away. "Let me be!" She could only wait. + +When he could speak and move again, he put the cheque away in his pocket, +and buttoned his coat over it. + +"Well, good-night." Then straightening himself, he fixed her with a pair +of burning eyes. "Good-night. Anita will be kind to me--when I die--Anita +will be a woman to me. You were never kind--you never thought of any one +but yourself. Good-bye. Good luck!" + +And walking uncertainly to the door, he opened it and was gone. She heard +his slow steps in the farmyard, and the opening of the wicket gate. Then +all sounds died away. + +For a few minutes she crouched sobbing over the fire, weeping for sheer +nervous exhaustion. Then the dread seized her of being caught in such a +state by Janet, and she went upstairs, locked her door, and threw herself +on her bed. The bruise of an intolerable humiliation seemed to spread +through soul and body. She knew that for the first time she had confessed +her wretched secret which she had thought so wholly her own--and +confessed it--horrible and degrading thought!--to Roger Delane. Not in +words indeed--but in act. No innocent woman would have paid the +blackmail. The dark room in which she lay seemed to be haunted by +Delane's exultant eyes. + +And the silence was haunted too by his last words. There arose in her a +reluctant and torturing pity for the wretched man who had been her +husband; a pity, which passed on into a storm of moral anguish. Her whole +past life looked incredibly black to her as she lay there in the +dark--stained with unkindness, and selfishness, and sin. + +Which saw her the more truly?--Roger, or Ellesborough?--the man who hated +and cursed her, or the man who adored her? + +She was struggling, manoeuvring, fighting, to keep the truth from George +Ellesborough. It was quite uncertain whether she would succeed. Roger's +word was a poor safeguard! But if she did, the truth itself would only +the more certainly pursue and beat her down. + +And again, the utter yearning for confession and an unburdened soul came +upon her intolerably. The religious psychologist describes such a crisis +as "conversion," or "conviction of sin," or the "working of grace." And +he knows from long experience that it is the result in the human soul not +so much of a sense of evil, as of a vision of good. Goodness had been +brought near to Rachel in the personality--the tender self-forgetting +trust--of George Ellesborough. It was goodness, not fear--goodness, +unconscious of any threatened wrong--that had pierced her heart. Then a +thought came to her. _Janet!_--Janet whose pure and loving life beside +her made yet another element in the spiritual forces that were pressing +upon her. + +She sprang to her feet. She would tell Janet everything--put her poor +secret--her all--in Janet's hands. + + + + +XIII + + +It was again a very still and misty night,--extraordinarily mild for the +time of year. A singular brooding silence held all the woodlands above +Great End Farm. There was not a breath of wind. Every dead branch that +fell, every bird that moved, every mouse scratching among the fallen +beech leaves, produced sounds disproportionately clear and startling, and +for the moment there would be a rustle of disturbance, as though +something or some one, in the forest heart, took alarm. Then the deep +waters of quiet closed again, and everything--except that watching +presence--slept. + +The hut in Denman Wood, which had formerly played a hospitable part as +the scene of many a Gargantuan luncheon to Colonel Shepherd's shooting +parties, had long been an abandoned spot. All the Colonel's keepers under +fifty had gone to fight; and there was left only an old head keeper, with +one decrepit helper, who shot the scanty game which still survived on +strict business principles, to eke out the household rations of the big +house. The Ipscombe woods were rarely visited. They were a long way from +the keeper's cottage, and the old man, depressed by the difference +between war and pre-war conditions, found it quite enough to potter round +the stubbles and turnips of the home farm when game had to be shot. + +The paths leading through the underwood to the hut were now in these four +years largely over-grown. A place more hidden and forgotten it would +have been difficult to find. And for this reason, combined with its +neighbourhood to Rachel Henderson's farm, Roger Delane had chosen to +inhabit it. + +It was the third night after his interview with his former wife. He +reached the hut after dark, by various by-paths over the wide commons +stretching between it and X--the station at which he now generally +alighted. He carried in his pocket some evening newspapers, a new +anthology, and a novel. Owing to an injection of morphia--a habit to +which he had only lately taken--he felt unusually fit, and his brain was +unusually alert. At the same time he had had a disagreeable interview +with a doctor that morning who had been insisting on Sanatorium treatment +if the remaining lung was to be preserved and his life prolonged. He did +not want to prolong his life, but only to avoid the beastliness of pain. +It seemed to him that morphia--good stuff!--was going to do that for him. +Why hadn't he begun it before? But his brain was queer--he was conscious +of that. He had asked the doctor about some curious mental symptoms. The +reply was that phthisis was often accompanied by them. + +Obsession--fixed ideas--in the medical sense: half of him, +psychologically, was quite conscious that the other half was under their +influence. The sound self was observing the unsound self, but apparently +with no power over it. Otherwise how was it that he was here again, +hiding like a wild beast in a lair, less than a mile from Great End Farm, +and Rachel Henderson? + +He had found his way to London in the small hours of the day following +his scene with Rachel, intending to keep his promise, and let his former +wife alone. The cashing of Rachel's cheque had given him and Anita some +agreeable moments; though Anita was growing disturbed that he would not +tell her where the money came from. They had found fresh lodgings in a +really respectable Bloomsbury street; they had both bought clothes, and +little Netta had been rigged out. Delane had magnificently compounded +with his most pressing creditors, and had taken Anita to a theatre. But +he had been discontented with her appearance there. She had really lost +all her good looks. If it hadn't been for the kid-- + +And now, after this interval, his obsession had swooped upon him again. +It was an obsession of hate--which simply could not endure, when it came +to the point, that Rachel Henderson should vanish unscathed into the +future of a happy marriage, while he remained the doomed failure and +outcast he knew himself to be. Rachel's implied confession rankled in him +like a burn. _Tanner!_--that wretched weakling, with his miserable daubs +that nobody wanted to buy. So Rachel had gone to him, as soon as she had +driven her husband away, no doubt to complain of her ill-treatment, to +air her woes. The fellow had philandered round her some time, and had +shown an insolent and interfering temper once or twice towards himself. +Yes!--he could imagine it all!--her flight, and Tanner's maudlin +sympathy--tears--caresses--the natural sequel. And then her pose of +complete innocence at the divorce proceedings--the Judge's remarks. +Revolting hypocrisy! If Tanner had been still alive, he would somehow +have exposed him--somehow have made him pay. Lucky for him he was drowned +in that boat accident on Lake Nipissing! And no doubt Rachel thought that +the accident had made everything safe for her. + +Every incident now, every phase of his conversation with her was +assuming a monstrous and distorted significance in his mind. How easily +she had yielded on the subject of the money! He might have asked a great +deal more--and he would have got it. Very likely Ellesborough was well +off--Yankees generally were--and she knew that what she gave Delane as +hush money would make very little difference to her. Ellesborough no +doubt would not look very closely into her shekels, having sufficient of +his own. Otherwise it might occur to him to wonder how she had got rid of +that £500. Would it pinch her? Probably, if all she had for capital was +the old chap's legacy. Well--serve her right--serve her, damned, doubly +right! Ellesborough's kisses would make up. + +These thoughts, after a momentary respite, held him in their grip as he +walked London streets. Suspicion of the past--ugly and venomous--flapped +its black wings about him. Had Rachel ever been faithful to him--even in +the early days? She had made acquaintance with the Tanners very soon +after their marriage. Looking back, a number of small incidents and +scenes poked their heads out of the dead level of the past. Rachel +and Tanner, discussing the Watts photograph when Rachel first acquired +it--Tanner's eager denunciatory talk--he called himself an +"impressionist"--the creature!--because he couldn't draw worth a +cent--Rachel all smiles and deference. She had never given _him_ that +sort of attention. Or Rachel at a housewarming in the next farm to +his--Rachel in a pale green dress, the handsomest woman there, dancing +with Tanner--Rachel quarrelling with him in the buggy on the way home, +because he called Tanner a milksop--"He cares for beautiful things, and +you don't!--but that's no reason why you should abuse him." + +And what about those weeks not very long after that dance, when he had +gone off to the land-sale at Edmonton (that was the journey, by the way, +when he first saw Anita!), and Rachel had stayed at home, with a girl +friend, a girl they knew in Winnipeg? But that girl hadn't stayed all +the time. To do her justice, Rachel had made no secret of that. He +remembered her attacking him when he came home for having left her for +three or four days quite alone. Why had he been so long away? Probably a +mere bluff--though he had been taken in by it at the time, and being +still in love with her, had done his best to appease her. But what had +she been doing all the time she was alone? In the light of what he knew +now, she might have been doing anything. _Was the child his_? + +So, piece by piece, with no auditor but his own brain, shut in upon +himself by the isolation which his own life had forged for him, he built +up a hideous indictment against the woman he had once loved. He wished he +had put off his interview with her till he had had time to think things +out more. As he came to realize how she had tricked and bested him, her +offence became incredibly viler than it seemed at first. He had let her +off far too cheaply that night at the farm. Scenes of past violence +returned upon him, and the memory of them seemed to satisfy a rising +thirst. Especially the recollection of the divorce proceedings maddened +him. His morbid brain took hold on them with a grip that his will could +not loosen. Her evidence--he had read it in the Winnipeg newspapers--the +remarks of the prating old judge--and of her cad of a lawyer--good God! +And all the time it was _she_ who ought to have been in the dock, and he +the accuser, if he had known--if he hadn't been a trusting idiot, a +bleating fool. + +A brooding intensity of rage, as this inward process went on, gradually +drowned in him every other feeling and desire. The relief and amusement +of the money and its spending were soon over. He thought no more of it. +Anita, and his child even--the child for whom he really cared--passed out +of his mind. As he sat drinking whisky in the dull respectable lodging, +at night after Anita had gone to bed, he felt the sinister call of those +dark woods above Rachel's farm, and tasted the sweetness of his new power +to hurt her, now that she had paid him this blackmail, and damned herself +thereby--past help. She had threatened him. But what could she do--or the +Yankee fellow either? She had given the show away. As for his promise, +when he had no right to make it,--no right to allow such a woman to get +off scot-free, with plenty of money and a new lover. + +So on the Thursday evening he took train for X. It was still the +Armistice week. The London streets were crowded with soldiers and young +women of every sort and kind. He bought a newspaper and read it in the +train. It gave him a queer satisfaction--for one half of him was still +always watching the other--to discover that he could feel patriotic +emotion like anybody else and could be thrilled by the elation of +Britain's victory--_his_ victory. He read the telegrams, the positions on +the Rhine assigned to the Second Army, and the Fourth,--General Plumer +General Rawlinson--General F.--Gad! he used to know the son of that last +old fellow at King's. + +Then he fell to his old furtive watching of the people on the platform, +the men getting in and out of the train. At any moment he might fall in +with one of his old Cambridge acquaintances, in one of these smart +officers, with their decorations and their red tabs. But in the first +place they wouldn't travel in this third class where he was sitting--not +till the war was over. And in the next, he was so changed--had taken +indeed such pains to be--that it was long odds against his being +recognized. Eleven years, was it, since he left Cambridge? About. + +At X. he got out. The ticket collector noticed him for that faint touch +of a past magnificence that still lingered in his carriage and gait; but +there were so many strangers about that he was soon forgotten. + +He passed under a railway arch and climbed a hill, the hill on which he +had met Dempsey. At the top of the hill he left the high-road for a grass +track across the common. There was just enough light from a declining +moon to show him where he was. The common was full of dark shapes--old +twisted thorns, and junipers, and masses of tall grass--shapes which +often seemed to him to be strargely alive, the silent but conscious +witnesses of his passage. + +The wood was very dark. He groped his way through it with difficulty +and found the hut. Once inside it, he fastened the door with a wooden +bar he had himself made, and turned on his electric torch. Bit by bit +in the course of his night visits he had accumulated a few necessary +stores--some firewood, a few groceries hidden in a corner, a couple +of brown blankets, and a small box of tools. A heap of dried bracken in a +corner, raised on a substratum of old sacks, had often served him for a +bed; and when he had kindled a wood fire in the rough grate of loose +bricks where Colonel Shepherd's keepers had been accustomed to warm the +hot meat stews sent up for the shooting luncheons, and had set out his +supper on the upturned fragment of an old box which had once held meal +for pheasants, he had provided at least what was necessary for his night +sojourn. This food he had brought with him; a thermos bottle full of hot +coffee, with slices of ham, cheese, and bread; and he ate it with +appetite, sitting on a log beside the fire, and pleasantly conscious as +he looked round him, like the Greek poet of long ago, of that "cuteness" +of men which conjures up housing, food, and fire in earth's loneliest +places. Outside that small firelit space lay the sheer silence of the +wood, broken once or twice by the call and flight of an owl past the one +carefully darkened window of the hut, or by the mysterious sighing +and shuddering which, from time to time, would run through the crowded +stems and leafless branches. + +A queer "hotel" this, for mid-November! He might, if he had chosen, have +been amusing himself, _tant bien que mal_, in one or other of those +shabby haunts,--bars, night-clubs, dancing-rooms, to which his poverty +and his _moeurs_ condemned him, while his old comrades, the lads he had +been brought up with at school and college, guardsmen, Hussars, and the +rest, were holding high revel for the Peace at the Ritz or the Carlton; +he might even, as far as money was concerned, now that he had bagged his +great haul from Rachel, have been supping himself at the Ritz, if he had +only had time to exchange his brother-in-law's old dress suit, which +Marianne had passed on to him, for a new one, and if he could have made +up his mind to the possible recognitions and rebuffs such a step would +have entailed. As it was, he preferred his warm hiding-place in the heart +of the woods, coupled with this exultant sense of an unseen and +mysterious power which was running, like alcohol, through his nerves. + +Real alcohol, however, was not wanting to his solitary meal. He drenched +his coffee in the cognac he always carried about with him, and then, +cigarette in hand, he fell back on the heap of bracken to read a while. +The novel he sampled and threw away; the anthology soon bored him; and he +spent the greater part of two hours lying on his back, smoking and +thinking--till it was safe to assume that the coast was clear round Great +End Farm. About ten o'clock, he slipped noiselessly out of the hut, after +covering up the fire to wait for his return, and hiding as far as he +could the other traces of his occupation. The damp mist outside held all +the wood stifled, and the darkness was profound. Stepping as lightly as +possible, and using his torch with the utmost precaution, he gradually +made his way to the edge of the wood, and the lip of the basin beyond it. +On the bare down was enough faint moonlight to see by, and he +extinguished his little lantern before leaving the wood. Below him were +the dim outlines of the farm, a shadowy line of road beyond, and, as it +were, a thicker fold of darkness, to mark the woods on the horizon. There +was not a light anywhere; the village was invisible, and he listened for +a long time without hearing anything but the rush of a distant train. + +Ah!--Yes, there was a sound down there in the hollow--footsteps, +reverberating in the silence. He bent his head listening intently. The +footsteps seemed to approach the farm, then the sounds ceased, till +suddenly, on the down slope below him, he saw something moving. He threw +back his head with a quiet laugh. + +The Ipscombe policeman, no doubt, on his round. Would he come up the +hill? Hardly, on such a misty night. If not, his retreating steps on the +farm lane would soon tell his departure. + +In a few minutes, indeed, the click of an opening gate could be clearly +heard through the mist, and afterwards, steps. They grew fainter and +fainter. All clear! + +Choosing a circuitous route, Delane crept down the hill, and reached a +spot on the down-side rather higher than the farm enclosure, from which +the windows of the farm-house could be seen. There was a faint light in +one of the upper two--in which he had some reason to think was that of +Rachel's bedroom. It seemed to him the window was open; he perceived +something like the swaying of a blind inside it. The night was +marvellously mild for mid-November; and he remembered Rachel's old +craving for air, winter and summer. + +The light moved, there was a shadow behind the blind, and suddenly the +window was thrown up widely, and a pale figure--a woman's figure--stood +in the opening. Rachel, no doubt! Delane slipped behind a thorn growing +on the bare hill-side. His heart thumped. Instinctively his hand groped +for something in his pocket. If she had guessed that he was there--within +twenty yards of her! + +Then, as he watched the faint apparition in the mist, it roused in +him a fresh gust of rage. Rachel, the sentimental Rachel, unable to +sleep--Rachel, happy and serene, thinking of her lover--the lies of her +divorce all forgotten--and the abominable Roger cut finally out of her +life!-- + +The figure disappeared; he heard the closing of the window, which was +soon dark. Then he crept down to the farm wall, and round the corner of +it to that outer cart-shed, where he had bound up his bleeding hand on +the night when Halsey--silly ass!--had seen the ghost. He did not dare to +smoke lest spark or smell might betray him. Sitting on a heap of sacks in +a sheltered corner, his hands hanging over his knees, he spent some long +time brooding and pondering--conscious all the while of the hidden and +silent life of the house and farm at his back. By now he fancied he +understood the evening ways of the place. The two girls went up to bed +first, about nine; the two ladies, about an hour later; and the farm +bailiff as a rule did not sleep on the premises, though there was a bed +in the loft over the stable which could be used on occasion. That window, +too, through which he had watched the pair of lovers, when the Yankee +discovered him--that also seemed to fit into a scheme. + +Yes!--the Yankee had discovered him. His start, his sudden movement as +though to make a rush at the window, had shown it. Meanwhile Delane +had not waited for developments. Quick as thought he had made for one of +those sunken climbing lanes in which the chalk downs of the district +abound, a lane which lay to the south of the farm, while the green +terraced path connected with the ghost-story lay to the north of it. No +doubt there had been a hue and cry, a search of the farm and its +immediate neighbourhood. But the night was dark and the woods wide. Once +in their shelter, he had laughed at pursuit. What had the Yankee said to +Rachel? And since he had stopped her in the lane, what had Rachel been +saying to the Yankee? Had she yet explained that the face he had seen at +the window--supposing always that he had told her what he had seen--and +why shouldn't he?--was not the face of a casual tramp or lunatic, but the +face of a discarded husband, to whom all the various hauntings and +apparitions at the farm had been really due? + +That was the question--the all-important question. Clearly some +one--Ellesborough probably--had given a warning to the police. On what +theory?--ghost?--tramp?--or husband? + +Or had Rachel just held her tongue, and had the Yankee been led to +believe that the husband--for Rachel must have owned up about the husband +though she did call herself Miss Henderson!--was still some thousands of +miles away--in Canada--safely dead and buried, as far as Rachel was +concerned? + +On the whole, he thought it most probable that Rachel had held her tongue +about his reappearance. If she had thought it worth while to bribe him so +heavily, it was not very likely that she would now herself have set the +American on the track of a secret which she so evidently did not want an +expectant bridegroom to know. + +The American--d--n him! A furious and morbid jealousy rushed upon the man +crouching under the cart-shed. The world was rapidly reducing itself +for him to these two figures--figures of hate--figures against whom he +felt himself driven by a kind of headlong force, a force of destruction. + +How still the farm was, except for the movements of the cows inside the +shippen at his back, or of the horses in the stable! Rachel, no doubt, +was now asleep. In the old days he had often--enviously--watched her +tumble asleep as soon as her bright head was on the pillow; while in his +own case sleep had been for years a difficult business. + +Somebody else would watch her sleeping now. + +Yes, if he, the outcast, allowed it. And again the frenzied sense of +power swept through him. _If he allowed it_! It rested with him. + +The following day, Ellesborough set out in the early afternoon for Great +End Farm, the bearer of much news. + +The day was dark and rainy, with almost a gale blowing, but his spirits +had never been higher. The exultation of the great victory, the +incredible Victory, seemed to breathe upon him from the gusty wind, to be +driving the westerly clouds, and crying in all the noises of the woods. +Was it really over?--over and done?--the agony of these four years--the +hourly sacrifice of irreplaceable life--the racking doubt as to the +end--the torturing question in every conscious mind--"Is there a God in +Heaven--a God who cares for men--or is there not?" + +He could have shouted the answer aloud--"There is--there is a God! And He +is just." + +Faith was natural to him, and nourished on his new happiness no less than +on the marvellous issue of the war, it set his heart singing on this dull +winter's day. How should he find her? Threshing, perhaps, in the big +barn, and he would turn to, and work with her and the girls till work was +done, and they could have the sitting-room to themselves, and he could +tell her all his news. Janet--the ever-kind and thoughtful Janet--would +see to that. The more he saw of the farm-life the more he admired Janet. +She was a little slow. She was not clever; and she had plenty of small +prejudices which amused him. But she was the salt of the earth. Trust +her--lean upon her--she would never let you down. And now he was going to +trust his beloved to her--for a while. + +Yes--Rachel and the girls, they were all in the high barn, feeding the +greedy maw of the threshing machine; a business which strained muscles +and backs, and choked noses and throats with infinitesimal particles of +oil and the fine flying chaff. He watched Rachel a few minutes as she +lifted and pitched--a typical figure of a New Labour, which is also a New +Beauty, on this old earth. Then he drew her away, flung off his tunic, +and took her place, while she, smiling and panting, her hands on her +sides, leaned against the wall, and watched in her turn. + +Then when the engine stopped, and the great hopper full of grain lay +ready for the miller, they found themselves alone in the barn for a +minute. The girls and Janet had gone to milk, and Hastings with them. +There was a lantern in the barn, which showed Rachel in the swirl of the +corn dust with which the barn was full, haloed and golden with it, like a +Homeric goddess in a luminous cloud. Her soft brown head, her smile, +showing the glint of her white teeth, her eyes, and all the beauty of her +young form, in its semi-male dress--they set his blood on fire. Just as +he was, in his khaki shirt-sleeves, he came to her, and took her in his +arms. She clung to him passionately. + +"I thought you were never coming." + +It was one of the reproaches that have no sting. + +"I came at the first moment. I left a score of things undone." + +"Have you been thinking of me?" + +"Always--always. And you?" + +"Nearly always," she said teasingly. "But I have been making up my +accounts." + +"Avaricious woman!--thinking of nothing but money. Dear--I have several +bits of news for you. But let me wash!" He held out his hands--"I am +not fit to touch you!" + +She disengaged herself quietly. + +"What news?" + +"Some letters first," he said, smiling. "A budget and a half--mostly for +you, from all my home people. Can you face it?" + +"In reply to your cable?" + +"My most extravagant cable! On the top of course of sacks of letters!" + +"Before we were engaged?" + +He laughed as he thrust his arms into his tunic. + +"My mother seems to have guessed from my very first mention of you." + +"But--she doesn't know yet?" said Rachel, slowly. + +They had passed out of the range of the lantern. He could not see her +face, could only just hear her voice. + +"No, not yet, dear. My last long letter should reach her next week." + +Her hand lay close in his as they groped their way to the door. When he +unlatched it they came out into the light of a stormy sunset. The rain +had momentarily ceased, and there were fiery lines of crimson burning +their way through the black cloud masses in the western sky. The red +light caught Rachel's face and hair. But even so, it seemed to him that +she was pale. + +"I say--you've done too much threshing!" he said with energy. "Don't do +any more--get an extra man." + +"Can't find one," she said, laughing at him, but rather languidly. "I'll +go and get the tea ready." + +He went off to wash, and when he entered the sitting-room a little +later, she too was fresh and neat again, in a new frock of some soft +bluish-green stuff, which pleased his eye amazingly. Outside, the sunset +was dying rapidly, and at a sign from her, he drew down the blinds over +the two windows, and pulled the curtains close. He stood at the window +looking at the hill-side for a moment with the blind in his hand. He was +recalling the face he had seen, of which neither he nor any one else had +yet said a word to Rachel; recalling also his talk with one of the +Millsborough police the day before. "Nothing more heard of him, Captain. +Oh, we get queer people about these hills sometimes. It's a very +lonely bit of country. Why, a year ago, we were hunting a couple of +German prisoners about these commons for days!" + +"Any more ghosts?" he said lightly, glancing round at Rachel, as he drew +the curtains across. + +"Not that I know of. Come and have your tea." + +He took a cup from her hand, and leaning against the chimney surveyed the +room with a radiant face. Then he stooped over her and said:-- + +"I love this little room! Don't you?" + +She made a restless movement. + +"I don't know. Why do you love it?" + +"As if you didn't know!" Their eyes met, his intense and +passionate,--hers, less easy to read. "Darling, I have some other news +for you. I think you'll like it--though it'll separate us for a little." + +And drawing a letter from his pocket, he handed it to her. It was a +letter from the American Headquarters, offering him immediate work in the +American Intelligence Department at Coblentz. + +"Some friends of mine there, seem to have been getting busy about me. You +see I know German pretty well." + +And he explained to her that as a boy he had spent a year in Germany +before going to Yale. She scarcely listened, so absorbed was she in the +official letter. + +"When must you go?" she said at last, looking up. + +"At the end of next week, I'm afraid." + +"And how long will it be?" + +"That I don't know. But three or four months certainly. It will put off +our wedding, dearest, a bit. But you'd like me to go, wouldn't you? I +should be at the hub of things." + +The colour rushed into her cheeks. + +"_Must you go_?" + +Her manner amazed him. He had expected that one so ambitious and +energetic in her own way of life would have greeted his news with +eagerness. The proposal was really a great compliment to him--and a great +chance. + +"I don't see how I could refuse it," he said with an altered countenance. +"Indeed--I don't think I could." + +She dropped her face into her hands, and stared into the fire. In some +trouble of mind, he knelt down beside her, and put his arm round her. + +"I'll write every day. It won't be long, darling." + +She shook her head, and he felt a shudder run through her. + +"It's silly of me--I don't know why--but--I'm just afraid--" + +"Afraid of what?" + +She smiled at him tremulously--but he saw the tears in her eyes. + +"I told you--I can't always help it. I'm a fool, I suppose--but--" + +Then she threw her arms round his neck--murmuring in his ear: "You'll +have time to think--when you're away from me--that it was a great +pity--you ever asked me." + +He kissed and scolded her, till she smiled again. Afterwards she made a +strong effort to discuss the thing reasonably. Of course he must go--it +would be a great opening--a great experience. And they would have all the +more time to consider their own affairs. But all the evening afterwards +he felt in some strange way that he had struck her a blow from which she +was trying in vain to rally. Was it all the effect of her suffering at +that brute's hands--aided by the emotion and strain of the recent scenes +between herself and him? + +As for her, when she turned back from the gate where she had bid him +good-bye, she saw Janet in the doorway waiting for her almost with a +sense of exasperation. She had not yet said one word to Janet. That +plunge was all to take! + + + + +XIV + + +Rachel woke the following morning in that dreary mood when all the colour +and the glamour seem to have been washed out of life, and the hopes and +dreams which keep up a perpetual chatter in every normal mind are +suddenly dumb. + +How was she going to face Ellesborough's long absence? It had been +recently assumed between them that he would be very soon released from +his forestry post, that the infantry commission he had been promised +would come to nothing, now the Armistice was signed, and that in a very +few weeks they would be free to think only of themselves and their own +future. This offer of Intelligence work at the American Headquarters had +changed everything. + +In ten days, if nothing happened, he would be gone, and she would be left +behind to grapple alone with Roger--who might at any moment torment her +again; with the presence of Dempsey, who was thinking of settling in the +village, and for whom she would be called upon very soon to fulfil the +hopes she had raised in him; and finally, with the struggle and misery in +her own mind. + +But something must happen. As she was dressing by candle-light in the +winter dawn, her thoughts were rushing forward--leaping some unexplored +obstacles lying in the foreground--to a possible marriage before +Ellesborough went to France; just a quiet walk to a registry office, +without any fuss or any witness but Janet. If she could reach that +haven, she would be safe; and this dumb fever of anxiety, this terrified +conviction that in the end Fate would somehow take him from her, would be +soothed away. + +But how to reach it? For there was now between them, till they also were +revealed and confessed, a whole new series of events: not only the Tanner +episode, but Delane's reappearance, her interview with him, her rash +attempt to silence Dempsey. By what she had done in her bewilderment and +fear, in order to escape the penalty of frankness, she might only--as +she was now beginning to perceive--have stumbled into fresh dangers. It +was as though she stood on the friable edge of some great crater, some +gulf of destruction, on which her feet were perpetually slipping and +sinking, and only Ellesborough's hold could ultimately save her. + +And Janet's--Janet's first. Rachel's thought clung to her, as the +shipwrecked Southern sailor turns to his local saint to intercede for him +with the greater spiritual lights. Janet's counsel and help--she knew she +must ask for them--that it was the next step. Yet she had been weakly +putting it off day by day. And through this mist of doubt and dread, +there kept striking all the time, as though quite independent of it, the +natural thoughts of a woman in love. + +During the farm breakfast, hurried through by candle-light, with rain +beating on the windows, Rachel was thinking--"Why didn't _he_ propose +it?"--this scheme of marrying before he went. Wasn't it a most natural +thing to occur to him? She tormented herself all the morning with the +problem of his silence. + +Then--as though in rebuke of her folly--at midday came a messenger, a boy +on a bicycle, with a letter. She took it up to her own room, and read it +with fluttering breath--laughing, yet with tears in her eyes. + +"My Darling--What an idiot I was last night! This morning I have woke up +to a brilliant idea--why I didn't propose it to you yesterday I can't +imagine! Let us marry before I go. Meet me in London, a week to-day, and +let us go into the country, or to the sea, for a blessed forty-eight +hours, afterwards. Then you will see me off--and I shall know, wherever I +go, that you are my very, very own, and I am yours. I don't want to hurry +you. Take time to think, and write to me to-night, or wire me to-morrow +morning. But the very idea that you may say 'Yes' makes me the happiest +of men. Take time to think--but--all the same--don't keep me too long +waiting! + +"Your own, + +"G.E." + +All day she kept the letter hidden in the loose front of her dress. "I'll +wire to-morrow morning," she thought. But before that--something had got +to happen. Every now and then she would pause in her own work to watch +Janet--Janet butter-making, Janet feeding the calves, Janet cooking--for +on that homely figure in white cap and apron everything seemed to depend. + +The frost had come, and clear skies with it. The day passed in various +miscellaneous business, under shelter, in the big barn. + +And at night, after supper, Rachel stood on the front steps looking into +a wide starry heaven, moonless, cold, and still. Betty and Jenny had just +gone up to bed. Janet was in the kitchen, putting the porridge for the +morrow's breakfast which she had just made into the hay-box, which would +keep it steaming all night. But she would soon have done work. The moment +seemed to have come. + +Rachel walked into the kitchen and closed the door behind her. The supper +had been cleared away and the table on which they had eaten it shone +spotlessly clean and bare. The fire would soon be raked out for the +night, and Janet would lay the breakfast before she left the kitchen. +Everything was in the neatest possible order, and the brilliant polish of +a great stew-pan hanging on the wall particularly caught the eye. Janet +was humming to herself--one of the war tunes--when Rachel entered. + +"Janet, I want to speak to you." + +Janet looked up--startled. And yet something in her was not startled! She +had been strangely expectant all these days. It seemed to her she had +already seen Rachel come in like that--had already heard her say those +words. + +She shut up the hay-box, and came gently forward. + +"Here, Rachel?" + +"You've nearly done?" + +"In a few minutes. If you'll go into the sitting-room, I'll join you +directly." + +And while she hurried through the rest of her work, her mind was really +running forward in prophecy. She more or less knew what she was going +to hear. And as she closed the kitchen door behind her there was in her a +tremulous sense as though of some sacred responsibility. + +Rachel was crouching over the fire as usual, and Janet drew up a stool +beside her, and laid a hand on her knee. + +"What is it?" + +Rachel turned. + +"I told you one secret, Janet, the other day. Now this is another. And +it's--" She flushed, and broke off, beginning again after a moment--"I +didn't mean to tell you, or any one. I can't make up my mind whether I'm +bound to or not. But I want you to advise me, Janet. I'm awfully +troubled." + +And suddenly, she slipped to the floor, and laid her head against Janet's +knees, hiding her face. + +Janet bent over her, instinctively caressing the brown hair. She was only +three or four years older than Rachel, but she looked much older, and the +close linen cap she wore on butter-making afternoons, and had not yet +removed, gave her a gently austere look, like that of a religious. + +"Tell me--I'll do my best." + +"In the first place," said Rachel, in a low voice, "who do you think was +the ghost?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"The ghost--was Roger Delane!" + +Janet uttered an exclamation of surprise and horror--while fact after +fact rushed together in her mind, fitting into one explanatory whole. Why +had she never thought of that possibility, among all the others? + +"Oh, Rachel, have you ever seen him?" + +"Twice. He stopped me on the road, when I was coming back from +Millsborough on Armistice Day. And he came to see me the day after. You +remember you were astonished to find I had sent the girls to the +Shepherds' dance? I did it to get them out of the way--and if you hadn't +said you were going to that service I should have had to invent something +to send you away." + +"I always thought he was in Canada?" said Janet, in bewilderment. "What +did he want? Have you told Captain Ellesborough?" + +"No, I haven't told George. I don't know whether I shall. Roger wanted +money--as usual. I gave him some." + +"_You gave him some! Rachel!_" + +"I had to--I had to buy him off. And I've seen John Dempsey also without +your knowing. And I've had to bribe him too." + +Rachel was now sitting up, very hard and erect, her hands round her +knees. Her first object seemed to be to avoid emotion, and to prevent +Janet from showing any. Janet had gone very pale. The name "Dick Tanner" +was drumming in her ear. + +"I know you can't understand me, Janet," said Rachel, after a pause, "you +could never do what I've done. I dare say when you've let me tell you the +story you'll not be able to forgive me. You'll think I ought never to +have let you settle with me--that I told a lie when I said I wasn't a bad +woman--that I've disgraced you. I hope you won't. That--that would about +finish it." Her voice shook at last. + +Janet was speechless. But instinctively she laid a hand on Rachel's +shoulder. And at the touch, in a moment, the story came out. + +Confused and hardly intelligible! For Rachel herself could scarcely now +disentangle all the threads and motives of it. But certain things stood +out--the figure of a young artist, sensitive, pure-minded, sincere, with +certain fatal weaknesses of judgment and will, which had made him a +rolling stone, and the despair of his best friends, but, as compared with +Roger Delane after six months of marriage--Hyperion to a satyr; then the +attraction of such a man for his neighbour, a young wife, brought up in a +refined home, the child of a saint and dreamer, outraged since her +marriage in every fibre by the conduct and ways of her husband, and +smarting under the sense of her own folly; their friendship, so +blameless till its last moment, with nothing to hide, and little to +regret, a woman's only refuge indeed from hours of degradation and +misery; and finally the triumph of something which was not passion, at +least on Rachel's side, but of mere opportunity, strengthened, made +irresistible, by the woman's pain and despair: so the tale, the common +tale, ran. + +"I didn't love him," said Rachel at last, her hands over her eyes--"I +don't pretend I did. I liked him--I was awfully sorry for him--as he was +for me. But--well, there it is! I went over to his house. I honestly +thought his sister was there; but, above all, I wanted him to sympathize +with me--and pity me--because he knew everything. And she wasn't +there--and I stayed three days and nights with him. _Voilà_!" + +There was silence a little. Janet's thoughts were in a tumult. Rachel +began again: + +"Now, why am I telling you all this? I need never have told anybody--at +least up to a few days ago. Poor Dick was drowned just before I got my +divorce, in a boat accident on Lake Nipissing. He had gone there to +paint, and was camping out. If he hadn't been drowned, perhaps, he would +have made me marry him. So there was no one in the world who knew I was +ever with him except--" + +She turned sharply upon Janet-- + +"Except this man who turned up here in George's own camp--and in the +village, two months ago, but whom I never saw till this week--_this +week_--Armistice Day--John Dempsey. That was a queer chance, wasn't it? +The sort of thing nobody could have expected. I was coming back from +Millsborough. I was--well, just that evening, I was awfully happy. I +expected nothing. And then--within twenty minutes--" + +She told the story to Janet's astounded ears, of the two apparitions in +the road, of her two interviews--first with Dempsey, and the following +evening with Delane--and of her own attempts to bribe them both. + +And at that her composure broke down. + +"Why did I do it?" she said wildly, springing to her feet. "It was +idiotic! Why didn't I just accept the boy's story, and say quietly, 'Yes, +I was staying with the Tanners'? And why didn't I defy Roger--go straight +to George, and hand him over to the police? Don't you see why? Because it +is true!--_it's true!_--and I'm terrified. If I lost George, I should +kill myself. I never thought I should be--I could be--in love with +anybody like this. But yet I suppose it was in me all the time. I was +always seeking--reaching out--to somebody I could love with every bit of +me, soul and body--somebody I could follow--for I can't manage for +myself--I'm not like you, Janet. And now I've found him--and--Do you know +what that is?" + +She pulled a letter out of her pocket, and looked at Janet through a mist +of despairing tears. + +"It's a letter from George. It came this morning. He wants me to marry +him at once--next week. He's got some new work in France, and he saw that +I was miserable because he was going away. And why shouldn't I? _Why +shouldn't I?_ I love him. There's nothing wrong with me, except that +wretched story. Well, there are two reasons. First"--she spoke with slow +and bitter emphasis--"I don't believe for a moment Roger will keep his +word. I know him. He is frightfully ill. He says he's dying. He may +die--before he's got through this money. That would be the best thing +that could happen to me--wouldn't it? But probably he won't die--and +certainly he'll get through the money! Then he'll come back--and I shall +begin bribing him again--and telling lies to hide it from George--and +in the end it'll be no use--for Roger's quite reckless--you can't appeal +to him through anything but money. He'll see George, whatever I do, and +try it on with him. And then--George will know how to deal with _him_, I +dare say--but when we are alone--and he asks _me_--" + +She sank down again on the floor, kneeling, and put her hands on Janet's +knees. + +"You see, Janet, don't you? You see?" + +It was the cry of a soul in anguish. + +"You poor, poor thing!" + +Janet, trembling from head to foot, bowed her head on Rachel's, and the +two clung together, in silence, broken only by two deep sobs from Rachel. +Then Janet disengaged herself. She was pale, but no longer agitated, and +her blue eyes which were her only beauty were clear and shining. + +"You'll let me say just what I feel, Rachel?" + +"Of course." + +"You can't marry him without telling him. No, no--you couldn't do that!" + +Rachel said nothing. She was, sitting on the floor, her eyes turned away +from Janet. + +"You couldn't do that, Rachel," Janet resumed, as though she were +urgently thinking her way; "you'd never have a happy moment." + +"Oh, yes, of course," said Rachel, throwing up her head with a half +scornful gesture. "One says that--but how do you know? I might never +think of it again--if Roger and that man Dempsey were out of the way. +It's dead--it's _dead_! Why do we trouble about such things!" + +"It would be dead," said Janet in a low voice, "if you'd told him--and +he'd forgiven!" + +"What has he to do with it?" cried Rachel, stubbornly, "it was before he +knew me. I was a different being." + +"No--it is always the same self, which we are making, all the time. Don't +you see--dear, dear Rachel!--it's your chance now to put it all behind +you--just by being true. Oh, I don't want to preach to you--but I see it +so clearly!" + +"But it isn't as a man would see it--a man like George," said Rachel, +shaking her head. "Look there"--she pointed to a little bundle of letters +lying on the table--"there are letters from his people which he brought +me this morning. It's awful!--how they take me at his valuation--just +because he loves me. I must be everything that's good, because he says +so. And you can see what kind of people they are--what they think of +him--and what they imagine about me--what they think I _must_ be--for +him to love me. I don't mean they're prigs--they aren't a bit. It's just +their life coming out, quite naturally. You see what they are--quite +simply--what they can't help being, and what they expect from him and the +woman he marries. And he's got to take me home to them--some time--to +present me to them. The divorce is difficult enough. Even if they think +of me as quite innocent, it will be hard for them, that George should +marry a divorced woman." + +"What have they to do with it?" interrupted Janet. "It's only George that +matters--no other person has any right whatever to know! You needn't +consider anybody else." + +"Yes--but think of _him_. It's bad enough that I should know something he +doesn't know--but at least _he's_ spared. He can take me home to his +mother--whom he adores--and if _I_ know that I'm a cheat and a sham--he +doesn't--it will be all easy for him." + +Janet was silenced for the moment by the sheer passion of the voice. She +sat, groping a little, under the stress of her own thought, and praying +inwardly--without words--for light and guidance. + +"And think of _me_, please!" Rachel went on. "If I tell him, it's +done--for ever. He'll forgive me, I think. He may be everything +that's dear, and good, and kind"--her voice broke--"but it'd hit him +dreadfully hard. A man like that can't forget such a thing. When I've +once said it, I shall have changed everything between us. He must +think--some time--when he's alone--when I'm not there--'It was Dick +Tanner once--it will be some one else another time!' I shall have been +pulled down from the place where he puts me now--even after he knows +all about Roger and the divorce--pulled down for good and all--however +much he may pity me--however good he may be to me. It will be love +perhaps--but another kind of love. He can't trust me again. No one could. +And it's that I can't bear--I can't _bear_!" + +She looked defiantly at Janet, and the little room with its simple +furnishings seemed too small a stage for such an energy of fear and +distress. + +"Yes--that you could bear," said Janet quietly, "with him to help +you--and God. It would all straighten out in the end--because the first +step would be right." + +Rachel turned upon her. + +"Now that I've told you," she cried, "can _you_ ever think the same of me +again? You know you can't!" + +Janet caught her cold hands, and held them close, looking up to her. + +"Not the same--no, not the same! But if I cared for you before, Rachel--I +care for you ten thousand times more now. Don't you see?--it will be the +same with him?" + +Rachel shook her head. + +"No--a _man's_ different," she repeated, "a man's different!" + +"Anyway, you _must_," said Janet resolutely, "you know you must. You +don't need me to tell you." + +Rachel wrenched herself away with a little moan and hid her face in her +hands as she leaned against the mantelpiece. Janet, looking up, and +transfigured by that spiritual energy, that ultimate instinctive faith +which was the root force in her, went on, pleading. + +"Dear Rachel, one goes on living side by side--doing one's daily +work--and thinking just one's ordinary thoughts--and all the time one +never speaks of the biggest things of all--the only things that matter, +really. Isn't it God that matters--and the law in our hearts? If we break +it--if we aren't true--if we wrong those that love us--if we injure and +deceive--how will it be when we grow old--when we come to die? Whatever +our gain--we shall have lost our souls?" + +"You think I should injure him by marrying him?" cried Rachel. + +"No--no! A thousand times, no! But by deceiving him--by not trusting +him--with all your heart, and all your life--that would be the worst +injury." + +"How do you know all there may have been in his life?" said Rachel, +vehemently--"I don't ask." + +"I think you do know." + +Rachel considered the words, finally dropping her face again out of +sight. + +"Well, I dare say I do!" she said wearily. "Of course he's a hundred +times too good for me." + +"Don't turn it off like that! It's for oneself one has to think--one's +own fulfilling of the law. Love--_is_ the fulfilling of the law. And love +means trust--and truth." + +Janet's voice sank. She had said her say. Rachel was silent for some +time, and Janet sat motionless. The clock and the fire were the only +sounds. At last Rachel moved. With a long sigh, she pressed back the +ruffled hair from her temples, and standing tiptoe before a small mirror +that hung over the mantelpiece, she began to pin up some coils that had +broken loose. When that was done, she turned slowly towards Janet. + +"Very well. That's settled. How shall it be done? Shall I write it or say +it?" + +Janet gasped a little between laughing and crying. Then she caught +Rachel's cold unresisting hand, and laid it tenderly against her own +cheek. + +"Write it." + +"All right." The voice was that of an automaton. "How shall I send it?" + +"Would you--would you trust me to take it?" + +"You mean--you'd talk to him?" + +"If you gave me leave." + +Rachel thought a little, and then made a scarcely perceptible sign of +assent. A few more words passed as to the best time at which to find +Ellesborough at leisure. It was decided that Janet should aim at catching +him in the midday dinner hour. "I should bicycle, and get home before +dark." + +"And now let's talk of something else," said Rachel, imperiously. + +She found some business letters that had to be answered, and set to work +on them. Janet wrote up her milk records and dairy accounts. The fire +sank gently to its end. Janet's cat came with tail outstretched, and +rubbed itself sociably, first against Janet's skirts, and then against +Rachel. No trace remained in the little room, where the two women sat at +their daily work, of the scene which had passed between them, except in +Rachel's pallor, and the occasional shaking of her hand as it passed over +the paper. + +Then when Janet put up her papers with a look at the clock, which was +just going to strike ten o'clock, Rachel too cleared away, and with that +instinct for air and the open which was a relic of her Canadian life, and +made any closed room after a time an oppression to her, she threw a cloak +over her shoulders, and went out again to breathe the night. There was a +young horse who, on the previous day, had needed the vet. She went across +the yard to the stable to look at him. + +All was well with the horse, whose swollen hock had been comfortably +bandaged by Hastings before he left. But as she stood beside him, close +to the divided door, opening on the hill, of which both the horizontal +halves were now shut, she was aware of certain movements on the other +side of the door--some one passing it--footsteps. Her nerves gave a +jump. Could it be?--_again_! Impetuously she went to the door, threw open +the upper half, and looked out. Nothing--but the faint starlight on the +hill, and the woods crowning it. + +She called. + +"Who's there?" But no one answered. + +Fancy, of course. But with the knowledge she now had, she could not bring +herself to go round the farm. Instead she carefully closed the stable +shutter, and ran back across the yard into the shelter of the house, +locking the front door behind her, and going into the sitting-room and +the kitchen, to see that the windows were fastened. + +Janet was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. They kissed each +other gravely, in silence, like those who feel that the time for speech +is done. Then Rachel went into her room, and Janet heard her turn the +key. Janet herself slept intermittently. But whenever she woke, it seemed +to her that there was some slight sound in the next room--a movement or +a rustle, which showed that Rachel was still awake--and up? + +It was a night indeed which left Rachel with that sense of strange +illuminations, of life painfully enlarged and deepened, which love and +suffering may always bring to the woman who is capable of love and +suffering. She had spent the hours in writing to Ellesborough, and in +that letter she had unpacked her heart to its depths, Janet guessed. When +she received the letter from Rachel on the morrow, she handled it as a +sacred thing. + + + + +XV + + +The frost held. A sun of pearl and fire rose over the hill, as the stars +finally faded out in the winter morning, and a brilliant rime lay +sparkling on all the pastures and on the slopes of the down. The +brilliance had partly vanished from the lower grounds when Janet started +on her way; but on the high commons, winter was at its gayest and +loveliest. The distant woods were a mist of brown and azure, encircling +the broad frost-whitened spaces; the great single beeches and oaks under +which Spenser or Sidney--the great Will himself--might have walked, shot +up, magnificent, into a clear sky, proudly sheltering the gnarled thorns +and furze-bushes which marched beside and round them, like dwarfs in a +pageant. + +Half way up the hill, Janet came across old Betts bringing down a small +cart-full of furze for fodder, and she stopped to speak to him. A little +later on, nearer to the camp she overtook Dempsey, who rather officiously +joined her, and assuming at once that she was in quest of the Camp +Commandant, directed her to a short cut leading straight to +Ellesborough's quarters. There was a slight something in the manner of +both men that jarred on Janet--as though their lips said one thing and +their eyes another--furtive in the case of Betts, a trifle insolent +in that of Dempsey. She with her tragic knowledge guessed uncomfortably +at what it meant. Dempsey--as she had made up her mind after ten minutes' +talk with him--was a vain gossip. It had been madness on Rachel's part to +give him the smallest hold on her. Very likely he had not yet actually +betrayed her--his hope of favours to come might have been sufficient to +prevent that. But his self-importance would certainly show itself +somehow--in a hint or a laugh. He had probably already roused in the +village mind a prying curiosity, a suspicion of something underhand, +which might alter Rachel's whole relation to her neighbours. For once +give an English country-side reason to suspect a scandal, and it will +pluck it bare in time, with a slow and secret persistence. + +Well, after all, if the situation became disagreeable, Rachel would only +have to choose Ellesborough's country as her own, and begin her new life +there. + +_Supposing that all went well!_ Janet's mind went through some painful +alterations of confidence and fear, as she walked her bicycle along the +rough forest-track leading to Ellesborough's hut. She believed him to be +deeply in love with Rachel, and the spiritual passion in her seemed to +realize in the man's inmost nature, behind all his practical ability, +and his short business manner, powers of pity and tenderness like her +own. But if she were wrong? If this second revelation put too great a +strain upon one brought up in an exceptionally strict school where +certain standards of conduct were simply taken for granted? + +Mystic, and puritan as she was, there were moments when Janet felt +her responsibility almost unbearable. Rachel deserted--Rachel in +despair--Rachel turning on the woman who had advised her to her +undoing--all these images were beating on Janet's tremulous sense, as the +small military hut where Ellesborough and two of his junior officers +lived came into view, together with that wide hollow of the forestry camp +where he and Rachel had first met. The letter in her pocket seemed a +living and sinister thing. She had still power to retain it--to keep it +imprisoned. + +A lady in the dress of the Women's Forestry Corps appeared on another +path leading to Ellesborough's hut. Janet recognized Mrs. Fergusson, +and was soon greeted by a shout of welcome. + +"Well, so Miss Henderson's engaged to our Captain!" said Mrs. Fergusson, +with a smiling countenance, as they shook hands. "The girls here, and +I, are awfully interested. The camp began it! But do you want the +Captain? I'm afraid he isn't here." + +Janet's countenance fell. + +"I thought I should be sure to find him in the dinner hour." + +"No, he went up to town by the first train this morning on some business +with the Ministry. We expect him back about three." + +It was not one o'clock. Janet pondered what to do. + +"You wanted to see him?" said Mrs. Fergusson, full of sympathy. + +"I brought a letter for him. If I leave it, will he be sure to get it +directly he returns?" + +"His servant's in the hut. Let's talk to him." + +Mrs. Fergusson rapped at the door of the hut, and walked in. An elderly +batman appeared. + +"I have a letter for Captain Ellesborough--an important letter--on +business," said Janet. "I was to wait for an answer. But as he isn't +here, where shall I leave it, so that he will be certain to get it?" + +"On his table, if you please, ma'am," said the soldier, opening the door +of the Captain's small sitting-room--"I'll see that he gets it." + +"It'll be quite safe?" said Janet anxiously, placing it herself in a +prominent place on the writing-table. + +"Lor, yes, ma'am. Nobody comes in here but me, when the Captain's away. +I'll tell him of it directly he comes home." + +"May I just write a little note myself? I expected to find Captain +Ellesborough in." + +The servant handed her a sheet of paper. She wrote--"I brought Rachel's +letter, and am very disappointed not to see you. Come at once. Don't +delay. Janet Leighton." + +She slipped it into an envelope, which she addressed and left beside the +other. Then she reluctantly left the hut with Mrs. Fergusson. + +"I am so sorry you didn't find him," said that lady. "Was it something +about the wedding?" she added, smiling, her feminine curiosity getting +the better of her. + +"Oh, no--not yet," said Janet, startled. + +"Well, I suppose it won't be long," laughed Mrs. Fergusson. "He's +desperately in love, you know!" + +Janet smiled in return, and Mrs. Fergusson, delighted to have the chance, +broke out into praises of her Commandant. + +"You see, we women who are doing all this new work with men, we know a +jolly deal more about them than we ever did before. I can tell you, it +searches us out, this joint life--both women and men. In this camp you +can't hide what you are--the sort of man--or the sort of woman. And +there isn't a woman in this camp, if she's been here any time, who +wouldn't trust the Captain for all she's worth--who wouldn't tell him her +love-affairs, or her debts--or march up to a machine-gun, if he told her. +In a sense, they're in love with him, because--as you've no doubt found +out, he has a way with him! But they all know that he's never been +anything to them but the best of Commandants, and a good friend. Oh, I +could never have run this camp but for him. He and I'll go together! Of +course we're shutting up very soon." + +So the pleasant Irishwoman ran on, as she walked beside Janet and her +bicycle to the top of the hill. Janet listened and smiled. Her own mind +said ditto to it all. But nevertheless, the more Ellesborough was set on +a pinnacle by this enthusiastic friend and spectator of his daily life, +the more Rachel's friend trembled for Rachel. A lover "not too bright and +good" to understand--and forgive--that was what was wanted. + +She reached the farm-gate about two o'clock, and Rachel was there, +waiting for her. But before they met, Rachel watching her approach, saw +that there was no news for her. + +"He wasn't there?" she said, drearily, as Janet reached her. + +Janet explained, and they walked up the farm lane together. + +"I would have waited if I could," she said in distress. "But it would +have looked strange. Mrs. Fergusson would have suspected something +wrong." + +"Oh no, you couldn't have waited," said Rachel, decidedly. "Well!"--she +threw her arms out in a great stretch--"it's done. In half an hour he'll +be reading the letter. It's like waiting for one's execution, isn't it? +Nothing can stop it; I may be dead before tea!" She gave a wild laugh. + +"Rachel!" + +"Well, that's how I feel. If he gives me up, it will be death--though I +dare say I shall go on fussing round the farm, and people will still talk +to me as if I were alive. But!"--she shrugged her shoulders. + +"He won't give you up--" said Janet, much troubled--"because--because +he's a good man." + +"All the more reason. If I were he, I should give me up. Shall I tell you +a queer thing, Janet? I hate Roger, as much as I can hate anybody. It +would be a great relief to me if I heard he were dead. And yet at the +same time I see--oh yes, I see quite plainly--that I treated him badly. +He told me so the other night--and it is so--it's _true_. I never had the +least patience with him. And now he's dying--at least he says so--and +though I hate him--though I pray I may never, never see him again, yet +I'm sorry for him. Isn't that strange?" + +She looked at Janet with a queer flickering defiance, which was also a +kind of remorse, in her eyes. + +"No, it isn't strange." + +"Why not?--when I hate him?" + +"One can be sorry even for those one hates. I suppose God is," Janet +added, after a pause. + +Rachel made a little face of scorn. + +"Why should God hate any one? He made us. He's responsible. He must have +known what He was doing. If He really pitied us, would He have made us at +all?" + +Janet made a little protesting sound--a sound of pain. + +"Does it give you the shivers, old woman, when I talk like that?" Rachel +slipped her hand affectionately through Janet's arm. "Well, I won't, +then. But if--" she caught her breath a little--"if George casts me off, +don't expect me to sing psalms and take it piously. I don't know myself +just lately--I seem quite strange to myself." + +And Janet, glancing at her sideways, wondered indeed where all that +rosy-cheeked, ripe bloom had gone, which so far had made the constant +charm of Rachel Henderson. Instead a bloodless face, with pinched lines, +and heavy-lidded eyes! What a formidable thing was this "love," that she +herself had never known, though she had had her quiet dreams of husband +and children, like her fellows. + +Rachel, however, would not let herself be talked with or pitied. She +walked resolutely to the house, and went off to the fields to watch +Halsey cutting and trimming a hedge. + +"If he doesn't come before dark," she said, under her breath, to Janet, +before setting off--"it will be finished. If he does--" + +She hurried away without finishing the sentence, and was presently taking +a lesson from old Halsey, in what is fast becoming one of the rarest of +the rural arts. But in little more than half an hour, Janet bringing in +the cows, saw her return and go into the house. The afternoon was still +lovely--the sky, a pale gold, with thin bars of grey cloud lying across +it, and the woods, all delicate shades of brown and purple, with their +topmost branches clear against the gold. The old red walls and tiled +roofs of the farm, the fields, the great hay and straw stacks, were all +drenched in the soft winter light. + +Rachel went up to her room, and sat down before the bare deal +dressing-table which held her looking-glass, and the very few articles of +personal luxury she possessed; a pair of silver-backed brushes and a +hand-glass that had belonged to an aunt, a small leather case in which +she kept some modest trinkets--a pearl brooch, a bracelet or two, and a +locket that had been her mother's--and, standing on either side of the +glass, two photographs of her father and mother. + +There was a clock on the mantelpiece. "Nearly four o'clock--" she +thought--"I'll give it an hour. He'd send--if he couldn't come, and he +wanted to come--but if nothing happens--I shall know what to think." + +As this passed through her mind, she opened one of the drawers of the +dressing-table, in which she kept her gloves and handkerchiefs. Suddenly +she perceived at the back of the drawer a small leathern case. The colour +rushed into her face. She took it out and ran quickly down the stairs to +the kitchen. Janet and the girls were busy milking. The coast was clear. + +A bright fire which Janet had just made up was burning in the kitchen. +Rachel went up to it and thrust the leathern case into the red core of +it. Some crackling--a disagreeable smell--and the little thing had soon +vanished. Rachel went slowly upstairs again, and locked the door of her +room behind her. The drawer of the dressing-table was still open, and +there was visible in it the object she was really in search of, when the +little leathern case caught her eye--a small cloth-bound book marked +"Diary." + +She took it out, and sat with it in her hand, thinking. How was it she +had never yet destroyed that case? The Greek cameo brooch it held--Dick +Tanner's gift to her--how vividly she recalled her first evening alone at +the farm, when she had dropped it into the old well, and had listened to +the splash of it in the summer silence. She remembered thinking vaguely, +and no doubt foolishly, that the cameo would drop more heavily and more +certainly without the case, which was wood, though covered with leather, +and she had therefore taken the brooch out, and had probably put back the +case absently into her pocket. And thence it had found its way back among +her things, how she did not know. + +The little adventure had excited and unnerved her. It seemed somehow of +evil omen that she should have come across that particular thing at this +moment. Opening the diary with a rather trembling hand, she looked +through it. She was not orderly or systematic enough to keep a diary +regularly, and it only contained a few entries, at long intervals, +relating mostly to her married life--and to the death of her child. She +glanced through them with that strange sense of unreality--of standing +already outside her life, of which she had spoken to Janet. There were +some blank pages at the end of the book; and, in her restlessness, just +to pass the time and to find some outlet for the storm of feeling within, +she began to write, at first slowly, and then very rapidly. + +"He must have got my letter by now. I sent it by Janet this morning. He +wasn't there--but by now he must have got home--he is probably reading +it at this moment. Whatever happens to me--I want just to say this--to +write it down now, while I can--I shall never blame George, and I shall +always love him--with all my heart, with all my soul. He has the right to +say he can't trust me--I told him so in my letter this morning--that I am +not fit to be his wife. He has the right--and very likely he will say it. +The terrible thing is that I don't trust myself. If I look forward and +ask myself--shall I always feel as I do now?--I can't honestly be sure. +There is something in me that wants change--always something new--some +fresh experience. I can't even imagine the time when I shouldn't love +George. The mere thought of losing him is awful--unspeakable. But yet--I +will write it down frankly!--nothing has ever lasted with me very long. +It is like the farm. I used to love every minute of the day, every bit of +the work, however dull and dirty it was; and now--I love it still--but I +seem already--sometimes--to be looking forward to the day when I shall be +tired of it. + +"Why am I made like that? I don't know. But I can't feel that I am +responsible. + +"Perhaps if George forgives me, I shall be so happy that everything will +change--my own character first of all. That is my hope. For though I +suppose I am vain--though I like people to admire me and make much of +me--I am not really in love with myself at all. If I were, I couldn't be +in love with George--we are so different. + +"I don't feel yet that I know him. Perhaps now I never shall. I often +find myself wishing that he had something to confess to me. I would +hardly let him--he should never humble himself to me. But to feel that I +_could_ forgive him something, and that he would owe me something--would +be very sweet, very heavenly. I would make it so easy for him. Is he +feeling like that towards me? 'Poor child--she was very young--and so +miserable!' + +"I mustn't write like this--it makes me cry. There is a beautiful yellow +sunset outside, and the world seems very still. He must be here soon--or +a messenger. Janet asked him not to wait. + +"After all, I don't think I am so changeable. I have just been running +myself down--but I don't really believe I could ever change--towards him. +Oh, George!--George!--my George!--come to me!--don't give me up. George, +darling, you could do anything with me you liked--don't despair of me! +In the Gospel, it was the bad women who were forgiven because they loved +'much.' Now I understand why. Because love makes new. It is so terribly +_strong_. It is either a poison--or life--immortal life. I have never +been able to believe in the things Janet believes in. But I think I do +now believe in immortality--in something within you that can't die--when +once it has begun to live." + + * * * * * + +And then she laid her pencil down--and sat with the book on her +knee--looking towards the gold and grey of the sky--the tears running +quietly down her cheeks. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, Hastings had come hurriedly into the shippen, where Janet and +the two girls were milking. He came to stand beside her, silent, but +fidgeting so, that she presently looked up in astonishment. + +"Did you want me?" + +"I wanted to tell you something," he said in a low voice, stooping over +her--"Don't let the girls hear. But that man's been seen again. The +tramp." + +Janet started. She jumped up, asked Betty, who had finished, to take her +place, and went with Hastings out of the barn. + +"There are two or three people think they've seen him lately," he said +hurriedly. "A man from Dobson's farm"--(the farm which lay between +Great End and the village)--"who was on the hill yesterday evening, just +before dark, was certain he saw somebody hanging about the back of the +farm in a queer way--" + +"Last night?" echoed Janet. + +"Yes. And there are two people who remember meeting a man on the X--road +who said he was going to Walton End. And the police have been inquiring, +but nobody at Walton End knows anything about such a man. However, they +have a description of him at last. A tall, dark fellow--gentlemanly +manners--seems delicate. I don't like the look of it, Miss Janet. Seems +to me as though it weren't just a tramp, hanging about for what he can +steal. Do you know of anybody who has a down on Miss Henderson--who'd +like to frighten her, or put blackmail on her?" + +Janet considered. She was tempted to take the faithful fellow to some +extent into her confidence, but she rapidly decided against it. She +suggested that he should himself sleep for a few nights at the +farm, and carefully examine the neighbourhood of it, last thing; and that +she should bicycle over to Millsborough at once, and have some further +talk with the Superintendent of Police there. + +"Besides--I'd like to be out of the way," she thought. "They won't want +anybody hanging round!" + +For there was steadily growing up in her a blissful confidence that all +would be once more settled and settled for good, before the night fell. +Spectators were entirely out of place! Nor would she disturb Rachel's +mind by any talk just then of what seemed to be a fresh attempt at +terrorism on the part of her wretched husband. Hastings would be in +charge for the moment, and Ellesborough would be on the spot for +consultation before darkness had really set in. + +So as before, she told Hastings not to alarm Miss Henderson. But he was +not to leave the farm-buildings, and possibly the Superintendent of +Police would return with her. "And then--either Rachel or the Captain +will have to tell the police the truth!" Just as she was starting, Rachel +came downstairs in some surprise. + +"Where are you off to?" + +"I have forgotten something I wanted from Millsborough. I shall be back +in an hour or so." + +Rachel abstractedly nodded assent. The golden light from the west +transfigured her, as she stood in the doorway. She was pale, but it +seemed to Janet that she was no longer excited--that there was in her +too something of the confidence which had sprung up in the heart of her +friend. She had the look of one for whom the Valley of the Shadow is +past, and her beauty had never struck Janet as it struck her at that +moment. Its grosser elements seemed all refined away. The girlish look +was quite gone; she seemed older and graver; but there breathed about +her "a diviner air." + +Janet, who was much the shorter, mounted on the step to kiss her. +Caresses were not at all common between them, but Rachel returned it, and +their eyes met in a quiet look which said what her lips forbore. Then +Janet departed, and Rachel waved to her as she passed through the gate. + +Hastings crossed the yard, and Rachel called to him. + +"Are you off soon?" + +"No, Miss. I shall sleep over the stable. That horse wants looking +after." + +Rachel acquiesced, with a vague feeling of satisfaction, and Hastings +disappeared within the stable opposite. + +She went back into the sitting-room, which was still flooded with the +last reflections from the western sky beyond the fields, though the light +was fading rapidly, and the stars were coming out. What a strange effect +it was--she suddenly noticed it afresh--that of the two large windows +exactly facing each other in so small a room! One had an odd sense of +being indoors and out, at the same time; the down on one side, the +farm-yard on the other, and in the midst, the fire, the table and chairs, +the pictures, and the red carpet, seemed all parts of the same scene. + +She made up the fire. She brought in a few Xmas roses, from a border +under the kitchen window, and arranged them in a glass on the table. It +was then time to draw the blinds. But she could not make up her mind to +shut out the saffron sky, or the view of the road. + +Something in the distance!--an approaching figure, and the noise of a +motor-bicycle. She caught at a chair a moment, as though to steady +herself; and then she went to the window, and stood there watching. He +saw her quite plainly in the level light, and leaving his bicycle at the +gate, he came towards her. There was no one in the yard, and before he +entered he stood a moment, bare-headed, gazing at her, as she stood +framed in the window. Everything that she wished to know was written in +his face. A little sob broke the silence of the sitting-room. + +Then he opened the doors and closed them behind him. Without a word she +seemed to glide over the room towards him; and now, she was on his +breast, gathered close against the man's passionately beating heart. +Neither spoke--neither was able to speak. + +Then--suddenly--a crash of breaking glass--a shot. The woman he was +holding fell from Ellesborough's arms; he only just caught her. Another +shot--which grazed his own coat. + +"Rachel!" + +It was a cry of horror. Her eyes were closing. But she still smiled at +him, as he laid her on the floor, imploring her to speak. There was a +stain of blood on the lips, and through them came a few shuddering +gasps. + +Hastings rushed into the room-- + +"Good God, Sir!" + +"A doctor!--Go for a doctor!" said Ellesborough hoarsely--"No--she's +gone!" + +He sank down beside her, putting his ear to her lips. In vain. No sound +was there. The smiling mouth had settled and shut. Without a murmur or +a sigh, Rachel had passed for ever from this warm world and the arms of +her lover, at the bidding of the "fierce workman Death." + +When Janet, a doctor, and the Superintendent of Police arrived, it was +to find Ellesborough sitting motionless beside the body, while the two +girls, a blanched and shivering pair, watched for Janet at +the door. + +"Can you throw any light upon it, Sir?" said the Superintendent, +respectfully, at last, when the Doctor had finished his examination, and +still Ellesborough did not speak. + +The Captain looked up. + +"Her husband did it"--he said, quietly--"the man who was her husband." + +A shudder of surprise ran through the room. + +"Did I hear you right, Sir?" said the Superintendent. "Miss Henderson +passed for unmarried." + +"She married a man called Roger Delane in Canada," said Ellesborough, +in the same monotonous voice. "She divorced him--for cruelty and +adultery--two years ago. A few days since he waylaid her in the dark, and +threatened her. I didn't know this till she wrote to me to-day. She said +that she was afraid of him--that she thought he was mad--and I came over +at once to see how I could protect her. We were engaged to be married." + +The Superintendent drew a furtive hand across his eyes. Then he produced +his note-book, and took the evidence in order. Hastings came in from a +lantern search of the farm-buildings, the hill-side, and the nearest +fringes of wood, to report that he had found no trace of the murderer. +The news, however, had by this time spread through the village, and the +kitchen was full of persons who had hurried to the farm--Old Halsey and +John Dempsey among them--to tell what they knew, and had seen. +Ellesborough roused himself from his stupor, and came to assist the +police in the preliminary examination of witnesses and inspection of the +farm. Once he and Janet passed each other, but they did not attempt to +speak. Each indeed shrank from the other. A word of pity would have been +merely a deepened agony. + +But the farm emptied at last. A body of police had been sent out to scout +the woods, to watch the roads and the railway stations. Ellesborough and +Hastings had lifted the dead woman upon a temporary bier which had been +raised in the sitting-room. Then Hastings had drawn Ellesborough +away, and Janet, with a village mother, had rendered the last offices. + +When Ellesborough re-entered, he found a white vision, lying in a bare +room, from which all traces of ordinary living had been as far as +possible cleared away. Only the Christmas roses which Rachel had +gathered that afternoon were now on her breast. Her hands were folded +over them. Her beautiful hair lay unbound on the pillow--Janet's +trembling hands had refused to cut it. + +At sight of Ellesborough, Janet rose from her kneeling posture beside the +dead, as white and frozen almost as Rachel herself--with something in her +hand--a small book. She held it out to Ellesborough. + +"The Superintendent asked my leave to go into her room--in case there was +anything which could help them. He brought me this. She had been writing +in it--He asked me to look at it. I did--just enough to see--that no one +had any right to it--but you. She wrote it I think about an hour before +you came. It was her last word." + +"I have her letters also"--said Ellesborough, almost inaudibly, as he +took the book--"You brought it--you kind woman! You were her good +angel--God reward you!" + +Then at last a convulsion of weeping showed in Janet's face. She laid her +hand in his, and went noiselessly away. + +Ellesborough sat beside his dead love all night. The farm was peaceful +again after that rush of the Furies through it, which had left this wreck +behind. Rachel's diary and letter lay before him. They were as her still +living voice in his ears, and as the words sank into memory they pierced +through all the rigidities of a noble nature, rending and kneading as +they went. He recalled his own solitary hour of bitterness after her +letter reached him. The story it contained had gone very hard with him, +though never for one moment had he even in thought forsaken her. There +was some comfort in that. But the memory which upheld him, which +alone kept him from despair, was the memory of her face at the window, +the sense still lingering in his own physical pulses of her young +clinging life in his arms, of the fluttering of her poor heart against +his breast, the exquisite happiness of her kiss--the kiss which death cut +short. + +No--he had not failed her. That was all he had to live by. And without +it, it seemed to him, he could not have endured to live. + + * * * * * + +The two girls had sobbed themselves to sleep at last. But Janet did not +sleep. Tears came naturally as the hours went by--tears and the agonized +relief of prayer to one for whom prayer was a daily need of the soul. And +in the early morning there flooded in upon her a strange consciousness of +Rachel's spirit in hers--a strange suspicion that after all the gods had +not wrought so hardly with Rachel. A few days before she had attended the +funeral in the village church, of a young wife just happily married, who +had died in three days, of virulent influenza. Never had the words of the +Anglican service pleased her so little. What mockery--what fulsome +mockery--to thank God because "it hath pleased Thee to deliver this our +sister, out of the miseries of this troublesome world." But the words +recurred to her now--mysteriously--with healing power. Had it been after +all "deliverance" for Rachel, from this "troublesome world," and the +temptations that surround those who are not strong enough for the +wrestle that Fate sets them--that a God appoints them? She had met her +lover--after fear and anguish; and had known him hers, utterly and wholly +hers, for one supreme moment. And from that height--that perfection--God +had called her. No lesser thing could ever touch her now. + +Such are the moments of religious exaltation which cheat even the +sharpest griefs of men and women. Janet would decline from her Pisgah +height only too soon; but, for the time, thoughts like these gave her the +strength to bear. + +When the house began to move again, she went down to Ellesborough. She +drew him into the kitchen--made a fire, and brought him food. Presently +she found calm enough to tell him many details of the previous days. And +the man's sound nature responded. Once he grasped her hand, and kissed +it--as though he thanked her dumbly again, for himself and Rachel. It +seemed to Janet indeed, as she sat by him, that Rachel had left her a +trust. She took it up instinctively--from this first desolate morning. +For there are women set apart for friendship--Janet was one of them--as +others are set apart for love. + + * * * * * + +And with the first break of light on the new November day, the search +parties in the hills came upon what they sought. Some one remembered the +deserted hut--and from that moment the hunt was easy. Finally in the +dripping heart of the wood the pursuers found the murderer lying face +downwards in front of the dead fire, with the revolver beside him with +which he had taken first Rachel's life, and then his own. Some sheets of +paper were scattered near him, on which he had written an incoherent and +grandiloquent confession. But of such acts there is no real explanation. +They are the product of that black seed in human nature which is born +with a man, and flowers in due time, through devious stages, into such a +deed as that which destroyed Rachel Henderson. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARVEST*** + + +******* This file should be named 13801-8.txt or 13801-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/8/0/13801 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/old/13801-8.zip b/old/13801-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef6ef5b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13801-8.zip diff --git a/old/13801.txt b/old/13801.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5c803f9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13801.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8791 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Harvest, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Harvest + +Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Release Date: October 19, 2004 [eBook #13801] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARVEST*** + + +E-text prepared by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and +the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +HARVEST + +by + +MRS. HUMPHRY WARD + +Author of _Robert Elsmere_, _Lady Rose's Daughter_, _Missing_, +_Helena_, etc. + +1920 + + + + + + + +I + + +Two old labourers came out of the lane leading to Great End Farm. Both +carried bags slung on sticks over their shoulders. One, the eldest and +tallest, was a handsome fellow, with regular features and a delicately +humorous mouth. His stoop and his slouching gait, the gray locks also, +which straggled from under his broad hat, showed him an old man--probably +very near his old-age pension. But he carried still with him a look +of youth, and he had been a splendid creature in his time. The other +was short of stature and of neck, bent besides by field work. A +broadly-built, clumsy man, with something gnome-like about him, and the +cheerful look of one whose country nerves had never known the touch of +worry or long sickness. The name of the taller man was Peter Halsey, and +Joseph Batts was his companion. + +It was a fine July evening, with a cold north wind blowing from the plain +which lay stretched to their right. Under the unclouded sun, which by its +own "sun-time" had only reached half-past four in the afternoon, though +the clock in the village church had already struck half-past five, the +air was dry and parching, and the fields all round, the road itself, and +the dusty hedges showed signs of long drought. + +"It du want rain," said Peter Halsey, looking at a crop of oats through +an open gate, "it du want rain--_bad_." + +"Aye!" said the other, "that it du. Muster Shenstone had better 'a read +the prayer for rain lasst Sunday, I'm thinkin', than all them long ones +as ee _did_ read." + +Halsey was silent a moment, his half-smiling eyes glancing from side to +side. At last he said slowly,-- + +"We du be prayin' a lot about ower sins, and Muster Shenstone is allus +preachin' about 'em. But it's the sins o' the _Garmins_ I be thinkin' of. +If it hadn't a bin for the sins o' the Garmins my Tom wouldn't ha' lost +'is right hand." + +"An' ower Jim wouldn't be goin' into them trenches next November as ever +is," put in Batts. "It's the sins o' the Garmins as ha' done _that_, an' +nothin' as you or I ha' done, Peter." + +Halsey shook his head assentingly. + +"Noa--for all that pratin', pacifist chap was sayin' lasst week. I +didn't believe a word ee said. 'Yis,' I says, 'if you want this war to +stop, I'm o' your mind,' I says, 'but when you tells me as _England_ +done it--you'm--'" + +The short man burst into a cackling laugh. + +"'You'm a liar!' Did you say that, Peter?" + +Peter fenced a little. + +"There be more ways nor one o' speakin' your mind," he said at last. "But +I stood up to un. Did you hear, Batts, as Great End Farm is let?" + +The old man turned an animated look on his companion. + +"Well, for sure!" said Batts, astonished. "An' who's the man?" + +"It's not a man. It's a woman." + +"A woman!" repeated Batts, wondering. "Well, these be funny times to live +in, when the women go ridin' astride an' hay-balin', an' steam-ploughin', +an' the Lord knows what. And now they must be takin' the farms, and +turnin' out the men. Well, for sure." + +A mild and puzzled laughter crossed the speaker's face. + +Halsey nodded. + +"An' now they've got the vote. That's the top on't! My old missis, she +talks poltiks now to me of a night. I don't mind her, now the childer be +all gone. But I'd ha' bid her mind her own business when they was yoong +an' wanted seein' to." + +"Now, what can a woman knoa about poltiks?" said Batts, still in the same +tone of pleasant rumination. "It isn't in natur. _We_ warn't given the +producin' o' the babies--we'd ha' cried out if we 'ad been!" + +A chuckle passed from one old man to the other. + +"Well, onyways the women is all in a flutter about the votin'," said +Halsey, lighting his pipe with old hands that shook. "An' there's chaps +already coomin' round lookin' out for it." + +"You bet there is!" was Batts's amused reply. "But they'll take their +toime, will the women. 'Don't you try to hustle-bustle me like you're +doin',' say my missus sharp-like to a Labour chap as coom round lasst +week, 'cos yo' won't get nothin' by it.' And she worn't no more +forthcomin' to the Conservative man when ee called." + +"Will she do what _you_ tell her, Batts?" asked Halsey, with an evident +interest in the question. + +"Oh, Lord, no!" said Batts placidly, "shan't try. But now about this +yoong woman an' Great End?--" + +"Well, I ain't heared much about her--not yet awhile. But they say as +she's nice-lookin', an' Muster Shentsone ee said as she'd been to college +somewhere, where they'd larn't her farmin'." + +Batts made a sound of contempt. + +"College!" he said, with a twitching of the broad nostrils which seemed +to spread over half his face. "_They_ can't larn yer farmin'!" + +"She's been on a farm too somewhere near Brighton, Muster Shenstone says, +since she was at college; and ee told me she do seem to be terr'ble +full o' new notions." + +"She'd better be full o' money," said the other, cuttingly. "Notions is +no good without money to 'em." + +"Aye, they're wunnerfull costly things is notions. Yo'd better by a long +way go by the folk as know. But they do say she'll be payin' good wages." + +"I dessay she will! She'll be obleeged. It's Hobson's choice, as you +might say!" said Batts, chuckling again. + +Halsey was silent, and the two old men trudged on with cheerful +countenances. Through the minds of both there ran pleasant thoughts +of the contrast between the days before the war and the days now +prevailing. Both of them could remember a wage of fifteen and sixteen +shillings a week. Then just before the war, it had risen to eighteen +shillings and a pound. And now--why the Wages Board for Brookshire had +fixed thirty-three shillings as a weekly minimum, and a nine-hours' day! +Prices were high, but they would go down some day; and wages would not go +down. The old men could not have told exactly why this confidence lay so +deep in them; but there it was, and it seemed to give a strange new +stability and even dignity to life. Their sons were fighting; and they +had the normal human affection for their sons. They wished the war to +end. But, after all, there was something to be said for the war. +They--old Peter Halsey and old Joe Batts--were more considered and more +comfortable than they would have been before the war. And it was the +consideration more even than the comfort that warmed their hearts. + +The evening grew hotter, and the way to the village seemed long. The old +men were now too tired to talk; till just as they came in sight of the +first houses, they perceived the village wagonette coming towards them. + +"There she be! I did hear as Webb wor to meet her at the station. He's +took her over once before," said old Halsey, raising his eyes for a +moment and then dropping them again. Batts did the same. The glance was +momentary. But both men had the same impression of a pleasant-faced young +woman sitting erect behind Jonathan Webb, the decrepit driver of the +wagonette, and looking straight at them as they passed her. There was a +general effect of youth and bright colour; of pale brown hair, too, +over very dark eyes. + +"Aye, she be quite nice-lookin'," said Batts, with unction, "rayther +uncommon. She minds me summat o' my missis when she wor a young 'un." +Halsey's mouth twitched a little, but though his thoughts were ironical, +he said nothing. It was generally admitted by the older people that Mrs. +Batts had been through many years the village beauty, but her fall from +that high place was now of such ancient date that it seemed foolish of +Batts to be so fond of referring to it. + +The wagonette passed on. The woman sitting in it carefully took note of +the scene around her, in a mood of mingled hope and curiosity. She was to +live in this valley without a stream, under these high chalk downs with +their hanging woods, and within a mile or so of the straggling village +she had just driven through. At last, after much wandering, she was to +find a home--a real home of her own. The word "home" had not meant +much--or much at least that was agreeable--to her, till now. Her large +but handsome mouth took a bitter fold as she thought over various past +events. + +Now they had left the village behind, and were passing through fields +that were soon to be her fields. Her keen eyes appraised the crops +standing in them. She had paid the family of her predecessor a good +price for them, but they were worth it. And just ahead, on her left, was +a wide stretch of newly-ploughed land rising towards a bluff of grassy +down-land on the horizon. The ploughed land itself had been down up to a +few months before this date; thin pasture for a few sheep, through many +generations. She thought with eagerness of the crops she was going to +make it bear, in the coming year. Wheat, or course. The wheat crops all +round the village were really magnificent. This was going to be the +resurrection year for English farming, after fifty years of "death and +damnation"--comparatively. And there would be many good years to come +after. + +Yes, Mr. Thomas Wellin, whose death had thrown the farm which she had now +taken on the market, had done well for the land. And it was not his fault +but the landlord's that the farmhouse and buildings had been allowed to +fall into such a state. Mr. Wellin had not wanted the house, since he was +only working the land temporarily in addition to his own farm half a mile +away. But the owner, Colonel Shepherd, ought to have looked after the +farmhouse and buildings better. Still, they were making her a fair +allowance for repairs. + +She was longing to know how the workmen from Millsboro had been getting +on. Hastings, the Wellins' former bailiff, now temporarily hers, had +promised to stay behind that evening to meet her at the farm. She only +meant to insist on what was absolutely necessary. Even if she had wished +for anything more, the lack of labour would have prevented it. + +The old horse jogged on, and presently from a row of limes beside the +road, a wave of fragrance, evanescent and delicious, passed over the +carriage. Miss Henderson sniffed it with delight. "But one has never +_enough_ of it!" she thought discontentedly. And then she remembered how +as a child--in far-away Sussex--she used to press her face into the +lime-blossom in her uncle's garden--passionately, greedily, trying to get +from it a greater pleasure than it would ever yield. For the more she +tried to compel it, by a kind of violence, the more it escaped her. She +used to envy the bees lying drunk among the blooms. They at least were +surfeited and satisfied. + +It struck her that there was a kind of parable in it of her whole +life--so far. + +But now there was a new world opening. The past was behind her. She drew +herself stiffly erect, conscious through every limb of youth and +strength, and filled with a multitude of vague hopes. Conscious, too, of +the three thousand pounds that Uncle Robert had so opportunely left her. +She had never realized that money could make so much difference; and she +thought gratefully of the elderly bachelor, her mother's brother, who had +unexpectedly remembered her. It had enabled her to get her year's +training, and to take this farm with a proper margin of capital. She +wished she had been able to tell Uncle Robert before he died what it +meant to her. + +They passed one or two pairs of labourers going home, then a group of +girls in overalls, then a spring cart containing four workmen behind a +ragged pony, no doubt the builder's men who had been at work on the Great +End repairs. They all looked at her curiously, and Rachel Henderson +looked back at them--steadily, without shyness. They were evidently aware +of who she was and where she was going. Some of them perhaps would soon +be in her employ. She would be settling all that in a week or two. + +Ah, there was the house. She leant forward and saw it lying under the +hill, the woods on the slope coming down to the back of it. Yes, it was +certainly a lonely situation. That was why the house, the farm lands, +too, had been so long unlet, till old Wellin, the farm's nearest +neighbour, having made a good deal of money, had rented the land from +Colonel Shepherd, to add to his own. The farm buildings, too, he had made +some use of, keeping carts and machines, and certain stores there. But +the house he had refused to have any concern with. It had remained empty +and locked up for a good many years. + +The wagonette turned into the rough road leading through the middle of a +fine field of oats to the house. The field was gaily splashed with +poppies, which ran, too, along the edges of the crop, swayed by the +evening breeze, and flaming in the level sun. Though lonesome and +neglected, the farm in July was a pleasant and picturesque object. It +stood high and the air about it blew keen and fresh. The chalk hill +curved picturesquely round it, and the friendly woods ran down behind to +keep it company. Rachel Henderson, in pursuit of that campaign she was +always now waging against a natural optimism, tried to make herself +imagine it in winter--the leafless trees, the solitary road, the treeless +pasture or arable fields, that stretched westward in front of the farm, +covered perhaps with snow; and the distant stretches of the plain. There +was not another house, not even a cottage, anywhere in sight. The +village had disappeared. She herself, in the old wagonette, seemed the +only living thing. + +No, there was a man emerging from the farm-gate, and coming to meet +her--the bailiff, George Hastings. She had only seen him once before, on +her first hurried visit, when, after getting a rough estimate from him of +the repairs necessary to the house and buildings, she had made up her +mind to take the farm, if the landlord would agree to do them. + +"Yon's Muster Hastings," said Jonathan Webb, turning on her a benevolent +and wrinkled countenance, with two bright red spots in the midst of each +weather-beaten cheek. Miss Henderson again noticed the observant +curiosity in the old man's eyes. Everybody, indeed, seemed to look at her +with the same expression. As a woman farmer she was no doubt just a +freak, a sport, in the eyes of the village. Well, she prophesied they +would take her seriously before long. + +"I'm afraid I haven't as much to show you, miss, as I'd like," said +Hastings, as he helped her to alight. "It's cruel work nowadays trying to +do anything of this kind. Two of the men that began work last week have +been called up, and there's another been just 'ticed away from me this +week. The wages that some people about will give are just mad!" He threw +up his hands. "Colonel Shepherd says he can't compete." + +Miss Henderson replied civilly but decidedly that somehow or other the +work would have to be done. If Colonel Shepherd couldn't find the wages, +she must pay the difference. Get in some time, during August, she must. + +The bailiff looked at her with a little sluggish surprise. He was not +used to being hustled, still less to persons who were ready to pay rather +than be kept waiting. He murmured that he dared say it would be all +right, and she must come and look. + +They turned to the right up a stony pitch, through a dilapidated gate, +and so into the quadrangle of the farm. To the left was a long row of +open cow-sheds, then cow-houses and barns, the stables, a large shed in +which stood an old and broken farm cart, and finally the house, fronting +the barns. + +The house was little more than a large cottage built in the shabbiest way +forty years ago, and of far less dignity than the fine old barn on which +it looked. It abutted at one end on the cart-shed, and between it and the +line of cow-sheds was the gate into the farmyard. + +Miss Henderson stepped up to the house and looked at it. + +"It is a poor place!" she said discontentedly; "and those men don't seem +to have done much to it yet." + +Hastings admitted it. But they had done a little, he said, shamefacedly, +and he unlocked the door. Miss Henderson lingered outside a moment. + +"I never noticed," she said, "that the living room goes right through. +What draughts there'll be in the winter!" + +For as she stood looking into the curtainless window that fronted the +farm-yard, she saw through it a further window at the back of the room, +and beyond that a tree. Both windows were large and seemed to take up +most of the wall on either side of the small room. The effect was +peculiarly comfortless, as though no one living in the room could +possibly enjoy any shred of privacy. There were no cosy corners in it +anywhere, and Miss Henderson's fancy imagined rows of faces looking in. + +Inside a little papering and whitewashing had been done, but certainly +the place looked remarkably unviting. A narrow passage ran from front +to back, on one side of which was the living room with the two windows, +while on the other were the kitchen and scullery. Upstairs there were two +good-sized bedrooms with a small third room in a lean-to at the back, the +lower part of which was occupied by a wash-house. Through the windows +could be seen a neglected bit of garden, and an untidy orchard. + +But when she had wandered about the rooms a little, Rachel Henderson's +naturally buoyant temperament reasserted itself. She had brought some +bright patterns of distemper with her which she gave to Hastings with +precise instructions. She had visions of casement curtains to hide the +nakedness of the big windows with warm serge curtains to draw over them +in the winter. The floors must be stained. There should be a deep +Indian-red drugget in the sitting-room, with pigeon-blue walls, and she +thought complacently of the bits of old furniture she had been +collecting, which were stored in a friend's flat in town. An old dresser, +a grandfather's clock, some bits of brass, two arm-chairs, an old oak +table--it would all look very nice when it was done, and would cost +little. Then the bedrooms. She had brought with her some rolls of flowery +paper. She ran to fetch them from the wagonette, and pinned some pieces +against the wall. The larger room with the south aspect should be +Janet's. She would take the north room for herself. She saw them both in +her mind's eye already comfortably furnished; above all fresh and bright. +There should be no dirt or dinginess in the house, if she could help it. +In the country whitewash and distemper are cheap. + +Then Hastings followed her about through the farm buildings, where her +quick eye, trained in modern ways, perceived a number of small +improvements to be made that he would never have noticed. She was always +ready, he saw, to spend money on things that would save labour or lessen +dirt. But she was not extravagant, and looking through the list of her +directions and commissions, as he hastily jotted them down, he admitted +to himself that she seemed to know what she was about. And being an +honest man himself, and good-tempered, though rather shy and dull, he +presently recognized the same qualities of honesty and good temper in +her; and took to her. Insensibly their tone to each other grew friendly. +Though he was temporarily in the landlord's employ, he had been for some +years in the service of the Wellin family. Half-consciously he contrasted +Miss Henderson's manner to him with theirs. In his own view he had been +worse treated than an ordinary farm labourer throughout his farming life, +though he had more education, and was expected naturally to have more +brains and foresight than the labourer. He was a little better paid; but +his work and that of his wife was never done. He had got little credit +for success and all the blame for failure. And the Wellin women-folk had +looked down on his wife and himself. A little patronage sometimes, and +worthless gifts, that burnt in the taking; but no common feeling, no real +respect. But Miss Henderson was different. His rather downtrodden +personality felt a stimulus. He began to hope that when she came into +possession she would take him on. A woman could not possibly make +anything of Great End without a bailiff! + +Her "nice" looks, no doubt, counted for something. Her face was, perhaps, +a little too full for beauty--the delicately coloured cheeks and the +large smiling mouth. But her brown eyes were very fine, with very dark +pupils, and marked eyebrows; and her nose and chin, with their soft, +blunted lines, seemed to promise laughter and easy ways. She was very +lightly and roundly made; and everything about her, her step, her +sunburn, her freckles, her evident muscular strength, spoke of open-air +life and physical exercise. Yet, for all this general aspect of a comely +country-woman, there was much that was sharply sensitive and individual +in the face. Even a stranger might well feel that its tragic, as well as +its humorous or tender possibilities, would have to be reckoned with. + +"All right!" said Miss Henderson at last, closing her little notebook +with a snap, "now I think we've been through everything. I'll take +over one cart, and Mrs. Wellin must remove the other. I'll buy the +chaff-cutter and the dairy things, but not the reaping machine--" + +"I'm afraid that'll put Mrs. Wellin out considerably!" threw in Hastings. + +"Can't help it. I can't have the place cluttered up with old iron like +that. It's worth nothing. I'm sure _you_ wouldn't advise me to buy it!" + +She looked with bright decision at her companion, who smiled a little +awkwardly, and said nothing. The old long habit of considering the Wellin +interest first, before any other in the world, held him still, though he +was no longer their servant. + +Miss Henderson moved back towards the house. + +"And you'll hurry these men up?--as much as you can? They _are_ +slow-coaches! I must get in the week after next. Miss Leighton and I +intend to come, whatever happens." + +Hastings understood that "Miss Leighton" was to be Miss Henderson's +partner in the farm, specially to look after the dairy work. Miss +Henderson seemed to think a lot of her. + +"And you must please engage those two men you spoke of. Neither of them, +you say, under sixty! Well, there's no picking and choosing now. If they +were eighty I should have to take them! till the harvest's got in. There +are two girls coming from the Land Army, and you've clinched that other +girl from the village?" + +Hastings nodded. + +"Well, I dare say we shall get the harvest in somehow," she said, +standing at the gate, and looking over the fields. "Miss Leighton and I +mean to put our backs into it. But Miss Leighton isn't as strong as I +am." + +Her eyes wandered thoughtfully over the wheat-field, ablaze under the +level gold of the sun. Then she suddenly smiled. + +"I expect you think it a queer business, Mr. Hastings, women taking to +farming?" + +"Well, it's new, you see, Miss Henderson." + +"I believe it's going to be very common. Why shouldn't the women do it!" +She frowned a little. + +"Oh, no reason at all," said Hastings hurriedly, thinking he had offended +her. "I've nothing against it myself. And there won't be men enough to go +round, after the war." + +She looked at him sharply. + +"You've got a son in the war?" + +"Two, and one's been killed." + +"Last year?" + +"No, last month." + +Miss Henderson said nothing, but her look was full of softness. "He was +to have been allowed home directly," Hastings went on, "for two or three +months. He was head woodman before the war on Lord Radley's property." He +pointed to the wooded slopes of the hill. "And they were to have given +him leave to see to the cutting of these woods." + +"These woods!" Miss Henderson turned a startled face upon him. "You don't +mean to say they're coming down!" + +"Half of them commandeered," said Hastings, with a shrug. "The Government +valuers have been all over them these last weeks. They're splendid +timber, you know. There's been a timber camp the other side of the hills +a long while. They've got Canadians, and no doubt they'll move on here." + +Miss Henderson made another quick movement. She said nothing, however. +She was staring at the woods, which shone in the glow now steadily +creeping up the hill, and Hastings thought she was protesting from the +scenery point of view. + +"Well, the Government must have the wood," he said, with resignation. +"We've got to win the war. But it does seem a pity." + +"I don't know that I should have taken the farm," she said, under her +breath-- + +"If you had known? I wish I'd thought to tell you. But it was really only +settled a few days ago." + +"I don't like having a lot of strange men about the farm," she said +abruptly, "especially when I have girls to look after." + +"Oh, the camp's a long way from the farm," he said consolingly. "And +these woods will come last." + +Still Miss Henderson's face did not quite recover its cheerfulness. She +looked at her watch. + +"Don't let me keep you, Mr. Hastings. I'll lock up the house, if you'll +tell me where to leave the key." + +He showed her where to put it, in a corner of the stable, for him to find +on the morrow. Then, in her rapid way, Miss Henderson offered him the +post of bailiff on the farm, from the date of her entry. He agreed at +once; his salary was settled, and he departed with a more cheerful aspect +than when he arrived. The hopefulness and spring of youth had long since +left him, and he had dreaded the new experience of this first meeting +with a woman-farmer, from whom he desired employment simply because he +was very badly off, he was getting old, and Mr. Wellin's widow had +treated him shabbily. He had lost his nerve for new ventures. But Miss +Henderson had made things easy. She had struck him as considerate and +sensible--a "good sort." He would do his best for her. + +Rachel Henderson, left to herself, did not immediately re-enter the +house. She went with a face on which the cloud still rested to look at +the well which was to be found under the cart-shed, at the eastern end of +the house. + +It was covered with a wooden lid which she removed. Under the shed roof +there was but little light left. A faint gleam showed the level of the +water, which, owing to the long drought, was very low. Hastings had told +her that the well was extremely deep---150 feet at least, and +inexhaustible. The water was chalky but good. It would have to be pumped +up every morning for the supply of the house and stables. + +The well had a brick margin. Rachel sat down upon it, her eyes upon that +distant gleam below. The dusk was fast possessing itself of all the farm, +and an evening wind was gustily blowing through the cart-shed, playing +with some old guano sacks that had been left there, and whistling round +the corners of the house. Outside, Rachel could hear the horse fidgeting, +and old Jonathan coughing--no doubt as a signal to her that she had kept +him long enough. + +Still, she sat bent together on the margin of the well. Then she drew off +her glove, and felt for something in the leather bag she carried on her +wrist. She took it out, and the small object sparkled a little as she +held it poised for a moment--as though considering. Then with a rapid +movement, she bent over the well, and dropped it into the water. There +was a slight splash. + +Rachel Henderson raised herself and stood up. + +"That's done with!" she said to herself, with a straightening of all her +young frame. + +Yet all the way back to London she was tormented by thoughts of what she +had declared was "done with"; of scenes and persons, that is, which she +was determined to forget, and had just formally renounced for ever by her +symbolic action at the well. + + + + +II + + +"You do seem to have hit on a rather nice spot, Rachel, though lonesome," +said Miss Henderson's friend and partner, Janet Leighton, as they stood +on the front steps of Great End Farm, surveying the scene outside, on an +August evening, about a week after she and Rachel had arrived with their +furniture and personal belongings to take possession of the farm. + +During that week they had both worked hard--from dawn till dark, both +outside and in. The harvest was in full swing, and as the dusk was +filling, Janet Leighton, who had just returned herself from the fields, +could watch the scene going on in the wheat-field beyond the farm-yard, +where, as the reaping machine steadily pared away the remaining square of +wheat, two or three men and boys with guns lay in wait outside the square +for the rabbits as they bolted from their fast lessening shelter. The +gold and glow of harvest was on the fields and in the air. At last the +sun had come back to a sodden land, after weeks of cold and drenching +showers which, welcomed in June, had by the middle of August made all +England tremble for the final fate of the gorgeous crops then filling the +largest area ever tilled on British soil with their fat promise. Wheat, +oats, and barley stood once more erect, roots were saved, and the young +vicar of Ipscombe was reflecting as he walked towards Great End Farm that +his harvest festival sermon might now after all be rather easier to write +than had seemed probable during the foregoing anxious weeks of chill and +storm. + +Rachel Henderson, who had thrown herself--tired out--into a chair in the +sitting-room window, which was wide open, nodded as she caught her +friend's remark and smiled. But she did not want to talk. She was in that +state of physical fatigue when mere rest is a positive delight. The sun, +the warm air, the busy harvest scene, and all the long hours of hard but +pleasant work seemed to be still somehow in her pulses, thrilling through +her blood. It was long since she had known the acute physical pleasure of +such a day; but her sense of it had conjured up involuntarily +recollections of many similar days in a distant scene--great golden +spaces, blinding sun, and huge reaping machines, twice the size of that +at work in the field yonder. The recollections were unwelcome. Thought +was unwelcome. She wanted only food and sleep--deep sleep--renewing +her tired muscles, till the delicious early morning came round again, and +she was once more in the fields directing her team of workers. + +"Why, there's the vicar!" said Janet Leighton, perceiving the tall and +willowy figure of Mr. Shenstone, as its owner stopped to speak to one of +the boys with the guns who were watching the game. + +Rachel looked round with a look of annoyance. + +"Oh, dear, what a bore," she said wearily. "I suppose I must go and tidy +up. Nobody ought to be allowed to pay visits after five o'clock." + +"You asked him something about a village woman to help, didn't you?" + +"I did, worse luck!" sighed Rachel, gathering up her sunbonnet and +disappearing from the window. Janet heard her go upstairs, and a hasty +opening of cupboards overhead. She herself had come back an hour earlier +from the fields than Rachel in order to get supper ready, and had slipped +a skirt over the khaki tunic and knickerbockers which were her dress--and +her partner's--when at work on the farm. She wondered mischievously what +Rachel would put on. That her character included an average dose of +vanity, the natural vanity of a handsome woman, Rachel's new friend was +well aware. But Janet, Rachel's elder by five years, was only tenderly +amused by it. All Rachel's foibles, as far as she knew them, were +pleasant to her. They were in that early stage of a new friendship when +all is glamour. + +Yet Janet did sometimes reflect, "How little I really know about her. She +is a darling--but a mystery!" + +They had met at college, taken their farm training together, and fallen +in love with each other. Janet had scarcely a relation in the world. +Rachel possessed, it seemed, a brother in Canada, another in South +Africa, and some cousins whom she scarcely knew, children of the uncle +who had left her three thousand pounds. Each had been attracted by the +loneliness of the other, and on leaving college nothing was more natural +than they should agree to set up together. Rachel, as the capitalist, was +to choose the farm and take command. Janet went to a Cheshire dairy farm +for a time to get some further training in practical work; and she was +now responsible for the dairy at Great End, with the housekeeping and the +poultry thrown in. She was a thin, tall woman with spectacles, and had +just seen her thirty-second birthday. Her eyes were honest and clear, her +mouth humorous. She never grudged other women their beauty or their +success. It always seemed to her she had what she deserved. + +Meanwhile the vicar approached, and Miss Leighton descended the steps and +went to meet him at the gate. His aspect showed him apologetic. + +"I have come at an unearthly hour, Miss Leighton. But I thought I should +have no chance of finding Miss Henderson free till the evening, and I +came to tell you that I think I have found a woman to do your work." + +Janet bade him come in, and assured him that Rachel would soon be +visible. She ushered him into the sitting-room, which he entered on a +note of wonderment. + +"How nice you have made it all," he said, looking round him. "When I +think what a deserted hole this has been for years. You know, the village +people firmly believe it is haunted? Old Wellin never could get anybody +to sleep here. But tramps often used it, I'm certain. They got in through +the windows. Hastings told me he had several times found a smouldering +fire in the kitchen." + +"What sort is the ghost?" Janet inquired, as she pointed him to a chair, +devoutly hoping that Rachel would hurry herself. + +"Well, there's a story--but I wonder whether I ought to tell you--" + +"I assure you as to ghosts--I have no nerves!" said Janet with a +confident laugh, "and I don't think Rachel has either. We are more +frightened of rats. This farm-yard contains the biggest I've ever seen. +I dream of them at night." + +"It's not exactly the ghost--" said the vicar, hesitating. + +"But the story that produced the ghost? What--a murder?" + +"Half a century ago," said the vicar reassuringly; "you won't mind that?" + +"Not the least. A century ago would be romantic. If it was just the other +day, we should feel we ought to have got the farm cheaper. But half a +century doesn't matter. It's a mid-Victorian, just a plain, old-fashioned +murder. Who did it?" + +The vicar opened his eyes a little. Miss Leighton was, he saw, a lady, +and perhaps clever. Her spectacles looked like it. No doubt she had been +at Oxford or Cambridge before going to Swanley? These educated women in +new professions were becoming a very pressing and common fact! As to the +murder, he explained that it had been just an ordinary poaching affair. +An old gamekeeper on the Shepherd estate had been attacked by a gang of +poachers in the winter of 1866. He had been shot in one of the woods, and +though mortally wounded had been able to drag himself to the outskirts of +the farm where his strength had failed him. He was found dead under the +cart-shed which backed on the stables, and the traces of blood on the +hill marked the stages of his struggle for life. Two men were suspected, +one of them a labourer on the Great End Farm; but there was no evidence. +The suspected labourer had gone to Canada the year after the murder, and +no one knew what had happened to him. + +But having told the tale the vicar was again seized with compunction. + +"I oughtn't to have told you--I really oughtn't; just on your settling +in--I hope you won't tell Miss Henderson?" + +Janet's amused reply was interrupted by Rachel's entrance. The vicar +arose with eagerness to receive her. He was evidently attracted by his +new parishioners and anxious to make a good impression on them. Miss +Henderson's reception of the vicar, however, was far more guarded. The +easy friendliness of manner which had attracted the bailiff Hastings was, +at first at any rate, entirely absent. Her attitude was almost that of a +woman defending herself against possible intrusion, and Janet Leighton, +looking on, and occasionally sharing in the conversation, was surprised +by it, as indeed she was by so many things concerning Rachel now that +their acquaintance was deepening; surprised also, as though it were a new +thing, by her friend's good looks as she sat languidly chatting with the +vicar. Rachel had merely put on a blue overall above her land-worker's +dress. But her beautiful head, with its wealth of brown hair, and her +face, with its sensuous fulness of cheek and lip, its rounded lines, and +lovely colour--like a slightly overblown rose--were greatly set off by +the simple folds of blue linen; and her feet and legs, shapely but not +small, in their khaki stockings and shoes, completed the general effect +of lissom youth. The flush and heat of hard bodily work had passed away. +She had had time to plunge her face into cold water and smooth her hair. +But the atmosphere of the harvest field, its ripeness and glow, seemed to +be still about her. A classically minded man might have thought of some +nymph in the train of Demeter, might have fancied a horn of plenty, or a +bow, slung from the sunburnt neck. + +But the vicar had forgotten his classics. _En revanche_, however, he was +doing his best to show himself sympathetic and up-to-date with regard to +women and their new spheres of work--especially on the land. He had +noticed three girls, he said, working in the harvest field. Two of them +he recognized as from the village; the third he supposed was a stranger? + +"She comes from Ralstone," said Rachel. + +"Ah, that's the village where the new timber camp is. You really must see +that camp, Miss Henderson." + +"I hate to think of the woods coming down," she said, frowning a little. + +"We all do. But that's the war. It can't be helped, alack! But it's +wonderful to see the women at work, measuring and checking, doing the +brain work, in fact, while the men do the felling and loading. It makes +one envious." + +The vicar sighed. A flush appeared on his young but slightly cadaverous +face. + +"Of the men--or the women?" + +"Oh, their work, I mean. They're doing something for the war. I've done +my best. But the Bishop won't hear of it." + +And he rather emphatically explained how he had applied in vain for an +army chaplaincy. Health and the shortage of clergy had been against him. +"I suppose there must be some left at home," he said with a shrug, "and +the doctors seem to have a down on me." + +Janet was quite sorry for the young man--he was so eagerly apologetic, so +anxious to propitiate what he imagined ought to be their feelings about +him. And Rachel all the time sat so silent and unresponsive. + +Miss Leighton drew the conversation back to the timber camp; she would +like to go and see it, she said. Every one knew the Canadians were +wonderful lumbermen. + +The Vicar's eyes had travelled back to Rachel. + +"Were you ever in Canada, Miss Henderson?" The question was evidently +thrown out nervously at a venture, just to evoke a word or a smile from +the new mistress of the farm. + +Rachel Henderson frowned slightly before replying. + +"Yes, I have been in Canada." + +"You have? Oh, then, you know all about it." + +"I know nothing about Canadian lumbering." + +"You were on the prairies?" + +"I lived some time on a prairie farm." + +"Everything here must seem very small to you," said the vicar +sympathetically. But this amiable tone fell flat. Miss Henderson still +sat silent. The vicar began to feel matters awkward and took his hat from +the floor. + +"I trust you will call upon me for any help I can possibly be to you," he +said, turning to Janet Leighton. "I should be delighted to help in the +harvest if you want it. I have a pair of hands anyway, as you see!" He +held them out. + +He expatiated a little more on his disappointment as to the front. Janet +threw in a few civil words. Rachel Henderson had moved to the window, and +was apparently looking at the farm-girls carrying straw across the yard. + +"Good-night, Miss Henderson," said the young man at last, conscious of +rebuff, but irrepressibly effusive and friendly all the time. "I hope you +will let your Ralstone girl come sometimes to the clubroom my sister and +I have in the village? We feel young people ought to be amused, +especially when they work hard." + +"Thank you, but it's so far away. We don't like them to be out late." + +"Certainly not. But in the long evenings--don't you know?" The vicar +smiled persuasively. "However, there it is--whenever she comes she will +be welcome. And then, as to your seat in church. There is a pew that has +always belonged to the farm. It is about half-way up." + +"We don't go to church," said Rachel, facing him. "At least, I don't." +She looked at her companion. + +"And I can't be counted on," said Janet, smiling. + +The vicar flushed a little. + +"Then you're not Church of England?" + +"I am," said Rachel indifferently; "at least I'm not anything else. Miss +Leighton is a Unitarian." Then her eyes lit up with a touch of fun, and +for the first time she smiled. "I'm afraid you'll think us dreadful +heathens, Mr. Shenstone!" + +What the vicar did think was that he had never seen a smile transform a +face so agreeably. And having begun to smile, Rachel perversely continued +it. She walked to the gate with her visitor, talking with irrelevant +animation, inviting him to come the following day to help in the +"carrying," asking questions about the village and its people, and +graciously consenting to fix a day when she and her friend would go to +tea with Miss Shenstone at the vicarage. The young man fairly beamed +under the unexpected change, and lingered at the gate as though unable to +tear himself away; till with a little peremptory nod, though still +smiling, Rachel dismissed him. + +Janet Leighton meanwhile watched it all. She had seen Rachel treat a new +male acquaintance before as she had just treated the vicar. To begin +with, the manners of an icicle; then a sudden thaw, just in time to save +the situation. She had come with amusement to the conclusion that, +however really indifferent or capricious, her new friend could not in the +long run resign herself to be disliked, even by a woman, and much more in +the case of a man. Was it vanity, or sex, or both? Temperament perhaps; +the modern word which covers so much. Janet remembered a little niece of +her own who in her mother's absence entertained a gentleman visitor with +great success. When asked for his name, she shook her pretty head. "Just +a man, mummy," she said, bridling. Janet Leighton suspected that similar +tales might have been told of Miss Henderson in her babyhood. + +And yet impressions recurred to her of another kind--of a sensitive, +almost fierce delicacy--a shrinking from the ugly or merely physical +facts of life, as of one who had suffered some torment in connection with +them. + +Janet's eyes followed the curly brown head as its possessor came slowly +back from the gate. She was thinking of a moment when, one evening, while +they were both still at college, they had realized their liking for each +other, and had agreed to set up in partnership. Then Rachel, springing to +her feet, with her hands behind her, and head thrown back, had said +suddenly: "I warn you, I have a story. I don't want to tell you, to tell +anybody. I shan't tell you. It's done with. I give you my word that I'm +not a bad woman. But if you don't want to be my partner on these terms, +say so!" + +And Janet had felt no difficulty whatever in becoming Rachel Henderson's +partner on these terms. Nor had she ever yet regretted it. + +The light farm cart which had been sent to the station for stores drove +up to the yard gate as Rachel left it. She turned back to receive some +parcels handed out by the "exempted" man who drove it, together with some +letters which had been found lying at the village post office. Two of the +letters were for Janet. She sent them up to the house, and went herself +towards the harvest field. + +There they stood--the rows of golden "shocks" or stooks. The "shockers" +had just finished their day's work. She could hear the footsteps of the +last batch, a cheerful chatter, while talk and laughter came softened +through the evening air. The man who had been driving the reaping machine +was doing some rough repairs to it in a far corner of the field, with a +view to the morrow, and she caught sight of her new bailiff, Hastings, +who had waited to see everybody off, disappearing towards his own +cottage, which stood on a lonely spur of the down. The light was fast +going, but the deep glow of the western sky answered the paler gold of +the new-made stubble and the ranged stooks, while between rose the dark +and splendid masses of the woods. + +Rachel stood looking at the scene, possessed by a pleasure which in her +was always an ardour. She felt nothing by halves. The pulse of life beat +in her still with an energy, a passion, that astonished herself. She was +full of eagerness for her new work and for success in it, full of +desires, too, for vague, half-seen things, things she had missed so +Far--her own fault. But somewhere in the long, hidden years, they must, +they should be waiting for her. + +The harvest was magnificent. She had paid the Wellins a high price for +the standing crops, but there was going to be a profit on her bargain. +Her mind was full of schemes, if only she could get the labour to carry +them out. Farming was now on the up-grade. She had come into it at the +very best moment, and England would never let farming go down again, +after the war, for her own safety's sake. + +_The War_! She felt towards it as to some distant force, which, so far as +she personally was concerned, was a force for good. Owing to the war, +farming was booming all over England, and she was in the boom, taking +advantage of it. Yet she was ashamed to think of the war only in that +way. She tried to tame the strange ferment in her blood, and could only +do it by reminding herself of Hastings's wounded son, whose letter he had +showed her. And then--in imagination--she began to see thousands of +others like him, in hospital beds, or lying dead in trampled fields. Her +mood softened, the tears came into her eyes. + +Suddenly--a slight whimper--a child's whimper--close beside her. She +paused in amazement, looking round her, till the whimper was renewed; and +there, almost at her feet, cradled in the fragrant hollow of a wheat +stook, she saw a tiny child--a baby about a year old, a fair, plump +thing, just waking from sleep. + +At sight of the face bending over her, the child set up a louder cry, +which was not angry, however, only forlorn. The tears welled fast into +her blue eyes. She looked piteously at Rachel. + +"Mummy, mummy!" + +"You poor little thing!" said Rachel. "Whose are you?" + +One of the village women who had been helping in the "shocking," she +supposed, had brought the child. She had noticed a little girl playing +about the reapers in the afternoon--no doubt an elder sister brought to +look after the baby. Between the mother and the sister there must have +been some confusion, and one or other would come running back directly. + +But meanwhile she took up the child, who at first resisted passionately, +fighting with all its chubby strength against the strange arms. But +Rachel seemed to have a way with her--a spell, which worked. She bent +over the little thing, soothing and cooing to her, and then finding a few +crumbs of cake in the pocket of her overall, the remains of her own lunch +in the field, she daintily fed the rosy mouth, till the sobs ceased and +the child stared upwards in a sleep wonder, her blue eyes held by the +brown ones above her. + +"Mummy!" she repeated, still whimpering slightly. + +"Mummy's coming," said Rachel tenderly. "What a duck it is!" + +And bending, she kissed the soft, downy cheek greedily, with the same +ardour she had just been throwing into her own dreams of success. + +She carried the child, now quiet and comforted, towards the house. The +warm weight upon her arms was delicious to her. Only as she neared the +gate in the now moonlit dusk, her lips quivered suddenly, and two tears +rolled down her cheeks. + +"I haven't carried a child," she thought, "since--" + +Suddenly there was a shout from the farther gate of the harvest field, +and a girl came running at top speed. It was the little one's elder +sister, and with a proper scolding, Rachel gave up her prize. + +The two land-girls had finished giving food and water to the cattle and a +special mush to new-born calves. Everything was now in order for the +night, and Janet, standing on the steps of the farm-house, rang a bell, +which meant that supper would be ready in a few minutes. The two partners +and their employees were soon gathered round the table in the kitchen, +which was also the dining-room. It was a cold meal of bacon, with +lettuce, bread and jam, some tea made on a "Tommy's cooker," and potatoes +which Janet, who was for the present housekeeper and cook, produced hot +and steaming from the hay-box to which she had consigned them after the +midday dinner. A small oil-lamp had been lit, and through the open +windows afterglow and moonrise streamed in to mingle with its light. +There was a pot of flowers on the table--purple scabious, and tall +cow-parsley, gathered from the orchard, where no one had yet had time to +cut the ragged hay beneath the trees. + +The scene was typical of a new England. Women governing--and women +serving--they were all alike making their way through new paths to new +ends. It was no household in the ordinary sense. The man was wanting. The +two elder women were bound to the two younger by a purely business tie, +which might or might not develop into something more personal. The two +land-lasses had come to supper in their tunics and breeches, while Rachel +Henderson and Janet had now both put on the coloured overalls which +disguised the masculine garb beneath, and gave them something of the +usual feminine air. Rachel's overall, indeed, was both pretty and +artistic, embroidered a little here and there, and showing a sunburnt +throat beneath the rounded chin. + +The talk turned on the day's work, the weather prospects, the vagaries of +the cows at milking time, and those horrid little pests the "harvesters," +which haunt the chalk soils. The two "hands" were clear by now that they +liked Miss Leighton the best of the two ladies, they hardly knew why. +Betty Rolfe, the younger of them, who came from Ralstone, was a taking +creature, with deep black, or rather violet, eyes, small features framed +in curly hair, and the bloom of ripe fruit. She was naturally full of +laughter and talk, and only spoilt by her discoloured and uneven teeth, +which showed the usual English neglect of such things in childhood. + +Her companion, Jenny Harberton, was a much more ordinary type, with broad +cheeks, sandy hair, and a perpetual friendly grin, which generally served +her instead of speech, at least in her employer's presence. She was a +capital milker, and a good honest child. Her people lived in the village, +and her forebears had always lived there. They were absolutely indigenous +and autochthonous--a far older Brookshire family than any of the dwellers +in the big houses about. + +Then in the midst of a loving report by Betty on the virtues and docility +of a beautiful Jersey cow who was the pride of Miss Henderson's new herd, +Janet Leighton remembered one of her letters of the evening and drew it +out of her pocket. + +"Who do you think is going to be--is already--the commandant of the +timber girls in the new camp?" + +Rachel couldn't guess. + +"You remember Mrs. Fergusson--at College?" + +Rachel raised her eyebrows. + +"The Irish lady? Perfectly." + +"Well, it's she. She writes to me to say she is quite settled, with +thirty girls, that the work is fascinating, and they all love it, and you +and I _must_ go over to see her." + +Rachel looked irresponsive. + +"It's a long way." + +"Oh, Miss," said Jenny Harberton timidly, "it's not so very far. An' it's +lovely when you get there. Father was there last week, drivin' some +officers. He says it _is_ interestin'!" + +Jenny's father, a plumber in the village, owned a humble open car which +was in perpetual request. + +"There are a hundred Canadians apparently," said Janet Leighton, looking +at her letter, "and German prisoners, quite a good few, and these thirty +girls. Mrs. Fergusson begs us to come. Sunday's no good because we +couldn't see the work, but--after the harvest? We could get there with +the pony quite well." + +Rachel said nothing. + +Janet Leighton dropped the subject for the moment, but after supper, with +her writing-desk on her knee, she returned to it. + +"Can't you go without me?" said Rachel, who was standing with her back to +the room, looking out of the window. + +"Well, I could," said Janet, feeling rather puzzled, "but I thought you +were curious to see these new kinds of work for women?" + +"So I am. It isn't the women." + +"The German prisoners, then?" laughed Janet. + +"Heavens, no!" + +"The Canadians?" asked Janet--in wonder--after a moment. Rachel turned +abruptly towards her. + +"Well, I didn't have exactly a good time in Canada," she said, as though +the admission was dragged out of her; adding immediately, "but of course +I'll go--sometime--after the harvest." + +On which she left the room, and presently Janet saw her wandering among +the stooks in the gloaming, her hands behind her back. She seemed in her +ripe and comely youth to be somehow the very spirit of the harvest. + +A little later, just before ten o'clock, while the sunset glow was still +brooding on the harvest fields, the two farm-girls, after a last visit to +the cows, slipped into the little sitting-room. Janet, who was mending +her Sunday dress, greeted them with a smile and a kind word. Then she +moved to the table and took up a New Testament that was lying there. She +was an ardent and mystically-minded Unitarian, and her mind was much set +towards religion. + +"Shall we have prayers at night?" she had said quite simply to the f +arm-girls on their arrival. "Don't if you don't want to." And they had +shyly said "yes"--not particularly attracted by the proposal, but willing +to please Miss Leighton, who was always nice to them. + +So Janet read some verses from the sixth chapter of St. John: "Verily, +verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me hath everlasting +life ... I am the Bread of Life ... I am the living Bread which came down +from Heaven ... The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they +are life." + +Closing the book, while her quiet eyes shone in the gleaming dusk, she +said a few simple things about the Words of Christ, and how the human +soul may feed on them--the Word of Love--the Word of Purity--the Word of +Service. While she was still speaking, the door opened and Rachel came +in. It had been agreed between her and Janet that although she had no +objection to the prayers, she was not to be asked to take part in them. +So that Janet's pulses fluttered a little when she appeared. But there +was no outward sign of it. The speaker finished what she had to say, +while the eyes of her three hearers were sometimes on her face and +sometimes on the wide cornfield beyond the open window, where the harvest +moon, as yet only a brilliant sickle, was rising. The Earth Bread +without--the "Bread of Life" within; even in Jenny's primitive mind, +there was a mingling of the two ideas, which brought a quiet joy. She sat +with parted lips, feeling that she liked Miss Leighton very much, and +would try to please her with the cows. + +Betty, meanwhile, beside her, passed into a waking dream. She was +thinking of a soldier in the village: the blacksmith's son, a tall, +handsome fellow, who had just arrived on leave for ten days. She had +spent Sunday evening wandering in the lanes with him. She felt +passionately that she must see him again--soon. + +The little reading passed into the Lord's Prayer. Then it was over and +the two girls disappeared to bed. Janet felt a little awkward when she +was left alone with Rachel, but she went back to her sewing and began to +talk of the day's news of the war. Rachel answered at random, and very +soon said good-night. + +But long after everybody else in the solitary farmhouse was asleep, +Rachel Henderson was sitting up in bed, broad awake, her hands round her +knees. The window beside her was open. She saw the side of the hill and +the bare down in which it ended, with the moonlight bright upon it, and +the dark woods crowning it. There were owls calling from the hill, and +every now and then a light wind rustled through the branches of an oak +that stood in the farm-yard. + +She was thinking of what Janet had said about the "Words" of Christ--the +Word of Purity--and the Word of Love. How often she had heard her +father read and expound that chapter! very differently as far as +phraseology--perhaps even as far as meaning--went, yet with all his +heart, like Janet. He was an Anglican clergyman who had done missionary +service in the Canadian West. He had been dead now three years, and her +mother five. She had bitterly missed them both when she was in her worst +need; yet now she was thankful they had died--before-- + +What would her father think of her now? Would he grant that she was free, +or would he still hold to those rigid, those cruel views of his? Oh, he +must grant it! She _was_ free! Her breast shook with the fervour of her +protest. She had been through passion and wrong, through things that +seared and defiled. She knew well that she had been no mere innocent +sufferer. Yet now she had her life before her again; and both heart and +senses were hungry for the happiness she had so abominably missed. And +her starved conscience--that, too, was eagerly awake. She had her +self-respect to recover--the past to forget. + +_Work_! that was the receipt--hard work! And this dear woman, Janet +Leighton, to help her; Janet, with her pure, modest life and her high +aims. So, at last, clinging to the thought of her new friend like a +wearied child, Rachel Henderson fell asleep. + + + + +III + + +"A jolly view!" + +Janet assented. She was sitting behind the pony, while Rachel had walked +up the hill beside the carriage, to the high point where both she and the +pony--a lethargic specimen of the race--had paused to take breath. + +They were on a ridge whence there was a broad bit of the world to see. To +the north, a plain rich in all the diversities of English land--field and +wood, hamlet and church, the rising grounds and shallow depressions, the +small enclosures and the hedgerow timber, that make all the difference +between the English midlands and, say, the plain of Champagne, or a +Russian steppe. Across the wide, many-coloured scene, great clouds from +the west were sweeping, with fringes of rain and sudden bursts of light +or shadow, which in their perpetual movement--suggesting attack from the +sky and response from the earth--gave drama and symbol to the landscape. + +On the south--things very different! First, an interlocked range of +hills, forest-clothed, stretching east and west, and, at the very feet of +the two women, a forest valley offering much that was strange to English +eyes. Two years before it had been known only to the gamekeeper and the +shooting guests of a neighbouring landowner. Now a great timber camp +filled it. The gully ran far and deep into the heart of the forest +country, with a light railway winding along the bottom, towards an unseen +road. The steep sides of the valley--Rachel and Janet stood on the edge +of one of them--were covered with felled trees, cut the preceding winter, +and left as they fell. The dead branch and leaf of the trees had turned +to a rich purple, and dyed all the inside of the long deep cup. But along +its edges stretched the forest, still untouched, and everywhere, in the +bare spaces left here and there by the felling among the "rubble and +woody wreck," green and gold mosses and delicate grasses had sprung up, +a brilliant enamel, inlaid with a multitude of wild flowers. + +"Look!" cried Rachel. + +For suddenly, down below them, a huge trunk began to move as though of +its own accord. Hissing and crashing like some gray serpent, it glided +down the hill-side, till it approached a group of figures and horses +congregated at the head of the valley, near an engine puffing smoke. Then +something invisible happened, and presently a trolley piled high with +logs detached itself from the group, and set out on a solitary journey +down the railway, watched here and there by men in queer uniforms with +patches on their backs. + +"German prisoners!" said Janet, and strained her eyes to see, thinking +all the time of a letter she had received that morning from her soldier +brother fighting with the English troops to the west of Rheims:-- + +"The beggars are on the run! Foch has got them this time. But, oh, Lord, +the sight they've made of all this beautiful country! Trampled, and +ruined, and smashed! all of it. Deliberate loot and malice everywhere, +and tales of things done in the villages that make one see red. We +captured a letter to his wife on a dead German this morning: 'Well, the +offensive is a failure, but we've done one thing--we've smashed up +another bit of France!' How are we ever going to live with this people in +the same world after the war?" + +And there below, in the heart of this remote English woodland, now being +sacrificed to the war, moved the sons of this very people, cast up here +by the tide of battle. Janet had heard that nobody spoke to them during +the work, except to give directions; after work they had their own wired +camp, and all intercourse between them and the Canadian woodmen, or the +English timber girls, was forbidden. But what were they saying among +themselves--what were they thinking--these peasants, some perhaps from +the Rhineland, or the beautiful Bavarian country, or the Prussian plains? +Janet had travelled a good deal in Germany before the war, using her +holidays as a mistress in a secondary school, and her small savings, in a +kind of wandering which had been a passion with her. She had known +Bavarians and Prussians at home. But here, in this corner of rural +England, with this veil of silence drawn between them and the nation +which at last, in this summer of 1918, was grimly certain, after four +years of vengeance and victory, what ferments were, perhaps, working in +the German mind? + +Yes, there was the German camp, and beyond it under the hill the Canadian +forestry camp; whilst just beneath them could be seen the roof of the +large women's hostel. + +Another exclamation from Rachel, as, on their left, another great tree +started for the bottom of the hollow. + +"But haven't you seen all this before?" asked Janet. + +"No, I never saw anything of lumbering." + +The tone showed the sudden cooling and reserve that were always apparent +in Rachel's manner when any subject connected with Canada came into +conversation. Yet Janet had noticed with surprise that it was Rachel +herself who, when the harvest was nearly over, had revived the subject of +the camp, and planned the drive for this Saturday afternoon. It had +seemed to Janet once or twice that she was forcing herself to do it, as +though braving some nervousness of which she was ashamed. + +The rough road on which they were driving wound gradually downward +through the felled timber. Soon they could hear the clatter of the +engine, and the hissing of the saws which seized the trees on their +landing, and cut and stripped them in a trice, ready for loading. Round +the engine and at the starting-place of the trolleys was a busy crowd: +lean and bronzed Canadians; women in leather breeches and coats, busily +measuring and marking; a team of horses showing silvery white against the +purple of the hill; and everywhere the German prisoner lads, mostly quite +young and of short stature. The pony carriage passed a group of them, and +they stared with cheerful, furtive looks at the two women. + +Then the group of timber girls below perceived the approaching visitors, +and a figure, detaching itself from the rest, came to meet the carriage. +A stately woman, black-haired, in coat and breeches like the rest, with a +felt hat, and a badge of authority, touches of green besides on the khaki +uniform. Janet recognized her at once as Mrs. Fergusson, their comrade +for a time at college, and much liked both by her and Rachel. + +She came laughing, with hands outstretched. + +"Well, here we meet again! Jolly to see you! A new scene, isn't it? Life +doesn't stand still nowadays! One of my girls will take the carriage for +you." + +A stalwart maiden unharnessed the pony and let him graze. + +Mrs. Fergusson took possession of her visitors, and walked on beside +them, describing the different stages of the work, and sections of the +workers. + +"You see those tall fellows farthest off? Those work the saws and cut up +the trees as they come down. Then the horses bring them to the rollers, +and the Canadians guide them with those hooks till the crane seizes hold +of them and lifts them on to the trolley. But before the hooks get +them--you see the girls there?--they do all the measuring; they note +everything in their books and they mark every log. All the payments of +the camp, the wages paid, the sums earned by the trolley contractor who +takes them to the station, the whole finance in fact, depends on the +_women_. I've trained scores besides and sent them out to other camps! +But now come, I must introduce you to the commandant of the camp." + +"A Canadian?" asked Janet. + +"No, an American! He comes from Maine, but he had been lumbering in +Canada, with several mills and, camps under him. So he volunteered a year +ago to bring over a large Forestry battalion--mostly the men he had been +working with in Quebec. Splendid fellows! But he's the king!" + +Then she raised her voice,-- + +"Captain Ellesborough!" + +A young man in uniform, with a slouch hat, came forward, leaping over the +logs in his path. He gave a military salute to the two visitors, and a +swift scrutinizing look to each of them. Rachel was aware of a thin, +handsome face bronzed by exposure, a pair of blue eyes, rather pale in +colour, to which the sunburn of brow and cheek gave a singular +brilliance, and a well-cut, determined mouth. The shoulders were those of +an athlete, but on the whole the figure was lightly and slenderly built, +making an impression rather of grace and elasticity than of exceptional +strength. + +"You would like to see the camp?" he said, looking at Rachel. + +"Aren't you too busy to show it?" + +"Not at all. I am not wanted just now. Let me help you over those logs." +He held out his hand. + +"Oh, thank you, I don't want any help," said Rachel a little scornfully. +He smiled in approving silence, and she followed his lead, leaping and +scrambling over the piles of wood, with a deer's sureness of foot, till +he invited her to stop and watch the timber girls at their measuring. As +the two visitors approached, land-women and forest-women eyed each other +with friendly looks, but without speech. For talk, indeed, the business +in hand was far too strenuous. The logs were coming in fast; there must +be no slip in measurement or note. The work was hard, and the women doing +it had been at it all day. But on the whole, what a comely and energetic +group, with the bright eyes, the clear skins, the animation born of open +air and exercise. + +"They can't talk to you now!" said Mrs. Fergusson in Janet's ear, amid +the din of the engines, "but they'll talk at tea. And there's a dance +to-night." + +Janet looked round the wild glen in wonder. + +"Who come?" + +"Oh, there's an Air Force camp half a mile away--an Army Service camp on +the other side. The officers come--some of them--every Saturday. We take +down the partitions in our huts. You can't think what pretty frocks the +girls put on! And we dance till midnight." + +"And you've no difficulty with the men working in the camp?" + +"You mean--how do they treat the girls?" laughed Mrs. Fergusson. "They're +_charming_ to the girls! Chivalrous, kind, everything they should be. But +then," she added proudly, "my girls are the pick--educated women all of +them. I could trust them anywhere. And Captain Ellesborough--you won't +get any mischief going on where he is." + +Meanwhile the captain, well out of earshot of Mrs. Fergusson's praise, +was explaining the organization of the camp to Rachel as they slowly +climbed the hill, on the opposite side from that by which she and Janet +had descended. + +"Which works hardest, I wonder?" she said at last, as they paused to look +down on the scene below. "We on our farm, or you here? I've never had +more than five hours' sleep through the harvest? But now things are +slacker." + +He threw his head back with a laugh. + +"Why, this seems to me like playing at lumbering! It's all so tiny--so +babyish. Oh, yes, there's plenty of work--for the moment. But it'll be +all done, in one more season; not a stick left. England can't grow a real +forest." + +"Compared to America?" + +"Well, I was thinking of Canada. Do you know Canada?" + +"A little." Then she added hastily: "But I never saw any lumbering." + +"What a pity! It's a gorgeous life. Oh, not for women. These women +here--awfully nice girls, and awfully clever too--couldn't make anything +of it in Canada. I had a couple of square miles of forest to look +after--magnificent stuff!--Douglas fir most of it--and two pulping mills, +and about two hundred men--a rough lot." + +"But you're not Canadian?" + +"Oh, Lord, no! My people live in Maine. I was at Yale. I got trained +at the forest school there, and after a bit went over the Canadian +frontier with my brother to work a big concession in Quebec. We did very +well--made a lot of money. Then came the war. My brother joined up with +the Canadian army. I stayed behind to try and settle up the business, +till the States went in, too. Then they set me and some other fellows to +raise a Forestry battalion--picked men. We went to France first, and last +winter I was sent here--to boss this little show! But I shan't stay here +long! It isn't good enough. Besides, I want to fight! They've promised me +a commission in our own army." + +He looked at her with sparkling eyes, and her face involuntarily answered +the challenge of his; so much so that his look prolonged itself. She was +wonderfully pleasant to look upon, this friend of Mrs. Fergusson's. And +she was farming on her own? A jolly plucky thing to do! He decided that +he liked her; and his talk flowed on. He was frank about himself, and +full of self-confidence; but there was a winning human note in it, and +Rachel listened eagerly, talking readily, too, whenever there was an +opening. They climbed to the top of the hill where they stood on the +northern edge of the forest, looking across the basin and the busy throng +below. He pointed out to her a timber-slide to their right, and they +watched the trees rushing down it, dragged, as he now saw plainly, by the +wire cable which was worked by the engine in the hollow. A group of +German prisoners, half-way down, were on the edge of the slide, guiding +the logs. + +"We don't have any trouble with them," said the captain carelessly. +"They're only too thankful to be here. They've two corporals of their own +who keep order. Oh, of course we have our eyes open. There are some sly +beggars among them. Our men have no truck with them. I shouldn't advise +you to employ them. It wouldn't do for women alone." + +His smile was friendly, and Rachel found it pleasant to be advised by +him. As to employing prisoners, she said, even were it allowed, nothing +would induce her to risk it. There were a good many on Colonel Shepherd's +estate, and she sometimes met them, bicycling to and from their billets +in the village, in the evening after work. "Once or twice they've jeered +at me," she said, flushing. + +"Jeered at you!" he repeated in surprise. + +"At my dress, I mean. It seems to amuse them." + +"I see. You wear the land army dress like these girls?" + +"When I'm at work." + +"Well, I'm glad you don't wear it always," he said candidly. "These girls +here look awfully nice of an evening. They always change." + +He glanced at her curiously. Her dress of dark blue linen, her pretty hat +to match, with its bunch of flowers, not to speak of the slender ankles +and feet in their blue stockings and khaki shoes, seemed to him +extraordinarily becoming. But she puzzled him. There was something about +her quite different from the girls of the hostel. She appeared to be +older and riper than they; yet he did not believe she was a day more than +five-and-twenty, and some of them were older than that. Unmarried, he +supposed. "Miss Henderson?" Yes, he was sure that was the name Mrs. +Fergusson had mentioned. His eyes travelled discreetly to her bare, left +hand. That settled it. + +"Well, if I came across these fellows jeering at an Englishwoman, I'd +know the reason why!" he resumed hotly. "You should have complained." + +She shook her head, smiling. "One doesn't want to be a nuisance in war +time. One can always protect oneself." + +He smiled. + +"That's what women always say, and--excuse me--they can't!" + +She laughed. + +"Oh, yes, we can--the modern woman." + +"I don't see much difference between the modern woman and the +old-fashioned woman," he said obstinately. "It isn't dress or working at +munitions that makes the difference." + +"No, but--what they signify." + +"What?--a freer life, getting your own way, seeing more of the world?" +The tone was a trifle antagonistic. + +"_Knowing_ more of the world," she said, quietly. "We're not the ignorant +babes our grandmothers were at our age. That's why we can protect +ourselves." + +And again he was aware of something sharp or bitter in her--some note of +disillusionment--that jarred with the soft, rather broad face and dreamy +eyes. It stirred him, and they presently found themselves plunged in a +free and exciting discussion of the new place and opportunities of women +in the world, the man from the more conservative, the women from the more +revolutionary point of view. Secretly, he was a good deal repelled by +some of his companion's opinions, and her expression of them. She quoted +Wells and Shaw, and he hated both. He was an idealist and a romantic, +with a volume of poems in his pocket. She, it seemed, was still on a +rising wave of rebellion, moral and social, like so many women; while his +wave had passed, and he was drifting in the trough of it. He supposed she +had dropped religion, like everything else. Well, the type didn't attract +him. He believed the world was coming back to the old things. The war had +done it--made people think. No doubt this girl had rushed through a lot +of things already, and thought she knew everything. But she didn't. + +Then, as their talk went on, this first opinion dropped in confusion. For +instead of presenting him with a consistent revolutionist, his companion +was, it appeared, full of the most unexpected veins and pockets of +something much softer and more appealing. She had astonishing returns +upon herself; and after some sentiment that had seemed to him silly or +even outrageous, a hurried "Oh, I dare say that's all nonsense!" would +suddenly bewilder or appease a marked trenchancy of judgment in himself +which was not accustomed to be so tripped up. + +The upshot of it was that both Rachel and her new acquaintance enjoyed +an agreeable, an adventurous half hour. They got rapidly beyond +conventionalities. One moment she thought him rude, the next delightful; +just as she alternately appeared to him feminist and feminine. Above them +the doomed beech trees, still green in the late August afternoon, spread +their canopy of leaf, and through their close stems ran dark aisles of +shadow. Below them was the tree-strewn hill-side. In the hollow Rachel +could see Janet Leighton and Mrs. Fergusson among the measuring girls; +the horses moving to and fro; the Canadian lumber-men catching at and +guiding the logs; the trolleys descending the valley; while just opposite +to them trunk after trunk was crashing down the hill, the line of the +steel cable gleaming now and then in a fitful sunshine which had begun +to slip out below a roof of purple cloud. Only one prisoner was left to +look after the slide. The others had just gone down the hill, at a +summons from below. Suddenly Ellesborough sprang to his feet. + +"Good Heavens! what's that?" For a loud cry had rung out, accompanied by +what sounded like a report. The man who had been standing among the dead +brushwood on the other side of the descending timber, about a hundred +yards away, had disappeared; and the huge beech just launched from above +had ceased to move. + +Another cry for help. + +"The cable's broken!" said Ellesborough, starting at full speed for the +slide. Rachel rushed after him, and presently caught him up where he +knelt beside a man lying on the ground, and writhing in great pain. The +prisoner's cap had fallen off, and revealed a young German lad of +nineteen or twenty, hardly conscious, and groaning pitifully at +intervals. As he lay crouched on his face, the red patches on his back, +intended to guide the aim of an armed guard in case of any attempt to +escape, showed with a sinister plainness. + +"The cable snapped, and has caught him round the body," Ellesborough +explained. "Give him this brandy, please, while I try and make out--" + +With skilled and gentle fingers he began to explore the injury. + +"A rib broken, I think." He looked with anxiety at some blood that had +begun to appear on the lips. "I must go down and get some men and a +stretcher. They won't know what to do without me. My second in command is +off duty for the day. Can you look after him while I go? Awfully sorry +to--" + +He gave her a swift, investigating glance. + +She interrupted him. + +"Tell me what to do, and I'll do it." + +He loosened the boy's collar and very gently tried to ease his position. + +"Mamma!" murmured the boy, with the accent of a miserable child in a bad +dream. Ellesborough's face softened. He bent over him and said something +in German. Rachel did not understand it--only the compassionate look in +the man's blue eyes. + +"Give him more brandy if you can, and try and keep him still," said +Ellesborough as he rose to his feet. "I shall be back directly." + +Her glance answered. By this time there was commotion below, the engine +had stopped working and men were running up the hill. Ellesborough went +bounding down the steep slope to meet them. They turned back with him, +and Rachel supposed they had gone to fetch a stretcher, and if possible a +doctor, from the small camp hospital which Mrs. Fergusson had pointed out +to her near the gate. Meanwhile, for a few minutes, she was alone with +this suffering lad. Was he fatally hurt--dying? She managed to get some +brandy down, and then he lay groaning and unconscious, murmuring +incoherent words. She caught "Mamma" again, then "Lisa," "Hans," and +broken phrases that meant nothing to her. Was his mind back in some +German home, which, perhaps, he would never see again? + +All sorts of thoughts passed through her: vague memories gathered +from the newspapers, of what the Germans had done in Belgium and +France--horrible, indescribable things! Oh, not this boy, surely! +He could not be more than nineteen. He must have been captured in the +fighting of July, perhaps in his first action. Captain Ellesborough had +said to her that there was no fighting spirit among any of the prisoners. +They were thankful to find themselves out of it, "safely captured," as +one of them had had the bravado to say, and with enough to eat. No doubt +this boy had dreamt day and night of peace, and getting back to Germany, +to "Mamma" and "Lisa" and "Hans." To die, if he was to die, by this +clumsy accident, in an enemy country, was hard! + +Pity, passionate pity sprang up in her, and it warmed her heart to +remember the pity in the face of Captain Ellesborough. She would have +hated him if he had shown any touch of a callous or cruel spirit towards +this helpless creature. But there had been none. + +In a few more minutes she was aware of Mrs. Fergusson and Janet climbing +rapidly towards her. And behind them came stretcher-bearers, the captain, +and possibly a doctor. + + * * * * * + +The accident broke up the working afternoon. The injured lad was carried +to hospital, where the surgeon shook his head, and refused to prophesy +till twenty-four hours were over. + +Captain Ellesborough disappeared, while Rachel and Janet were given tea +at the woman's hostel and shown the camp. Rachel took an absorbed +interest in it all. This world of the new woman, with its widening +horizons, its atmosphere of change and discovery, its independence of +men, soothed some deep smart in her that Janet was only now beginning +to realize. And yet, Janet remembered the vicar, and had watched the talk +with Ellesborough. Clearly to be the professed enemy of man did not +altogether disincline you for his company! + +At any rate it seemed quite natural to Janet Leighton that, when it was +time to go, and a charming girl in khaki with green facings caught the +pony, and harnessed it for Mrs. Fergusson's parting guests, Ellesborough +should turn up, as soon as the farewells were over; and that she should +find herself driving the pony-carriage up the hill, while Ellesborough +and Rachel walked behind, and at a lengthening distance. Once or twice +she looked back, and saw that the captain was gathering some of the +abounding wild flowers which had sprung up on the heels of the retreating +forest, and that Rachel had fastened a bunch of them into her hat. She +smiled to herself, and drove steadily on. Rachel was young and pretty. +Marriage with some man--some day--was certainly her fate. The kind, +unselfish Janet intended to "play up." + +Then, with a jerk, she remembered there was a story. Nonsense! An unhappy +love affair, no doubt, which had happened in her first youth, and in +Canada. Well, such things, in the case of a girl with the temperament of +Rachel, are only meant to be absorbed in another love affair. They are +the leaf mould that feeds the final growth. Janet cheerfully said to +herself that, probably, her partnership with Rachel would only be a short +one. + +The pair behind were, indeed, much occupied with each other. The tragic +incident of the afternoon seemed to have carried them rapidly through the +preliminary stages of acquaintance. At least, it led naturally to talk +about things and feelings more real and intimate than generally haunt the +first steps. And in this talk each found the other more and more +congenial. Ellesborough was now half amused, half touched, by the mixture +of childishness and maturity in Rachel. One moment her ignorance +surprised him, and the next, some shrewd or cynical note in what she was +saying scattered the _ingenue_ impression, and piqued his curiosity +afresh. She was indeed crassly ignorant about many current affairs in +which he himself was keenly interested, and of which he supposed all +educated women must by now have learnt the ABC. She could not have given +him the simplest historical outline of the great war; he saw that she was +quite uncertain whether Lloyd George or Asquith were Prime Minister; and +as to politics and public persons in Canada, where she had clearly lived +some time, her mind seemed to be a complete blank. None the less she had +read a good deal--novels and poetry at least--and she took a queerly +pessimistic view of life. She liked her farm work; she said so frankly. +But on a sympathetic reply from him to the effect that he knew several +other women who had taken to it, and they all seemed to be "happy" in it, +she made a scornful mouth. + +"Oh, well--'happy'?--that's a different thing. But it does as well as +anything else." + +The last thing she wanted, apparently, was to talk about Canada. He, +himself, as a temporary settler in the Great Dominion, cherished an +enthusiasm for Canada and a belief in the Canadian future, not, perhaps, +very general among Americans; but although her knowledge of the country +gave them inevitably some common ground, she continually held back from +it, she entered on it as little as she could. She had been in the +Dominion, he presently calculated, about seven or eight years; but she +avoided names and dates, how adroitly, he did not perceive till they had +parted, and he was thinking over their walk. She must have gone out to +Canada immediately after leaving school. He gathered that her father had +been a clergyman, and was dead; that she knew the prairie life, but had +never been in British Columbia, and only a few days in Montreal and +Toronto. That was all that, at the end of their walk, he knew; and all +apparently she meant him to know. Whereas she on her side showed a +beguiling power of listening to all he had to say about the mysterious +infinity of the Canadian forest-lands and the wild life that, winter or +spring, a man may live among them, which flattered the very human conceit +of a strong and sensitive nature. + +But at last they had climbed the tree-strewn slope, and were on the open +ridge with the northern plain in view. The sun was now triumphantly out, +just before his setting; the clouds had been flung aside, and he shone +full upon the harvest world--such a harvest world as England had not seen +for a century. There they lay, the new and golden fields, where, to north +and south, to east and west, the soil of England, so long unturned, had +joyously answered once more to its old comrade the plough. + +"'An enemy hath done this,'" quoted Ellesborough, with an approving +smile, as he pointed towards the plain. "But there was a God behind him!" + +Rachel laughed. "Well, I've got three fields still to get in," she said. +"And they're the best. Goodnight." + +She gave him her hand, standing transfigured in the light, the wind +blowing her beautiful hair about her. + +"May I come and see you?" he asked, rather formally. + +She smiled assent. + +"Next week _everything_ will be in, and some of it threshed. I shall be +freer then. You'll like our place." + +He pressed her hand, and she was off, running like a fawn after the +retreating pony carriage. + +He turned away, a little dazzled and shaken. The image of her on the +ridge remained; but what perhaps had struck deepest had been the +sweetness of her as she hung above the injured boy. He went slowly +towards the camp, conscious that the day now departing had opened a new +door in the House of Life. + + + + +IV + + +Ellesborough allowed a week to pass before making the call at Great End +he had arranged with Rachel. But at last, when he thought that her +harvesting would be really over, he set out on his motor bicycle, one +fine evening, as soon as work at the camp was over. According to summer +time it was about seven o'clock, and the sun was still sailing clear +above the western woods. + +Part of his way lay over a broad common chequered with fine trees and +groups of trees, some of them of great age; for the rest he ran through a +world where harvest in its latest stages was still the governing fact. In +some fields the corn was being threshed on the spot, without waiting for +the stacks; in others, the last loads were being led; and everywhere in +the cleared fields there were scattered figures of gleaners, casting long +shadows on the gold and purple carpet of the stubble. For Ellesborough +the novelty of this garden England, so elaborately combed and finished in +comparison with his own country, was by no means exhausted. There were +times when the cottage gardens, the endless hedge-rows, and miniature +plantations pleased him like the detail in those early Florentine +pictures in the Metropolitan Museum, for which, business man as he was, +and accustomed to the wilds, he had once or twice, on visits to New York, +discovered in himself a considerable taste. He was a man, indeed, of many +aptitudes, and of a loyal and affectionate temper. His father, a country +doctor, now growing old, his mother, still pretty at sixty, and his two +unmarried sisters were all very dear to him. He wrote to them constantly, +and received many letters from them. They belonged to one of the old +Unitarian stocks still common in New England; and such stocks are +generally conspicuous for high standards and clean living. "Discipline" +was among the chief marks of the older generation. A father or mother +dreaded an "undisciplined" child, and the word was often on their lips, +though in no Pharisaical way; while the fact was evident in their lives, +and in those private diaries which they were apt to keep, wherein, up to +old age, they jealously watched their own daily thoughts and actions from +the same point of view. + +And though the younger generation, like the younger generation of +Quakers, shows change and some disintegration, the old Puritan +traditions and standards are still, as we all know, of great effect +among them. Especially with regard to women, and all that concerns them. +Among the Ellesborough clan, which was a large one, there prevailed, +along with the traditional American consideration for women, and +especially among the women of the family themselves--a strict and even +severe standard of sexual morals. There was no hypocrisy in it; they +talked of it but little, but they lived by it; and their men were brought +up in the atmosphere created by it. And as affection and tenderness and +self-sacrifice were freely mixed with the asceticism, there was +no rebellion--at any rate no open rebellion--among their men folk. The +atmosphere created led, no doubt, to certain evasions of the hard +problems of life; and to some quiet revaluations of things and persons +when the sons of the family came to men's estate. But in general the "ape +and tiger," still surviving in the normal human being, had been really +and effectively tamed in the Ellesborough race. There was also a +sensitive delicacy both of thought and speech among them; answering to +more important and tested realities. Their marriages were a success; +their children were well brought up, under light but effective control; +and, if it be true, as Americans are ready to say, that the old +conception of marriage is being slowly but profoundly modified over large +sections of their great Commonwealth, towards a laxity undreamt of half a +century ago, the Ellesboroughs could neither be taxed nor applauded in +the matter. They stood by the old ways, and they stood by them +whole-heartedly. + +Ellesborough himself, no doubt, had knocked about the world more than +most of his kindred, and had learnt to look at many things differently. +But essentially, he was the son of his race. His attitude towards women +was at once reverential and protective. He believed women were better +than men, because practically he had found it so in his own circle; but +he held also very strong beliefs, seldom expressed, as to their social +disadvantages and their physical weakness. The record of the Germans +towards women in France and Flanders, a record he had verified for +himself, had perhaps done more than anything else to feed the stern flame +of war in his own soul. At thirty-two, he would probably have already +been a married man, but for the war. He rather fiercely held that it was +a man's duty to marry and have children. But beyond a few passing fancies +he had never been in love; and since the American declaration of war, he +had been, like his President, out to "make the world safe for democracy"; +and the ardour of the struggle had swept his private interests out of +sight. + +All the same here he was, walking his motor cycle up the field road +leading to Great End Farm, and looking eagerly about him. A lonely +position, but beautiful! On the woods behind the house he turned a +professional eye. Fine timber! The man who was to succeed him at Ralstone +would no doubt have the cutting of it. The farm quadrangle, with its +sixteenth century barn, out of which the corn seemed to be actually +bursting from various open doors and windows, appeared to him through +that glamour which, for the intelligent American, belongs to everything +that medieval and Elizabethan England has bequeathed to the England of +the present. He will back himself, he thinks, to plan and build a modern +town better than the Britisher--in any case quicker. But the mosses and +tiles of an old Brookshire barn beat him. + +Ellesborough paused at the gate to watch two land lassies carrying +pails of milk across the yard towards a prolongation of the farm-house, +which he supposed was the dairy. Just beyond the farm-yard, two great +wheat-stacks were visible; while in the hayfields running up to the +woods, large hay-stacks, already nearly thatched, showed dimly in the +evening light. And all this was run by women, worked by Women! Well, +American women, so he heard from home, were doing the same in the fields +and farms of the States. It was all part, he supposed, of a world +movement, by which, no less than by the war itself, these great years +would be for ever remembered. + +The farm-house itself, however, seemed to him from the outside a poor, +flimsy thing, unworthy of the old farm buildings. He could see that the +walls of it were only a brick thick, and in spite of the pretty curtains, +he was struck by the odd feature of the two large windows exactly +opposite each other, so that a spectator on either side of the house +might look right through it. + +"Seems like being in the street. However, if there's nobody to look at +you, I suppose it don't matter." + +Then he laughed, for just as he led his motor cycle into the yard, and +passed the sitting-room window, he was struck by the appearance of two +large sheep, who seemed to be actually in the sitting-room, at its +farther end. They were standing, he presently perceived, upon the steep +down beyond the house, on the slope of which the farm was built; which on +the southern side of the farm quadrangle came right up to the house wall. +At the same moment he saw a woman inside get up and shoo them from the +open window, so that they ran away. + +But when Jenny Harberton had admitted him, and he was waiting in the +sitting-room, from which the woman he had seen had disappeared, he was in +the mood to admire everything. How nice the two women had made it! His +own rough life, both before and since the war, had only increased a +natural instinct for order and seemliness. The pretty blue paper, the +fresh drugget, the photographs on the wall, the flowers, and the delicate +neatness of everything delighted him. He went round looking at the +pictures and the few books, perfectly conscious that everything which he +saw had a more than common interest for him. The room seemed to be +telling a story--opening points of view. + +"Ah!" + +He paused, a broad smile overspreading his bronzed face. + +For he had perceived a popular History of the War lying open and face +downwards on the table, one that he had recommended to the mistress of +the farm. So she had followed his advice. It pleased him particularly! He +had gathered that she was never a great reader; still, she was an +educated woman, she ought to know something of what her country had done. + +And there was actually a piano! He wondered whether she played, or her +friend. + +Meanwhile Rachel was changing her dress upstairs--rather deliberately. +She did not want to look too glad to see her visitor, to flatter him by +too much hurry. When he arrived she had just come in from the fields +where she had been at the threshing machine all day. It had covered her +with dirt and chaff; and the process of changing was only half through +when she heard the rattle of Ellesborough's cycle outside. She stood now +before the glass, a radiant daughter of air and earth; her veins, as it +were, still full of the sheer pleasure of her long day among the stubbles +and the young stock. She was tired, of course; and she knew very well +that the winter, when it came, would make a great difference, and that +much of the work before her would be hard and disagreeable. But for the +moment, her deep satisfaction with the life she had chosen, the congruity +between it and her, gave her a peculiar charm. She breathed content, and +there is no more beautifying thing. + +She had thought a good deal about Ellesborough since their meeting; yet +not absorbingly, for she had her work to do. She was rather inclined to +quarrel with him for having been so long in making his call; and this +feeling, perhaps, induced her to dawdle a little over the last touches of +her toilet. She had put on a thin, black dress, which tamed the +exuberance of her face and hair, and set off the brilliance and fineness +of her skin where the open blouse displayed it. The beautiful throat was +sunburnt, indeed, but not unbecomingly so; and she was about to fasten +round it a slender gold chain, when she suddenly dropped the chain. Some +association had passed through her mind which made her shrink from it. + +She chose instead a necklace of bluish-green beads, long, and curiously +interwoven, which gave a touch of dignity to the plain dress. Then she +paused to consider the whole effect, in a spirit of meditation rather +than mere vanity. "_I wish he knew_!" she thought, and the glass +reflected a frown of perplexity. Had she been wise, after all, to make +such a complete mystery of the past? People in and about Ipscombe would +probably know some time--what all her Canadian friends knew. And then, +the thought of the endless explanations and gossip, of the horrid +humiliation involved in any renewed contact whatever with the ugly things +she had put behind her, roused a sudden, surging disgust. + +"Yes, I was quite right," she thought vehemently. "I was quite right!" + +Voices in the room downstairs! That meant that Janet had gone in to greet +the visitor. Should they ask him to stay for supper? The vicar was +coming, and his pious little sister. There would be quite enough to eat. +Cold ham, potatoes and salad, with their own butter and bread--Janet made +beautiful bread--was enough for anybody in war time. Rachel was in the +mood to feel a certain childish exultation in the plenty of the farm, +amid the general rationing. The possession of her seven milch cows, the +daily pleasure of the milk, morning and evening, the sight of the rich +separated cream, and of the butter as it came fresh from the churn, the +growing weight and sleekness of the calves; all these things gave her a +warm sense of protection against the difficulties and restrictions of the +war. She and Janet were "self-suppliers." No need to bother about ounces +of butter, or spoonfuls of cream. Of course they sold all they could, but +they could still feed their few guests well--better, perhaps, than any of +the folk in the villa houses round Millsborough. + +"Yes! and no one's leave to ask!" + +She threw out her arms in a vehement gesture as she turned away from the +glass. It was the gesture of a wild bird taking flight. + +By which, however, she was not hurling defiance at the gentle but most +efficient little lady who represented the Food Control of the +neighbourhood, and the mere sight of whom was enough to jog uneasy +consciences in the matter of rations. Rachel was long since on the best +of terms with her. + + * * * * * + +Captain Ellesborough was asked to stay to supper, and gladly accepted. +The vicar and his young sister arrived and were introduced to the +American. Betty and Jenny, alarmed at so much company and the quality of +it, hurriedly asked to be allowed to take their meal in the tiny scullery +behind the living room. But the democratic and dissenting Janet would not +hear of it. There was room for everybody, she said, and while she lived +in it there should only be one table for all who worked on the farm. If +the vicar and Miss Shenstone objected, she was sorry for them. But they +wouldn't object. + +So the small living room of the farm was soon full of a merry company: +the two mistresses, in their Sunday frocks, the land girls in their +uniforms, the young vicar in a short coat and round collar, his little +sister of nineteen, who was training to be a missionary, and carried +about with her already the sweet and dedicated look of her calling; and +Ellesborough, a striking and manly figure in full khaki. Ellesborough was +on Rachel's right, the vicar on Janet's; Miss Shenstone sat between the +two girls, and was so far from objecting to their company that she no +sooner found she was to sit next the daughter of her brother's handy-man +than her childish face flushed with pleasure. She had seen Jenny already +at her brother's Bible-class, and she had been drawn to her. Something in +the character of the labourer's daughter seemed to make a special appeal +to the delicate and mystical temper of the vicar's sister, in whom the +ardour of the "watcher for souls" was a natural gift. Jenny seemed to be +aware of it. She was flushed and a little excited, alternately shy and +communicative--like the bird under fascination, already alive to the +signal of its captor. At any rate, Margaret Shenstone kept both her +companions happy through the meal. + +The vicar employed himself in vigorously making friends with Janet +Leighton, keenly alive all the time to that vivid and flower-like vision +of Miss Henderson at the farther end of the table. But some instinct +warned him that beside the splendid fellow in khaki his own claim on her +could be but a modest one. He must watch his opportunity. It was natural +that certain misgivings had already begun to rise in the mind of his +elder sister, Eleanor, who was his permanent companion and housekeeper at +the vicarage. For why should her brother be so specially assiduous in the +harvest operations at Great End? She was well aware that it was the right +and popular thing for the young clergy who were refused service at the +front to be seen in their shirt sleeves as agricultural volunteers, or in +some form of war work. A neighbouring curate in whom she was greatly +interested spent the greater part of his week, for instance, on munition +work at a national factory. She thought him a hero. But if it was to be +harvesting, then it seemed to her that her brother should have divided +his help more evenly among the farms of the village. She was afraid of +"talk." And it troubled her greatly that neither Miss Henderson nor Miss +Leighton came to church. + +Meanwhile, the vicar, like a wise man, was securing the position with +Janet. What he wished, what he was really driving at, he would not let +himself inquire. What he _knew_ was that no woman had ever fluttered his +quiet mind as Miss Henderson had fluttered it during these summer weeks. +To watch her, erect and graceful, "pitching" the sheaves on to the +harvest cart, where he and a labourer received and packed them; to be +privileged to lead the full cart home, with her smile and thanks at the +barn door for reward, or to stand with her while she proudly watched her +new reaping machine, with the three fine horses abreast, sweeping round +her biggest field, while the ripe sheaves fell beside it, as of old they +fell beside the reapers that Hoephoestus wrought in gleaming gold on the +shield of Achilles; and then perhaps to pay a last visit with her to the +farm buildings in the warm dusk and watch the cattle coming in from the +fields and the evening feed, and all the shutting up for the night after +the long, hot, busy day: these things had lately made a veritable idyll +of the vicar's life. He felt as though a hundred primitive sensations and +emotions, that he had only talked of or read about before, had at last +become real to him. Oxford memories revived. He actually felt a wish to +look at his Virgil or Theocritus again, such as had never stirred in him +since he had packed his Oxford books to send home, after the sobering +announcement of his third class. After all, it seemed these old fellows +knew something about the earth and its joys! + +So that a golden light lay over these past weeks. And in the midst of it +stood the figure of a silent and--as far as he was concerned--rather +difficult woman, without which there would have been no transfiguring +light at all. He confessed to himself that she had never had much to say +to him. But wherever she was she drew the male creature after her. There +was no doubt as to that. She was a good employer--fair, considerate, +intelligent; but it was the _woman_--so the vicar believed--who got her +way. + +From which it will be seen that Miss Eleanor Shenstone had some reason +for misgiving, and that the vicar's own peace of mind was in danger. His +standards also were no longer what they were. He had really ceased to +care that Miss Leighton was a Unitarian! + +"I suppose you have been horribly busy?" said Rachel to Ellesborough, +when, thanks to the exertions of Janet and the two girls, everybody had +been provided with a first course. + +"Not more than usual. Do you mean--" He looked at her, smiling, and +Rachel's eyebrows went up slightly. "Ah, I see--you thought I had +forgotten?" + +"Oh, no," she said indifferently. "It is a long way to come." + +He flushed a little. + +"That never occurred to me for a moment!" he said with emphasis. "But you +said you would have finished with the harvest in a week. So I waited. I +didn't want to be a nuisance." + +At which she smiled, a smile that overflowed eyes and lips, and stirred +the senses of the man beside her. + +"How is the prisoner?" + +"Poor boy! He died the day before yesterday. We did everything we could, +but he had no chance from the first. Hard lines!" + +"Why, he might have been home next year!" + +"He might, indeed. Yes, Miss Henderson, it'll be peace next year--perhaps +this year! Who knows! But I hope I'll have a look in first. I've got my +orders. As soon as they've appointed my successor here, I'm off. About a +month, I suppose. They've accepted me for the Air Force." + +His eyes glowed. Rachel said nothing. She felt hurt that he expressed no +regret at going. Then the vicar struck into the conversation with some +enthusiastic remarks about the steady flowing in of the American army. +That, indeed, was the great, the overpowering fact of these August days. +Ellesborough responded eagerly, describing the huge convoy with which he +himself had come over; and that amazing, that incredible march across +three thousand miles of sea and land, which every day was pouring into +the British Isles, and so into France, some 15,000 men--the flower of +American manhood, come to the rescue of the world. He told the great +story well, with the graphic phrases of a quick mind, well fed on facts, +yet not choked by them. The table hung on him. Even little Jenny, with +parted lips, would not have missed a word. + +He meanwhile was led on--for he was not a man of facile or boastful +speech--by the eyes of Rachel Henderson, and those slight gestures or +movements by which from time to time when the talk flagged she would set +it going again. + +Margaret Shenstone was particularly stirred. + +"What friends we shall be!" she said presently, with a long, quivering +breath--"I mean America and England. Friends for ever! And we quarrelled +once. That's so wonderful. That shows good does come out of evil!" + +"I should jolly well think so," said Ellesborough, looking kindly at the +young girl. "Why, if it hadn't been for this war, millions of these boys +who are coming over now would never have seen England or Europe at all. +It'll change the face of everything!" + +"Only we must play up," said the vicar anxiously. "We must get rid of our +abominable shyness, and let your people really see how we really welcome +them." + +Rachel gave a little defiant shake of the head. + +"America's got to thank us, too!" she said, with a challenging look at +Ellesborough. "We've borne it for four years. Now it's your turn!" + +"Well, here we are," said Ellesborough quietly, "up to the neck. But--of +course--don't thank us. It's our business just as much as yours." + +The talk dropped a moment, and Janet took advantage of it to bring in +coffee as a finish to the meal. Under cover of the slight bustle, +Ellesborough said to Rachel, in a voice no longer meant for the table,-- + +"Could you spare me a letter sometimes, Miss Henderson--at the front?" + +He had both elbows on the table, and was playing with a cigarette. There +was nothing the least patronizing or arrogant in his manner. But there +was a male note in it--perhaps a touch of self-confidence--which +ruffled her. + +"Oh, I am a bad letter-writer," she said, as she got up from the table. +"Shall we go and look at the cows?" + +They all went out into the warm September night. Ellesborough followed +Rachel, cigarette in hand, his strong mouth twisting a little. The night +was almost cloudless. The pale encircling down, patched at intervals with +dark hanging woods, lay quiet under a sky full of faint stars. The scent +of the stubblefields, of the great corn-stack just beyond the farmyard, +of the big barn so full that the wide wooden doors could not be closed, +was mingled with the strong ammonia smells of the farm-yard, and here +and there with the sweetness left in the evening air by the chewing cows +on their passage to the cow-house on the farther side of the yard. + +Rachel led the way to the cow-house--a vast fifteenth-century barn, with +an interlacing forest of timber in its roof, where the six cows stood +ranged, while Janet and the two land lassies, with Hastings the bailiff +to help them, were changing the litter and filling up the racks with hay. +Rachel went along the line pointing out the beauties of each separate +beast to Ellesborough, and caressing two little calves whom Jenny was +feeding by hand. Ellesborough was amused by her technical talk and her +proprietor's airs. It seemed to him a kind of play-acting, but it +fascinated him. Janet had brought in a lantern, and the light and shade +of it seemed to have been specially devised to bring into relief Rachel's +round and tempting beauty, the bright brown of her hair where it curled +on the temples, and the lovely oval of the cheeks. Ellesborough watched +her, now passing into deep shadow, and now brilliantly lit up, as the +light of the lantern caught her; overhead, the criss-cross of the arching +beams as of some primitive cathedral, centuries old; and on either side +the dim forms of the munching cattle, and the pretty movements of the +girls busy with their work. + +"Take care," laughed Rachel as she passed him. "There are horrid holes in +this floor. I haven't had time to mend them." + +As she spoke, she slipped and almost fell. Ellesborough threw out a quick +hand and caught her by the arm. She smiled into his face. + +"Neatly done!" she said composedly, submitting to be led by him over a +very broken bit of pavement near the door. His hand held her firmly. Nor +did she make any effort to release herself till they were outside. Here +were the vicar and his sister waiting to say good-night--the vicar much +chagrined that he had seen so little of his chief hostess, and inclined +to feel that his self-sacrificing attention to Miss Leighton at supper +had been but poorly rewarded. Rachel, however, saw that he was out of +humour, and at once set herself to appease him. And in the few minutes +which elapsed before she parted with him at the gate she had quite +succeeded. + +Then she turned to Ellesborough. + +"Shall we go up the hill a little?" + +They slipped through a side gate of the farmyard, crossed a field, and +found themselves on an old grass road leading gently upward along the +side of the down into the shadow of the woods. The still, warm night held +them enwrapped. Rachel had thrown a white scarf over her head and throat, +which gave a mysterious charm to the face within it. As she strolled +beside her hew friend she played him with all the arts of a woman +resolved to please. And he allowed himself to be handled at her will. +He told her about his people, and his friends, about the ideas and +ambitions, also, with which he had come to Europe, which were now in +abeyance, but were to spring to active life after the war. Forestry on a +great scale; a part to be played in the preservation and development of +the vast forest areas of America which had been so wilfully wasted; +business and patriotism combined; fortune possible; but in any case the +public interest served. He talked shrewdly, but also with ardour and +imagination; she was stirred, excited even; and all the time she liked +the foreignness of his voice, the outline of his profile against the sky, +and all the other elements of his physical presence. + +But in the midst of his castle-building he broke off. + +"However, I'm a silly fool to talk like this. I'm going out to the front +directly. Perhaps my bullet's waiting for me." + +"Oh, no!" she said involuntarily--"no!" + +"I hope not. I don't want to die just yet. I want to get married, for one +thing." + +He spoke lightly, and she laughed. + +"Well, that's easy enough." + +He shook his head, but said nothing. They walked on till they reached the +edge of the hill, when Rachel, out of breath, sat down on a fallen log to +rest a little. Below them stretched the hollow upland, with its +encircling woods and its white stubble fields. Far below lay the dark +square of the farm, with a light in one of its windows. + +Rachel pointed to the grass road by which they had come. + +"We haven't seen the ghost!" + +He asked her for the story, and she told it. By now she had pieced it all +together; and it seemed to Ellesborough that it had a morbid fascination +for her. + +"He dragged himself down this very path," she said. "They tracked him by +the blood stains; his wounds dripped all along it. And then he fell, just +under my cart-shed. It was a horrible, bitter night. Of course the silly +people here say they hear groans and dragging steps: That's all nonsense, +but I sometimes wish it hadn't happened at my farm." + +He couldn't help laughing gently at her foolishness. + +"Why, it's a great distinction to have a ghost!" + +She disagreed--decidedly. + +"Any one can have my ghost that wants. I'm awfully easily scared." + +"Are you?" There was a deep note in his voice. "No, I don't believe that. +I'm sure you're a plucky woman. I know you are!" + +She laughed out. + +"How do you know?" + +"Why, no one but a plucky woman could have taken this farm and be working +it as you're doing." + +"That's not pluck," she said, half scornfully. "But if it is--well, I've +got plenty of pluck of that kind. But I am often scared, downright +scared, about nothing. It's just fear, that's what it is." + +"Fear of what?" + +"I don't know." + +She spoke in a sombre, shrinking tone, which struck him uncomfortably. +But when he tried further to discover what she meant, she would say +nothing more. He noticed, indeed, that she would often seem to turn the +talk upon herself, only to cut it short again immediately. She offered +him openings, and then he could make nothing of them; so that when they +reached the outskirts of the farm on their return, he had given her all +the main outlines of his own history, and she had said almost nothing of +hers. + +But all the same the walk had drawn them much nearer. + +He stopped her at the little gate to say,-- + +"I'm going to ask you again--I want you to write to me when I'm in +France." + +And this time she said almost eagerly,-- + +"Yes, I'll write; indeed I'll write! But you'll come over again before +you go?" + +"Rather," he said joyously; "rather! Why, there's a month. You'll be +tired of me before you've done." + +A few minutes later she was standing in her own little room, listening to +the retreating rush of his motor-cycle down the road. There was a great +tumult in her mind. + +"Am I falling in love with him? Am I--am I?" + +But in the dark, when she had put out her light, the cry that shaped +itself in her mind was identical with that sudden misgiving of the +afternoon, when on Ellesborough's arrival she had first heard his voice +downstairs talking to Janet. + +"_I wish he knew_!" But this time it was no mere passing qualm. It had +grown into something intense and haunting. + + * * * * * + +On this same September afternoon, a dark-eyed, shabby woman, with a +little girl, alighted at Millsborough Station. They were met by a man who +had been lounging about the station for some time and whose appearance +had attracted some attention. "See him at a distance, and you might take +him for a lord; but get him close, my word!--" said the station-master to +the booking-clerk, with a shrug, implying many things. + +"Wouldn't give a bob for his whole blessed turn-out," said the +booking-clerk. "But right you are, when you sort of get the hang of him, +far enough away on the other platform, might be a dook!" + +Meanwhile, the man had shouldered some of the bags and parcels brought by +the woman and the child, though hardly his fair share of them; and they +finally reached the exit from the station. + +"If you're going into the town, the bus will be here in a few minutes," +said a porter civilly to the woman. "It'll help you with all those +things." + +The man gruffly answered for her that they preferred to walk, and they +started, the woman and the child dragging wearily beside him. + +"Now, you've got to be content with what I've found for you," he said to +her roughly as they reached the first houses of the town. "There isn't +scarcely a lodging or a cottage to be had. Partly it's the holidays +still, and partly it's silly folk like you--scared of raids." + +"I couldn't go through another winter like last, for Nina's sake," said +the woman plaintively. + +"Why, you silly goose, there won't be any raids this winter. I've told +you so scores of times. We've got the upper hand now, and the Boche will +keep his planes at home. But as you won't listen to me, you've got to +have your way, I suppose. Well, I've got you rooms of a sort. They'll +have to do. I haven't got money enough for anything decent." + +The woman made no reply, and to the porter idly looking after them they +were soon lost from sight in the gathering dusk of the road. + + + + +V + + +The little town of Millsborough was _en fete_. There was a harvest +festival going on, and the County Agricultural Committee had taken the +opportunity to celebrate the successful gathering of the crops, and the +part taken in it by the woman land-workers under their care. They had +summoned the land lasses from far and wide; in a field on the outskirts +of the town competitions had been in full swing all the morning, and now +there were to be speeches in the market-place, and a final march of land +girls, boy scouts, and decorated wagons to the old Parish Church, where a +service was to be held. + +All Millsborough, indeed, was in the streets to look at the procession, +and the crowd was swelled by scores of cadets from a neighbouring camp, +who were good-heartedly keeping the route, and giving a military air to +the show. But the flower-decked wagons were the centre of interest. The +first in the line was really a brilliant performance. It was an old wagon +of Napoleonic days, lent by a farmer, whose forebears had rented the same +farm since William and Mary. Every spoke of the wheels blazed with red +geraniums; there was a fringe of heather along the edge of the cart, +while vegetables, huge marrows, turnips, carrots, and onions dangled from +its sides, and the people inside sat under a nodding canopy of tall and +splendid wheat, mixed with feathery barley. But the passengers were +perhaps the most attractive thing about it. They were four old women in +lilac sunbonnets. They were all over seventy, and they had all worked +bravely in the harvest. The crowd cheered them vociferously, and they +sat, looking timidly out on the scene with smiling eyes and tremulous +lips, their grey hair blowing about their wrinkled, wholesome faces. + +Beside the wagon walked a detachment of land girls. One of them was the +granddaughter of one of the old women, and occasionally a word would +pass between them. + +"Eh, Bessie, but I'd like to git down! They mun think us old fools, +dizened up this way." + +"No, gran; you must ride. You're the very best bit of the show. Why, just +listen how the folk cheer you!" + +The old woman sighed. + +"I'd like to look at it mysel'," she said with a childish plaintiveness. +But her tall granddaughter, in full uniform, with a rake over her +shoulder, thought this a foolish remark, and made no reply. + +In the second wagon, Rachel Henderson in full land-dress--tunic, +knee-breeches, and leggings--stood in the front of the cart, guiding two +white horses, their manes and tails gaily plaited with ribbons, and +scarlet badges on their snowy heads. + +"Eh, but yon's a fine woman!" said an old farmer of the humbler sort to +his neighbour. "Yo'll not tell me she's a land lassie?" + +"Noa, noa; she's the new farmer at Great End--a proud body, they say, an' +a great hustler! The men say she's allus at 'em. But they don't mind +her neither. She treats 'em well. Them's her two land girls walking +beside." + +For Betty and Jenny mounted guard, their harvest rakes on their +shoulders, beside their mistress, who attracted all eyes as she passed, +and knew it. Behind her in the cart sat Janet Leighton; and the two +remaining seats were filled by the Vicar of Ipscombe and Lady Alicia +Shepherd, the wife of the owner of Great End Farm and of the middle-sized +estate to which the farm belonged. + +Lady Alicia was a thin woman, with an excitable temperament, to judge +from her restless mouth and eyes, which were never still for a moment. +She was very fashionably dressed and held a lace parasol. The crowd +scarcely recognized her, which annoyed her, for in her own estimation she +was an important member of the Women's Committee which looked after the +land girls. The war had done a great deal for Lady Alicia. It had dragged +her from a sofa, where she was rapidly becoming a neurasthenic invalid, +and had gradually drilled her into something like a working day. She +lived in a flurry of committees; but as committees must exist, and Lady +Alicias must apparently be on them; she had found a sort of vocation, and +with the help of other persons of more weight she had not done badly. + +She did not quite understand how it was that she found herself in Miss +Henderson's wagon. The committee had refused to have a wagon of its own, +and the good-natured vicar had arranged it for her. She did not herself +much like Miss Henderson. Her husband had sent her to call upon the new +tenants, and she had been much puzzled. They were ladies, she supposed. +They spoke quite nicely, and Miss Henderson seemed to be the daughter of +a clergyman. But she was afraid they were dreadful Socialists! She had +talked to Miss Henderson about the awful--the _wicked_--wages that the +Brookshire board had just fixed for the labourer. + +"My husband says they'll simply crush the life out of farming. We shall +all be ruined, and where will the labourer be then?" + +And Miss Henderson had looked quite unpleasant. It was high time, she +said, that the labourer should have enough to live on--_decently_; really +thrown the word at you. And Colonel Shepherd had told his wife that he +understood from Hastings Miss Henderson had raised her wages before the +award of the Wages Board. Well, he only hoped the young woman had got +some money behind her, otherwise she would be finding herself in Queer +Street and he would be whistling for his rent. + +The wagons drew up in the centre of the market-place, and the band which +the cadets had brought with them struck up "God Save the King." Lady +Alicia rose at once and nudged her little boy, whom she had brought with +her, to take off his cap. She looked approvingly over the crowd, which +was growing denser and denser every moment. It was so that she really +enjoyed the populace--at a safe distance--and ready to lend itself to the +blandishments of its natural leaders. Where was her husband, Colonel +Shepherd? Of course they would want him to speak at some time in the +proceedings. But she looked for him in vain. + +Meanwhile, the speaking was beginning from the first cart. A land girl +who had played a rousing part in the recruiting campaign of the early +summer was speaking in a high voice, clearly heard by the crowd. She +was tall and pretty, and spoke without a sign of hesitation or +self-consciousness. She gloried in the harvest, in the splendid news from +the war, in the growth of the Woman's Land Army. "We've just been proud +to do our bit at home while our boys have been fighting over there. +They'll be home soon, perhaps, and won't we give them a welcome! And +we'll show them the harvest that we've helped to reap--the biggest +harvest that England's ever known!--the harvest that's going to beat the +Boche." The young simple voice flowed on, with its simple story and its +note of enthusiasm, and sometimes of humour. "It's hard work, but we love +it! It's cold work often, but we love it! The horses and the cows and the +pigs--they're naughty often, but they're nice!---yes, the pigs, too. It's +the beasts and the fields and the open air we love!" + +Betty looked at Jenny with a grin. + +"Jenny!--them pigsties yesterday; d'ye think she's ever cleaned one out?" + +"I know she has," said Jenny confidentially. "She's Farmer Green's girl, +out Ralstone way. Ee says there ain't nothing she can't do. Ee don't +want no men while he's got 'er. They offered him soldiers, and ee +wouldn't have 'em." + + * * * * * + +"Silly, sentimental young woman," said a tall man, with a pipe in his +mouth, who had just lounged up to the outskirts of the crowd, from a side +street. "Who's she going to take in here? What's the good of talking +poetry about farming to a lot of country people? A London shop-girl, I +guess. What does she know about it?" + +"You bets she knows a lot," said a young man beside him, who, to judge +from his uniform, was one of the Canadians employed at Ralstone camp. +He had been taken with the "sentimental young woman," and was annoyed by +the uncivil remarks of his neighbour. "Wonder what farm she's on?" + +"Oh, you know these parts?" said the other, removing his pipe for a +moment and looking down on his companion. + +"Well, not exactly." The reply was hesitating. "My grandfather went out +to Canada from a place near here sixty years ago. I used to hear him and +my mother talk about Millsborough." + +"Beastly hole!" said the other, replacing his pipe. + +"I don't agree with you at all," said the other angrily. "It's as nice a +little town of its size as you'd find anywhere." + +The other shrugged his shoulders. A man a few yards off in the crowd +happened at that moment to be looking in the direction of the two +speakers. It was the ticket-collector at the station, enjoying an +afternoon off. He recognized the taller of the two men as the "dook" he +had seen at Millsborough station about a week ago. The man's splendid +carriage and iron-grey head were not to be mistaken--also his cadaverous +and sickly look, and his shabby clothes. The ticket-collector saw that +the man was holding the dark-eyed, "furrin-looking" child by the hand, +which the woman he met had brought down with her. "Furriners," he +supposed, all of them; part of that stream of fugitives from air raids +that had been flowing out of London during the preceding winter, and was +now flowing out again, as the next winter approached, though in less +volume. Every house and lodging in Millsborough was full, prices had gone +up badly, and life in Millsborough was becoming extremely uncomfortable +for its normal inhabitants--"all along o' these panicky aliens!" thought +the ticket-collector, resentfully, as he looked at the tall man. + +The tall man, however, was behaving as though the market-place belonged +to him, talking to his neighbours, who mostly looked at him askance, and +every now and then breaking into a contemptuous laugh, provoked +apparently by the eloquence of the young woman in the wagon. Meanwhile +the little girl whose hand he held was trying to pull him into a better +place for seeing the rest of the procession. For from the place where +they stood on the outskirts of the crowd, the foremost wagon with its +nodding wheat and sheaves, its speaker, its old women, and its bodyguard +of girls entirely hid the cart behind it. + +"Dis way, pappa, dis way," said the child, dragging him. He let her draw +him, and suddenly from behind the speaker's cart there emerged the second +wagon with its white horses; Rachel Henderson, the observed of all +beholders, standing flushed and smiling, with the reins in her hands, the +vicar just behind her, and Lady Alicia's lace parasol. + +"My God!" said the man. + +His sudden start, and clutch at the child's hand made the child cry out. +He checked her with a savage word, and while she whimpered unheeded, he +stood motionless, sheltering himself behind a girl with a large hat who +stood in front of him, his eyes fixed on the Great End wagon. A ghastly +white had replaced the patchy red on his cheeks, and had any careful +observer chanced to notice him at the moment, he or she would have been +struck by the expression of his face--as of some evil, startled beast +aware of its enemy, and making ready to spring. + +But the expression passed. With a long breath, Roger Delane pulled +himself together. + +"Hold your noise, Nina," he said roughly to the child. "If you'll be a +good girl, I'll put you on my shoulder." + +The child stopped crying at once, and Delane, raising her on to his +shoulder, pulling his own soft hat over his eyes and placing the child so +that her dress concealed his own features. Then he resumed an excited +scrutiny of the Great End wagon. At the same moment he saw a man in +uniform making his way through the crowd towards Miss Henderson who was +waving to him. An officer--an American officer. Delane recognized at once +the high collar and the leathern peak to the cap. + +The crowd had already begun to cheer him. He reached the Great End wagon, +and its mistress, all smiles, bent over to speak to him. She and the +vicar seemed to be giving directions, to which the American with a +laughing shrug assented, going off to the front wagon, evidently in +obedience to orders. There the girl speaker had just sat down amid a +hearty cheer from the crowd; and the chairman of the meeting, a burly +farmer, eagerly came to the side of the wagon, and helped the American +officer into the cart. Then with a stentorian voice the chairman +announced that Captain Ellesborough from Ralstone camp had come "to tell +us what America is doing!" A roar from the crowd. Ellesborough saluted +gaily, and then his hands in his pockets began to talk to them. His +speech, which was a racy summary of all that America was doing to help +the Allies, was delivered to a ringing accompaniment of cheers from the +thronged market-place, rising to special thunder when the captain dwelt +on the wheat and bacon that America was pouring across the Atlantic +to feed a hungry Europe. + +"We've tightened our own belts already; we can tighten them, I dare say, +a few holes more. Everybody in America's growing something, and making +something. When a man thinks he's done enough, and wants to rest a bit, +the man next him gets behind him with a bradawl. There's no rest for +anybody. We've just registered _thirteen million_ men. That sounds like +business, doesn't it? No slacking there! Well, we mean business. And you +mean business. And the women mean business." + +Then a passage about the women, which set the land girls grinning at each +other, and at the men in the crowd, ending in three cheers for Marshal +Foch and Sir Douglas Haig, which came echoing back from the Fourteenth +Century church and the old houses which ringed the market-place. + +All eyes were on the speaker, no one noticed the tall man with the +olive-skinned child on his shoulder. He himself, with thumping pulses, +never ceased to watch the figures and movements in the second wagon. He +saw Miss Henderson sit down and another woman also in tunic and knickers +take her place. He watched her applauding the speaker, or talking with +the clergyman behind her, or the lady with the lace parasol. And when the +speech was over, amid a hurricane of enthusiasm, when the resolution had +been put and carried, and the bells in the old church-tower began to ring +out a deafening joy-peal above the dispersing crowd, he saw the American +officer jump down from the speaker's wagon and return to Miss Henderson. +Steps were brought, and Captain Ellesborough handed out the ladies. Then +he and Rachel Henderson went away side by side, laughing and talking, +towards the porch of the church, where Delane lost them from sight. + +The market-place emptied rapidly. The decorated wagons moved off to the +field where the competitions had been held in the morning, and some +of the crowd with them. Another portion streamed into the church, and +soon only a few scattered groups were left. + +The tall man put down the child, and was seized with a fit of coughing, +which left him more pallid and sunken-eyed than before. When it was over, +he noticed a group of elderly labourers. They had come late into the +meeting, and were making for the bar of the Cow-roast Inn, but before +they entered it Delane went up to one of them. + +"I'm a stranger here," he said carelessly. "Can you tell me who all these +people were in the wagons?" + +The man addressed--who was old Halsey--gave the speaker a reconnoitring +look. + +"Well, I dunno neither," he said cautiously, "leastways, many of 'em. +There was my old missus, in the first one. She didn't want to go, dressed +up in them sunbonnets. But they made such a fuss of her, she had to. +There was Farmer Broughton I seed, an' I don't know nobody else." + +"Well, but the second wagon?" said Delane impatiently. + +"Oh, the second wagon. Why, that was Miss Henderson. Don't ye know 'er? I +works for 'er?" + +"Is she on the land?" + +The old man laughed. + +"That she be! She's a farmer, is Miss Henderson, an' she frames pretty +fair. She don't know much yet, but what she don't know Hastings tells, +her." + +"Who's Hastings?" + +"Why, her bailiff, to be sure. You do be a stranger, not knowin' Muster +Hastings?" + +"I'm just here for a few weeks. It's a rum business, isn't it, this of +women taking farms?" + +Halsey nodded reflectively. + +"Aye, it's a queer business. But they do be cleverer at it than ye'd +think. Miss Henderson's a good head-piece of her own." + +"And some money, I suppose?" + +"Well, that's not my look out, is it, so long as I gits my wages? I +dessay Colonel Shepherd, ee sees to that. Well, good-day to you. I'm +goin' in to get summat to drink. It's a dryin' wind to-day, and a good +bit walk from Ipscombe." + +"Is that where you live?" + +"Aye--an' Miss Henderson's place is just t'other side. A good mile to +Ipscombe, and near a mile beyont. I didn't want to come, but my old woman +she nagged me to come an' see her 'ome." + +And with another nod, the old man turned into the public, where his mates +were already enjoying the small beer of the moment. + +For a few minutes, Delane strolled down the main road in silence, the +child playing at his heels. Then he turned abruptly, called the child, +and went up the side street from which he had appeared when the +meeting began. + +A quarter of an hour later he returned to the market-place alone. The +service in the church was still going on. He could hear them singing, the +harvest hymn: "We plough the fields and scatter--The good seed on the +land." But he did not stop to listen. He walked on rapidly in the +direction of Ipscombe. + +Delane found the main line from Millsborough to Ipscombe dotted +at intervals with groups of persons returning from the harvest +festival--elderly women with children, a few old labourers, a few +soldiers on leave, with a lively fringe of noisy boys and girls +skirmishing round and about their elders, like so many young animals on +the loose. The evening light was failing. The pools left by a passing +shower, gleamed along the road, and the black elms and oaks, scarcely +touched as yet by autumn gold, stood straight and sharp against a rainy +sky. + +The tall, slouching man scrutinized the various groups as he passed them, +as though making up his mind whether to address them or not. He wore a +shabby greatcoat, warmer than the day demanded, and closely buttoned +across the chest. The rest of his dress, felt hat, dark trousers, and tan +boots, had all of it come originally from expensive shops, but was now +only just presentable. The one thing in good condition about him was the +Malacca cane he carried, which had a carved jade handle, and was +altogether out of keeping with his general appearance. + +All the same there was something striking in that appearance. Face, +figure and dress represented the wreck of more than one kind of +distinction. The face must once have been exceptionally handsome, before +an underlying commonness and coarseness had been brought out or +emphasized by developments of character and circumstance. The mouth was +now loose and heavy. The hazel eyes had lost their youth, and were +disfigured by the premature wrinkles of either ill-health or dissipation. +None the less, a certain carriage of the head and shoulders, a certain +magnificence in the whole general outline of the man, especially in the +defiant eyes and brow, marked him out from the crowd, and drew attention +of strangers. + +Many persons looked at him, as he at them, while he swung slowly along +the road. At last he crossed over towards an elderly man in company with +a young soldier, who was walking lamely with a stick. + +"Excuse me," he said, formally, addressing the elder man, "but am I right +for Ipscombe?" + +"That you are, muster. The next turnin' to the right'll bring yer to it." +Peter Betts looked the stranger over as he spoke, with an inquisitive +eye. + +"You've come from the meeting, I suppose?" + +"Ay. We didn't go to the service. That worn't in our line. But we heerd +the speeches out o' doors." + +"The carts were fine!--especially the second one." + +"Ay--that's our missis. She and the two girls done the dressin' o' the +cart." + +"What's her name?" + +"Well, her name's Henderson," said the old man, speaking with an amiable, +half careless detachment, the manner rather of a philosopher than a +gossip. + +"She's the farmer's wife?" + +"Noa, she ain't. She's the farmer herself--'at's what she is. She's took +the farm from Colonel Shepherd--she did--all on her own. To be sure +there's Miss Leighton as lives with her. But it do seem to me as Miss +Henderson's--as you might say--the top 'un. And me an' James Halsey works +for her." + +"_Miss_ Henderson? She's not married?" + +"Not she!" said old Betts emphatically. "She's like a lot o' women +nowadays, I guess. They doan't want to be married." + +"Perhaps nobody 'as wanted to marry 'em, dad!" said his elder son, +grinning at his own stale jest. + +Betts shook a meditative head. + +"Noa--yo'll not explain it that way," he said mildly. "Some of 'em's +good-looking--Miss Henderson 'ersel', by token. A very 'andsome +up-standin' young woman is Miss Henderson." + +Delane followed all these remarks with close attention, and continued a +rather skilful examination. He learnt that Great End was a farm of about +two hundred and fifty acres, that Miss Henderson seemed to have "lots o' +money," and had sold her autumn crops very well, that Miss Leighton +managed the stock and the dairy with the help of two land-girls, and it +was thought by the village that the two ladies "was doin' fine." + +Arrived at the village, Betts turned into his cottage, with a nod to his +companion, and Delane went on his way. + +The lane on the farther side of the village was dark under branching +trees. Delane stumbled along it, coughing at intervals, and gripped by +the rising chill of the September evening. A little beyond the trees he +caught sight of the farm against the hill. Yes, it was lonesome, as the +old man said, but a big, substantial-looking place. Rachel's place! And +Rachel had "lots o' money"--and as to her health and well-being, why the +sight of her on that cart was enough. That vision of her indeed--of the +flushed, smiling face under the khaki hat, of the young form in the trim +tunic and leggings, and, not least, of the admiring crowd about her, kept +returning upon the man's furious sense as something not to be borne, a +recurrent blow from which he could not escape. + +And that American chap--that Yankee officer who had walked off with her +to the church--what was the meaning of that? They were not strangers, +that was plain. She had beckoned to him from the cart. The manner of +their short conversation, indeed, showed them well acquainted. She told +him to go and speak--and he had gone--with alacrity--smiling back at her. +Courting, no doubt! Rachel could never let a man alone--or live, without +a man after her. A brutal phrase shaped itself--a vile epithet or +two--flung into the solitude of the lane. + +When he emerged from the trees into a space of greater light between two +stubble fields, Delane suddenly drew a letter from his pocket. While +Rachel was flaunting with "lots of money"--this was how his affairs were +going. + +"DEAR ROGER,--I can do nothing for you. Your demands are simply +insatiable. If you write me any more begging letters, or if you attempt +again to force your way into my house as you did last week, I shall tell +the bank to cancel your allowance, and wash my hands of you altogether. +My husband's determined to stop this kind of thing. Don't imagine you can +either threaten us, or come round us. We have tried again and again to +help and reform you. It is no good--and now we give you up. You have +worn us out. If you are wise, you will not answer this--and if you keep +quiet the allowance shall be continued. MARIANNE TILNEY." + +That was a nice letter to get from a man's only sister! Allowance! What +was L100 a year to a woman as rich as Marianne? And what was the use +of L100 a year to him, with living at the price it was now? His wretched +pittance besides, doled out to him by his father's trustees under his +father's will, brought his whole income up to L300 a year. How was a man +to live on that, and support a woman and child? + +And here was Rachel--free--bursting with health--and possessed of "lots +of money." She thought, no doubt, that she had done with him--thrust him +out of her life altogether. He'd let her see! Whose fault was it that he +had taken up with Anita? Nagging, impossible creature!--with her fine +ladyisms and her tempers, and her insolent superior ways! + +He walked on, consumed with a bitterness which held him like a physical +anguish. By now he had reached the farm gate. The sunset had cleared and +deepened. Great rosy thunder-clouds topped the down, and strong lights +were climbing up the bronzed masses of wood behind the house. No one to +be seen. At Millsborough they could hardly be out of church yet. He had +time before him. He walked cautiously up the farm-lane, diverging to the +left as he reached the buildings so as to escape the notice of any one +who might be left in charge. As he slipped under the large cart-shed +which backed on the cow-house, he heard somebody whistling inside. It was +old Halsey, who had done the afternoon milking in the absence of the +girls. Delane could hear the movements of the labourer, and the munching +of the cows. A little farther on was the stable, and two horses' heads, +looking pensively out from the open half of the door. Delane peered into +the stable with the eye of one to whom all farming matters were familiar. +Three fine horses--d---d fine horses!--must have cost L100 a piece at +least. No doubt the cows were equally good stuff. And he had noticed +under the outer cart-shed a brand-new reaper and binder, and other farm +implements and machines of the best quality. Rachel was doing the thing +in style. + +But where was the farm-house? Then as he crept round the third side of +the rough quadrangle, he became aware of a large window with white +curtains. Looking through it with his face against the glass, he was +startled to find that he was looking straight into the farm-yard through +another window of equal size on the other side of the room. And at the +moment Halsey came out of the cow-shed carrying a pail of milk in either +hand. Delane drew hastily back into the shelter of an old holly that grew +against the wall, till the old man had disappeared. Then he eagerly +examined the room, which was still suffused by the sunset. Its prettiness +and comfort were so many fresh exasperations. He contrasted it inwardly +with the wretched lodging from which he had just come. Why, he knew the +photographs on the walls--her father, the old parson, and her puritanical +mother, whom Rachel had always thrown in his teeth. Her eldest brother, +too, who had been drowned at sea. And that engraving--that sentimental +thing by Watts, "Love and Death," that Rachel had bought once on a visit +to Toronto, and he had scolded her for buying. There it was, as large as +life. How did it come there? Was it her property or his? He believed he +could claim it, if he chose. Gad!--what would she say if she knew where +he was at that moment, and what he was doing! + +For eighteen months she had hidden herself so cleverly that he had +entirely lost sight of her. When her lawyers communicated with him in the +spring they had been careful to give no address. On the whole he had +believed her to be still in Canada. She, on the other hand, unless she +were a greater fool than he thought her, _must_ have guessed that he +would get back to England somehow. Why, the farm had ended in bankruptcy, +and what else was there to do but to come home and dun his relations! +Yet she had not been afraid to come home herself, and set up in this +conspicuous way. She supposed, of course, that she had done with him for +good--kicked him off like an old shoe! The rage in his blood set his +heart beating to suffocation. Then his cough seized him again. He stifled +it as best he could, flattened against the wall, in the shadow of a +yew-tree. + +The sound, however, was apparently heard, for there were rapid steps +across the farm-yard, and a gate opened. "Hallo--who's there?" The voice +was, no doubt, that of the labourer he had seen. Delane slipped +noiselessly along the wall, and to the back of the stables, till all was +quiet again within the farm. + +But outside in the road there were persons approaching. He mounted the +hill a little way into the shelter of the trees which covered the steep +face of the down, and ran up into the great woods along the crest. +Through the gathering dusk he saw the large farm-cart clattering up the +lane with several figures in it. The cart carried lamps, which sent +shafts of light over the stubbles. There was a sound of talk and +laughter, and alongside the cart he saw a man leading a motor-bicycle, +and apparently talking to the women in the cart. A man in uniform. +The American, no doubt! + +The cart drew up at the farm-yard gates, and the old labourer came to +open them. Everybody dismounted, except one of the girls, who, standing +in the wagon, drove the horses. Then, for a time, Delane could see +nothing more. The farm quadrangle had absorbed the party. Occasionally a +light flashed, or a voice could be heard calling, or laughter came +floating up the hill through an open door or window. But in a little +while all was silence. + +Delane sat down on a fallen trunk, and watched. All kinds of images were +rushing through his brain--wide wheat fields with a blazing sun on the +stooks--a small frame house set nakedly on the flat prairie with a bit of +untidy garden round it--its living room in winter, with a huge fire, and +a woman moving about--the creek behind it, and himself taking horses down +to water. They were images of something that had once meant happiness and +hope--a temporary break or interlude in a dismal tale which had closed +upon it before and after. + +Darkness came down. The man on the hill said to himself, "Now they are +having supper," and he crept down again to the farm, and crouching and +wriggling along he made his way again to the big window, over which the +curtains had been drawn. There was no one in the sitting-room, however, +to judge from the silence, but from the kitchen across the passage came a +rush of voices, together with a clatter of plates. The kitchen looked out +on the front of the farm, and a wooden shutter had been fastened across +the window. But the wood of the shutter was old and full of chinks, and +Delane, pressing his face to the window, was able to get just a glimpse +of the scene within--Rachel at the head of the table, the man in uniform +beside her--three other women. A paraffin lamp threw the shadow of the +persons at the table sharply on the white distempered wall. There were +flowers on the table, and the meal wore a home-like and tempting air to +the crouching spy outside. Rachel smiled incessantly, and it seemed to +Delane that the handsome man beside her could not take his eyes from her. +Nor could Delane. Her brown head and white throat, her soft, rose-tinted +face emerging from the black dress, were youth itself--a vision of youth +and lusty-hood brilliantly painted on the white wall. + +Delane looked his fill. Then he dropped down the bank on which the farm +stood, and avoiding the open track through the fields, he skirted a hedge +which led down to the road, and was lost in the shadows of advancing +night. + + + + +VI + + +Rain!--how it pelted the September fields day after day and week after +week, as though to remind a world still steeped in, still drunk with the +most wonderful of harvests, that the gods had not yet forgotten their old +jealousy of men, and men's prosperity. Whenever a fine day came the early +ploughing and seeding was in full swing, and Rachel on one side of the +largest field could watch the drill at work, and on the other the harrow +which covered in the seed. In the next field, perhaps, she would find +Betty and Jenny lifting potatoes, and would go to help with them, digging +and sorting, till every limb ached and she seemed to be a part herself of +the damp brown earth that she was robbing of its treasure. For a time +when the harvest was done, when the ricks were thatched ready for +threshing, there had been a moment of ease. But with the coming of +October, the pressure began again. The thought of the coming frost and of +all those greedy mouths of cattle, sheep, and horses to be filled through +the winter, drove and hunted the workers on Great End Farm, as they have +driven and hunted the children of earth since tilling and stock-keeping +began. Under the hedges near the house, the long potato caves had been +filled and covered in; the sheep were in the turnips, and every two or +three days, often under torrents of rain, Rachel and the two girls must +change the hurdles, and put the hungry, pushing creatures on to fresh +ground. On the top of the down, there was fern to be cut and carted for +the winter fodder, and fallen wood to be gathered for fuel, under the +daily threats of the coal-controller. + +Rachel worked hard and long. How she loved the life that once under other +skies and other conditions she had loathed! Ownership and command had +given her a new dignity, in a sense a new beauty. Her labourers and her +land girls admired and obeyed her, while--perhaps!--Janet Leighton had +their hearts. Rachel's real self seemed to be something that no one knew; +her companions were never quite at ease with her; and yet her gay, +careless ways, the humanity and natural fairness of her mind, carried a +spell that made her rule sit light upon them. + +Yes!--after all these weeks together, not even Janet knew her much +better. The sense of mystery remained; although the progress of the +relation between her and Ellesborough was becoming very evident, not only +indeed to Janet, but to everybody at the farm. His departure for France +had been delayed owing to the death in action of the officer who was to +have been sent home to replace him. It might be a month now before he +left. Meanwhile, every Sunday he spent some hours at the farm, and +generally on a couple of evenings in the week he would arrive just after +supper, help to put the animals to bed, and then stay talking with Rachel +in the sitting-room, while Janet tidied up in the kitchen. Janet, the +warm-hearted, had become much attached to him. He had been at no pains to +hide the state of his feelings from her. Indeed, though he had said +nothing explicit, his whole attitude to Rachel's friend and partner was +now one of tacit appeal for sympathy. And she was more than ready to +give it. Her uprightness, and the touch of austerity in her, reached +out to similar qualities in him; and the intellectual dissent which she +derived from her East Anglican forbears, from the circles which in +eighteenth-century Norwich gathered round Mrs. Opie, the Martineaus, and +the Aldersons, took kindly to the same forces in him; forces descended +from that New England Puritanism which produced half the great men--and +women--of an earlier America. Rachel laughed at them for 'talking +theology,' not suspecting that as the weeks went on they talked--whenever +they got a chance--less and less of theology, and more and more of +herself, through the many ingenious approaches that a lover invents and +the amused and sympathetic friend abets. + +For clearly Ellesborough was in love. Janet read the signs of it in the +ease with which he had accepted the postponement of his release from the +camp, eager as he was to get to the fighting line. She heard it in his +voice, saw it in his eyes; and she was well aware that Rachel saw it. +What Rachel thought and felt was more obscure. She watched for +Ellesborough; she put on her best frocks for him; she was delighted to +laugh and talk with him. But she watched for Mr. Shenstone, too, and +would say something caustic or impatient if he were two or three days +without calling. And when he called, Rachel very seldom snubbed him, as +at first. She was all smiles; the best frocks came out for him, too; and +Janet, seeing the growing beatitude of the poor vicar, and the growing +nervousness of his sister, was often inclined to be really angry with +Rachel. But they were not yet on such terms as would allow her to +remonstrate with what seemed to her a rather unkind bit of flirtation; +seeing that she did not believe that Rachel had, or ever would have, a +serious thought to give the shallow, kindly little man. + +But though she held her tongue, Janet showed her feeling sometimes by a +tone, or a lifted eyebrow, and then Rachel would look at her askance, +turning the vicar's head none the less on the next occasion. Was it that +she was deceiving herself, as well as trying, very unsuccessfully, to +deceive the lookers-on? The progress of the affair with Ellesborough made +on Janet a curious and rather sinister impression, which she could hardly +explain to herself. She seemed to see that Ellesborough's suit steadily +advanced; that Rachel made no real attempt to resist his power over her. +But all the same there was no happy, spontaneous growth in it. Rachel +seemed to take her increasing subjection hardly, to be fighting obscurely +against it all the time, as though she were hampered by thought and +motives unknown to the other two. Ellesborough, Janet thought, was often +puzzled by the cynical or bitter talk with which Rachel would sometimes +deliberately provoke him. And yet it was clear that he possessed the +self-confidence of a strong man, and did not really doubt his ultimate +power to win and hold the woman he was courting. + +One bitterly cold evening at the very end of September, Ellesborough, +arriving at the farm, was welcomed by Janet, and told that all hands were +in the fields "clamping" potatoes. She herself left a vegetable stew +ready for supper, safely simmering in a hay-box, and walked towards the +potato field with Ellesborough. On the way they fell in with Hastings, +the bailiff, who was walking fast, and seemed to be in some excitement. + +"Miss Leighton--that old fool Halsey has given notice!" + +Janet stopped in dismay. Halsey was a valuable man, an old-fashioned +labourer of many aptitudes, equally good as a woodman, as an expert in +"fagging" or sickling beaten-down corn, as a thatcher of roofs or ricks, +as a setter of traps for moles, or snares for rabbits. Halsey was the +key-stone of the farm labour. Betts was well enough. But without Halsey's +intelligence to keep him straight--Janet groaned. + +"What on earth's the matter, Hastings? We raised his wages last week--and +we did it before the county award was out!" + +Hastings shook his head. + +"It's not wages. He says he's seen the ghost!" + +Janet exclaimed, and Ellesborough laughed. + +"What, the defunct gamekeeper?" + +Hastings nodded. + +"Vows he's seen him twice--once on the hill--on the green path--and once +disappearing round the corner of the farm. He declares that he called to +the man--who was like nobody he had ever seen before--and the man took no +notice, but went along, all hunched up--as they say the ghost is--and +talking to himself--till all of a sudden he vanished. I've argued with +him. But nothing'll hold him--old idiot! He vows he'll go---and if he +talks to the others they'll all go." + +"Has he gone home?" asked Janet. + +"Long ago. He left the horses to Jenny, and just marched off. In the lane +he met me, and gave notice. Such a cock-and-bull story as you never +heard! But I couldn't do anything with him." + +"I'll go and tackle him," said Janet at once. "We can't lose him. The +work will go to smash." + +She waved a farewell to Ellesborough, and ran back to the house. The +others, watching, saw her emerge on her bicycle and disappear towards the +village. + +"Well, if anybody can move the old fellow, I suppose it's Miss Leighton," +said Hastings disconsolately. "She's always managed to get the right side +of him so far. But I'm nearly beat, captain! Things are getting too hard +for me. You can't say a word to these men--they're off in a moment. And +the wages!--it's sinful!" + +"We're supposed only to be fighting a war, Hastings," said Ellesborough +with a smile as they walked on together. "But all the time there's +revolution going on beside it--all over the world!" + +Hastings made a face. + +"Right you are, captain. And how's it going to work out?" + +"Don't ask me!" laughed Ellesborough--"we've all got to sit tight and +hope for the best. All I know is that the people who work with their +hands are going to get a bit of their own back from the people who work +with their heads--or their cheque-books. And I'm glad of it! But ghosts +are a silly nuisance. However, I dare say Miss Leighton will get round +the old man." + +Hastings looked doubtful. + +"I don't know. All the talk about the murder has come up again. They say +there's a grandson come home of the man that was suspected sixty years +ago--John Dempsey. And some people tell me that this lad had the whole +story of the murder from his grandfather--who confessed it--only last +year, when the man died." + +"Well, if he's dead all right, and has owned up to it, why on earth does +the ghost make a fuss?" + +Hastings shook his head. + +"People get talking," he said gloomily. "And when they get talking, +they'll believe anything--and see anything. It'll be the girls next." + +Ellesborough tried to cheer him, but without much success. The "poor +spirit" of the bailiff was a perpetual astonishment to the American, in +the prime of his own life and vigour. Existence for Hastings was always +either drab or a black business. If the weather was warm, "a bit of cold +would ha' been better": if a man recovered from an illness, he'd still +got the "bother o' dyin' before him." He was certain we should lose the +war, and the rush of the September victories did not affect him. And if +we didn't lose it, no matter--prices and wages would still be enough to +ruin us. Rachel grew impatient under the constant drench of pessimism. +Janet remembered that the man was a delicate man, nearing the sixties, +with, as she suspected, but small provision laid up for old age; with an +ailing wife; and bearing the marks in body and spirit of years of +overwork. She never missed an opportunity of doing him a kindness; and +the consequence was that Hastings, always faithful, even to his worst +employers, was passionately faithful to his new mistresses, defending +them and fighting for their interests, as they were sometimes hardly +inclined to fight for themselves. + +After showing Ellesborough the way to the "clamps," Hastings left him. In +succession to the long days of rain there had been a sudden clearing in +the skies. The day had been fine, and now, towards sunset, there was a +grand massing of rosy cloud along the edge of the down, and windy lights +over the valley. Rachel, busy with the covering of the potato "clamps," +laid down the bundle of bracken she had been handing to Peter Betts, and +came quickly to meet her visitor. Her working dress was splashed with +mire from neck to foot, and coils of brown hair had escaped from her +waterproof cap, and hung about her brilliant cheeks. She looked happy, +but tired. + +"Such a day!" she said, panting, as they met. "The girls and I began at +six this morning--lifting and sorting. It was so important to get them +in. Now they're safe if the frost does come. It's a jolly crop!" + +Ellesborough looked at her, and her eyes wavered before the ardour in +his. + +"I say! You work too hard! Haven't you done enough? Come and rest." + +She nodded. "I'll come!" + +She ran to say a word to the others and rejoined him. + +They went back to the farm, not talking much, but conscious through every +nerve of the other's nearness. Rachel ran upstairs to change her dress, +and Ellesborough put the fire together, and shut the windows. For the sun +had sunk behind the hill, and a bitter wind was rising. When Rachel came +down again, the wood-fire glowed and crackled, the curtains drawn, and +she stared in astonishment at a small tea-tray beside the fire. + +Ellesborough hurriedly apologized. + +"I found some boiling water in the kettle, and I know by now where Miss +Janet keeps her tea." + +"Janet brought us tea to the field." + +"I dare say she did. That was four--this is six. You felt cold just now. +You looked cold. Be good, and take it easy!" He pointed to the only +comfortable chair, which he had drawn up to the fire. + +"Are you sure it boiled?" she said sceptically, as she sank into her +chair, her eyes dancing. "No man knows when a kettle boils." + +"Try it! For five winters on the Saguenay, I made my own tea--and baked +my own bread. Men are better cooks than women when they give their minds +to it!" He brought her the cup, hot and fragrant, and she sipped it in +pure content while he stood smiling above her, leaning against the +mantelpiece. + +"I wanted to see you," he said presently. "I've just got my marching +orders. Let's see. This is October. I shall have just a month. They've +found another man to take over this job, but he can't come till +November." + +"And--peace?" said Rachel, looking up. + +For Prince Max of Baden had just made his famous peace offer of October +5th, and even in rural Brookshire there was a thrilling sense of opening +skies, of some loosening of those iron bonds in which the world had lain +for four years. + +"There will be no peace!" said Ellesborough with sudden energy, "so long +as there is a single German soldier left in Belgium or France!" + +She saw him stiffen from head to foot--and thrilled to the flame of +avenging will that suddenly possessed him. The male looked out upon her, +kindling--by the old, old law--the woman in her. + +"And if they don't accept that?" + +"Then the war will go on," he said briefly, "and I shall be in for the +last lap!" + +His colour changed a little. She put down her cup and bent over the fire, +warming her hands. + +"If it does go on, it will be fiercer than ever." + +"Very likely. If our fellows set the pace there'll be no dawdling. +America's white hot." + +"And you'll be in it?" + +"I hope so," he said quietly. + +There was a pause. Then he, looking down upon her, felt a sudden and +passionate joy invade him--joy which was also longing--longing +irresistible. His mind had been wrestling with many scruples and +difficulties during the preceding days. Ought he to speak--on the eve of +departure--or not? Would she accept him? Or was all her manner and +attitude towards him merely the result of the new freedom of women? +Gradually but surely his mounting passion had idealized her. Not only +her personal ways and looks had become delightful to him, but the +honourable, independent self in him had come to feel a deep admiration +for and sympathy with her honourable independence, for these new powers +in women that made them so strong in spite of their weakness. She had +become to him not only a woman but a heroine. His whole heart approved +and admired her when he saw her so active, so competent, so human. And +none the less the man's natural instinct hungered to take her in his +arms, to work for her, to put her back in the shelter of love and +home--ith her children at her knee.... + +And how domestic was this little scene in which they stood--the +firelight, the curtained room, the tea-things, her soft, bending form, +with the signs of labour put away!... + +The tears rushed to his eyes. He bent over her, and spoke her name, +almost unconsciously. + +"Rachel!" + +His soul was in the name! + +She started, and looked up. While he had been thinking only of her, her +thoughts had gone wandering--far away. And they seemed to have brought +back--not the happy yielding of a woman to her lover--but distress and +fear. A shock ran through him. + +"Rachel!--" He held out his hands to her. He could not find words, but +his eyes spoke, and the agitation in every feature. + +But she drew back. + +"Don't--don't say anything--till--" + +His look held her--the surprise in it--the tender appeal. She could not +take hers from it. But the disturbance in him deepened. For in the face +she raised to him there was no flood of maidenly joy. Suddenly--her eyes +were those of a culprit examining her judge. A cry sprang to his lips. + +"Wait!--wait!" she said piteously. + +She fell back in her chair, covering her face, her breast heaving. He saw +that she was trying to command herself, to steady her voice. One of those +forebodings which are the children of our half-conscious observation shot +through him. But he would not admit it. + +He stooped over her and tried again to take her hand. But she drew it +away, and sat up in her chair. She was very white, and there were tears +in her eyes. + +"I've got something to say to you," she said, with evident difficulty, +"which--I'm afraid--will surprise you very much. Of course I ought to +have told you--long ago. But I'm a coward, and--and--it was all so +horrible. I am not what you suppose me. I'm--a married woman--at least I +was. I divorced my husband--eighteen months ago. I'm quite free now. I +thought if you really cared about me--I should of course have to tell you +some time--but I've been letting it go on. It was very wrong of me--I +know it was very wrong!" + +And bowing her face on her knees, she burst into a passion of weeping, +the weeping of a child who was yet a woman. The mingled immaturity and +intensity of her nature found its expression in the very abandonment of +her tears. + +Ellesborough, too, had turned pale. He was astounded by what +she said. His thoughts rushed back over the six weeks of their +friendship--recalling his first impressions of something mysterious +and unexplained. + +But of late, he had entirely forgotten them. She had talked so frankly +and simply of her father and mother--of her father's missionary work in +Canada, and her early journeys with him; and of her brother in Ontario, +his children and his letters. Once she had handed him a letter from this +brother to read, and he had been struck by the refined and affectionate +tone of it. Here were the same family relations as his own. His heart, +his taste were satisfied. If Rachel Henderson accepted him he would be +bringing his mother a daughter she would find it easy to love. + +And all the time--instead of an unmarried girl, with the experiences +of love and marriage before her--she had been already married--and +divorced! Another man had loved and possessed her--and even if she were +innocent--but of course she was innocent!--there must be some ugly story +involved. + +He tried to collect his thoughts--but all his consciousness seemed to be +bruised and in pain. He could only put his hand on her hair, and say +incoherent things,-- + +"Don't cry so, dear--don't cry!" + +And even as he spoke he felt with bewilderment how--in a moment--their +respective attitudes had changed. She checked her sobs. + +"Sit there!" she said, pointing peremptorily to a seat opposite. Then she +looked round her. + +"Where is Janet?" + +"She went to the village." + +Rachel dried her eyes, and with trembling hands smoothed her hair back +from her face. + +"I'll try and tell it shortly. It's a horrible tale." + +"Do you feel able to tell it?" + +For he was aghast at her pallor--the alteration in her whole aspect. + +"I must," she wailed. "Weren't you--weren't you just going to ask me to +marry you?" + +Strange question!--strange frowning eyes! + +"I was," he said gravely. "Didn't you know I should?" + +"No, no, I didn't know!" she said piteously. "I was never _sure_--till +you looked at me then. I wouldn't be sure!" + +He said nothing. Speech was ice-bound till he had heard what she had to +say. + +"It all began to happen three years ago," she said hurriedly, hiding her +face from him with her hand while she hung over the fire. "I was living +with my brother, who was then near Winnipeg. He offered me a home after +my father died. But he was married, and I didn't get on with his wife. I +dare say it was my fault, but I wasn't happy, and I wanted to get away. +Then a man--an Englishman--bought the next section to us, and we began +to know him. He was a gentleman--he'd been to Cambridge--his father had +some land and a house in Lincolnshire. But he was the third son, and +he'd been taught land agency, he said, as a training for the colonies. +That was all we knew. He was very good-looking, and he began courting me. +I suppose I was proud of his being a University man--a public school boy, +and all that. He told me a lot of stories about his people, and his +money--most of which were lies. But I was a fool--and I believed them. My +brother tried to stop it. Well, you know from his letters what sort of +man he is," and again she brushed the sudden tears away. "But his wife +made mischief, and I was set on having a place of my own. So I stuck to +it--and married him." + +She rose abruptly from her seat and began to move restlessly about the +room, taking up a book or her knitting from the table, and putting them +down again, evidently unconscious of what she was doing. Ellesborough +waited. His lean, sharply-cut face revealed a miserable, perhaps an +agonized suspense. This crisis into which she had plunged him so suddenly +was bringing home to him all that he had at stake. That she mattered to +him so vitally he had never known till this moment. + +"What's the good of going into it!" she said at last desperately. "You +can guess--what it means"--a sudden crimson rushed to her cheeks--"to +be tied to a man--without honour--or principle--or refinement--who +presently seemed to me vile all through--in what he said--or what he did. +And I was at his mercy. I had married him in such a hurry he had a right +to despise me, and he used it! And when I resisted and turned against +him, then I found out what his temper meant." She raised her shoulders +with a gesture which needed no words. "Well--we got on somehow till my +little girl was born--" + +Ellesborough started. Rachel turned on him her sad, swimming eyes. But +the mere mention of her child had given her back her dignity and strength +to go on. She became visibly more composed, as she stood opposite to him, +her beautiful dark head against the sunset clouds outside. + +"She only lived a few weeks. Her death was largely owing to him. But +that's a long story. And after her death I couldn't stand it any more. I +ran away. And soon I heard that he had taken up with an Italian girl. +There was a large camp of Italians on the C.P.R., quite close to us. She +was the daughter of one of the foremen. So then my brother made me go to +his lawyers in Winnipeg. We collected evidence very easily. I got my +divorce eighteen months ago. The decree was made absolute last February. +So, of course, I'm quite free--quite--_quite_ free!" + +She spoke the last words almost savagely, and after them she moved away +to the window looking on the down, and stood gazing through it, as though +she had forgotten Ellesborough's presence. + +"The action was not defended?" he asked, in a low voice. + +She shook her head without speaking. But after a minute she added,-- + +"I can show you the report." + +There was silence. Ellesborough turned round, put his hands on the +mantelpiece, and buried his face on them. Presently she approached him, +looked at him with a quivering lip, and said in broken sentences,-- + +"It has all come so suddenly--hasn't it? I had been in such good +spirits to-day, not thinking of those horrible things at all. I don't +know what I meant to do, if you did ask me--for of course I knew you +_might_. I suppose I intended to put off telling you--so as to be sure +first--_certain_--that you loved me. And then--somehow--when you looked +down on me like that, I felt--that _I_ cared--much more than I had +thought I cared--too much to let you speak--before you knew--before I'd +told you. It's always been my way--to--put off disagreeable things. And +so I thought I could put this off. But every night I have been awake +thinking--'if only he knew!'--and I was wretched--for a while--because +you didn't know. But then it went away again--and I forgot it. One does +forget things--everything--when one is hard at work. But I'm awfully +sorry. And now--I think--we'd better say good-bye." + +Her voice faltered against her will. He raised himself quickly. + +"No--no," he said passionately, "we won't say good-bye. But you must let +me think--for you, as well as for myself." + +"It would be better to say good-bye," she persisted. "I'm afraid--you +expect in me--what I haven't got. I see that now. Because I'm keen about +this work, and I can run this farm, you think--perhaps--I'm a strong +character. But I'm not. I've no judgment--not in moral things. I give +in--I'm weak--and then--I could kill myself!" + +She had grown very white again--and her eyes were strangely fixed on him. +The words seemed to him incoherent, out of touch somehow even with their +tragic conversation. But his first passing bewilderment was lost in pity +and passion. He stopped, took her hand, and kissed it. He came nearer. + +But again she drew back. + +"There's Janet!" she said, "we can't talk any more." + +For she had caught sight of Janet in the farm-yard, leading her bicycle. + +"Can you meet me to-morrow evening--on the Common?" he said. "I could be +there about six." + +She frowned a little. + +"Is it worth while?" + +"I beg you!" he said huskily. + +"Very well--I'll come. We shall be just friends, please." + +"But, of course, I'll tell you more--if you wish." + +Janet's voice and step were heard in the passage. How Ellesborough got +through the next ten minutes he never remembered. When they were over, he +found himself rushing through the cool and silence of the autumn night, +thankful for this sheltering nature in which to hide his trouble, his +deep, deep distress. + + + + +VII + + +The October night rang stormily round Great End Farm. The northwest wind +rushing over the miniature pass just beyond the farm, where the road +dropped from the level of the upland in which Ipscombe lay, to the level +of the plain, was blowing fiercely on the square of buildings which stood +naked and undefended against weather from that quarter of the heaven, +while protected by the hills and the woods from the northeast. And +mingled with the noisy or wailing gusts came the shrieking from time to +time of one of the little brown owls that are now multiplying so fast in +the English midlands. + +The noise of the storm and the clamour of the owl were not the cause of +Rachel's wakefulness; but they tended to make it more feverish and +irritable. Every now and then she would throw off the bed-clothes, and +sit up with her hands round her knees, a white and rigid figure lit by +the solitary candle beside her. Then again she would feel the chill of +the autumn night, and crouch down shivering among the bed-clothes, pining +for a sleep that would not come. Instead of sleep, she could do nothing +but rehearse the scene with Ellesborough again and again. She watched the +alterations in his face--she heard the changes in his voice--as she told +her story. She was now as sorry for him as for herself! The tears came +flooding into her eyes as she thought of him. In her selfish fears of his +anger she had forgotten his suffering. But the first true love of her +life was bringing understanding. She realized the shock to him, and wept +over it. She saw, too, that she had been unjust and cowardly in letting +the situation go so far without speaking; and that there was no real +excuse for her. + +Would he give her up? She had told him that all was at an end between +them; but that was only pride--making a virtue of a necessity. Oh, no, +no, he must not give her up! It was only six weeks since their first +meeting, and though it would be untrue to say that since the meeting he +had wholly possessed her thoughts, she had been capable all through them +of that sort of dallying with the vicar which Janet thought unkind. She +had been able to find plenty of mind for her work, and for the ambitions +of her new profession, and had spent many a careless hour steeped in the +sheer physical pleasure of the harvest. Yet, from the beginning, his +personality had laid its grip on hers. She had never been able to forget +him for long. One visit from him was no sooner over than she was +calculating on and dreaming of the next. And as the consciousness +of some new birth in her had grown, and sudden glimpses had come to her +of some supreme joy, possibly within her grasp, so fear had grown, and +anxiety. She looked back upon her past, and knew it stained--knew that it +must at some point rise as an obstacle between her and him. + +But how great an obstacle? She was going to tell him, faithfully, +frankly, all the story of her marriage--accuse her own rash self-will in +marrying Delane, confess her own failings as a wife; she would tell no +hypocritical tale. She would make it plain that Roger had found in her no +mere suffering saint, and that probably her intolerance and impatience +had contributed to send him to damnation. But, after all, when it was +told, what could Ellesborough do but pity her?--take her in his arms--and +comfort her--for those awful years--and her lost child? + +The tears rained down her cheeks. He loved her! She was certain of that. +When he had once heard the story, he could not forsake her! She already +saw the pity in his deep grey eyes; she already felt his honest, +protecting arms about her. + +Ah--_but then_? Beyond that imagined scene, which rose, as though +it were staged, before her, Rachel's shrinking eyes, in the windy +darkness, seemed to be penetrating to another--a phantom scene in a dim +distance--drawn not from the future, but the past. Two figures moved in +it. One was herself. The other was not Roger Delane. + +The brown owl seemed to be shrieking just outside her window. Her +nerves quivered under the sound as though it were her own voice. Why was +life so cruel, so miserable? Why cannot even the gods themselves make +undone what is done? She was none the worse--permanently--for what had +happened in that distant scene--that play within a play? How was she the +worse? She was "not a bad woman!"--as she had said so passionately to +Janet, when they joined hands. There was no lasting taint left in mind +and soul--nothing to prevent her being a pure and faithful wife to George +Ellesborough, and a good mother to his children. It was another Rachel to +whom all that had happened, a Rachel she had a right to forget! She was +weak in will--she had confessed it. But George Ellesborough was strong. +Leaning on him, and on kind Janet, she could be all, she would be all, +that he still dreamed. The past--_that_ past--was dead. It had no +existence. Nothing--neither honour nor love--obliged her to disclose it. +Except in her own mind it was dead and buried--as though it had never +been. No human being shared her knowledge of it, or ever would. + +And yet the Accuser came closer and closer, wrestling with her shrinking +heart. "You can't live a lie beside him all your life!" "It won't be a +lie. All that matters to him is what I am now--not what I was. And it +wasn't I!--it was another woman--a miserable, battered creature who +couldn't help herself." "It will rise up between you, and perhaps--after +all--in some way--he will discover it." "How can he? Dick and I--who in +all the world knew, but us two?--and Dick is dead." "Are you sure that no +one knew:--that no one saw you? Think!" + +A pale face grew paler in the dim light, as thought hesitated:-- + +"There was that wagon--and the boy--in the storm." "Yes--what then?" +"Well--what then? The boy scarcely saw me." "He did see you." "And if he +did--it is the commonest thing in a Canadian winter to be caught by a +storm, to ask shelter from a neighbour." "Still--even if he drew no +malicious conclusion, he saw you--alone in that farm with Dick Tanner, +and he probably knew your name." "How should he know my name?" "He had +seen you before--you had seen him before." "I didn't know his name--I +don't know it now." "No--but in passing your farm once, he had dropped a +parcel for a neighbour--and you had seen him once--at a railway station." +"Is it the least likely that I shall ever see him again--or that he +remembers seeing me at Dick Tanner's door?" "Not likely, perhaps--but +possible--quite possible." + +And while this question and answer passed through the brain, the woman +sitting up in bed seemed to be transported to a howling wintry scene of +whirling snow--a November twilight--and against that background, the hood +of a covered wagon, a boy holding the reins, the heavy cape on his +shoulders white with snow, the lamps of the wagon shining dimly on him, +and making a kind of luminous mist round the cart. She heard a parley, +saw a tall and slender man with fair hair go out to the boy with hot +milk and bread, caught directions as to the road, and saw herself as a +half-hidden figure in the partially open door. + +And then afterwards--the warm farm kitchen shutting out the storm--a man +at her knees--his arms round her--his kisses on her cheek. + +And again the irrevocableness of it closed down upon her. It could +_never_ be undone: that was the terrible commonplace which held her in +its grasp. It could never be wiped out from one human mind, which must +bear the burden of it as best it could, till gradually--steadily--the +life, had been killed out of the ugly, haunting thing, and it had been +buried--drowned, out of sight and memory. + +But the piteous dialogue began again. + +"How _could_ I have resisted? I was so miserable--so lonely--so weak!" +"You didn't love him!" "No--but I was alone in the world." "Well, then, +tell George Ellesborough--he is a reasonable man--he would understand." +"I can't--I _can't_! I have deceived him up till now by passing as +unmarried. If I confess this, too, there will be no chance for me. He'll +never trust me in anything!--he'll suspect everything I do or say--even +if he goes on loving me. And I couldn't bear it!--nor could he." + +And so at last the inward debate wore itself out, and sleep, sudden and +deep, came down upon Rachel Henderson. When she woke in the morning it +was to cleared skies both in her own mind and in the physical world. The +nightmare through which she had passed seemed to her now unreal, even a +little absurd. Her nerves were quieted by sleep, and she saw plainly what +she had to do. That "old, unhappy, far-off thing" lurking in the +innermost depth of memory had nothing more to do with her. She would look +it calmly in the face, and put it finally--for ever--away. But of her +marriage she would tell everything--everything!--to George Ellesborough, +and he should deal with her as he pleased. + + * * * * * + +The day was misty and still. October, the marvellous October of this +year, was marching on. Every day, Foch on the battlefield of France and +Belgium was bringing down the old Europe, and clearing the ground for the +new. In English villages and English farms, no less than in the big +towns, there was ferment and excitement, though it showed but little. +Would the boys be home by Christmas--the sons, the brothers, the +husbands? What would the change be like--the life after the war? If there +were those who yearned and prayed for it--there were those who feared it. +The war had done well for some, and hideously for others. And all through +the play of individual interests and desires, and even in the dullest +minds there ran the intoxicating sense of Victory, of an England greater +and more powerful than even her own sons and daughters had dared to +dream--an England which knew herself now, by the stern test of the four +years' struggle, to be possessed of powers and resources, spiritual, +mental, physical, which amazed herself. In all conscious minds, brooding +on the approaching time, there rose the question: "What are we going to +do with it?" and even in the unconscious, the same thought was present, +as a vague disturbing impulse. + +Janet had just read the war telegrams to Rachel, who had come down late, +complaining of a headache; but when Janet--the reserved and equable +Janet--after going through the news of the recapture of Ostend, +Zeebrugge, and Bruges, broke into the passionate, low-spoken comment: +"The Lord is King--be the people never so unquiet!" or could not, for +tears, finish the account of the entry into recaptured Lille, and the joy +of its inhabitants, Rachel sat irresponsive--or apparently so. + +How would it affect Ellesborough--this astounding news? Would it take him +from her the sooner, or delay his going? That was all she seemed capable +of feeling. + +Janet was troubled by her look and attitude, and being well aware that +the two had had a long _tete-a-tete_ the day before, wondered how things +were going. But she said nothing; and after breakfast Rachel joined the +two girls in the potato-field, and worked as hard as they, hour after +hour. But her usual gaiety was gone, and the girls noticed at once the +dark rims under her eyes. They wondered secretly what Miss Henderson's +"friend" had been doing. For that the "Cap'n" was courting their employer +had long been plain to them. Betty, of course, had a "friend," the young +soldier whose sick leave was nearly up, and the child's deep velvety eyes +were looking nearly as tired as Miss Henderson's. While Jenny, too, the +timid, undeveloped Jenny had lately begun to take an interest in a +"friend," a young fellow belonging to Ellesborough's forestry camp whom +she had met in Millsborough the day of the Harvest Festival. They had +hardly exchanged half an hour's real conversation. But he had bought her +some sweets at Millsborough, and walked a bit of the way home with her. +Then she had seen him in the village once or twice. He had some relations +there--there was some talk of him, and that old murder at the farm--she +didn't know rightly what it was. But she felt somehow that Miss Henderson +wouldn't want to have him about--Miss Henderson didn't like talk of the +murder--so Jenny had never asked him to look her up. But her raw, +childish mind was full of him, and the ferments of sex were stirring. +In the secret opinion of both girls, "friends" were quite as much pain as +pleasure. No girl could do without them; but they were pretty certain to +cause heart-aches, to make a girl wish at some time or other that she had +never been born. A London factory-girl would have expressed it in the +Cockney way: "Blokes are no good--but you must have a bloke!" + +The two girls then concluded that Captain Ellesborough had been causing +trouble, as all men did, at some point; and being sympathetic little +souls, they worked especially hard in the potato-field, and would not +allow Rachel to carry the heavier baskets to the "clamp." + +Meanwhile Janet had been wrestling with old Halsey, till he had very +reluctantly yielded to her persuasion, and returned to work. + +"I'm not the man I wor," he confided to Peter Betts, as they were eating +their dinner under a hedge in the damp October sunshine. "When I wor a +young man, I wouldn't ha' minded them things, not if it was iver so. But +now they do give me the shivers in my inside." + +"What do?" said Peter Betts, with a mouthful of cold bacon. He was still +greatly in the dark as to why Halsey had left work so early in the +afternoon the day before, and why he was now in such a gruff and gloomy +mood. There was indeed a rumour in the village that old Halsey had seen +"summat," but as Halsey had gone to bed immediately after Miss Leighton +had had her say with him, and had refused to be "interviewed" even by +his wife, there was a good deal of uncertainty even in the mind of his +oldest pal, Peter Betts. + +"Why--ghostisses!" said Halsey, with a frown, removing his pipe for a +moment to give emphasis to the word. "I don't see as a man can be +expected to deal with ghostisses. Anythin' else yer like in a small +way--mad dogs, or bulls, or snakes, where they keep 'em, which, thank the +Lord, they don't in these parts--but not _them_." + +"What did yer see?" said Betts, after a few ruminating pulls. + +"Well, I saw old Watson, the keeper, as was murdered sixty years since, +'at's what I saw," said Halsey with slow decisiveness. + +"An' what might be like?" asked Betts, with equal deliberation. The day +was mild and sunny; the half-ploughed field on which they had been +working lay alternatively yellow in the stubbles and a rich brown purple +in the new turned furrows under the autumn noon. A sense of well-being +had been diffused in the two old men by food and rest. Halsey's tongue +grew looser. + +"Well, I saw a man come creepin' an' crouchin' down yon grass road"--(it +was visible from where they sat, as a green streak on the side of the +hill)--"same as several people afore me 'as seen 'um--same as they allus +say old Watson must ha' come after Dempsey shot 'im. He wor shot in the +body. The doctors as come to look at 'im fust foun' that out. An' if +ye're shot in the body, I understan', yo naterally double up a bit if yo +try to walk. Well--that's jes' how I saw 'im--crouchin' along. Yo +remember it wor a dull evenin' yesterday--an' it wor gettin' dark, though +it worn't dark. It wor not much after fower, by my old watch--but I +couldn't see 'im at all plain. I wor in Top-End field--you know?--as +leads up to that road. An' I watched 'im come along making for that +outside cart-shed--that 'un that's back to back wi' the shippen, where +they foun' Watson lyin'. An' I wor much puzzled by the look on 'im. I +didn't think nothink about old Watson, fust of all--I didn't know what to +think. I was right under the hedge wi' the horses; 'ee couldna' ha' seen +me--an' I watched 'im. He stopped, onst or twice, as though he wor +restin' hisself--pullin' 'isself together--and onst I 'eered 'im cough--" + +Halsey looked round suddenly on his companion as though daring him to +mock. + +Betts, however, could not help himself. He gave an interrupting and +sceptical chuckle. + +"Ghostisses don't cough, as ever I 'eered on." + +"And why shouldn't they?" said Halsey testily. "If they can do them +other things they'd used to do when livin'--walkin' an' seein' an' +such-like--why not coughin'?" + +Betts shook his head. + +"Never 'eered on it," he said, with conviction. + +"Well, anyways I seed him come down to that shed, an' then I lost 'im. +But I 'ad the creeps somehow and I called to Jenny to come an' take the +'orses. An' then I went after 'im. But there was all the field an' the +lane to cross, and when I come to the shed, there wasn't no one and +nothink to be seen--excep'--" + +The old man paused, and again looked doubtfully at his companion. + +"Well?" said Betts eagerly, his philosophic attitude giving way a little. + +"Excep'--a large patch o' blood--_fresh blood_--I touched it--on one of +them ole sacks lyin' near the cart," said Halsey slowly. "An' it worn't +there in the afternoon, for I moved the sacks mysel'." + +Betts whistled softly. Halsey resumed,-- + +"There was nothin' moved--or taken away--nothin' at all!--only that +patch. So then I went all round the farm, and there was nobody. I thought +'ee might ha' turned back by the grass road, p'raps, without my seein' +'im, so I went that way, and there was nothin'--until--a little way up +the road--there was blood again"--the old man's voice dropped--"every +couple o' yards or so--a drop or two here--an' a drop or two there--just +as they tracked old Watson by it, up the hill, and into yon wood--where +Dempsey set on him." + +The two old men looked at each other. Betts was evidently impressed. + +"Are you sure it was blood?" + +"Sure. Last night, Hastings said it was sheep-dip! After I tole 'im, when +'ee went to look under the shed, it wor so dark 'ee couldn't see nothin'. +Well, 'ee knew better this mornin'. 'Ee fetched me, an' asst me if I'd +said anythin' to Miss Janet. And I said, no. So then he tole me I wasn't +to say nothin' to the ladies, nor the girls, nor anybody. An' 'ee'd done +summat wi' the sack--I dunno what. But 'ee might ha' held 'is tongue last +night about sheep-dip! Who's been dippin' sheep about here? 'As Miss +Henderson got any ruddle anywhere about the farm? I know she ain't!--an' +Muster Hastings knows she ain't." + +"Why didn't yer tell Miss Janet?--about the bleedin'?" + +"Well, I was a bit skeered. I thought I'd sleep on't, before I got +talkin' any more. But on the way 'ome, as I tellt yer, I met Hastings, +an' tole '_im_, an' then give 'im notice." + +"That wor a bit hasty, worn't it?" said Betts after a moment, in a +judicial tone. But he had been clearly much exercised by his companion's +account, and his pipe hanging idly from his hands showed that his +thoughts were active. + +"Well, it might ha' bin," Halsey admitted, "but as I said afore, I'm +gettin' an old man, and I don't want no truck wi' things as I don't +unnerstan'. It give me the wust night as I've had since I had that bad +turn wi' the influenza ten year ago." + +"You didn't see his face?" + +"No." + +"An' 'ee didn't mind you of anybody?" + +Halsey hesitated. + +"Well, onst I did think I'd seen one o' the same build--soomwhere. But I +can't recolleck where." + +"As for the blood," said Betts reflectively, "it's as curous as the +coughin'. Did you iver hear tell as ghosts could bleed?" + +Hastings shook his head. Steeped in meditation, the two men smoked +silently for a while. Then Betts said, with the explosiveness of one who +catches an idea,-- + +"Have yer thought o' tellin' John Dempsey?" + +"I hain't thought o' tellin' nobody. An' I shouldn't ha' told Miss +Leighton what I did tell her, if she 'adn't come naggin' about my givin' +notice." + +"You might as well tell John Dempsey. Why, it's his business, is old +Watson! Haven't yer seen 'im at all?" + +Halsey said "No," holding his handsome old head rather high. Had he +belonged to a higher station in life, his natural reticence, and a +fastidious personal dignity would have carried him far. To a modern +statesman they are at least as valuable as brains. In the small world +of Ipscombe they only meant that Halsey himself held rather scornfully +aloof from the current village gossip, and got mocked at for his pains. +The ordinary human instinct revenged itself, however, when he was +_tete-a-tete_ with his old chum Peter Betts. Betts divined at any rate +from the expression in the old man's eyes that _he_ might talk, and +welcome. + +So he poured out what he knew about John Dempsey, a Canadian lad working +in the Forestry Corps at Ralstone, who turned out to be the grandson of +the Dempsey who had always been suspected of the murder of Richard Watson +in the year 1859. This young Dempsey, he said, had meant to come to +Ipscombe after the war, and put what he knew before the police. But +finding himself sent to Ralstone, which was only five miles from +Ipscombe, he saw no reason to wait, and he had already given all the +information he could to the superintendent of police at Millsborough. His +grandfather had signed a written confession before his death, and John +Dempsey had handed it over. The old man, it appeared, had "turned pious" +during a long illness before his death, and had wished to square matters +with his conscience and the Almighty. When his grandson had volunteered +for the war, and was about to sail for Europe, old Dempsey had sent for +him, had told him the story, and charged him, when he was able, to place +his confession in the proper hands. And having done that, he died "very +quiet and comfortable"--so John Dempsey reported. + +"Which is more than poor Jem Watson did," growled Halsey. He felt neither +respect nor sympathy for a man who, having set up a secret, couldn't +keep it; and the confession itself, rather than the crime confessed, +confirmed the poor opinion he had always held of the elder Dempsey when +they were young men in the village together. But he agreed to let Betts +bring "young John" to see him. And thereupon they went back to the sowing +of one of Miss Henderson's big fields with winter wheat. + +When the milking was done, and work was nearly over for the day, a note +brought by messenger arrived at the farm for Miss Henderson. It was from +Ellesborough--a few scribbled words. "I am prevented from coming this +evening. The Chief Forestry Officer of my district has just arrived, and +stays the night. I hope to come over to-morrow between six and seven. +Shall I find you?" + +Rachel scribbled an answer, which a small boy on a bicycle carried off. +Then she went slowly back to the sitting-room, so disappointed and +unnerved that she was on the brink of tears. Janet who had just come in +from milking, was standing by the table, mending a rent in her +waterproof. She looked up as Rachel entered, and the needle paused in her +hand. + +"I say, Rachel!--you do look overdone! You've been going at it too hard." + +For all day long Rachel had been lifting, and sorting, and carrying, in +the potato-field, finding in the severe physical exertion the only relief +from restlessness. She shook her head irritably and came to stand by the +wood fire which Janet had just lit, a welcome brightness in the twilight +room. + +"Suppose you knock up--" began Janet in a tone of remonstrance. Rachel +cut her short. + +"I want to speak to you--please, Janet." + +Janet looked round in astonishment and put down her work. Rachel was +standing by the fire, with her hands behind her back, her eyes fixed on +Janet. She was still in the graceful tunic and knee-breeches, in which +her young and splendid youth seemed always most at home. But she had +taken off her cap, and her brown hair was falling round a pale face. + +"Janet--you know Captain Ellesborough and I had a long talk last night?" + +Janet smiled. + +"Of course I do. And of course I have my own thoughts about it!" + +"I don't know what they are," said Rachel slowly. "But--I'd better tell +you--Captain Ellesborough asked me to marry him." + +She paused. + +"Did you think that would be news to any of us?" said Janet, laughing, +and then stopped. The sudden contraction of pain in Rachel's face, and +something like a sob startled her. + +"Don't, Janet, please. I told him something--which made him +wonder--whether he did want to marry me after all." + +Janet's heart gave an uncomfortable jump. A score of past conjectures and +misgivings rushed back upon her. + +"What did you tell him?" + +"What I see now I ought to have told you--as well as him--long ago. +Henderson is my maiden name. I was a married woman for three years. I +had a child which died. I divorced my husband, and he's still alive." + +The colour had flamed back into her cheeks. Janet sat silent, her eyes +fixed on Rachel's. + +"I did tell you I had a story, didn't I?" said Rachel insistently. + +"You did. I took my chance. It was you who--who brought the action?" + +"I brought the action. There was no defence. And the judge said--I'd been +awfully badly treated--it was no wonder I wanted--to get free. Well, +there it is. I'm sorry I deceived you. I'm sorry I deceived him." + +"You didn't deceive me," said Janet. "I had practically guessed it." +She rose slowly, and going up to Rachel, she put her hands on her +shoulders,-- + +"Why didn't you tell me, you poor thing!" Her voice and eyes were full of +emotion--full of pity. But Rachel shrank away a little from her touch, +murmuring under her breath, "Because I wanted never to hear of it--or +think of it again." Then, after a pause, she added, "But if you want to +know more, I'll tell you. It's your right. My married name was Delane." + +"Don't tell me any more!" said Janet peremptorily. "I don't want to hear +it. But you ought to be--quite frank--with _him_." + +"I know that. Naturally--it was a great shock to him." + +There was something very touching in her attitude. She stood there like a +shamefaced boy, in her quasi-male dress; and the contrast between her +strong young beauty, and the humility and depression of her manner +appealed with singular force to Janet's mind, so constantly and secretly +preoccupied with spiritual things. Rachel seemed to her so much cleverer +and more vigorous than herself in all matters of ordinary life. Only in +the region of religious experience did Janet know herself the superior. +But Rachel had never made any outward sign that she cared in the least to +know more of that region, whether in Janet or other people. She had held +entirely aloof from it. But self-reproach--moral suffering--are two of +the keys that lead to it. And both were evident here. Janet's heart went +out to her friend. + +"When is he coming?" + +"To-morrow evening. I dare say he'll give me up." + +Janet marvelled at the absence of self-assertion--the touch of +despair--in words and tone. So it had gone as deep as this! She blamed +herself for lack of perception. An ordinary love-affair, about to end +in an ordinary way--that was how it had appeared to her. And suddenly it +seemed to her she had stumbled upon what might be tragedy. + +No, no--there should be no tragedy! She put her arms round Rachel. + +"My dear, he won't give you up! As if I hadn't seen! He worships the +ground you tread upon!" + +Rachel said nothing. She let her face rest on Janet's shoulder. When she +raised it, it was wet. But she kissed Janet quietly, and went away +without another word. + + + + +VIII + + +Four grown-ups and a child were gathered in the living-room of Halsey's +cottage. The cottage was old like its tenant and had all the +inconveniences of age; but it was more spacious than the modern cottage +often is, since it and its neighbours represented a surviving fragment +from an old Jacobean house--a house of gentlefolks--which had once stood +on the site. Most of the house had been pulled down, but Colonel +Shepherd's grandfather had retained part of it, and turned it into two +cottages--known as 1 and 2 Ipscombe Place--which for all their drawbacks +were much in demand in the village, and conferred a certain distinction +on their occupants. Mrs. Halsey's living room possessed a Tudor +mantelpiece in moulded brick, into which a small modern kitchener had +been barbarously fitted; and three fine beams with a little incised +ornament ran across the ceiling. + +Mrs. Halsey had not long cleared away the tea, and brought in a paraffin +lamp, small but cheerful. She was a middle-aged woman, much younger than +her husband--with an ironic half-dreamy eye, and a native intelligence +much superior to her surroundings. She was suffering from a chronic +abscess in the neck, which had strange periodic swellings and +subsidences, all of which were endlessly interesting to its possessor. +Mrs. Halsey, indeed, called the abscess "she," wrapped it lovingly in red +flannel, describing the evening dressing of it as "putting her to bed," +and talked of "her" qualities and oddities as though, in the phrase of +her next-door neighbour, "it'd a been a christened child." She had +decided views on politics, and was a match for any political agent who +might approach her with an eye to her vote, a commodity which she kept, +so to speak, like a new shilling in her pocket, turning it from time +to time to make sure it was there. + +But independent as she was, she rarely interfered with the talk of Halsey +and his male friends. And on this occasion when the three men--Halsey, +Peter Betts, and young Dempsey--had gathered smoking round the fire, she +settled herself with her knitting by the table and the lamp, throwing in +every now and then a muttered and generally sarcastic comment, of which +her husband took no notice--especially as he knew very well that the +sarcasms were never aimed at him, and that she was as proud of him as she +was generally contemptuous of the rest of the world. + +Halsey had just finished a rather grudging description of his experiences +two days before for John Dempsey's benefit. He was conscious that each +time he repeated them, they sounded more incredible. He didn't want to +repeat them; he didn't mean to repeat them; after this, nobody should get +any more out of him at all. + +Young Dempsey's attitude was certainly not encouraging. Attentive at +first, he allowed himself, as Halsey's talk developed, a mild, +progressive grin, which spread gradually over his ugly but honest face, +and remained there. In face of it, Halsey's speech became more and more +laconic, till at last he shut his mouth with a snap, and drawing himself +up in his chair, re-lit his pipe with the expression that meant, "All +right--I've done--you may take it or leave it." + +"Well, I don't see that what you saw, Mr. Halsey, was so very uncommon!" +Dempsey began, still smiling, in spite of a warning look from Betts. +"You saw a man come down that road? Well, in the first place, why +shouldn't a man come down that road--it's a reg'lar right of way--" + +"It's the way, mind ye, as the ghost of old Watson has allus come!" put +in Peter Betts, chivalrously anxious to support his friend Halsey, as far +as he could, against a sceptical stranger. "An' it's been seen twice on +that road already, as I can remember: once when I was a little boy, by +old Dan Holt, the postmaster, and once about ten years ago." + +Dempsey looked at the speaker indulgently. To his sharpened transatlantic +sense, these old men, in this funny old village, seemed to him a +curiously dim and feeble folk. He could hardly prevent himself from +talking to them as though they were children. He supposed his grandfather +would have been like that if he'd stayed on at Ipscombe. He thanked +the stars he hadn't! + +But since he had been summoned to consult, as a person who had a vested +interest, of a rather blood-curdling sort, in the Great End ghost, he had +to give his opinion; and he gave it, while Halsey listened and smoked in +a rather sulky silence. For it was soon evident that the murderer's +grandson had no use at all for the supposed ghost-story. He tore it +ruthlessly to pieces. In the first place, Halsey described the man seen +on the grass-road as tall and lanky. But according to his grandfather's +account, the murdered gamekeeper, on the contrary, was a broadly-built, +stumpy man. In the next place--the coughing and the bleeding!--he laughed +so long and loudly at these points in the story that Halsey's still black +bushy eyebrows met frowningly over a pair of angry eyes, and Betts tried +hurriedly to tame the young man's mirth. + +"Well, if yer don't think that man as Halsey saw _was_ the ghost, what do +you s'pose 'ee was doin' there?" asked Betts, "and where did he go? +Halsey went right round the farm. The hill just there is as bare as my +hand. He must ha' seen the man--if it _wor_ a man--an' he saw nothin'. +There isn't a tree or a bush where that man could ha' hid hisself--if +he _wor_ a man." + +Dempsey declared he should have to go and examine the ground himself +before he could answer the question. But of course there was an answer +to it--there must be. As to the man--why Millsborough, and Ipscombe too, +had been full of outlandish East Enders, flying from the raids, Poles +and Russians, and such like--thievin' fellows by all accounts. Why +couldn't it be one of them--prowling round the farm for anything he could +pick up--and frightened off, when he saw Halsey? + +Betts, smoking with prodigious energy, inquired what he made of the +_blood_. Didn't he know the old story of how Watson was tracked down to +the cart-shed? Dempsey laughed again. + +"Well, it's curious, grant ye. It's real funny! But where are you going +to get blood without a body? And if a thing's a body, it isn't a ghost!" + +The two old men were silent. Halsey was lost in a hopeless confusion of +ideas, and Betts was determined not to give his pal away. + +But here--say what you like!--was a strange man, seen, on the road, which +had been used, according to village tradition, on several previous +occasions, by the authentic ghost of Watson; his course was marked by +traces of blood, just as Watson's path of pain had been marked on the +night of the murder; and on reaching the spot where Watson had breathed +his last, the apparition, whatever it was, had vanished. Perplexity, +superstition, and common sense fought each other. Halsey who knew much of +his Bible by heart was inwardly comparing texts. "A spirit hath not flesh +and blood"--True--but on the other hand what about the "bodies of the +saints"--that "arose"? While, perhaps, the strongest motive of all in the +old man's mind was the obstinate desire to prove himself right, and so to +confound young scoffers like Dempsey. + +Dempsey, however, having as he thought disposed of Halsey's foolish tale +was determined to tell his own, which had already made a great impression +in certain quarters of the village, and ranked indeed as the chief +sensation of the day. To be able to listen to the story of a murder told +by the grandson of the murderer, to whom the criminal himself had +confessed it, and that without any fear of unpleasant consequences to any +one, was a treat that Ipscombe had seldom enjoyed, especially as the +village was still rich in kinsfolk of both murdered and murderer. + +Dempsey had already repeated the story so often that it was by now +perfect in every detail, and it produced the same effect in this lamplit +kitchen as in other. Halsey, forgetting his secret ill-humour, was +presently listening open-mouthed. Mrs. Halsey laid down her knitting, and +stared at the speaker over the top of her spectacles; while across +Betts's gnome-like countenance smiles went out and in, especially at the +more gruesome points of the tale. The light sparkled on the young +Canadian's belt, the Maple Leaf in the khaki hat which lay across his +knees, on the badge of the Forestry Corps on his shoulder. The old +English cottage, with its Tudor brick-work, and its overhanging beams, +the old English labourers with the stains of English soil upon them, made +the setting; and in the midst, sat the "new man," from the New World, +holding the stage, just as Ellesborough the New Englander was accustomed +to hold it, at Great End Farm. All over England, all over unravaged +France and northern Italy similar scenes at that moment were being +thrown on the magic sheet of life; and at any drop in the talk, the +observer could almost hear, in the stillness, the weaving of the Great +Loom on which the Ages come and go. + +There was a pause, when Dempsey came to a dramatic end with the last +breath of his grandfather; till Mrs. Halsey said dryly, fixing the young +man with her small beady eyes,-- + +"And you don't mind telling on your own grandfather?" + +"Why shouldn't I?" laughed Dempsey, "when it's sixty years ago. They've +lost their chance of hanging him anyhow." + +Mrs. Halsey shook her head in inarticulate protest. Betts said +reflectively,-- + +"I wouldn't advise you to be tellin' that tale to Miss Henderson." + +Dempsey's expression changed at the name. He bent forward eagerly. + +"By the way, who is Miss Henderson? Do you know where she comes from?" + +The others stared. + +"Last winter," said Betts at last, "she wor on a farm down Devonshire +way. And before that she wor at college--with Miss Janet." + +"Was she ever in Canada?" + +"Yes!" said Halsey with sudden decision, "she wor--for she told me +one day when I wor mendin' the new reaper and binder, that we in this +country didn't know what harvest meant. 'Why, I've helped to reap a +field--in Canada,' she ses, 'fower miles square,' she ses, 'six teams o' +horses--an' six horses to the team,' she ses--'that's somethin' like.' So +I know she's been in Canada." + +"Ah!" said Dempsey, staring at the carpet. "And she's not married? You're +sure she's not married?" + +"Married?" said all the others, looking at him in disapproving +astonishment. + +"Well, if she ain't, I saw her sister--or her double--twice--about +two-and-a-half year ago--at a place thirty miles from Winnipeg. I could +ha' sworn I'd seen her before!" + +"Well, you can't ha' seen her before," said Betts positively; "cause +she's Miss, not Missis." + +"Ah!" said Dempsey again in a non-committal voice, looking hard this time +into the fire. + +"Where have you seen her--in these parts?" asked Mrs. Halsey. + +"At the Harvest Festival, t'other day. But I must have been +mistaken--that's all. I think I'm going to call upon her some day." + +"Whatever for?" + +"Why--to tell her about my grandfather!" said Dempsey, looking round at +Mrs. Halsey, with an air of astonishment that any one should ask him the +question. + +"You won't be welcome." + +"Why not?" + +"Because she don't want to hear nothin' about Watson's murder. And +whatever's the good on it, anyhow?" said Mrs. Halsey with sudden +emphasis. "You've told us a good tale, I'll grant ye. But yer might as +well be pullin' the old feller 'isself out of his grave, as goin' round +killin' 'im every night fresh, as you be doin'. Let 'im be. Skelintons is +skelintons." + +Dempsey, feeling rather indignantly that his pains had been wasted, and +his audience was not worthy of him, rose to take his departure. Halsey's +face cleared. He turned to look at his wife, and she winked in return. +And when the young forester had taken his departure, Mrs. Halsey stroked +the red flannel round her swollen neck complacently. + +"I 'ad to pike 'im out soomhow. It's 'igh time she wor put to bed!" + +That same evening, Ellesborough left the Ralstone camp behind him about +six o'clock, and hurried through the late October evening towards Great +End Farm. During the forty-eight hours which had elapsed since his +interview with Rachel he had passed through much suffering, and agonies +of indecision. He had had to reconstruct all his ideas of the woman he +loved. Instead of the proud and virginal creature he had imagined himself +to be wooing, amid the beautiful setting of her harvest fields, he had to +think of her as a woman dimmed and besmirched by an unhappy marriage with +a bad man. For himself, he certainly resented the concealment which had +been practised on him. Yet at the same time he thought he understood the +state of exasperation, of invincible revolt which had led to it. And he +kept reminding himself that, after all, her confession had anticipated +his proposal. + +Nevertheless such men as he have ideas of marriage, both romantic and +austere. They are inclined to claim what they give--a clean sheet, and +the first-fruits of body and soul. In Rachel's case the first-fruits +had been wasted on a marriage, of which the ugly and inevitable +incidents haunted Ellesborough's imagination. One moment he shrank from +the thought of them; the next he could not restrain the protesting rush +of passion--the vow that his love should put her back on that pinnacle of +honour and respect from which fate should never have allowed her to fall. + +Well, she had promised to tell him her story in full. He awaited it. +As to his own people, they were dear, good women, his mother and +sisters--saints, but not Pharisees. + +It was a dark and lowering evening, with tempest gusts of wind. But from +far away, after he had passed Ipscombe, a light from one of the windows +of the farm shone out, as though beckoning him to her. Suddenly from the +mouth of the farm, he saw a bicycle approaching. The rider was Janet +Leighton. She passed him with a wave and a smile. + +"Going to a Food meeting! But Rachel's at home." + +What a nice woman! Looking back over the couple of months since he had +known the inmates of the farm, he realized how much he had come to like +Janet Leighton. So unselfish, so full of thought for others, so modest +for herself! There couldn't be a better friend for Rachel; her friendship +itself was a testimonial; he reassured himself by the mere thought of +her. + +When he drew up at the farm, Hastings with a lantern in his hand was just +disappearing towards the hill, and the two girls, Betty and Jenny, passed +him, each with a young man, two members, in fact, of his own Corps, John +Dempsey and another. They explained that they were off to a Red Cross +Concert in the village hall. Ellesborough's pulse beat quicker as he +parted from them, for he realized that he would find Rachel alone in the +farm. + +Yes, there she was at the open door, greeting him with a quiet face--a +smile even. She led the way into the sitting-room, where she had just +drawn down the blinds and closed the curtains of the window looking on +the farm-yard. But his arrival had interrupted her before she could do +the same for the window looking on the Down. Neither of them thought of +it. Each was absorbed in the mere presence of the other. + +Rachel was in her black Sunday dress of some silky stuff. Her throat was +uncovered, and her shapely arms showed through the thin sleeves. The +black and white softened and refined something overblown and sensuous in +her beauty. Her manner, too, had lost its confident, provocative note. +Ellesborough had never seen her so adorable, so desirable. But her +self-command dictated his. He took the seat to which she pointed him; +while she herself brought a chair to the other side of the fire, putting +on another log with a steady hand, and a remark about the wind that was +whistling outside. Then, one foot crossed over the other, her cheek +reddened by the fire, propped on her hand, and her eyes on the fresh +flame that was beginning to dance out of the wood, she asked him,--"You'd +like to hear it all?" + +He made a sign of assent. + +So in a quiet, even voice, she began with an account of her family and +early surroundings, more detailed than anything she had yet given him. +She described her father (the striking apostolic head of the old man hung +on the wall behind her) and his missionary journeys through the prairie +settlements in the early days of Alberta; how, when he was old and weary, +he would sometimes take her, his latest child, a small girl of ten or +twelve, on his pastoral rounds, for company, perched up beside him in his +buggy; and how her mother was killed by the mere hardships of the prairie +life, sinking into fretful invalidism for two years before her death. + +"I nursed her for years. I never did anything else--I couldn't. I never +had any amusements like other girls. There was no money and no time. She +died when I was twenty-four. And three months after, my father died. He +didn't leave a penny. Then my brother asked me to go and live with him +and his wife. I was to have my board and a dress allowance, if I would +help her in the house. My brother's an awfully good sort--but I couldn't +get on with his wife. I just couldn't! I expect it was my fault, just as +much as hers. It was something we couldn't help. Very soon I hated the +sight of her, and she never missed a chance of making me feel a worm--a +useless, greedy creature, living on other people's work. If only there +had been some children, I dare say I could have borne it. But she and I +could never get away from each other. There were no distractions. Our +nerves got simply raw--at least mine did." + +There was a pause. She lifted her brown eyes, and looked at Ellesborough +intently. + +"I suppose my mother would have borne it. But girls nowadays can't. Not +girls like me, anyway. Mother was a Christian. I don't suppose I am. I +don't know what I am. I just _had_ to live my own life. I couldn't exist +without a bit of pleasure--and being admired--and seeing men--and all +that!" + +Her cheeks had flushed. Her eyes were very bright and defiant. + +Ellesborough came nearer to her, put out a strong hand and enclosed hers +in it. + +"Well then--this man Delane--came to live near you?" + +He spoke with the utmost gentleness, trying to help her out. + +She nodded, drawing her hand away. + +"I met him at a dance in Winnipeg first--the day after I'd had a horrid +row with my sister-in-law. He'd just taken a large farm, with a decent +house on it--not a shack--and everybody said his people were rich and +were backing him. And he was very good-looking--and a Cambridge man--and +all that. We danced together almost all the evening. Then he found out +where I lived, and used to be always coming to see me. My brother never +liked him. He said to me often, 'Why do you encourage that unprincipled +cad? I'm certain there's a screw loose about him!' And I wasn't in love +with Roger--not really--for one moment. But I _think_ he was in love with +me--yes, I'm sure he was--at first. And he excited and interested me. I +was proud, too, of taking him away from other girls, who were always +running after him. And my sister-in-law was just mad to get rid of me! +Don't you understand?" + +"Of course I do!" + +Her eyelids wavered a little under the emotion of his tone. + +"Well, then, we got married. My brother tried to get out of him what his +money-affairs were. But he always evaded everything. He talked a great +deal about this rich sister, and she did send him a wedding present. But +he never showed me her letter, and that was the last we ever heard of +her while I knew him...." + +Her voice dropped. She sat looking at the fire--a grey, pale woman, from +whom light and youth had momentarily gone out. + +"Well, it's a hateful story--and as common!--as common as dirt. We began +to quarrel almost immediately. He was jealous and tyrannical, and I +always had a quick temper. I found that he drank, that he told me all +sorts of lies about his past life, that he presently only cared about me +as--well, as his mistress!"--and again she faced Ellesborough with hard, +insistent eyes--"that he was hopelessly in debt--a gambler--and +everything else. When the baby came, I could only get the wife of a +neighbouring settler to come and look after me. And Roger behaved so +abominably to her that she went home when the baby was a week old--and I +was left to manage for myself. Then when baby was three months old, she +caught whooping-cough, and had bronchitis on the top. I had a few pounds +of my own, and I gave them to Roger to go in to Winnipeg and bring out a +doctor and medicines. He drank all the money on the way--that I found out +afterwards--he was a week away instead of two days--and the baby died. +When he came back he told me a lie about having been ill. But I never +lived with him--as a wife--after that. Then, of course, he hated me, and +one night he nearly killed me. Next morning he apologized--said that he +loved me passionately--and that kind of stuff--that I was cruel to +him--and what could he do to make up? So then I suggested that he should +go away for a month--and we should both think things over. He was +rather frightened, because--well--he'd knocked me about a good deal in +the horrible scene between us--and he thought I should bring my brother +down on him. So he agreed to go, and I said I would have a girl friend to +stay with me. But, of course, as soon as he was gone, I just left the +house and departed. I had got evidence enough by then to set me +free--about the Italian girl. I met my brother in Winnipeg. We went to +his lawyers together, and I began proceedings--" + +She stopped abruptly. "The rest I told you.--_No!_--I've told you the +horrible things--now I'll say something of the things which--have made +life worth living again. Till the divorce was settled I went back to my +brother in Toronto. I dropped my married name then and called myself +Henderson. And then I came home--because my mother's brother, who was a +manufacturer in Bradford, wrote to ask me. But when I arrived he was +dead, and he had left me three thousand pounds. Then I went to Swanley +and got trained for farm-work. And I found Janet Leighton, and we made +friends. And I love farm-work--and I love Janet--and the whole world +looks so different to me! Why, of course, I didn't want to be reminded of +that old horrible life! I didn't want people to say, 'Mrs. Delane? Who +and where is her husband? Is he dead?' 'No--she's divorced.' 'Why?' +There's!--don't you see?--all the old vile business over again! So I cut +it all!" + +She paused--resuming in another voice--hesitating and uncertain,-- + +"And yet--it seems--you can't do a simple thing like that +without--hurting somebody--injuring somebody. I can't help it! I didn't +mean to deceive _you_. But I had a right to get free from the old life +if I could!" + +She threw back her head proudly. Her eyes were full of tears. Then she +rose impetuously. + +"There!--I've told you. I suppose you don't want to be friends with me +any more. It was rotten of me, I know, for, of course--I saw--you seemed +to be getting to care for me. I told Janet when we set up work together +that I wasn't a bad woman. And I'm not. But I'm weak. You'd better not +trust me. And besides--I fell into the mud--and I expect it sticks to me +still!" + +She spoke with passionate animation--almost fierceness. While through her +inner mind there ran the thought, "I've told him!--I've told him! If he +doesn't understand, it's not my fault. I can always say, 'I _did_ tell +you--about Roger--_and the rest_!--as much as I was bound to tell you.' +Why should I make him miserable--and destroy my own chances with him for +_nothing_?" + +They stood fronting each other. Over the fine bronzed face of the +forester there ran a ripple of profound emotion--nostril and lip--and +eye. Then she found herself in his arms--with no power to resist or free +herself. Two or three deep, involuntary sobs--sobs of excitement--shook +her, as she felt his kisses on her cheek. + +"Darling!--I'll try and make up to you--for all you've suffered. Poor +child!--poor little Rachel!" + +She clung to him, a great wave of passion sweeping through her also. She +thought, "Now I shall be happy!--and I shall make him happy, too. Of +course I shall!--I'm doing quite right." + +Presently he put her back in her chair, and sat beside her on the low +fender stool, in front of the fire. His aspect was completely +transformed. The triumphant joy which filled him had swept away the +slightly stiff and reserved manner which was on the whole natural to him. +And it had swept away at the same time all the doubts and hesitations of +his inner mind. She had told her story, it seemed to him, with complete +frankness, and a humility which appealed to all that was chivalrous and +generous in a strong man. He was ready now to make more excuses for her, +in the matter of his own misleading, than she seemed to wish to make for +herself. How natural that she should act as she had acted! The thought of +her suffering, of her ill-treatment was intolerable to him--and of the +brute who had inflicted it. + +"Do you know where that man is now?" he said to her presently. She had +fallen back in her chair--pale and shaken, but dressed, for his eyes, in +a loveliness, a pathos, that was every moment strengthening her hold upon +him. + +"Roger? No, I have no idea. I always suppose he's in Canada still. He +never appeared when the case was tried. But the summons had to be served +on him, and my lawyers succeeded in tracking him to a lodging in Calgary, +where he was living--with the Italian girl. But after that we never heard +any more of him--except that I had a little pencil note--unsigned, +undated, delivered by hand--just before the trial came on. It said I +should repent casting him off--that I had treated him shamefully--that I +was a vile woman--and though I had got the better of him for the time, he +would have his revenge before long." + +Ellesborough shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. + +"Threats are cheap! I hope you soon put that out of your mind?" + +She made a little restless movement. + +"Yes, I--I suppose so. But I did tell you once, didn't I, that--I often +had fears--about nothing?" + +"Yes, you did tell me," he said, smiling. "Don't have any more fears, +darling! I'll see to that." + +He took her hands again, and raised them to his lips and kissed them. It +astonished him to feel them so cold, and see her again so excited and +pale. Was she really afraid of the villain she had escaped from? The +dear, foolish woman! The man in his self-confident strength loved her the +more for the vague terrors he felt himself so well able to soothe. + +For half an hour more they sat together, in that first intimacy of love, +which transfigures men and women, so that when they pass back from it +into ordinary life they scarcely recognize life or themselves again. They +talked much less of the past than of the future--and that in the light of +the glorious war news coming in day by day. Austria was on the point of +surrender--the German landslide might come at any moment--then +_peace_!--incredible word. Ellesborough would hardly now get to France. +They might be able to marry soon--within a few weeks. As to the farm, he +asked her, laughing, whether she would take him in as a junior partner +for a time, till they could settle their plans. "I've got a bit of money +of my own. But first you must let me go back, as soon as there are ships +to go in--to see after my own humble business. We could launch out--get +some fine stock--try experiments. It's a going concern, and I've got a +good share in it. Why shouldn't you go, too?" + +He saw her shrink. + +"To Canada? Oh, no!" + +He scourged himself mentally for having taken her thoughts back to the +old unhappy times. But she soon recovered herself. Then it was time for +him to go, and he stood up. + +"I should like to have seen Janet!" he said joyously. "She'll have to get +used to Christian names. How soon will you tell her? Directly she +comes in?" + +"Certainly not. I shall wait--till to-morrow morning." + +He laughed, whispering into her ear, as her soft, curly head lay against +his breast. + +"You won't wait ten minutes--you couldn't! Well, I must be going, or +they'll shut me out of the camp." + +"Why do you hurry so?" + +"Hurry? Why, I shall be an hour late, anyway. I shall have to give myself +C.B. to-morrow." + +She laughed--a sound of pure content. Then she suddenly drew herself +away, frowning at him. + +"You do love me--you do--you will always!--whatever people may say?" + +He was surprised at the note almost of violence in her voice. He answered +it by a passionate caress, which she bore with trembling. Then she +resolutely moved away. + +"Do go!" she said to him, imploringly. "I'd like to be a few +minutes--alone--before they come back." + +He saw her settle herself by the fire, her hands stretched out to the +blaze. Seeing that the fire was low, and remembering the chill of her +hands in his, he looked around for the wood-basket which was generally +kept in a corner behind the piano. + +His movement was suddenly arrested. He was looking towards the +uncurtained window. The night had grown pitch dark outside, and there +were splashes of rain against the glass. But he distinctly saw as he +turned a man's face pressed against the glass--a strained, sallow, face, +framed in straggling black hair, a face with regular features, and eyes +deeply set in blackened orbits. It was a face of hatred; the lips tightly +drawn over the teeth, seemed to have a curse on them. + +The vision lasted only a moment. Ellesborough's trained instinct, the +wary instinct of the man who had parsed days and nights with nature in +her wilder and lonelier places, checked the exclamation on his lips. And +before he could move again, the face had disappeared. The old holly bush +growing against the farm wall, from which the apparition seemed to have +sprung, was still there, some of its glossy leaves visible in the bright +light of the paraffin lamp which stood on the table near the window. And +there was nothing else. + +Ellesborough quietly walked to the window, drew down the blind, and +pulled the curtains together. Rachel looked around at the sound. + +"Didn't I do that?" she said, half dreamily. + +"We forgot!" He smiled at her. "Now it's all cosy. Ah, there they are! +Perhaps I'll get Janet to come as far as the road with me." For voices +were approaching--Janet talking to the girls. Rachel looked up, +assenting. The colour had rushed back to her face. Ellesborough took in +the picture of her, sitting unconscious by the fire, while his own +pulse was thumping under the excitement of what he had seen. + +With a last word to her, he closed the sitting-room door behind him, and +went out to meet Janet Leighton in the dark. + + + + +IX + + +It was a foggy October evening, and Berkeley Square, from which the +daylight had not yet departed, made a peculiarly dismal impression on +the passers-by, under the mingled illumination of its half-blinded lamps, +and of a sunset which in the country was clear and golden, and here in +west London could only give a lurid coppery tinge to the fog, to the +eastern house-fronts, and to the great plane-trees holding the Square +garden, like giants encamped. Landsowne House, in its lordly seclusion +from the rest of the Square, seemed specially to have gathered the fog to +itself, and was almost lost from sight. Not a ray of light escaped the +closely-shuttered windows. The events of the _mensis mirabilis_ were +rushing on. Bulgaria, Austria, Turkey, had laid down their arms--the +German cry for an armistice had rung through Europe. But still London lay +dark and muffled. Her peril was not yet over. + +In the drawing-room of one of the houses on the eastern side, belonging +to a Warwickshire baronet and M.P.--Sir Richard Winton by name--a lady +was standing in front of a thrifty fire, which in view of the coal +restrictions of the moment, she had been very unwilling to light at all. +The restrictions irritated her; so did the inevitable cold of the room; +and most of all was she annoyed and harassed by the thought of a visitor +who might appear at any moment. She was tall, well-made, and plain. One +might have guessed her age at about thirty-five. She had been out in the +earlier afternoon, attending a war meeting on behalf of some charities in +which she was interested, and she had not yet removed a high and stately +hat with two outstanding wings and much jet ornament, which she had worn +at the meeting, to the huge indignation of her neighbours. The black of +her silk dress was lightened by a rope of pearls, and various diamond +trinkets. Her dress fitted her to perfection. Competence and will were +written in her small, shrewd eyes and in the play of a decided mouth. + +There was a knock at the door. At Lady Winton's "Come in!" a stout, +elderly maid appeared. She came up to her mistress, and said in a lowered +voice,-- + +"You'll see Mr. Roger here?" + +"Why, I told you so, Nannie!" was the impatient answer. "Is everybody out +of the way?" + +The maid explained that all was ready. Jones the butler had been +sent with a note to the City, and the housemaid was sitting with the +kitchen-maid, who was recovering from the flu. + +"I told them I'd answer the bell. And I'll keep an eye that no one comes +down before he's gone. There he is!" + +For the bell had rung, and the maid hastened to the hall door to answer +it. + +A tall man entered--coughing. + +"Beastly night, Nannie!" he said, as soon as the cough would let him. +"Don't suit my style. Well?--how are you? Had the flu, like everybody +else?" + +"Not yet, Mr. Roger--though it's been going through the house. Shall I +take your coat?" + +"You'd better not. I'm too shabby underneath." + +"Sir Richard's in the country, Mr. Roger." + +"Oh, so her ladyship's alone? Well, that's how I generally find her, +isn't it?" + +But Nannie--with her eye on the stairs--was not going to allow him any +lingering in the hall. She led him quickly to the drawing-room, opened +it, and closed it behind him. Then she herself retreated into a small +smoking-den at the farther end of the hall, and sat there, without a +light, with the door open--watching. + +Roger Delane instinctively straightened himself to his full height as he +entered his sister's drawing-room. His overcoat, though much worn, was of +an expensive make and cut; he carried the Malacca cane which had been his +companion in the Brookshire roads; and the eyeglass that he adjusted as +he caught sight of his sister completed the general effect of shabby +fashion. His manner was jaunty and defiant. + +"Well, Marianne," he said, pausing some yards from her. "You don't seem +particularly glad to see me. Hullo!--has Dick been buying some more +china?" + +And before his sister could say anything, he had walked over to a table +covered with various bric-a-brac, where, taking up a fine Nankin vase, he +looked closely at the marks on its base. + +Lady Winton flushed with anger. + +"I think you had better leave the china alone, Roger. I have only got a +very few minutes. What do you want? Money, I suppose--as usual! And yet I +warned you in my last letter that you would do this kind of thing once +too often, and that we were _not_ going to put up with it!" She struck +the table beside her with her glove. + +Delane put down the china and surveyed her. + +"The vase is Ming all right--better stuff than Dick generally buys. I +congratulate him. Well, I'm sorry for you, my dear Marianne--but you +_are_ my sister--and you can't help yourself!" + +He looked at her, half-smiling, with a quiet bravado which enraged her. + +"Don't talk like that, Roger! Tell me directly what it is you want. You +seem to think you can force me to see you at any time, whatever I may be +doing. But--" + +"Your last letter was 'a bit thick'--you see--it provoked me," said +Delane calmly. "Of course you can get the police to chuck me out if you +like. You would be quite in your rights. But I imagine the effect on the +aristocratic nerves of Berkeley Square would be amusing. However--" + +He looked round him-- + +"As Carlyle said to the old Queen, 'I'm getting old, madam, and with your +leave I'll take a chair--'" + +He pushed an arm-chair forward. + +"And let me make up the fire. It's beginning to freeze outside." + +Lady Winton moved quickly to the fireplace, holding out a prohibiting +hand. + +"There is quite enough fire, thank you. I am going out presently." + +Delane sat down, and extended a pair of still shapely feet to the slender +flame in the grate. + +"Dick's boots!" he said, tapping them with his cane, and looking round at +his sister. "What a lot of wear I've got out of them since he threw them +away! His overcoat, too. And now that it's the thing to be shabby, Dick's +clothes are really a godsend. I defraud Jones. But I have no doubt that +Jones gets a good deal more than is good for him." + +"Look here, Roger!--suppose you stop talking this nonsense and come to +business," said Marianne Winton, in pale exasperation. "I've sent Jones +out with a note--but he'll be back directly. And I've got an appointment. +What are you doing? Have you got any work to do?" + +She took a seat not far from her brother, who perceived from her tone +that he had perhaps gone as far as was prudent. + +"Oh, dear, no, I've got no work to do," he said, smiling. "That's not a +commodity that comes my way. But I must somehow manage to keep a roof +over Anita and the child. So what can I do but count on your assistance, +my dear? My father left you a great deal of money which in equity +belonged to me--and I am bound to remind you of it." + +"You know very well why he left you so little!" said Lady Winton. "We +needn't go into that old story. I ask you again, what do you want?" She +took out her watch. "I have just ten minutes." + +"What do I want?" He looked at her with a slow, whimsical laugh. "Money, +my dear, money! Money means everything that I must have--food, coals, +clothes, doctor, chemist, buses--decent houseroom for Anita and myself--" + +A shiver of revulsion ran through his sister. + +"Have you married that woman?" + +He laughed. + +"As you seemed to think it desirable, Anita and I did take a trip to a +Registry Office about a month ago. It's all lawful now--except for our +abominable English law that doesn't legitimize the children. But"--he +sprang to his feet with a movement which startled her--"whom do you think +I've seen lately?" + +His sister stared at him, amazed at the change in him--the animation, the +rush of colour in the hollow, emaciated face. + +"_Rachel_!--my wife--my former--precious--wife. I thought she was in +Canada. No doubt she thought the same of me. But I've stumbled upon her +quite by chance--living close to the place where I had taken lodgings for +Anita and the babe, in September, in case there were more raids this +winter. What do you think of that?" + +"It doesn't interest me at all," said Lady Winton coldly. + +"Then you have no dramatic sense, my dear. Just think! I stroll out, for +want of anything better to do, with Anita, into the market-place of a +beastly little country town, to see a silly sort of show--a mixture of a +Harvest Festival and a Land Girls' beano--when without a moment's +warning--standing up in a decorated wagon--I behold--_Rachel_!--handsomer +than ever!--in a kind of khaki dress--tunic, breeches, and +leggings--enormously becoming!--and, of course, the observed of all +observers. More than that!--I perceive a young man, in an American +uniform, dancing attendance upon her--taking her orders--walking her off +to church--Oh, a perfectly clear case!--no doubt about it at all. And +there I stood--within a few yards of her--and she never saw me!" + +He broke off, staring at his sister--a wild, exultant look--which struck +her uncomfortably. Her face showed her arrested, against her will. + +"Are you sure she didn't see you?" + +"Sure. I put the child on my shoulder, and hid behind her. Besides--my +dear--even Rachel might find it difficult to recognize her discarded +husband--in this individual!" + +He tapped his chest lightly. Lady Winton could not withdraw her +own eyes from him. Yes, it was quite true. The change in him was +shocking--ghastly. He had brought it entirely on himself. But she +could not help saying, in a somewhat milder tone,-- + +"Have you seen that doctor again?" + +"To whom you so obligingly sent me? Yes, I saw him yesterday. One lung +seems to have finally struck work--_caput_! as the Germans say. The other +will last a bit longer yet." + +A fit of coughing seized him. His sister instinctively moved farther away +from him, looking at him with frightened and hostile eyes. + +"Don't be alarmed," he said, as soon as he had found his voice again, +"I'm drenched in disinfectant. I take all proper precautions--for the +child's sake. Now then"--he rose with an effort to his feet--"what are +you going to do for me?" + +His aspect had altered, had assumed a sinister and passionate intensity. +His sister was conscious of the menace in it, and hastily taking up a +small hand-bag lying near her, she produced a purse from it. + +"I have saved twenty pounds for you--out of my own money--with _great_ +difficulty," she said, with indignant emphasis. "If I were to tell +Richard, he would be furious. And I cannot--do--_anything_--more for you, +beyond the allowance I give you. Everything you suffer from, you have +brought upon, yourself. It is hopeless to try and help you." + +He laughed. + +"Well, then, I must try Rachel!" he said carelessly, as he looked for his +hat. + +"That I think would be the lowest depth!" said Lady Winton, breathing +quick, "to beg money from the wife who divorced you!" + +"I am ready to beg for money--requisition is the better word--from +anybody in the world who has more of it than I. I am a Bolshevist. You +needn't talk to me about property, or rights. I don't acknowledge them. +I want something that you've got, and I haven't. I shall take it if I +find the opportunity--civilly if I can, uncivilly, if I must." + +Lady Winton made no reply. She stood, a statue of angry patience waiting +for him to go. He slowly buttoned on his coat, and then stepped coolly +across the room to look at an enlarged photograph of a young soldier +standing on the piano. + +"Handsome chap! You're in luck, Marianne. I suppose you managed to get +him into a staff job of some sort, out of harm's way?" + +He turned to her with a sneer on his lips. His sister was still silent. + +The man moving about the room was perhaps the thing she feared and +hated most in the world. Every scene of this kind--and he forced them +on her, in spite of her futile resistance, at fairly frequent +intervals--represented to her an hour of torture and humiliation. How to +hide the scenes and the being who caused them, from her husband, her +servants, her friends, was becoming almost her chief preoccupation. +She was beginning to be afraid of her brother. For some time she had +regarded him as incipiently insane, and as she watched him this evening +he seemed to her more than ever charged with sinister possibilities. It +appeared to be impossible to influence or frighten him; and she realized +that as he seemed not to care a fig whether she caused a scandal or not, +and she cared with every pulse of her being, she was really in his power, +and it was no good struggling. + +"Well, good-night, Edith," he said at last, taking up his hat. "This'll +last for a bit--but not very long, I warn you--prices being what they +are. Oh, by the way, my name just now is Wilson--make a note of it!" + +"What's that for?" she said disdainfully. + +"Some Canadian creditors of mine got wind of me--worse luck. I had to +change my quarters, and drop the old name--for a bit. However--what's +in a name?" He laughed, and held out his hand. + +"Going to shake hands, Edie? You used to be awfully fond of me, when you +were small." + +She stood, apparently unmoved, her hands hanging. The pathetic note had +been tried on her too often. + +"Good-night, Roger. Nannie will show you out." + +The door closed on him, and Lady Winton dropped on a sofa by the fire, +her face showing white and middle-aged in the firelight. She was just +an ordinary woman, only with a stronger will than most; and as an +ordinary woman, amid all her anger and fear, she was not wholly proof +against such a spectacle as that now presented by her once favourite +brother. It was not his words that affected her--but a hundred little +personal facts which every time she saw him burnt a little more deeply +into her consciousness the irreparableness of his personal ruin--physical +and moral. Idleness, drink, disease--the loss of shame, of self-respect, +of manners--the sense of something vital gone for ever--all these fatal +things stared out upon her, from his slippery emaciated face, his +borrowed clothes, his bullying voice--the scent on him of the mews in +which he lived! + +She covered her face with her hands and cried a little. She could +remember when he was the darling and pride of the family--especially of +his father. How had it happened? He had said to her once, "There must +have been a black drop somewhere in our forbears, Edie. It has reappeared +in me. We are none of us responsible, my dear, for our precious selves. I +may be a sinner and a loafer--but that benevolent Almighty of yours made +me." + +That was wicked stuff, of course; but there had been a twist in him from +the beginning. Had _she_ done her best for him? There were times when her +conscience pricked her. + +The clock struck seven. The sound brought her to her feet. She must go +and dress. Richard would be home directly, and they were dining out, to +meet a distinguished General, in London for a few days' leave from the +front. Dick must, of course, know nothing of Roger's visit; and she must +hurriedly go and look up the distinguished General's career in case she +had to sit next him. Vehemently she put the preceding hour out of her +mind. The dinner-party to which she was going flattered her vanity. It +turned her cold to think that Roger might some day do something which +would damage that "position" which she had built up for herself and her +husband, by ten years' careful piloting of their joint lives. She knew +she was called a "climber." She knew also that she had "climbed" +successfully, and that it was Roger's knowledge of the fact, combined +with a horrid recklessness which seemed to be growing in him, that made +the danger of the situation. + +Meanwhile Delane stepped out into the fog, which, however, was lifting a +little. He made his way down into Piccadilly, which was crowded with +folk, men and women hurrying home from their offices, and besieging the +omnibuses--with hundreds of soldiers too, most of them with a girl beside +them, and smart young officers of every rank and service--while the whole +scene breathed an animation and excitement, which meant a common +consciousness, in the crowd, of great happenings. All along the street +were men with newspapers, showing the headlines to passers-by. "President +Wilson's answer to the German appeal expected to-morrow." "The British +entry into Lille." + +Delane bought an _Evening News_, glanced at the headlines, and threw it +away. What did the war matter to him?--or the new world that fools +supposed to be coming after it? Consumptives had a way, no doubt, of +living longer than people expected--or hoped. Still, he believed that a +couple of years or so would see him out. And that being so, he felt +a kind of malignant indifference towards this pushing, chattering world, +aimlessly going about its silly business, as though there were any real +interest or importance in it. + +Then, as he drifted with the crowd, he found himself caught in a +specially dense bit of it, which had gathered round some fallen horses. A +thin slip of a girl beside him, who was attempting to get through the +crush, was roughly elbowed by a burly artilleryman determined to see the +show. She protested angrily, and Delane suddenly felt angry, too. "You +brute, you,--let the lady pass!" he called to the soldier, who turned +with a grin, and was instantly out of reach and sight. "Take my arm," +said Delane to the girl--"Where are you going?" The little thing looked +up--hesitated--and took his arm. "I'm going to get a bus at the Circus." +"All right. I'll see you there." She laughed and flushed, and they walked +on together. Delane looked at her with curiosity. High cheek-bones--a red +spot of colour on them--a sharp chin--small, emaciated features, and +beautiful deep eyes. Phthisical!--like himself--poor little wretch! He +found out that she was a waitress in a cheap eating-house, and had very +long hours. "Jolly good pay, though, compared to what it used to be! Why, +with tips, on a good day, I can make seven and eight shillings. That's +good, ain't it? And now the war's goin' to stop. Do you think I want it +to stop? I don't think! Me and my sister'll be starvin' again, I +suppose?" + +He found out she was an orphan, living with her sister, who was a typist, +in Kentish town. But she refused to tell him her address, which he idly +asked her. "What did you want with it?" she said, with a sudden frown. +"I'm straight, I am. There's my bus! Night! night!--So long!" And with a +half-sarcastic wave of her tiny hand, she left him, and was soon engulfed +in the swirl round a north-bound bus. + +He wandered on along Regent Street, and Waterloo Place, down the Duke of +York's steps into the Mall, where some captured guns were already in +position, with children swarming about them; and so through St. James's +Park to the Abbey. The fog was now all but clear, and there were frosty +stars overhead. The Abbey towers rose out of a purple haze, etherially +pale and moon-touched. The House of Commons was sitting, but there was +still no light on the Clock Tower, and no unmuffling of the lamps. London +was waiting, as the world was waiting, for the next step in the vast +drama which had three continents for its setting; and meanwhile, save for +the added movements in the streets, and a new something in the faces of +the crowds hurrying along the pavements, there was nothing to show that +all was in fact over, and the war won. + +Delane followed a stream of people entering the Abbey through the north +transept. He was carried on by them, till a verger showed him into a seat +near the choir, and he mechanically obeyed, and dropped on his knees. + +When he rose from them, the choir was filing in, and the vergers with +their pokers were escorting the officiating Canon to his seat. Delane had +not been inside a church for two or three years, and it was a good deal +more since he had stood last in Westminster Abbey. But as he watched the +once familiar spectacle there flowed back upon him, with startling force, +old impressions and traditions. He was in Cambridge again, a King's man, +attending King's Chapel. He was thinking of his approaching Schools, and +there rose in his mind a number of figures, moving or at rest, Cambridge +men like himself, long since dismissed from recollection. Suddenly memory +seemed to open out--to become full, and urgent, and emphatic. He appeared +to be living at a great rate, to be thinking and feeling with peculiar +force. Perhaps it was fever. His hands burnt. + +"_My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my +Saviour!_" + +As the chant rose, and he recognized the words, he felt extraordinarily +exalted, released, purified. Why not think away the past? It has no +existence, except in thought. + +"I am what I conceive myself to be--who can prove me to be anything else? +What am I then! An educated man, with a mind--an intelligence. I have +damaged it, but there it is--still mine." + +His eyes wandered, during the Lesson, to the line of sculptured Statesmen +in the north transept. He had taken History honours, and his thoughts +began to play with matter still stored in them: an essay on Dizzy and +Cobden he had written for a Cambridge club--or Gladstone's funeral, which +he had seen as a boy of seventeen. He had sat almost in this very place, +with his mother, who had taken pains to bring him to see it as an +historic spectacle which he might wish to remember. A quiet, dull woman, +his mother--taciturn, and something of a bookworm. She had never +understood him, nor he her. But she had occasionally shown moments of +expansion and emotion, when the soul within glowed a little through its +coverings; and he remembered the look in her eyes as the coffin +disappeared into the earth, amid the black-coated throng of Lords and +Commons. She had been for years a great though silent worshipper of Mr. +Gladstone, to the constant amusement of her Tory husband and sons. + +Then, suddenly, a face, a woman's pretty face, in the benches of the +north transept, caught his eye, and with a leap, as of something +unchained, the beast within him awoke. It had reminded him of Rachel; and +therewith the decent memories of the distant past disappeared, engulfed +by the seething, ugly, mud-stained present. He was again crouching on the +hill-side, in the shelter of the holly, watching the scene within: Rachel +in that man's arms! Had the American seen him? He remembered his own +backward start of alarm, as Ellesborough suddenly turned and walked +towards the window. He had allowed himself, in his eagerness to see, to +press too near. He had exposed himself? He did not really believe that he +had been discovered--unless the American was an uncommonly cool hand! Any +way, his retreat to the wooded cover of the hill had been prompt. Once +arrived in the thick plantation on the crest, he had thrown himself down +exhausted. But as he sat panting there, on the fringe of the wood, he had +fancied voices and the flash of a light in the hollow beneath him. These +slight signs of movement, however, had quickly disappeared. Darkness and +silence resumed possession of the farm, and he had had no difficulty in +finding his way unmolested through the trees to the main road, and to the +little town, five miles nearer to London than Millsborough, at which he +had taken a room, under his present name of Wilson. + +The wooded common, indeed, with its high, withered bracken, together with +the hills encircling the farm, had been the cover from which he had +carried out his prying campaign upon his former wife. As he sat or knelt, +mechanically, under the high and shadowy spaces of the Abbey, his mind +filled with excited recollections of that other evening when, after +tearing his hand badly on some barbed wire surrounding one of Colonel +Shepherd's game preserves, so that it bled profusely, and he had nothing +to bandage it with, he had suddenly become aware of voices behind him, +and of a large party of men in khaki--Canadian foresters, by the look +of them, from the Ralstone timber camp, advancing, at some distance, in a +long extended line through the trees; so that they were bound to come +upon him if he remained in the wood. He turned back at once, faced the +barbed wire again, with renewed damage both to clothes and hands, and +ran, crouching, down the green road leading to the farm, his wound +bleeding as he ran. Then he had perceived an old labourer making for him +with shouts. But under the shelter of the cart-shed, he had first +succeeded in tying his handkerchief so tightly round his wrist, with his +teeth and one hand, as to check the bleeding, which was beginning to make +him feel faint. Then, creeping round the back of the farm, he saw that +the upper half of the stable door was open, and leaping over it, he had +hidden among the horses, just as Halsey came past in pursuit. The old +man--confound him!--had made the circuit of the farm, and had then gone +up the grass road to the hill. Delane, looking out from the dark stable, +had been able to watch him through the dusk, keeping an eye the while to +the opposite door opening on the farm-yard. But the labourer disappeared, +and in the dark roomy stable, with its beamed roof, nothing could be +heard but the champing and slow tramping movements of the splendid +cart-horses. Rachel's horses! Delane passed his free hand over two of +them, and they turned their stately heads and nosed him in a quiet way. +Then he vaulted again over the half door, and hurried up the hill, in the +gathering darkness. + +He was aware of the ghost-story. He had heard it and the story of the +murder from a man cutting bracken on the common; and he had already +formed some vague notions of making use of it for the blackmailing of +Rachel. It amused him to think that perhaps his sudden disappearance +would lead to a new chapter of the old tale. + +Then at the recollection of Rachel's prosperity and peace, of her sleek +horses and cows, her huge hay and corn stacks, her comfortable home, and +her new lover, a fresh shudder of rage and hatred gripped him. She had +once been his thing--his chattel; he seemed to see her white neck and +breast, her unbound hair on the pillow beside him--and she had escaped +him, and danced on him. + +Of course she had betrayed him--of course she had had a lover! What other +explanation was there of her turning against him?--of her flight from his +house? But she had been clever enough to hide all the traces of it. He +recalled his own lame and baffled attempts to get hold of some evidence +against her, with gnashing of teeth.... + + * * * * * + +"_For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are +not seen are eternal!_" + +He caught the words staring at him from the page of the open prayer book +beside him, and automatically the Greek equivalent suggested itself. He +had always done well in "divinners"! Then he became aware that the +blessing had been given, that the organ was playing, and the congregation +was breaking up. + + * * * * * + +Twenty-four hours later, Delane found himself on a road leading up from +the town where he was lodging to the summit of the wide stretch of common +land on the western side of which lay Great End Farm. Half way up a long +hill, he came upon a young man in uniform, disconsolately kneeling beside +a bicycle which he seemed to be vainly trying to mend. As Delane came up +with him, he looked up and asked for a light. Delane produced a match, +and the young man, by the help of it, inspected his broken machine. + +"No go!" he said with a shrug, "I shall have to walk." + +He rose from the ground, put up the tool he had been using, and buttoned +up his coat. Then he asked Delane where he was going. Delane named a +little village on the farther edge of the common. + +"Oh, well, that's straight ahead. I turn off to the right," said the +young soldier, "at the cross road." + +They walked on together, Delane rather unwillingly submitting to the +companionship thus sprung upon him. He saw from the badge on the man's +shoulder that he belonged to one of the Canadian Forestry Corps in the +district, and was at once on his guard. They started in silence, till +Delane, pulling his mind back with a jerk, asked his companion if he was +going to Ipscombe. + +"No--only to Great End Farm." + +Darkness hid the sudden change in Delane's countenance. + +"You know some one there?" + +"No, but I want to see one of the ladies about something. There's two of +them running the farm. But Miss Henderson's the boss." + +Cautiously, with assumed indifference, Delane began to ask questions. + +He discovered that his companion's name was Dempsey; and before many +minutes had passed the murderer's grandson was in the full swing of his +story. Delane, despising the young man for a chattering fool, listened, +nevertheless, with absorbed attention to every item of his tale. +Presently Dempsey said with a laugh,-- + +"There's been people in Ipscombe all these years as always would have it +old Watson walked. I know the names of three people at least as have +sworn to seein' 'im. And there's an old fellow in Ipscombe now that +declares he's seen him, only t'ther day." + +Delane lit his pipe, and nonchalantly inquired particulars. + +Dempsey gave a mocking account of Halsey's story. + +"He's an old fool! Did you ever hear of a ghost bleedin' before!" The +speaker threw back his head and laughed. "That's all rot! Besides, I +don't believe in ghosts--never did. But as Miss Henderson's farmin' the +very land where old Watson was done in, I thought she'd like to have the +true story and first hand. And there's no one but me knows it--not first +hand. So I wrote to her, and said as I would call at six o'clock this +evening." + +"You know her?" + +"No--o," said the young man, hesitating. "But I somehow fancy as I may +have seen her before." + +"Where?" + +"Why, in Canada. I was living on a farm, not far from Winnipeg"--he named +the place. Delane suddenly dropped his pipe, and stooped to pick it up. + +"All right," he said, "go on." + +"And there was a man--a sort of gentleman--his name was Delane--on +another farm about ten miles from where I was working. People talked +of him no end--he was a precious bad lot! I never saw him that I know +of--but I saw his wife twice. They say he was a brute to her. And she was +awfully handsome. You couldn't forget her when you'd once come across +her. And when I saw Miss Henderson drivin' one of the wagons in the +Millsborough Harvest Festival, a fortnight ago, I could have sworn it was +Mrs. Delane. But, of course, it was my mistake." + +"Where did you see Mrs. Delane?" + +"Once at her own place. I was delivering some poultry food that Delane +had bought of my employer--and once at a place belongin' to a man +called Tanner." + +"Tanner?" + +"Tanner. He was somethin' the same sort as Delane. We've a lot of them in +Canada--remittance men, we call them--men as can't get on in the old +country--and their relations pay 'em to go--and pay 'em to keep away. But +Tanner was a nice sort of fellow--quite different from Delane. He painted +pictures. I remember his showin' some o' them in Winnipeg. But he was +always down on his luck. He couldn't make any money, and he couldn't +keep it." + +"You saw Miss Henderson there?" + +Dempsey gave a guffaw. + +"Oh, Lor, no! I don't say that. Why, I'd get into trouble--shouldn't I? +But I saw Mrs. Delane. I was driving past Tanner's place, with two +horses, and a heavy load, November two years ago--just before we passed +our Military Service Act, and I joined up. And an awful storm came on--a +regular blizzard. Before I got to Tanner's I was nearly wore out, an' the +horses, too. So I stopped to ask for a hot drink or somethin'. You +couldn't see the horses' heads for the snow. And Tanner brought me out +some hot coffee--I'm a teetotaller, you see--an' a woman stood at the +door, and handed it to him. She was holdin' a lamp, so I saw her quite +plain. And I knew her at once, though she was only there a minute. It was +Mrs. Roger Delane." + +He stopped to light a cigarette. No sound came from his companion. All +round them spread the great common, with its old thorns, its clumps of +fir, its hollows and girdling woods, faintly lit by a ghostly moonlight +that was just beginning to penetrate the misty November dusk. The +cheerful light of Dempsey's cigarette shone a moment in the gloom. Delane +was conscious of an excitement which it took all his will to master. But +he spoke carelessly. + +"And what was Mrs. Delane doing there?" + +Dempsey chuckled. + +"How should I know? Tanner used to have a sister staying with him +sometimes. Perhaps she and Mrs. Delane were friends. But I saw that woman +quite plain. It was Mrs. Delane--that I'll swear. And Miss Henderson is +as like her as two peas. It might have been her sister. Miss Henderson's +very uncommon-looking. You don't often see that complexion and that hair. +And she has lived in Canada." + +"How do you know?" + +"She told old Halsey. Well, there's my road, just ahead. And if you're +going to Moor End, you keep straight on. The moon's coming up. It won't +be very dark." And with a careless good-night, the Canadian turned a +corner, and disappeared along a road which diverged at a right angle from +the main road, and led, as Delane knew, direct to Ipscombe. + +He himself walked on, till he found a lane tunnelled through one of the +deep woods that on their western side ran down to Great End Farm. In the +heart of that wood there was a keeper's hut, disused entirely since the +war. Delane had discovered it, and was quite prepared to spend a night +there at a pinch. There was a rude fireplace in it, and some old sacks. +With some of the fallen wood lying about, a man could make a fire, and +pass a winter night in very tolerable comfort. + +He made his way in, managed to prop a sack against the small cobwebbed +window, fastened the door with a rusty bolt, and brought out an electric +torch he always carried in his pocket. + +There was not a house within a long distance. There were no keepers now +on Colonel Shepherd's estate. Darkness--the woods--and the wild creatures +in them--were his only companions. Half a mile away, no doubt, Rachel in +her smart new parlour was talking to the Canadian fellow. + +_Tanner!_ Ye gods! At last he had the clue to it all. + + + + +X + + +Dempsey did not find Rachel Henderson at home when he called at Great End +Farm, after his meeting with his unknown companion on the common. + +Ellesborough and Rachel had gone to London for the day. Ellesborough's +duties at the Ralstone camp were in a state of suspended animation, +since, in these expectant days before the signing of the armistice, there +had been a general slackening, as though by silent and general consent, +in the timber felling due to the war throughout the beautiful district +in which Millsborough lay. Enough damage had been done already to the +great wood-sanctuaries. On one pretext or another men held their hands. + +Ellesborough then was free to take time off when he would, and to spend +it in love-making. The engagement had been announced, and Ellesborough +believed himself a very happy man--with the slight drawbacks that may be +imagined. + +In the first place--although, as he became better acquainted with +Rachel's varying moods and aspects, he fell more and more deeply under +the charm of her temperament--a temperament at once passionate and +childish, crude, and subtle, with many signs, fugitive and surprising, of +a deep and tragic reflectiveness; he became also more and more conscious +of what seemed to him the lasting effects upon her of her miserable +marriage. The nervous effects above all; shown by the vague "fears" of +which she had spoken to him, on one of their early walks together; and by +the gulfs of depression and silence into which she would often fall, +after periods of high, even wild spirits. + +It was this constant perception of a state of nervous suffering and +irritability in this splendid physical creature--a state explained, as he +thought, by her story, which had put him instantly on his guard, when +that sinister vision at the window had sprung for a moment out of the +darkness. Before almost he could move towards it, it had gone. And with a +farewell smile at the woman he had just been holding in his arms, a smile +which betrayed nothing, he had hurried away from her to investigate the +mystery. A hasty word to Janet Leighton in the kitchen, and he was making +a rapid circuit of the farm, and searching the farm-yard; with no results +whatever. + +Then he, Janet, and Hastings had held a hurried and secret colloquy in a +corner of the great cow-shed, as far from Rachel's sight and hearing as +possible. Clearly some one was haunting the farm for some malicious +purpose. Hastings, for the first time, told the story of the blood-marks, +and of two or three other supposed visions of a man, tall and stooping, +with a dark sallow face, which persons working on the farm, or walking +near it on the hill, had either seen or imagined. Ellesborough finally +had jumped on his motor-bicycle and ridden off to the police depot at +Millsborough. Some wind of the happenings at Great End Farm had already +reached the police, but they could throw no light on them. They arranged, +however, with Ellesborough to patrol the farm and the neighbourhood after +dark as often as their diminished force would allow. + +They were inclined to believe that some half-witted person was concerned, +drawn, perhaps, from the alien population which had been floating through +the district, and bent on mischief or robbery--or a mixture of both. + +Rachel meanwhile knew nothing of these consultations. After her +engagement was made public, she began to look so white, so tired and +tremulous, that both Ellesborough and Janet were alarmed. Overwork, +according to Janet, with the threshing, and in the potato-fields. Never +had Rachel worked with such a feverish energy as in these autumn weeks. +Add the excitement of an engagement, said Janet, and you see the result. + +She would have prescribed bed and rest; but Rachel scouted the advice. +The alternative was amusement--change of scene--in Ellesborough's +company. Here she was more docile, feverishly submissive and happy, +indeed, so long as Ellesborough made the plans, and Ellesborough watched +over her. Janet wondered at certain profound changes in her. It was, she +saw, the first real passion of Rachel's life. + + * * * * * + +So Dempsey called in vain. Miss Henderson was in town for a theatre and +shopping. But he saw Janet Leighton, to whom with all the dramatic +additions and flourishes he had now bestowed upon it, he told his story. +Janet, who, on a hint from Hastings, had expected the visitation, was at +any rate glad that Rachel was out of the way, seeing what a strong and +curious dislike she had to the ghost-story, and also to any talk of the +murder from which it originated. + +Janet, however, listened, and with a growing and fascinated attention, to +the old tale. Was there some real connection, she wondered, between it +and the creature who had been prowling round the farm? Was some one +personating the ghost, and for what reason? The same queries were +ardently in the mind of Dempsey. He reported Halsey's adventure, +commenting on it indignantly. + +"It's some one as knows the story, and is playin' the fool with it. It's +a very impudent thing to do! It's not playing fair, that's what it isn't; +and I'd like to get hold of him." + +Janet's mouth twitched. The young man's proprietorial interest in his +grandfather's crime, and annoyance that any one should interfere with it, +turned the whole thing to comedy. Moreover, his fatuous absorption in +that side of the matter made him useless for any other purpose: so that +she soon ceased from cross-examining him, and he rose to go. + +"Well, I'm sorry not to have seen Miss Henderson," he said awkwardly, +twisting his cap. "I'd like to have had a talk with her about Canada. It +was old Halsey told me she'd lived in Canada." + +"Yes," said Janet irresponsively. + +Dempsey smiled broadly and seemed embarrassed. At last he said with a +jerk:-- + +"I wonder if Miss Henderson ever knew a man called Tanner--who lived near +Winnipeg?" + +"I never heard her speak of him." + +"Because"--he still twirled--"when I saw Miss Henderson at Millsborough +that day of the rally, I thought as I'd seen her before." + +"Oh?" said Janet ardently. But some instinct put her on her guard. + +"Dick Tanner, they called him, was a man--an artist chap--who lived not +far from the man I was with--and I once saw a lady there just like Miss +Henderson." + +"Did you?" + +Dempsey grew bolder. + +"Only it couldn't have been Miss Henderson, you see--because this lady I +saw was a Mrs. Delane. But was Mrs. Delane perhaps a relation of Miss +Henderson? She was just like Miss Henderson." + +"I'll ask Miss Henderson," said Janet, moving towards the door, as a +signal to him to take his leave. "But I expect you're confusing her with +some one else." + +Dempsey, however, began rather eagerly to dot the i's. The picture of the +snowstorm, of the woman at the door, various points in his description +of her, and of the solitary--apparently bachelor--owner of the farm, +began to affect Janet uncomfortably. She got rid of the chatter-box as +soon as possible, and went slowly to the kitchen, to get supper ready. As +she fried the bacon, and took some vegetables out of the hay-box, she was +thinking fast. + +Tanner? No--she had never heard Rachel mention the name. But it happened +that Dempsey had given a precise date. It was in the "November before +they Passed Conscription" in Canada, _i.e._ before he himself was called +up--that he saw Mrs. Delane, at night, in Dick Tanner's house. And Janet +remembered that, according to the story which as they two sat by the fire +alone at night, when the girls were gone to bed, Rachel had gradually +built up before her. It was in that same month that Rachel had been +deserted by Delane; who had gone off to British Columbia with the Italian +girl, as his wife afterwards knew, leaving Rachel alone on the farm--with +one Japanese servant. + +Why shouldn't she have been staying on Mr. Tanner's farm? There was no +doubt some one else there--whom the boy didn't see. Perhaps she had +herself taken refuge there during the storm. But all the same Janet felt +vaguely troubled. + + * * * * * + +It was nearly seven o'clock, and the moon, now at the full, was rising +over the eastern hill, and balancing the stubbles and the new-turned +plough-lands in the upland cup to a pearly whiteness as they lay under +the dark woods and a fleecy sky. There was a sound of a motor in the +lane--the village taxi bringing the travellers home. + +In a few more minutes they were in the sitting-room, Rachel throwing off +her thick coat with Ellesborough's help, and declaring that she was not +the least tired. + +"Don't believe her!" said Ellesborough, smiling at Janet. "She is not a +truthful woman!" + +And his proud eyes returned to Rachel as though now that there was light +to see her by he had no other use for them. + +Rachel, indeed, was in a radiant mood. Pallor and depression had +vanished; she was full of chatter about the streets, the crowds, the +shops. + +"But it's hopeless to go shopping with a man! He can't make up his mind +one bit!" + +"He hadn't a mind to make up!" murmured Ellesborough, looking up at her +as she perched above him on a corner of the table. + +She laughed. + +"That, I suppose, was what made him want to buy the whole place! If I'd +taken his advice, Janet, I should have been just cleaned out!" + +"What's the good of being economical when one's going to be married!" +said Ellesborough, joyously. "Why--" + +Rachel interrupted him--with a hand on his shoulder. + +"And we've settled our plans, Janet--that is, if you're agreeable. Will +you mind looking after the farm for six months?" + +"You see, if the armistice is signed--and we shall know to-morrow," said +Ellesborough, "I shall be free in a month or so, and then we propose to +marry and get a passage before Christmas. I must go home, and she says +she'll come with me!" + +A shadow had fallen suddenly, it seemed to Janet, over Rachel's aspect, +but she at once endorsed what Ellesborough had said. + +"We can't settle things--can we?--till we've seen his people. We've got +to decide whether I'll go to America, or he'll come here." + +"But we want to say"--Ellesborough turned gravely to Janet--"that first +and foremost, we wish to do the best for you." + +The sudden tears came into Janet's eyes. But they did not show. + +"Oh, that'll be all right. Don't bother about me." + +"We shall bother!" said Rachel with energy, "but I'll tell you all about +it presently. He won't stay to supper." + +She descended from the table, and Ellesborough rose. After a little more +chat about the day and its doings, he said good-night to Janet. + +"How do you get back?" + +"Oh, I left my bike in the village. I shall walk and pick it up there." + +Rachel took up her thick coat and slipped it on again. She would walk +with him to the road, she said--there were some more things to say. + +Janet watched them go out into the wide frosty night, where the sky was +shedding its clouds, and the temperature was falling rapidly. She +realized that they were in that stage of passion when everything is +unreal outside the one supreme thing, and all other life passes like a +show half-seen. And all the while the name Tanner--Dick Tanner--echoed +in her mind. Such a simple thing to put a careless question to Rachel! +Yet perhaps--after all--not so simple. + +Meanwhile the two lovers were together on the path through the stubbles, +walking hand-in-hand through the magic of the moonlight. + +"Will you write a little line to my mother to-morrow?" + +"Yes, of course. But--" + +He caught her long breath. + +"I have prepared the way, darling. I promise you--it will be all right." + +"But why--why--didn't I see you first?" It was a stifled cry, which +seemed somehow to speak for them both. And she added, bitterly, "It's no +good talking--it can't ever be the same--to you, or to your people." + +"It shall be the same! Or rather, we shall owe you a double share of love +to make up to you--for that horrible time. Forget it, dear--make yourself +forget it. My mother would tell you so at once." + +"Isn't she--very strict about divorce?" + +Ellesborough hesitated--just a moment. + +"She couldn't have any doubts about your case--dearest--who could? You +fell among thieves, and--" + +"And you're picking me up, and taking me to the inn?" + +He pressed her hand passionately. They walked in silence till the gate +appeared. + +"Go back, dearest. I shall be over on Sunday." + +"Not till then?" + +"I'm afraid not. If the peace news comes tomorrow, the camp'll go mad, +and I shall have to look after them." + +They paused at the gate, and he kissed her. She lay passive in his arms, +the moonlight touched her brown hair, and the beautiful curves of her +cheek and throat. + +"Wasn't it heavenly to-day?" she whispered. + +"Heavenly! Go home!" + +She turned back towards the farm, drawing her cloak and its fur collar +close round her, against the cold. And indeed Ellesborough was no sooner +gone, the rush of the motor cycle along the distant road had no sooner +died away, than a shiver ran through her which was more than physical. So +long as he was there, she was happy, excited, hopeful. And when he was +not there, the protecting screen had fallen, and she was exposed to all +the stress and terror of the storm raging in her own mind. + +"Why can't I forget it all--_everything_! It's dead--_it's dead_!" she +said to herself again and again in an anguish, as she walked back through +the broad open field where the winter-sown corn was just springing in the +furrows--the moon was so bright that she could see the tiny green spears +of it. + +And yet in reality she perfectly understood why it was that, instead of +forgetting, memory was becoming more and more poignant, more and more +persecuting. It was because the searching processes of love were going +deeper and deeper into her inmost soul. This good man who loved her, who +was going to take her injured life into his keeping, to devote to her all +his future, and all the harvest of his upright and hard-working past--she +was going to marry him with a lie between them, so that she could never +look him straight in the face, never be certain that, sometime or other, +something would not emerge like a drowned face from the dark, and ruin +all their happiness. It had seemed, at the beginning, so easy to keep +silence, to tell everything but the one miserable fact that she couldn't +tell! And now it was getting intolerably hard, just because she knew +for the first time what love really meant, with its ardour for +self-revelation, for an absolute union with the beloved. By marrying him +without confession, she would not only be wronging him, she would be +laying up probable misery for herself--and him--through the mere action +of her own temperament. + +For she knew herself. Among the girls and women she had been thrown with +during the preceding year and a half, there were some moral anarchists, +with whose views she had become strikingly familiar. Why, they said, make +so much of these physical facts? Accept them, and the incidents that +spring from them. Why all this weeping and wailing over supposed shames +and disgraces? The sex-life of the present is making its own new codes. +Who knows what they will ultimately be? And as for the indelible traces +and effects of an act of weakness or passion that the sentimental and +goody-goody people talk of, in the majority of cases they don't exist. +After it, the human being concerned may be just the same as before. + +Rachel was quite aware of this modern gospel. Only she was shut out from +adopting it in her own case by an invincible heredity, by the spirit of +her father in her, the saintly old preacher, whose uncompromising faith +she had witnessed and shared through all her young years. She might and +did protest that the faith was no longer hers. But it had stamped her. +She could never be wholly rid of its prejudices and repulsions. What +would her father have said to her divorce?--he with his mystical +conception of marriage? She dreaded to think. And as to that other +fact which weighed on her conscience, she seemed to hear herself +pleading--with tears!--"Father!--it wasn't my will--it was my +_weakness_!--Don't look at me so!" + +And now, in addition, there was the pressure upon her of Ellesborough's +own high ideals and religious temper; of the ideals, also, of his family, +as he was tenderly and unconsciously revealing them. And, finally, there +was the daily influence of Janet's neighbourhood--Janet, so austere for +herself, so pitiful for others: Janet, so like Ellesborough in the +unconscious sternness of her moral outlook, so full, besides, of an +infinite sorrow for the sinner. + +And between these two stood this variable, sensuous, woman's nature, so +capable both of good and evil. Rachel felt the burden of their virtues +too much for her, together with the sting of her own secret knowledge. + +In some moments, even, she rebelled against her own passion. She had such +a moment of revolt, in this moonlit dark, as her eyes took in the farm, +the dim outlines of the farm buildings, the stacks, the new-ploughed +furrows. Two months earlier her life had been absorbed in simple, clear, +practical ambitions: how to improve her stock--how to grow another bushel +to the acre--how and when to build a silo--whether to try +electrification: a score of pleasant riddles that made the hours fly. And +now this old fever had crept again into her blood, and everything had +lost its savour. There were times when she bitterly, childishly, +regretted it. She could almost have hated Ellesborough, because she loved +him so well; and because of the terror, the ceaseless preoccupation that +her love had begun to impose upon her. + +Janet, watching her come in, saw that the radiance had departed, and that +she crept about again like a tired woman. When, after nine o'clock, they +were alone by the fire, again and again it was on the tip of Janet's +tongue to say, "Tell me, who was Dick Tanner?" Then, in a sudden panic +fear, lest the words should slip out, and bring something irreparable, +she would get up, and make a restless pretence of some household work or +other, only to sit down and begin the same inward debate once more. But +she said nothing, and Rachel, too, was silent. She sat over the fire, +apparently half asleep. Neither of them moved to go to bed till nearly +midnight. + +Then they kissed each other, and Janet raked out the fire. + +"To-morrow!" she said, her eyes on the red glow of the embers, +"_to-morrow_!--Will it be peace?" + +And then Rachel remembered that all the civilized world was waiting for +the words that would end the war. Somewhere in a French chateau there was +a group of men conferring, and on the issue of this night depended the +lives of thousands, and the peace of Europe. + +Janet raised her clasped hands, and her plain, quiet face shone in the +candle-light. She murmured something. Rachel guessed it was a prayer. But +her own heart seemed dead and dumb. She could not free it from its load +of personal care; she could not feel the patriotic emotion which had +suddenly seized on Janet. + +The morning broke grey and misty. The two labourers and the girls went +about their work--raising their heads now and then to listen. And at +eleven came the signal. Out rang the bells from Ipscombe Church tower. +Labourers and girls threw down what they were doing, and gathered in the +farm-yard round Janet and Rachel, who were waving flags on the steps of +the farm-house. Then Rachel gave them all a holiday for the rest of the +day, and very soon there was no one left on the farm premises but the two +women and the bailiff. + +"Don't stay, Hastings," said Rachel. "I'll get the horse and cart +myself." + +For it was market day at Millsborough, and peace or no peace, she had +some business that must be done there. + +"Oh, I've no call to go, Miss," said Hastings. "I'd rather stay and look +after things." + +His eyes met Janet's, and she nodded imperceptibly. She was relieved to +think of Hastings--good, faithful, unassuming creature!--remaining on +guard. The very desertion of the farm-houses on this great day might +tempt marauders--especially that thief or madman who had been haunting +their own premises. She hoped the police would not forget them either. +But Hastings' offer to stay till the girls came back from the +Millsborough crowds and bands at about nine o'clock quite eased her mind. +And meanwhile she and Hastings, as had been agreed, kept their anxieties +from Rachel. + +Rachel went off at twelve o'clock in her khaki suit, driving a spirited +young horse in a high cart, which was filled with farm produce. She was +to take early dinner with some new friends, and then to go and look at a +Jersey cow which Janet coveted, in a farm on the other side of +Millsborough. + +"Don't wait tea for me," she said to Janet, "I shall get some somewhere." +And then with a smile to them both she was off. Janet stood looking after +her, lost in a painful uncertainty. "Can't you let it alone?" Lord +Melbourne was accustomed to say suavely to those members of the Cabinet +who brought him grievances or scandals that wanted seeing to. One half of +Janet's mind was saying, "Can't you let it alone?" to the other half. + + + + +XI + + +The daylight had all gone when Rachel at last got into her cart in the +yard of the Rose and Thistle at Millsborough and took the reins. But +there was a faint moonrise struggling through the mist in which the +little town and countryside were shrouded. And in the town, with its +laughing and singing crowds, its bright shop windows, its moist, +straggling flags, the mist, lying gently over the old houses, the moving +people, the flashes and streamers of light, was extraordinarily romantic +and beautifying. + +Rachel drove slowly through the streets, delighting in the noise and +excitement, in the sheer new pleasure of everything, the world--human +beings--living--the end of the war. And out among the fields, and in the +country road, the November sun was still beautiful; what with the pearly +mist, and the purple shapes of the forest-covered hills. She had been +much made of in Millsborough. People were anxious to talk to her, to +invite her, to do business with her. Her engagement, she perceived, had +made her doubly interesting. She was going to be prosperous, to +succeed--and all the world smiled upon her. + +So that her pulses were running fast as she reached Ipscombe, where, in +the mild fog, a few groups were standing about, and a few doors were +open. And now--there was home!--in front of her. And--Heavens! what had +Janet done? Rachel pulled up the horse, and sat enchanted, looking at the +farm. For there it lay, pricked out in light, its old Georgian lines +against the background of the hill. Every window had a light in it--every +blind was drawn up--it was Janet's illumination for the peace. She had +made of the old house "an insubstantial faery place," and Rachel laughed +for pleasure. + +Then she drove eagerly on into the dark tunnel of trees that lay between +her and the house. + +Suddenly a shape rushed out of the hedge into the light of the lamps, and +a man laid a violent hand upon the horse's reins. The horse reared, and +Rachel cried out,-- + +"What are you doing? Let go!" + +But the man held the struggling horse, at once coercing and taming +it, with an expert hand. A voice!--that sent a sudden horror through +Rachel,-- + +"Sit where you are--hold tight!--don't be a fool!--he'll quiet down." + +She sat paralysed; and, still holding the reins, though the trembling +horse was now quiet, a man advanced into the light of the left-hand lamp. + +"Well--do you know me?" he said quietly. + +She struggled for breath and self-control. + +"Let those reins alone!--what are you doing here?" + +And snatching up her whip, she bent forward. But he made a spring at it, +snatched it easily with a laugh, and broke it. + +"You know you never were strong enough to get the better of me. Why do +you try? Don't be an idiot. I want to make an appointment with you. You +can't escape me. I've watched you for weeks. And see you alone, too. +Without that fellow you're engaged to." + +Her passion rose, in spite of her deadly fear. + +"He'll take care of that," she said, "and the police. I'm not helpless +now--as I used to be." + +"Ah, but you'd better see me. I've got a great deal to say that concerns +you. I suppose you've told that American chap a very pretty story about +our divorce? Well, it took me a long time to get to the bottom of it +myself. But now I'm--well, disillusioned!" + +He came closer, close to the rail of the cart and the lamp, so that she +saw clearly the haggard wreck of what once had been Roger Delane, and the +evil triumph in his eyes. + +"Who stayed the night alone, with Dick Tanner, on his place, when I was +safely got rid of?" he said, in a low but clear voice. "And then who +played the innocent--who did?" + +"Liar!" + +"Not at all. I've got some new evidence now--some quite fresh light on +the scene--which may be useful to me. I want money. You seem to have a +lot. And I want to be paid back a little of what I'm owed. Oh, I can hold +my tongue, if it's made worth my while. I don't suppose you've told your +American young man anything about Dick Tanner--eh?" + +"Let go the horse!" she said fiercely, trying to recapture the reins. +"You've nothing to do with me any more." + +"Haven't I? Oh, by all means tell your Yankee that I've waylaid you. I +shouldn't at all object to an interview with him. In fact, I rather think +of asking for it. But if you want to prevent it, you've got to do what +you're told." + +He came closer, and spoke with slow emphasis. "You've got to arrange a +time--when I can see you--_alone?_ When shall it be?" + +Silence. But far ahead there were sounds as of some one approaching. +Delane leapt on the step of the cart. + +"This is Monday. Wednesday night--get rid of everybody! You can do it if +you like. I shall come at nine. You've got to let me in." + +Her white, quivering face was all his answer. + +"Don't forget," he said, jumping down. "Good-night!" + +And in a second he was gone, where, she could not tell. + +The reins fell from her grasp. She leant back in the cart, half fainting. +The horse, finding the reins on his neck, strayed to the grassy side of +the road, and began grazing. A short time passed. In another minute or +two the left wheel would have gone done into a deep ditch. + +"Hallo!" cried a man's voice. "What the matter?" + +Rachel tried to rouse herself, but could only murmur inarticulately. The +man jumped off his bicycle, propped it against a tree, and came running +to her. + +He saw a woman, in a khaki felt hat and khaki dress, sitting hunched up +in a fainting state on the seat of a light cart. He was just in time to +catch the horse and turn it back to the road. Then in his astonishment +John Dempsey altogether forgot himself. + +"Don't be frightened, Mrs. Delane! Why, you've had a faint. But never +mind. Cheer up! I'll get you home safe." + +And Rachel, reviving, opened her heavy eyes to see stooping over her the +face of the lad in the hooded cart whom she had last seen in the night of +that November snowstorm, two years before. + +"What did you say?" she asked stupidly. Then, raising herself, with an +instinctive gesture she smoothed back her hair from her face, and +straightened her hat. "Thank you, I'm all right." + +Dempsey's mouth as he retreated from her shaped itself to an involuntary +grin. + +"I beg your pardon, ma'am--but I think I've seen you in Canada. Didn't I +once come to your place, with a parcel from Mr. Grimes--that was my +employer--of Redminster? I remember you had a Jap servant. And there was +another time, I think"--the lad's eyes fixed her, contracted a little, +and sharp with curiosity--"when you and Mr. Dick Tanner gave me that +fizzling hot coffee--don't you remember?--in that awful blizzard two +years ago? And Mr. Tanner gave the horses a feed, too. Awfully good chap, +Mr. Tanner. I don't know what I should have done without that coffee." + +Rachel was still deathly white, but she had recovered possession of +herself, and her mind was working madly through a score of possibilities. + +"You're quite mistaken," she said coldly, "I never saw you before that I +am aware of. Please let go the reins. I can manage now quite well. I +don't know what made me feel ill. I'm all right now." + +"You've got the reins twisted round the shaft, miss," said Dempsey +officiously. "You'd better let me put 'em right." + +And without waiting for a reply, he began to disentangle them, not +without a good deal of fidgeting from the horse, which delayed him. His +mouth twitched with laughter as he bent over the shaft. Deny that she was +Mrs. Delane! That was a good one. Why, now that he had seen her close, he +could swear to her anywhere. + +Rachel watched him, her senses sharpening rapidly. Only a few minutes +since Roger had been there--and now, this man. Had they met? Was there +collusion between them? There must be. How else could Roger know? No one +else in the world but this youth could have given him the information. +She recalled the utter solitude of the snow-bound farm--the heavy +drifts--no human being but Dick and herself--till that evening when the +new snow was all hard frozen, and they two had sleighed back under the +moon to her own door. + +What to do? She seemed to see her course. + +"What is your name?" she asked him, endeavouring to speak in her ordinary +voice, and bending over the front of the cart, she spoke to the horse, +"Quiet, Jack, quiet!" + +"My name's John Dempsey, ma'am." He looked up, and then quickly withdrew +his eyes. She saw the twitching smile that he now could hardly restrain. +By this time he had straightened the reins, which she gathered up. + +"It's curious," she said, "but you're not the first person who's mistaken +me for that Mrs. Delane. I knew something about her. I don't want to be +mistaken for her." + +"I see," said Dempsey. + +"I would rather you didn't speak about it in the village--or anywhere. +You see, one doesn't like to be confused with some people. I didn't like +Mrs. Delane." + +The lad looked up grinning. + +"She got divorced, didn't she?" + +"I dare say. I knew very little about her. But, as I said, I don't want +to be mistaken for her." + +Then, tying the reins to the cart, she jumped down and stood beside him. + +His hand went instinctively to the horse's mouth, holding the restive +animal still. + +"And I should be very much obliged to you if you would keep what you +thought about me to yourself. I don't want you to talk about it in the +village or anywhere. Come up and see me--at the farm--and I'll tell you +why I dislike being mixed up with that woman--why, in fact, I should mind +it dreadfully. I can't explain now, but--" + +The young man was fairly dazzled by the beauty of the sudden flush on her +pale cheeks, of her large pleading eyes, her soft voice. And this--as old +Betts had only that afternoon told him--was the lady engaged to his own +superior officer, Captain Ellesborough, the Commandant of Ralstone Camp, +whom he heartily admired, and stood in considerable awe of! His vanity, +of which he possessed so large a share, was much tickled; but, also, his +feelings were touched. + +"Why, of course, ma'am, won't say anything. I didn't mean any harm." + +"All right," said Rachel, scrambling back to her seat. "If you like to +come up to-morrow morning, I shall be pleased to see you. It's a bargain, +mind!" + +He saluted, smiling. She nodded to him, and drove off. + +"Well, that's the rummiest go!" said the bewildered Dempsey to himself, +as he walked towards his bicycle. "Mistake be damned! She _was_ Mrs. +Delane, and what's she up to now with my captain? And what the deuce was +she doing at Tanner's?" + +Never did a person feel himself more vastly important than Dempsey as he +bicycled back to the Ralstone camp, whence he had started in the morning, +after the peace news, to go and see a cousin living some distance beyond +Great End Farm. To be his grandfather's grandson was much--but _this_! + +Rachel drove, with hands unconscious of the reins, along the road and up +the farm lane leading through her own fields. The world swam around her +in the mist, but there, still in front of her, lay the illuminated farm, +a house of light standing in air. As she neared it, the front door opened +and sounds of singing and laughter came out. + +The "Marseillaise"! _Allons, enfants de la patrie!_--Janet was playing +it, singing vigorously herself, and trying to teach the two girls the +French words, a performance which broke down every other minute in +helpless laughter from all three. Meanwhile, Hastings, who had been +standing behind the singers, his hands in his pockets, a rare and +shamefaced pleasure shining from his care-worn face, thought he heard the +cart, and looked out. Yes, it was the Missis, as he liked to call Miss +Henderson, and he ran down to meet her. + +"Well, I suppose there were fine doings at Millsborough, Miss," he said, +as he held the horse for her to get down. + +"Yes--there were a lot of people. It was very noisy." + +"We thought you'd hear our noise, Miss, as far as the road! Miss +Leighton, she's been keeping us all alive. She took the girls to +church--to the Thanksgiving Service, while I looked after things." + +"All right, Hastings," said Miss Henderson, in a voice that struck his +ear strangely. "Thank you. Will you take the cart?" + +He thought as he led the horse away, "She's been overdoin' it again. The +Cap'n will tell her so." + +Rachel climbed the little slope to the front door. It seemed an Alp. +Presently she stood on the threshold of the sitting-room, in her thick +fur coat, looking at the group round the piano. Janet glanced round, +laughing. "Come and join in!" And they all struck up "God Save the +King"--a comely group in the lamplight, Jenny and Betty lifting their +voices lustily. But they seemed to Rachel to be playing some silly game +which she did not understand. She closed the door and went upstairs to +her own room. It was cold and dark. She lit a candle, and her own face, +transformed, looked at her from the glass on the dressing-table. She gave +a weary, half-reflective sigh. "Shall I be like that when I'm old?" + +She took off her things, and changed mechanically into an afternoon +dress, her mind, like a hunted thing, running hither and thither all the +time. + +Presently she got up and locked the door. She must think--_think_--by +herself. + +It would be quite easy to defy Roger--quite easy to lie, and lie +successfully, if only she was sure of herself, and her own will to carry +things through. Roger could prove nothing--or that vulgar boy--or +anybody. She had only to say, "I went to find Lucy Tanner, who was my +friend--she wasn't there--I was overtaken by the storm--and Dick Tanner +looked after me till I could get home." + +It was the most natural--the most plausible story. If Delane forced +himself on George with any vile tale, Ellesborough would probably give +him in charge for molesting his former wife. There was absolutely nothing +to fear, if she handled the thing in a bold, common-sense way, and told a +consistent and clever lie. + +And yet, she had weakly made appointments with both her tormentors!--made +it plain to them that she was afraid! She called herself a coward, and a +fool--and then as she leant her head against the side of her bed, the +tears ran down her face, and her heart cried out for Ellesborough. + +"How _can_ I go on lying to him--now--and all my life?" It was the same +cry as before, but more intense, more passionate with every day's living. +The need for lying had now doubled; yet her will could less and less +steel itself to it, because of sheer love and remorse towards the man who +loved her. + +"He would forgive me. I know he would--I know he would!" she kept on +murmuring to herself, while her eyes rained in the semi-darkness. + +Yes, but it would change everything! Their love--his feeling towards +her--could never be the same again. After Roger Delane--Dick Tanner. Why +not another--and another? Would he not always be watching her, dreading +some new discovery! Suspecting her, even while he loved her? + +No. She must choke off Delane--with money--the only way. And invent some +story--some bribe, too--for that odious young man who had caught her +unawares. + +So again she hardened herself, despairingly. It could not be allowed +her--the balm and luxury of confession! It was too dangerous. Her all +was in it. + +Meanwhile, the singing continued below. Janet had struck up "Tipperary," +and the small flute-like voices of the girls, supported by her harsher +one, mounted joyously through every crevice of the slightly-built house. + +"It's a long, long way to Tipperary, +And my heart's right there." + +The beautiful tune, interwoven for our generation with all that is most +poignant in its life, beat on Rachel's nerves. It was being sung all over +England that Armistice Day, as it had been sung in the first days of the +war, joyously, exultingly, yet with catching breath. There was in it more +than thousands of men and women dared to probe, whether of joy or sorrow. +They sang it, with a sob in the throat. To Rachel, also, sunk in her own +terrors, it was almost unbearable. The pure unspoilt passion of it--the +careless, confident joy--seemed to make an outcast of her, as she sat +there in the dark, dragged back by the shock and horror of Delane's +appearance into the slime and slough of old memories, and struggling with +them in vain. Yes, she was "damaged goods"--she was unfit to marry George +Ellesborough. But she would marry him! She set her teeth--clinging to him +with all the energy of a woman's deepening and maturing consciousness. +She had been a weak and self-willed child when she married Delane--when +she spent those half miserable, half wild days and nights with Dick +Tanner. Now she trusted a good man--now she looked up and adored. Her +weakness was safe in the care of George Ellesborough's strength. Well, +then, let her fight for her love. + +Presently Janet knocked at the door. The singing downstairs had ceased. + +"Are you tired, Rachel? Can't I help you?" + +"Just a bit tired. I'm resting. I'll be down directly." + + * * * * * + +But the interruption had started fresh anxieties in her mind. She had +paid the most perfunctory attention to the few words Janet had said about +Dempsey's call at the farm, two nights before. She understood at the time +that he had come to chatter about the murder, and was very glad that she +had been out of the way. + +But now--what was it that he had said to Janet--and why had Janet said so +little about his visit? + +Instead of resting she walked incessantly up and down. This uncertainty +about Janet teased her; but after all it was nothing to that other +mystery--how did Roger know?--and to the strange and bewildering effect +of the juxtaposition of the two men--their successive appearance in the +darkness within--what?--ten minutes?--a quarter of an hour?--while the +cloud was on her own brain--without apparently any connection between +them--and relevance to each other. There must have been some connection! +And yet there had been no sign of any personal knowledge of Roger Delane +in Dempsey's talk; and no reference whatever to Dempsey in Delane's. + +She went down to supper, very flushed and on edge. Little Jenny eyed her +surreptitiously. For the first time the child's raw innocence was +disturbed or jealous. What did John Dempsey want with calling on Miss +Henderson--and why had he made a rather teasing mystery of it to her, +Jenny? "Wouldn't you like to know, Miss Inquisitive?" Yes, Jenny would +like to know. Of course Miss Henderson was engaged to Captain +Ellesborough, and all that. But that was no reason why she should carry +off Jenny's "friend," as well as her own. Jenny's heart swelled within +her as she watched Miss Henderson from the other end of the table. Yes, +of course, she was nice-looking, and her clothes were nice. Jenny thought +that she would get a new best dress soon, now that peace was come; and a +new hat with a high silk crown to match the dress. Dempsey had admired a +hat like that on a girl in the village. He had said it was "real smart." +And to be "smart" Jenny thought was to be happy. + +After supper, Janet and the girls washed up and put all tidy for the +night. Rachel worked at accounts in the sitting-room. She had sold the +last hay she had to spare wonderfully well, and potatoes showed a good +profit. Threshing charges were very high, and wages--appalling! But on +the whole, they were doing very well. Janet's Jersey cow had been +expensive, but they could afford her. + +They had never yet drawn out so good an interim balance sheet without +delight, and rosy dreams for the future. Now her mood was leaden, and she +pushed the papers aside impatiently. As she was sitting with her hands +round her knees, staring into the fire, or at the chair where +Ellesborough had sat while she told her story, Janet came into the room. +She paused at the door, and Rachel did not see her look of sudden alarm +as she perceived Rachel's attitude of depression. Then she came up to the +fire. The two girls could be heard laughing overhead. + +"So my cow's a good one?" she said, with her pleasant voice and smile. + +"A beauty," said Rachel, looking up, and recapitulating the points and +yield of the Jersey. + +Janet gave a shrug--implying a proper scepticism. + +"It doesn't seem to be quite as easy to tell lies about cows as about +horses," she said, laughing; "that's about all one can say. We'll hope +for the best." Then--after a moment,-- + +"I never told you much about that man Dempsey's visit. Of course he came +to see you. He thought when he saw you at Millsborough that you were a +Mrs. Delane he had seen in Canada. Were you perhaps a relation of hers? I +said I would ask you. Then I inquired how often he had seen Mrs. Delane. +He said twice--perhaps three times--at her home--at a railway +station--and at a farm belonging to a man called Tanner." + +"Yes," said Rachel, indifferently. "I knew Lucy Tanner, his sister. She +was an artist like him. I liked them both." + +There was silence. In Rachel's breast there was beating a painful tide of +speech that longed to find its way to freedom--but it was gripped and +thrust back by her will. There was something in Janet as in Ellesborough +that wooed her heart, that seemed to promise help. + +But nothing more passed, of importance. Janet, possessed by vague, yet, +as they seemed to herself, quite unreasonable anxieties, gave some +further scornful account of Dempsey's murder talk, to which Rachel +scarcely listened; then she said, as she turned to take up her +knitting,-- + +"I'm going over to-morrow to a little service--a Thanksgiving service--at +Millsborough. I took the girls to church to-day--but I love my own +people!" Her face glowed a little. + +"Unitarian service, you mean?" + +"Yes--we've got a little 'cause' there, and a minister. The service will +be about six, I think. The girls will manage. The minister and his wife +want me to stay to supper--but I shall be back in good time." + +"About ten?" + +"Oh, yes--quite by then. I shall bicycle." + +Through Rachel's mind there passed a thrill of relief. So Janet would be +out of the way. One difficulty removed. Now, to get rid of the girls? + + * * * * * + +Rachel scarcely slept, and the November day broke grey and misty as +before. After breakfast she went out into the fields. Old Halsey was +mole-catching in one of them. But instead of going to inspect him and his +results, she slipped through a tall hedge, and paced the road under its +shelter, looking for Dempsey. + +On the stroke of eleven she saw him in the distance. He came up with the +same look, half embarrassed, half inclining to laugh, that he had worn +the day before. Rachel, on the other hand, was entirely at her ease, and +the young man felt her at once his intellectual and social superior. + +"You seem to have saved me and my horse from a tumble into that ditch +last night," she said, with a laugh, as she greeted him. "Why I turned +faint like that I can't imagine. I do sometimes when I'm tired. Well, now +then--let us walk up the road a little." + +With her hands in her pockets she led the way. In her neat serge suit and +cap, she was the woman-farmer--prosperous and competent--all over. +Dempsey's thoughts threw back in bewilderment to the fainting figure of +the night before. He walked on beside her in silence. + +"I wanted to tell you," said Miss Henderson calmly--"because I'm sure +you're a nice fellow, and don't want to hurt anybody's feelings--why +I asked you to hold your tongue about Mrs. Delane. In the first +place, you're quite mistaken about myself. I was never at Mr. Tanner's +farm--never in that part of Canada; and the person you saw there--Mrs. +Delane--was a very favourite cousin of mine, and extraordinarily like me. +When we were children everybody talked of the likeness. She had a very +sad story, and now--she's dead." The speaker's voice dropped. "I've been +confused with her before--and it's a great trouble to me. The confusion +has done me harm, more than once, and I'm very sensitive about it. So, as +I said last night, I should be greatly obliged if you would not only not +spread the story, but deny it, whenever you can." + +She looked at him sharply, and he coloured crimson. + +"Of course," he stammered, "I should like to do anything you wish." + +"I do wish it, and--" she paused a moment, as though to think--"and +Captain Ellesborough wishes it. I would not advise you, however, to say +anything at all about it to him. But if you do what we ask you, you may +be sure we shall find some way--some substantial way--of showing that we +appreciate it." + +They walked on, she with her eyes on the ground as though she were +thinking out some plan for his benefit--he puzzled and speechless. + +"What do you want to do, now the war's over?" she said at last, with a +smile, looking up. + +"I suppose I want to settle down--somewhere--on land, if I had the +money." + +"Here?--or in Canada?" + +"Oh, at home." + +"I thought so. Well, Mr. Dempsey, Captain Ellesborough and I shall be +quite ready to help you in any scheme you take up. You understand?" + +"That's awfully kind of you--but--" + +"Quite ready," she repeated. "Let me know what your plans are when you've +worked them out--and I'll see what can be done." Then she stopped. There +was a gate near into one of her own fields. Their eyes met--hers +absolutely cool and smiling--his wavering and excited. + +"You understand?" she repeated. + +"Oh, yes--I understand." + +"And you agree?" she added, emphasizing the words. + +"Oh, yes, I--I--agree." + +"Well, then, that's all right--that's understood. A letter will always +find me here. And now I must get back to my work. Good-morning." + +And with a nod, she slipped through the gate, and was half way across the +fallow on the other side of it before he had realized that their strange +conversation was at an end. + + + + +XII + + +The vicar and his sister Eleanor were sitting at breakfast in the small +Georgian house, which, as the vicarage, played a still important +part in the village of Ipscombe. The Church may be in a bad way, as her +own children declare; revolution may be in sight, as our English +Bolshevists love to believe--not too seriously; but meanwhile, if a +stranger in any normal English village wants to lay his finger on the +central ganglion of its various activities, he will still look for the +church and the vicarage--or rectory, as the case may be. If the parson is +bad or feeble, the pulse of the village life will show it; and if he is +energetic and self-devoted, his position will give him a power in the +community--power, tempered of course by the necessary revolts and +reactions which keep the currents of life flowing--not to be easily +attained by other energetic and self-devoted persons. The parson may +still easily make himself a tyrant, but only to find, in the language of +the Greek poet, that it was "folly even to wish" to tyrannize. + +The vicar had come downstairs that morning in a mood of depression, +irritable--almost snappish depression. His sister Eleanor had seldom seen +him so unlike himself. Being an affectionate sister, she was sorry for +him; though, as she rightly guessed, it was that very news which had +brought such great relief of mind to herself which was almost certainly +responsible for her brother's gloom. Miss Henderson was engaged to +Captain Ellesborough. There was therefore no question of her becoming +Mrs. Shenstone, and a weight was lifted from the spirits of the vicar's +sister. Towards Rachel, Eleanor Shenstone felt one of those instinctive +antipathies of life which are far more decisive than any of the ordinary +causes of quarrel. Miss Shenstone was thin, methodical, devoted; of small +speech and great virtue. Such persons so securely anchored and +self-determined can have but small sympathy for the drifters of this +world. And that Rachel Henderson was--at least as compared with herself +and her few cherished friends--morally and religiously adrift, Miss +Shenstone had decided after half an hour's conversation. + +The vicar knew perfectly well that his sister was relieved. It was that +which had secretly affected a naturally sweet temper. He was suffering +besides from a haunting sense of contrast between these rainy November +days, and the glowing harvest weeks in which he had worked like a navvy +for and with Rachel Henderson. It was over, of course. None of the nice +things of life ever came his way for long. But he did feel rather sorely +that during his short spell of favour with her, Miss Henderson had +encouraged him a good deal. She had raised him up--only to cast him down. +He thought of her smiles, and her sudden softness, of the warm grip of +her hand, and the half mocking, half inviting look in her eyes, with the +feeling of a child shut out from a garden where he well knows the ripe +apples are hanging; only not for him. The atmosphere of sex which +environed her--was it not that which had beguiled the vicar, while it had +repelled his sister? And yet Eleanor Shenstone did most honestly wish +her brother to marry--only not--not anything so tempting, troubling, and +absorbing as Rachel Henderson. + +"Haven't we a tiresome meeting to-night?" said the vicar with an +impatient sigh, as he sat languidly down to the couple of sardines which +were all his sister had allowed him for breakfast. + +"Yes--Miss Hall is coming to speak." + +Miss Hall was a lady who spoke prodigiously on infant welfare, and had a +way of producing a great, but merely temporary effect on the mothers of +the village. They would listen in a frightened silence while she showed +them on a blackboard the terrifying creatures that had their dwelling in +milk, and what a fly looks like when it is hideously--and in the mothers' +opinion most unnecessarily--magnified. But when she was gone came +reaction. "How can she know aught about it--havin' none of her own?" +said the village contemptuously. None the less the village ways were +yielding, insensibly, little by little; and the Miss Halls were after all +building better than they knew. + +The vicar, however, always had to take the chair at Miss Hall's meetings, +and he was secretly sick and tired of babies, their weights, their foods, +their feeding-bottles, and everything concerned with them. His sister +considered him and like a wise woman, offered him something sweet to +make up for the bitter. + +"Do you think you could possibly take a note for me to Miss Leighton this +morning--when you go to see old Frant?" + +"Old Frant" was a labourer on the point of death to whom the vicar was +ministering. + +He pricked up his ears. + +"Great End's hardly in old Frant's direction." + +_Camouflage_, of course. Miss Shenstone understood perfectly. + +"It won't take you far out of your way. I want Miss Leighton to send +those two girls to the Armistice dance to-night if they'd like to come. +Lady Alicia writes that several of her maids are down with the flu, and +she asks me to give away two or three more tickets." + +"Why doesn't Lady Alicia let the servants manage the thing themselves +when she gives them a party? _They_ ought to invite. I wouldn't be bossed +if I were they," said the vicar, with vivacity. + +"She's so particular about character, dear." + +"So would they be. She hasn't been so very successful in her own case." + +For the Shepherds' eldest daughter had just been figuring in a divorce +case to the distress of the Shepherds' neighbours. + +Miss Shenstone showed patience. + +"I'll have the note ready directly." + +And when it was ready, the vicar took it like a lamb. He walked first to +Great End, meditating as he went on Miss Henderson's engagement. He had +foreseen it, of course, since the day of the Millsborough "rally." A fine +fellow, no doubt--with the great advantage of khaki. But it was to be +hoped we were not going to be altogether overrun with Americans--carrying +off English women. + +At the gate of the farm stood a cart into which two young calves had just +been packed. Hastings was driving it, and Rachel Henderson, who had just +adjusted the net over the fidgety frightened creatures, was talking to +him. + +She greeted Shenstone rather shyly. It was quite true that in the early +stages of her acquaintance with Ellesborough she had amused herself a +good deal with the vicar. And in his note of congratulation to her on her +engagement, she had detected just the slightest touch of reproach. + +"I wish I had guessed it sooner." That meant, perhaps--"Why did you make +a fool of me?" + +Meanwhile Miss Shenstone's note was duly delivered, and Rachel, holding +it in her hand, opened the wicket gate. + +"Won't you come in?" + +"Oh, no, I mustn't waste your time," said the vicar, with dignity. +"Perhaps you'll give me a verbal answer." + +Rachel opened the note, and the vicar was puzzled by the look which +crossed her face as she read it. It was a look of relief--as though +something fitted in. + +"Very kind of Lady Alicia. Of course the girls shall come. They will be +delighted. You really won't come in? Then I'll walk to the road with +you." + +What was the change in her? The vicar perceived something indefinable; +and before they had walked half the distance to the road he had forgotten +his own grievance. She looked ill. Janet Leighton, meeting him in the +village a few days before, had talked of her partner as "done up." Was it +the excitement of falling in love?--combined perhaps with the worry of +leaving her work and the career just begun? + +He asked a few questions about her plans. She answered him very gently, +with a subtle note of apology in her voice; but yet, as it seemed to him, +from rather far away. And when they parted, he realized that he had never +known more of her than an outer self, which offered but little clue to +the self within. + +Rachel walked back to the farm with Miss Shenstone's note in her pocket. +She had told the vicar that her land-girls should certainly come to the +Shepherds' servants' party--but she said nothing about it to them--till +Janet Leighton had safely bicycled away in the early afternoon. The +invitation, however, was a godsend. For Rachel had begun to realize that +there was a good deal of watching going on--watching of the farm, and +watching over herself. She understood that Halsey had been scared by some +tramp or other whom he took for the ghost; and she saw that Janet was +unwilling that any one should be alone after dark in the farm. Nobody +had talked to her--Rachel--about it--no doubt by Ellesborough's +wish--because she was supposed to be out of sorts--run down. She had +accepted the little conspiracy of silence as a proof of his tenderness, +and had obediently asked no questions. + +And it had not yet occurred to her to connect the stories floating +about the farm with Delane's reappearance. The stunning fact of the +reappearance, with all that it might mean to her, absorbed her mind--for +a few hours yet. + +But as soon as Janet was safely off the premises, she hurried across to +the shippen, where Betty and Jenny were milking. + +"Girls!--would you like to go to the Shepherds' dance to-night? I've got +an invitation for you?" + +Stupefaction--and delight! The invitations had been very sparing and +select, and the two little maidens had felt themselves Cinderellas +indeed, all the sorer in their minds seeing that Dempsey and Betty's +young man were both going. + +But _frocks_! Jenny at least had nothing suitable. Rachel at once offered +a white frock. The milking and dairy work were hurried through, and then +came the dressing, as the dance began at seven. Betty, knowing herself to +be a beauty, except for her teeth, had soon finished. A white blouse, a +blue cotton skirt, a blue ribbon in her mop of brown hair--and she looked +at herself exultantly in Miss Henderson's glass. Jenny was much more +difficult to please. She was crimson with excitement, and the tip of her +little red tongue kept slipping in and out. But Rachel patted and +pinned--in a kind of dream. Jenny's red hair, generally worn in the +tightest wisps and plaits, was brushed out till it stood like a halo +round her face and neck, and she was secretly afraid that Dempsey +wouldn't know her. + +Then Rachel wrapped them up in their land-army waterproofs, and saw them +off, carrying an electric torch to guide them safely through the bit of +lane under the trees. But there was a moon rising, and the fog was less. + +"Ain't she just kind?--don't you just love her?" said Jenny ecstatically +to Betty, as they turned back to wave their farewells again to the figure +standing in the doorway. + +Betty assented. But they were both greatly astonished. For Rachel did not +in general take much personal notice of them. + +They were no sooner out of sight than Rachel went to look at the clock in +the kitchen. Ten minutes to seven. Two hours to wait. How were they +going to be got through? + +She went out aimlessly into the farm-yard, where the farm buildings stood +in a faintly luminous mist, the hill-side behind them, and the climbing +woods. To her left, across the fields ran the road climbing to the +miniature pass, whence it descended steeply to the plain beyond. And on +the further side of the road lay her own fields, with alternating bands +of plough-land and stubble, and the hedge-row trees standing ghostly and +separate in the light haze. + +She was alone in the farm, in all that landscape the only living thing at +the moment, except for the animals. A tense energy of will seemed to +possess her. She was defending herself--defending Ellesborough--and +their joint lives. How was she going to do it? She didn't know. But the +passion in her blood would give her strength--would see her through. + +In the old barn, the cows were munching peacefully. The air was sweet +with their breath, and with the hay piled in their cribs. Rachel wandered +noiselessly amongst them, and they turned their large eyes slowly to look +at her, and the small lantern she carried. In the stables, too, not a +sound, but an occasional swishing and champing. Rachel hung up the +lantern, and sat down on a truss of hay, idly watching the rays of light +striking up into the cross-beams of the roof, and on the shining flanks +of the horses. Her mind was going at a great speed. And all in a +moment--without any clear consciousness of the strange thoughts that had +been running through her brain--an intuition struck through her. + +_Roger_!--it was he who had been playing the ghost--he who had been seen +haunting the farm--who had scared Halsey--_Roger_! come to spy upon +her and her lover! Once the idea suggested itself, she was certain of +it--it must be true. + +The appearance in the lane had been cleverly premeditated. She had been +watched for days, perhaps for weeks. + +Ellesborough had been watched, too, no doubt. + +She drew a shuddering breath. She was afraid of Roger Delane. From the +early days of her marriage she had been afraid of him. There was about +him the incalculable something which means moral insanity--abnormal +processes of mind working through uncontrolled will. You could never +reason with or influence him, where his appetites or his passions were +concerned. A mocking spirit looked out upon you, just before his blow +fell. He was a mere force--inhuman and sinister. + +Well, she had got to fight it and tame it! She shut up the cow-house and +stable, and stood out awhile in the farm-yard, letting the mild wind play +on her bare head and hot cheeks. The moon was riding overhead. The night +seemed to her very silent and mysterious--yet penetrated by something +divine to which she lifted her heart. What would Ellesborough say over +there--in his forester's hut, five miles beyond the hills, if he knew +what she was doing--whom she was expecting? She shut her eyes, and saw +his lean, strong face, his look-- + +The church clock was striking, and surely--in the distance, the sound of +an opening gate? She hurried back to the house, and the sitting-room. The +lamp was low. She revived it. She made up the fire. She felt herself +shivering with excitement, and she stooped over the fire, warming her +hands. + +She had purposely left the front door unlocked. A hand tried the handle, +turned it--a slow step entered. + +She went to the sitting-room door and threw it open-- + +"Come in here." + +Roger Delane came in and shut the door behind him. They confronted each +other. + +"You've managed it uncommonly well," he said, at last. "You've dared it. +Aren't you afraid of me?" + +"Not the least. What do you want?" + +They surveyed each other--with hatred, yet not without a certain +passionate curiosity on both sides. When Delane had last seen Rachel she +was a pale and care-worn creature, her youth darkened by suffering and +struggle, her eyes still heavy with the tears she had shed for her lost +baby. He beheld her now rounded and full-blown, at the zenith of her +beauty, and breathing an energy, physical and mental, he had never yet +seen in her. She had escaped him, and her life had put out a new flower. +He was suddenly possessed as he looked at her, both by the poisonous +memory of old desire, and by an intolerable sense of his impotence, and +her triumph. And the physical fever in his veins made self-control +difficult. + +On her side, she saw the ruin of a man. When she married him he had been +a moral wreck. But the physical envelope was still intact, still +splendid. Now his clothes seemed to hang upon a skeleton; the hollows in +the temples and cheeks, the emaciation of the face and neck, the scanty +grey hair, struck horror, but it was a horror in which there was not +a trace of sympathy or pity. He had destroyed himself, and he would, if +he could, destroy her. She read in him the thirst for revenge. She had to +baffle it, if she could. + +As she defied him, indeed, she saw his hand steal to his coat-pocket, and +it occurred to her that the pocket might contain a revolver. But the +thought only nerved her--gave her an almost exultant courage. + +"What do I want?" he repeated, at last with-drawing his eyes. "I'll tell +you. I've come--like Foch--to dictate to you certain terms, which you +have only to accept. We had better sit down. It will take time." + +Rachel pointed to a chair. He took it, crossed one knee over the other, +rested his arm on the table near, and watched her with a sneering smile, +while she seated herself. + +He broke the silence. + +"I confess you were very clever about Dick Tanner--and I was a precious +fool! I never suspected." + +"I have not the least idea what you mean." + +"A lie!" he said, impetuously. "You were in Dick Tanner's house--staying +with him alone--at night--after I left you. You were seen there--by +a man--a Canadian--from whom I had the story--only two days ago. He +doesn't know my name, nor I his. We met on the common, two nights ago, +after dark. And by the merest chance he was coming to the farm, and he +began to talk of you. Then this came out. But of course I always knew +that it--or something like it--would come out. Your puritanical airs +never deceived me--for a moment." + +"I suppose you are talking of John Dempsey?" The scorn in her voice +enraged him. + +"I know nothing about John Dempsey. Of course I can track the man who +told me, if I want to--with the greatest ease. He was coming here to +call. He saw either you or your partner. And I shall track him--if you +force me." + +She was silent--and he smiled. + +"Assume, please, that I have my witness at hand. Well, then, he saw you +alone--at night--in Dick Tanner's charge, a few days apparently, after +you and I quarrelled. What were you doing there?" + +"It was during that great snowstorm, I suppose," she said, in her most +ordinary voice, taking up her knitting. "I remember going over to the +Tanners' to ask for something--and being snow-bound. Lucy Tanner was +always ready to help me--and be sorry for me." + +At this he laughed out, and the note of the laugh dismayed her. + +"Lucy Tanner? Yes, that's good. I thought you'd play her! Now, I'll +tell you something. The day after I left you, I was on the train going +to Regina. We stopped a long time. I don't remember why--at Medicine +Hat--and walking up and down the platform was--_Lucy Tanner_! Does that +surprise you? She told me she couldn't stand the Manitoba climate, and +was going to a friend at Kamloops for the winter. Is that news to you?" + +Rachel had turned white, but he saw no other sign of discomposure. + +"Not at all. Naturally, I went over expecting to find her. But as you +say, she was gone, and Mr. Tanner drove me back, when the storm went +down." + +Then she threw down her knitting and faced him. + +"What's the use of talking like this, Roger? You won't make anything out +of this story you're so proud of. Hadn't you better come to business? +Why have you been spying on me, and dogging me like this? You know, of +course, I could give you in charge to-morrow, or I could get Captain +Ellesborough to do it. And I will--unless you give me your solemn promise +to leave this place, to go out of my life altogether, and stop molesting +me in this scandalous way. Now, of course, I understand who it is that +has been prowling about the farm all these weeks. And I warn you the +police too know all about it, and are on the watch. They may have +tracked you here to-night for all I know." + +"Not they! I passed one bobby fellow on the hill, going safely away +north, as I came down. I was scarcely three yards from him, and he never +twigged. And the other's gone to Millsborough. You could hardly be more +alone, more entirely at my mercy--than you are at this moment, Miss +Henderson!" He laid an ironic emphasis on the name. + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +"All the same the people who live with me in this house will soon be +back. I recommend you to make haste. I ask you again--what is it you +want?" + +She had stood up pluckily--he admitted it. But, as he observed her +closely it seemed to him that the strain on her nerves was telling. She +was beginning to look pinched, and her hand as it lay beside her +knitting shook. + +"Well, I'll tell you," he said coolly. He took a half sheet of note-paper +out of the breast-pocket of his coat, drew the lamp on the table towards +him, and looked at certain figures and notes written on the paper. + +"I went this morning in town to look up your uncle's will. Of course I +remember all about that old chap at Manchester. I often speculated on +what he was going to leave you. Unfortunately for me he lived just a +little too long. But I find from the copy of the will that he left +you--three--thousand--pounds. Not bad, considering that you were never at +all civil to him. But three thousand pounds is more than you require to +run this small farm on. You owe me damages for the injury you inflicted +on me by the loss of--first, your society; second, your financial +prospects. I assess it at five hundred pounds. Pay me that small sum, +and--well, I engage to leave you henceforth to the Captain,--and +your conscience." + +He bent forward across the table, his mocking eyes fixed intently upon +her. There was silence a moment--till she said:-- + +"And if I refuse?" + +"Oh, well, then--" he lifted a paper-knife and balanced it on his hand as +though considering--"I shall of course have to work up my case. What do +you call this man?--John Dempsey? A great fool--but I dare say I shall +get enough out of him. And then--well, then I propose to present the +story to Captain Ellesborough--for his future protection." + +"He won't believe a word of it." + +But her lips had blanched--her voice had begun to waver--and with a cruel +triumph he saw that he had won the day. + +"I dare say not. That's for him to consider. But if I were you, I +wouldn't put him to the test." + +Silence again. He saw the fluttering of her breath. With a complete +change of tone, he said, smiling, in a low voice:-- + +"Rachel!--when did you begin to prefer Dick Tanner to me? No doubt you +had a jolly time with him. I suppose I can't undo the divorce--but you +would never have got it, if I hadn't been such an innocent." + +She sprang up, and he saw that he had gone too far. + +"If you say any more such things to me, you will get nothing from me--and +you may either _go_--" she pointed passionately to the door--"or you may +sit there till my people come back--which you like." + +He looked at her, under his eyebrows, smiling mechanically--weighing the +relative advantages of prudence or violence. Prudence carried the day. + +"You are just the same spitfire, I see, as you used to be! All right. I +see you understand. Well, now, how am I to get my money--my damages?" +She turned away, and went quickly to an old bureau that had been her +uncle's. He watched her, exultant. It was all true, then. Dick Tanner had +been her lover, and Ellesborough knew nothing. He did not know whether to +be the more triumphant in her tacit avowal, or the more enraged by the +testimony borne by her acquiescence to her love for Ellesborough. He +hated her; yet he had never admired her so much, as his eyes followed her +stooping over the drawers of the bureau, her beautiful head and neck +in a warm glow of firelight. + +Then, suddenly, he began to cough. She, hunting for her cheque-book, took +no notice at first. But the paroxysm grew; it shook the very life out of +him; till at last she stood arrested and staring-while he fell back in +his chair like a dead man, his eyes shut, his handkerchief to his lips. + +"Shall I--shall I get you some brandy?" she said, coldly. He nodded +assent. She hurriedly looked for her keys, and went to a cupboard in the +kitchen, where Janet kept a half bottle of brandy for medical use if +needed. + +He drank off what she brought--but it was some time before he recovered +speech. When he did it was in a low tone that made the words a curse:--- + +"That's your doing!" + +Her only answer was a gesture. + +"It is," he insisted, speaking in gasps. "You never showed me any real +love--any forbearance. You never cared for me--as you know I cared for +you. You told me so once. You married me for a home--and then you +deserted--and betrayed me." + +There was a guilty answer in her consciousness which made her speak +without anger. + +"I know my own faults very well. And now you must go--we can't either of +us stand this any more. Do you give me your solemn promise that you will +trouble me no more---or the man I am going to marry--if I do this for +you?" + +"Give me a piece of paper--" he said, huskily. + +He wrote the promise, signed it, and pushed it to her. Then he carefully +examined the self cheque "to bearer" which she had written. + +"Well, I dare say that will see me out--and bury me decently. I shall +take my family down to the sea. You know I've got a little girl--about +three? Oh, I never told any lies about Anita. I've married her now." + +Rachel stood like a stone, without a word. Her one consuming anxiety was +to see him gone, to be done with him. + +He rose slowly--with difficulty. And the cough seized him again. Rachel +in a fevered exasperation watched him clinging to the table for support. +Would he die--or faint--then and there--and be found by Janet, who must +now be on her way home? She pressed brandy on him again. But he pushed +it away. "Let me be!" She could only wait. + +When he could speak and move again, he put the cheque away in his pocket, +and buttoned his coat over it. + +"Well, good-night." Then straightening himself, he fixed her with a pair +of burning eyes. "Good-night. Anita will be kind to me--when I die--Anita +will be a woman to me. You were never kind--you never thought of any one +but yourself. Good-bye. Good luck!" + +And walking uncertainly to the door, he opened it and was gone. She heard +his slow steps in the farmyard, and the opening of the wicket gate. Then +all sounds died away. + +For a few minutes she crouched sobbing over the fire, weeping for sheer +nervous exhaustion. Then the dread seized her of being caught in such a +state by Janet, and she went upstairs, locked her door, and threw herself +on her bed. The bruise of an intolerable humiliation seemed to spread +through soul and body. She knew that for the first time she had confessed +her wretched secret which she had thought so wholly her own--and +confessed it--horrible and degrading thought!--to Roger Delane. Not in +words indeed--but in act. No innocent woman would have paid the +blackmail. The dark room in which she lay seemed to be haunted by +Delane's exultant eyes. + +And the silence was haunted too by his last words. There arose in her a +reluctant and torturing pity for the wretched man who had been her +husband; a pity, which passed on into a storm of moral anguish. Her whole +past life looked incredibly black to her as she lay there in the +dark--stained with unkindness, and selfishness, and sin. + +Which saw her the more truly?--Roger, or Ellesborough?--the man who hated +and cursed her, or the man who adored her? + +She was struggling, manoeuvring, fighting, to keep the truth from George +Ellesborough. It was quite uncertain whether she would succeed. Roger's +word was a poor safeguard! But if she did, the truth itself would only +the more certainly pursue and beat her down. + +And again, the utter yearning for confession and an unburdened soul came +upon her intolerably. The religious psychologist describes such a crisis +as "conversion," or "conviction of sin," or the "working of grace." And +he knows from long experience that it is the result in the human soul not +so much of a sense of evil, as of a vision of good. Goodness had been +brought near to Rachel in the personality--the tender self-forgetting +trust--of George Ellesborough. It was goodness, not fear--goodness, +unconscious of any threatened wrong--that had pierced her heart. Then a +thought came to her. _Janet!_--Janet whose pure and loving life beside +her made yet another element in the spiritual forces that were pressing +upon her. + +She sprang to her feet. She would tell Janet everything--put her poor +secret--her all--in Janet's hands. + + + + +XIII + + +It was again a very still and misty night,--extraordinarily mild for the +time of year. A singular brooding silence held all the woodlands above +Great End Farm. There was not a breath of wind. Every dead branch that +fell, every bird that moved, every mouse scratching among the fallen +beech leaves, produced sounds disproportionately clear and startling, and +for the moment there would be a rustle of disturbance, as though +something or some one, in the forest heart, took alarm. Then the deep +waters of quiet closed again, and everything--except that watching +presence--slept. + +The hut in Denman Wood, which had formerly played a hospitable part as +the scene of many a Gargantuan luncheon to Colonel Shepherd's shooting +parties, had long been an abandoned spot. All the Colonel's keepers under +fifty had gone to fight; and there was left only an old head keeper, with +one decrepit helper, who shot the scanty game which still survived on +strict business principles, to eke out the household rations of the big +house. The Ipscombe woods were rarely visited. They were a long way from +the keeper's cottage, and the old man, depressed by the difference +between war and pre-war conditions, found it quite enough to potter round +the stubbles and turnips of the home farm when game had to be shot. + +The paths leading through the underwood to the hut were now in these four +years largely over-grown. A place more hidden and forgotten it would +have been difficult to find. And for this reason, combined with its +neighbourhood to Rachel Henderson's farm, Roger Delane had chosen to +inhabit it. + +It was the third night after his interview with his former wife. He +reached the hut after dark, by various by-paths over the wide commons +stretching between it and X--the station at which he now generally +alighted. He carried in his pocket some evening newspapers, a new +anthology, and a novel. Owing to an injection of morphia--a habit to +which he had only lately taken--he felt unusually fit, and his brain was +unusually alert. At the same time he had had a disagreeable interview +with a doctor that morning who had been insisting on Sanatorium treatment +if the remaining lung was to be preserved and his life prolonged. He did +not want to prolong his life, but only to avoid the beastliness of pain. +It seemed to him that morphia--good stuff!--was going to do that for him. +Why hadn't he begun it before? But his brain was queer--he was conscious +of that. He had asked the doctor about some curious mental symptoms. The +reply was that phthisis was often accompanied by them. + +Obsession--fixed ideas--in the medical sense: half of him, +psychologically, was quite conscious that the other half was under their +influence. The sound self was observing the unsound self, but apparently +with no power over it. Otherwise how was it that he was here again, +hiding like a wild beast in a lair, less than a mile from Great End Farm, +and Rachel Henderson? + +He had found his way to London in the small hours of the day following +his scene with Rachel, intending to keep his promise, and let his former +wife alone. The cashing of Rachel's cheque had given him and Anita some +agreeable moments; though Anita was growing disturbed that he would not +tell her where the money came from. They had found fresh lodgings in a +really respectable Bloomsbury street; they had both bought clothes, and +little Netta had been rigged out. Delane had magnificently compounded +with his most pressing creditors, and had taken Anita to a theatre. But +he had been discontented with her appearance there. She had really lost +all her good looks. If it hadn't been for the kid-- + +And now, after this interval, his obsession had swooped upon him again. +It was an obsession of hate--which simply could not endure, when it came +to the point, that Rachel Henderson should vanish unscathed into the +future of a happy marriage, while he remained the doomed failure and +outcast he knew himself to be. Rachel's implied confession rankled in him +like a burn. _Tanner!_--that wretched weakling, with his miserable daubs +that nobody wanted to buy. So Rachel had gone to him, as soon as she had +driven her husband away, no doubt to complain of her ill-treatment, to +air her woes. The fellow had philandered round her some time, and had +shown an insolent and interfering temper once or twice towards himself. +Yes!--he could imagine it all!--her flight, and Tanner's maudlin +sympathy--tears--caresses--the natural sequel. And then her pose of +complete innocence at the divorce proceedings--the Judge's remarks. +Revolting hypocrisy! If Tanner had been still alive, he would somehow +have exposed him--somehow have made him pay. Lucky for him he was drowned +in that boat accident on Lake Nipissing! And no doubt Rachel thought that +the accident had made everything safe for her. + +Every incident now, every phase of his conversation with her was +assuming a monstrous and distorted significance in his mind. How easily +she had yielded on the subject of the money! He might have asked a great +deal more--and he would have got it. Very likely Ellesborough was well +off--Yankees generally were--and she knew that what she gave Delane as +hush money would make very little difference to her. Ellesborough no +doubt would not look very closely into her shekels, having sufficient of +his own. Otherwise it might occur to him to wonder how she had got rid of +that L500. Would it pinch her? Probably, if all she had for capital was +the old chap's legacy. Well--serve her right--serve her, damned, doubly +right! Ellesborough's kisses would make up. + +These thoughts, after a momentary respite, held him in their grip as he +walked London streets. Suspicion of the past--ugly and venomous--flapped +its black wings about him. Had Rachel ever been faithful to him--even in +the early days? She had made acquaintance with the Tanners very soon +after their marriage. Looking back, a number of small incidents and +scenes poked their heads out of the dead level of the past. Rachel +and Tanner, discussing the Watts photograph when Rachel first acquired +it--Tanner's eager denunciatory talk--he called himself an +"impressionist"--the creature!--because he couldn't draw worth a +cent--Rachel all smiles and deference. She had never given _him_ that +sort of attention. Or Rachel at a housewarming in the next farm to +his--Rachel in a pale green dress, the handsomest woman there, dancing +with Tanner--Rachel quarrelling with him in the buggy on the way home, +because he called Tanner a milksop--"He cares for beautiful things, and +you don't!--but that's no reason why you should abuse him." + +And what about those weeks not very long after that dance, when he had +gone off to the land-sale at Edmonton (that was the journey, by the way, +when he first saw Anita!), and Rachel had stayed at home, with a girl +friend, a girl they knew in Winnipeg? But that girl hadn't stayed all +the time. To do her justice, Rachel had made no secret of that. He +remembered her attacking him when he came home for having left her for +three or four days quite alone. Why had he been so long away? Probably a +mere bluff--though he had been taken in by it at the time, and being +still in love with her, had done his best to appease her. But what had +she been doing all the time she was alone? In the light of what he knew +now, she might have been doing anything. _Was the child his_? + +So, piece by piece, with no auditor but his own brain, shut in upon +himself by the isolation which his own life had forged for him, he built +up a hideous indictment against the woman he had once loved. He wished he +had put off his interview with her till he had had time to think things +out more. As he came to realize how she had tricked and bested him, her +offence became incredibly viler than it seemed at first. He had let her +off far too cheaply that night at the farm. Scenes of past violence +returned upon him, and the memory of them seemed to satisfy a rising +thirst. Especially the recollection of the divorce proceedings maddened +him. His morbid brain took hold on them with a grip that his will could +not loosen. Her evidence--he had read it in the Winnipeg newspapers--the +remarks of the prating old judge--and of her cad of a lawyer--good God! +And all the time it was _she_ who ought to have been in the dock, and he +the accuser, if he had known--if he hadn't been a trusting idiot, a +bleating fool. + +A brooding intensity of rage, as this inward process went on, gradually +drowned in him every other feeling and desire. The relief and amusement +of the money and its spending were soon over. He thought no more of it. +Anita, and his child even--the child for whom he really cared--passed out +of his mind. As he sat drinking whisky in the dull respectable lodging, +at night after Anita had gone to bed, he felt the sinister call of those +dark woods above Rachel's farm, and tasted the sweetness of his new power +to hurt her, now that she had paid him this blackmail, and damned herself +thereby--past help. She had threatened him. But what could she do--or the +Yankee fellow either? She had given the show away. As for his promise, +when he had no right to make it,--no right to allow such a woman to get +off scot-free, with plenty of money and a new lover. + +So on the Thursday evening he took train for X. It was still the +Armistice week. The London streets were crowded with soldiers and young +women of every sort and kind. He bought a newspaper and read it in the +train. It gave him a queer satisfaction--for one half of him was still +always watching the other--to discover that he could feel patriotic +emotion like anybody else and could be thrilled by the elation of +Britain's victory--_his_ victory. He read the telegrams, the positions on +the Rhine assigned to the Second Army, and the Fourth,--General Plumer +General Rawlinson--General F.--Gad! he used to know the son of that last +old fellow at King's. + +Then he fell to his old furtive watching of the people on the platform, +the men getting in and out of the train. At any moment he might fall in +with one of his old Cambridge acquaintances, in one of these smart +officers, with their decorations and their red tabs. But in the first +place they wouldn't travel in this third class where he was sitting--not +till the war was over. And in the next, he was so changed--had taken +indeed such pains to be--that it was long odds against his being +recognized. Eleven years, was it, since he left Cambridge? About. + +At X. he got out. The ticket collector noticed him for that faint touch +of a past magnificence that still lingered in his carriage and gait; but +there were so many strangers about that he was soon forgotten. + +He passed under a railway arch and climbed a hill, the hill on which he +had met Dempsey. At the top of the hill he left the high-road for a grass +track across the common. There was just enough light from a declining +moon to show him where he was. The common was full of dark shapes--old +twisted thorns, and junipers, and masses of tall grass--shapes which +often seemed to him to be strargely alive, the silent but conscious +witnesses of his passage. + +The wood was very dark. He groped his way through it with difficulty +and found the hut. Once inside it, he fastened the door with a wooden +bar he had himself made, and turned on his electric torch. Bit by bit +in the course of his night visits he had accumulated a few necessary +stores--some firewood, a few groceries hidden in a corner, a couple +of brown blankets, and a small box of tools. A heap of dried bracken in a +corner, raised on a substratum of old sacks, had often served him for a +bed; and when he had kindled a wood fire in the rough grate of loose +bricks where Colonel Shepherd's keepers had been accustomed to warm the +hot meat stews sent up for the shooting luncheons, and had set out his +supper on the upturned fragment of an old box which had once held meal +for pheasants, he had provided at least what was necessary for his night +sojourn. This food he had brought with him; a thermos bottle full of hot +coffee, with slices of ham, cheese, and bread; and he ate it with +appetite, sitting on a log beside the fire, and pleasantly conscious as +he looked round him, like the Greek poet of long ago, of that "cuteness" +of men which conjures up housing, food, and fire in earth's loneliest +places. Outside that small firelit space lay the sheer silence of the +wood, broken once or twice by the call and flight of an owl past the one +carefully darkened window of the hut, or by the mysterious sighing +and shuddering which, from time to time, would run through the crowded +stems and leafless branches. + +A queer "hotel" this, for mid-November! He might, if he had chosen, have +been amusing himself, _tant bien que mal_, in one or other of those +shabby haunts,--bars, night-clubs, dancing-rooms, to which his poverty +and his _moeurs_ condemned him, while his old comrades, the lads he had +been brought up with at school and college, guardsmen, Hussars, and the +rest, were holding high revel for the Peace at the Ritz or the Carlton; +he might even, as far as money was concerned, now that he had bagged his +great haul from Rachel, have been supping himself at the Ritz, if he had +only had time to exchange his brother-in-law's old dress suit, which +Marianne had passed on to him, for a new one, and if he could have made +up his mind to the possible recognitions and rebuffs such a step would +have entailed. As it was, he preferred his warm hiding-place in the heart +of the woods, coupled with this exultant sense of an unseen and +mysterious power which was running, like alcohol, through his nerves. + +Real alcohol, however, was not wanting to his solitary meal. He drenched +his coffee in the cognac he always carried about with him, and then, +cigarette in hand, he fell back on the heap of bracken to read a while. +The novel he sampled and threw away; the anthology soon bored him; and he +spent the greater part of two hours lying on his back, smoking and +thinking--till it was safe to assume that the coast was clear round Great +End Farm. About ten o'clock, he slipped noiselessly out of the hut, after +covering up the fire to wait for his return, and hiding as far as he +could the other traces of his occupation. The damp mist outside held all +the wood stifled, and the darkness was profound. Stepping as lightly as +possible, and using his torch with the utmost precaution, he gradually +made his way to the edge of the wood, and the lip of the basin beyond it. +On the bare down was enough faint moonlight to see by, and he +extinguished his little lantern before leaving the wood. Below him were +the dim outlines of the farm, a shadowy line of road beyond, and, as it +were, a thicker fold of darkness, to mark the woods on the horizon. There +was not a light anywhere; the village was invisible, and he listened for +a long time without hearing anything but the rush of a distant train. + +Ah!--Yes, there was a sound down there in the hollow--footsteps, +reverberating in the silence. He bent his head listening intently. The +footsteps seemed to approach the farm, then the sounds ceased, till +suddenly, on the down slope below him, he saw something moving. He threw +back his head with a quiet laugh. + +The Ipscombe policeman, no doubt, on his round. Would he come up the +hill? Hardly, on such a misty night. If not, his retreating steps on the +farm lane would soon tell his departure. + +In a few minutes, indeed, the click of an opening gate could be clearly +heard through the mist, and afterwards, steps. They grew fainter and +fainter. All clear! + +Choosing a circuitous route, Delane crept down the hill, and reached a +spot on the down-side rather higher than the farm enclosure, from which +the windows of the farm-house could be seen. There was a faint light in +one of the upper two--in which he had some reason to think was that of +Rachel's bedroom. It seemed to him the window was open; he perceived +something like the swaying of a blind inside it. The night was +marvellously mild for mid-November; and he remembered Rachel's old +craving for air, winter and summer. + +The light moved, there was a shadow behind the blind, and suddenly the +window was thrown up widely, and a pale figure--a woman's figure--stood +in the opening. Rachel, no doubt! Delane slipped behind a thorn growing +on the bare hill-side. His heart thumped. Instinctively his hand groped +for something in his pocket. If she had guessed that he was there--within +twenty yards of her! + +Then, as he watched the faint apparition in the mist, it roused in +him a fresh gust of rage. Rachel, the sentimental Rachel, unable to +sleep--Rachel, happy and serene, thinking of her lover--the lies of her +divorce all forgotten--and the abominable Roger cut finally out of her +life!-- + +The figure disappeared; he heard the closing of the window, which was +soon dark. Then he crept down to the farm wall, and round the corner of +it to that outer cart-shed, where he had bound up his bleeding hand on +the night when Halsey--silly ass!--had seen the ghost. He did not dare to +smoke lest spark or smell might betray him. Sitting on a heap of sacks in +a sheltered corner, his hands hanging over his knees, he spent some long +time brooding and pondering--conscious all the while of the hidden and +silent life of the house and farm at his back. By now he fancied he +understood the evening ways of the place. The two girls went up to bed +first, about nine; the two ladies, about an hour later; and the farm +bailiff as a rule did not sleep on the premises, though there was a bed +in the loft over the stable which could be used on occasion. That window, +too, through which he had watched the pair of lovers, when the Yankee +discovered him--that also seemed to fit into a scheme. + +Yes!--the Yankee had discovered him. His start, his sudden movement as +though to make a rush at the window, had shown it. Meanwhile Delane +had not waited for developments. Quick as thought he had made for one of +those sunken climbing lanes in which the chalk downs of the district +abound, a lane which lay to the south of the farm, while the green +terraced path connected with the ghost-story lay to the north of it. No +doubt there had been a hue and cry, a search of the farm and its +immediate neighbourhood. But the night was dark and the woods wide. Once +in their shelter, he had laughed at pursuit. What had the Yankee said to +Rachel? And since he had stopped her in the lane, what had Rachel been +saying to the Yankee? Had she yet explained that the face he had seen at +the window--supposing always that he had told her what he had seen--and +why shouldn't he?--was not the face of a casual tramp or lunatic, but the +face of a discarded husband, to whom all the various hauntings and +apparitions at the farm had been really due? + +That was the question--the all-important question. Clearly some +one--Ellesborough probably--had given a warning to the police. On what +theory?--ghost?--tramp?--or husband? + +Or had Rachel just held her tongue, and had the Yankee been led to +believe that the husband--for Rachel must have owned up about the husband +though she did call herself Miss Henderson!--was still some thousands of +miles away--in Canada--safely dead and buried, as far as Rachel was +concerned? + +On the whole, he thought it most probable that Rachel had held her tongue +about his reappearance. If she had thought it worth while to bribe him so +heavily, it was not very likely that she would now herself have set the +American on the track of a secret which she so evidently did not want an +expectant bridegroom to know. + +The American--d--n him! A furious and morbid jealousy rushed upon the man +crouching under the cart-shed. The world was rapidly reducing itself +for him to these two figures--figures of hate--figures against whom he +felt himself driven by a kind of headlong force, a force of destruction. + +How still the farm was, except for the movements of the cows inside the +shippen at his back, or of the horses in the stable! Rachel, no doubt, +was now asleep. In the old days he had often--enviously--watched her +tumble asleep as soon as her bright head was on the pillow; while in his +own case sleep had been for years a difficult business. + +Somebody else would watch her sleeping now. + +Yes, if he, the outcast, allowed it. And again the frenzied sense of +power swept through him. _If he allowed it_! It rested with him. + +The following day, Ellesborough set out in the early afternoon for Great +End Farm, the bearer of much news. + +The day was dark and rainy, with almost a gale blowing, but his spirits +had never been higher. The exultation of the great victory, the +incredible Victory, seemed to breathe upon him from the gusty wind, to be +driving the westerly clouds, and crying in all the noises of the woods. +Was it really over?--over and done?--the agony of these four years--the +hourly sacrifice of irreplaceable life--the racking doubt as to the +end--the torturing question in every conscious mind--"Is there a God in +Heaven--a God who cares for men--or is there not?" + +He could have shouted the answer aloud--"There is--there is a God! And He +is just." + +Faith was natural to him, and nourished on his new happiness no less than +on the marvellous issue of the war, it set his heart singing on this dull +winter's day. How should he find her? Threshing, perhaps, in the big +barn, and he would turn to, and work with her and the girls till work was +done, and they could have the sitting-room to themselves, and he could +tell her all his news. Janet--the ever-kind and thoughtful Janet--would +see to that. The more he saw of the farm-life the more he admired Janet. +She was a little slow. She was not clever; and she had plenty of small +prejudices which amused him. But she was the salt of the earth. Trust +her--lean upon her--she would never let you down. And now he was going to +trust his beloved to her--for a while. + +Yes--Rachel and the girls, they were all in the high barn, feeding the +greedy maw of the threshing machine; a business which strained muscles +and backs, and choked noses and throats with infinitesimal particles of +oil and the fine flying chaff. He watched Rachel a few minutes as she +lifted and pitched--a typical figure of a New Labour, which is also a New +Beauty, on this old earth. Then he drew her away, flung off his tunic, +and took her place, while she, smiling and panting, her hands on her +sides, leaned against the wall, and watched in her turn. + +Then when the engine stopped, and the great hopper full of grain lay +ready for the miller, they found themselves alone in the barn for a +minute. The girls and Janet had gone to milk, and Hastings with them. +There was a lantern in the barn, which showed Rachel in the swirl of the +corn dust with which the barn was full, haloed and golden with it, like a +Homeric goddess in a luminous cloud. Her soft brown head, her smile, +showing the glint of her white teeth, her eyes, and all the beauty of her +young form, in its semi-male dress--they set his blood on fire. Just as +he was, in his khaki shirt-sleeves, he came to her, and took her in his +arms. She clung to him passionately. + +"I thought you were never coming." + +It was one of the reproaches that have no sting. + +"I came at the first moment. I left a score of things undone." + +"Have you been thinking of me?" + +"Always--always. And you?" + +"Nearly always," she said teasingly. "But I have been making up my +accounts." + +"Avaricious woman!--thinking of nothing but money. Dear--I have several +bits of news for you. But let me wash!" He held out his hands--"I am +not fit to touch you!" + +She disengaged herself quietly. + +"What news?" + +"Some letters first," he said, smiling. "A budget and a half--mostly for +you, from all my home people. Can you face it?" + +"In reply to your cable?" + +"My most extravagant cable! On the top of course of sacks of letters!" + +"Before we were engaged?" + +He laughed as he thrust his arms into his tunic. + +"My mother seems to have guessed from my very first mention of you." + +"But--she doesn't know yet?" said Rachel, slowly. + +They had passed out of the range of the lantern. He could not see her +face, could only just hear her voice. + +"No, not yet, dear. My last long letter should reach her next week." + +Her hand lay close in his as they groped their way to the door. When he +unlatched it they came out into the light of a stormy sunset. The rain +had momentarily ceased, and there were fiery lines of crimson burning +their way through the black cloud masses in the western sky. The red +light caught Rachel's face and hair. But even so, it seemed to him that +she was pale. + +"I say--you've done too much threshing!" he said with energy. "Don't do +any more--get an extra man." + +"Can't find one," she said, laughing at him, but rather languidly. "I'll +go and get the tea ready." + +He went off to wash, and when he entered the sitting-room a little +later, she too was fresh and neat again, in a new frock of some soft +bluish-green stuff, which pleased his eye amazingly. Outside, the sunset +was dying rapidly, and at a sign from her, he drew down the blinds over +the two windows, and pulled the curtains close. He stood at the window +looking at the hill-side for a moment with the blind in his hand. He was +recalling the face he had seen, of which neither he nor any one else had +yet said a word to Rachel; recalling also his talk with one of the +Millsborough police the day before. "Nothing more heard of him, Captain. +Oh, we get queer people about these hills sometimes. It's a very +lonely bit of country. Why, a year ago, we were hunting a couple of +German prisoners about these commons for days!" + +"Any more ghosts?" he said lightly, glancing round at Rachel, as he drew +the curtains across. + +"Not that I know of. Come and have your tea." + +He took a cup from her hand, and leaning against the chimney surveyed the +room with a radiant face. Then he stooped over her and said:-- + +"I love this little room! Don't you?" + +She made a restless movement. + +"I don't know. Why do you love it?" + +"As if you didn't know!" Their eyes met, his intense and +passionate,--hers, less easy to read. "Darling, I have some other news +for you. I think you'll like it--though it'll separate us for a little." + +And drawing a letter from his pocket, he handed it to her. It was a +letter from the American Headquarters, offering him immediate work in the +American Intelligence Department at Coblentz. + +"Some friends of mine there, seem to have been getting busy about me. You +see I know German pretty well." + +And he explained to her that as a boy he had spent a year in Germany +before going to Yale. She scarcely listened, so absorbed was she in the +official letter. + +"When must you go?" she said at last, looking up. + +"At the end of next week, I'm afraid." + +"And how long will it be?" + +"That I don't know. But three or four months certainly. It will put off +our wedding, dearest, a bit. But you'd like me to go, wouldn't you? I +should be at the hub of things." + +The colour rushed into her cheeks. + +"_Must you go_?" + +Her manner amazed him. He had expected that one so ambitious and +energetic in her own way of life would have greeted his news with +eagerness. The proposal was really a great compliment to him--and a great +chance. + +"I don't see how I could refuse it," he said with an altered countenance. +"Indeed--I don't think I could." + +She dropped her face into her hands, and stared into the fire. In some +trouble of mind, he knelt down beside her, and put his arm round her. + +"I'll write every day. It won't be long, darling." + +She shook her head, and he felt a shudder run through her. + +"It's silly of me--I don't know why--but--I'm just afraid--" + +"Afraid of what?" + +She smiled at him tremulously--but he saw the tears in her eyes. + +"I told you--I can't always help it. I'm a fool, I suppose--but--" + +Then she threw her arms round his neck--murmuring in his ear: "You'll +have time to think--when you're away from me--that it was a great +pity--you ever asked me." + +He kissed and scolded her, till she smiled again. Afterwards she made a +strong effort to discuss the thing reasonably. Of course he must go--it +would be a great opening--a great experience. And they would have all the +more time to consider their own affairs. But all the evening afterwards +he felt in some strange way that he had struck her a blow from which she +was trying in vain to rally. Was it all the effect of her suffering at +that brute's hands--aided by the emotion and strain of the recent scenes +between herself and him? + +As for her, when she turned back from the gate where she had bid him +good-bye, she saw Janet in the doorway waiting for her almost with a +sense of exasperation. She had not yet said one word to Janet. That +plunge was all to take! + + + + +XIV + + +Rachel woke the following morning in that dreary mood when all the colour +and the glamour seem to have been washed out of life, and the hopes and +dreams which keep up a perpetual chatter in every normal mind are +suddenly dumb. + +How was she going to face Ellesborough's long absence? It had been +recently assumed between them that he would be very soon released from +his forestry post, that the infantry commission he had been promised +would come to nothing, now the Armistice was signed, and that in a very +few weeks they would be free to think only of themselves and their own +future. This offer of Intelligence work at the American Headquarters had +changed everything. + +In ten days, if nothing happened, he would be gone, and she would be left +behind to grapple alone with Roger--who might at any moment torment her +again; with the presence of Dempsey, who was thinking of settling in the +village, and for whom she would be called upon very soon to fulfil the +hopes she had raised in him; and finally, with the struggle and misery in +her own mind. + +But something must happen. As she was dressing by candle-light in the +winter dawn, her thoughts were rushing forward--leaping some unexplored +obstacles lying in the foreground--to a possible marriage before +Ellesborough went to France; just a quiet walk to a registry office, +without any fuss or any witness but Janet. If she could reach that +haven, she would be safe; and this dumb fever of anxiety, this terrified +conviction that in the end Fate would somehow take him from her, would be +soothed away. + +But how to reach it? For there was now between them, till they also were +revealed and confessed, a whole new series of events: not only the Tanner +episode, but Delane's reappearance, her interview with him, her rash +attempt to silence Dempsey. By what she had done in her bewilderment and +fear, in order to escape the penalty of frankness, she might only--as +she was now beginning to perceive--have stumbled into fresh dangers. It +was as though she stood on the friable edge of some great crater, some +gulf of destruction, on which her feet were perpetually slipping and +sinking, and only Ellesborough's hold could ultimately save her. + +And Janet's--Janet's first. Rachel's thought clung to her, as the +shipwrecked Southern sailor turns to his local saint to intercede for him +with the greater spiritual lights. Janet's counsel and help--she knew she +must ask for them--that it was the next step. Yet she had been weakly +putting it off day by day. And through this mist of doubt and dread, +there kept striking all the time, as though quite independent of it, the +natural thoughts of a woman in love. + +During the farm breakfast, hurried through by candle-light, with rain +beating on the windows, Rachel was thinking--"Why didn't _he_ propose +it?"--this scheme of marrying before he went. Wasn't it a most natural +thing to occur to him? She tormented herself all the morning with the +problem of his silence. + +Then--as though in rebuke of her folly--at midday came a messenger, a boy +on a bicycle, with a letter. She took it up to her own room, and read it +with fluttering breath--laughing, yet with tears in her eyes. + +"My Darling--What an idiot I was last night! This morning I have woke up +to a brilliant idea--why I didn't propose it to you yesterday I can't +imagine! Let us marry before I go. Meet me in London, a week to-day, and +let us go into the country, or to the sea, for a blessed forty-eight +hours, afterwards. Then you will see me off--and I shall know, wherever I +go, that you are my very, very own, and I am yours. I don't want to hurry +you. Take time to think, and write to me to-night, or wire me to-morrow +morning. But the very idea that you may say 'Yes' makes me the happiest +of men. Take time to think--but--all the same--don't keep me too long +waiting! + +"Your own, + +"G.E." + +All day she kept the letter hidden in the loose front of her dress. "I'll +wire to-morrow morning," she thought. But before that--something had got +to happen. Every now and then she would pause in her own work to watch +Janet--Janet butter-making, Janet feeding the calves, Janet cooking--for +on that homely figure in white cap and apron everything seemed to depend. + +The frost had come, and clear skies with it. The day passed in various +miscellaneous business, under shelter, in the big barn. + +And at night, after supper, Rachel stood on the front steps looking into +a wide starry heaven, moonless, cold, and still. Betty and Jenny had just +gone up to bed. Janet was in the kitchen, putting the porridge for the +morrow's breakfast which she had just made into the hay-box, which would +keep it steaming all night. But she would soon have done work. The moment +seemed to have come. + +Rachel walked into the kitchen and closed the door behind her. The supper +had been cleared away and the table on which they had eaten it shone +spotlessly clean and bare. The fire would soon be raked out for the +night, and Janet would lay the breakfast before she left the kitchen. +Everything was in the neatest possible order, and the brilliant polish of +a great stew-pan hanging on the wall particularly caught the eye. Janet +was humming to herself--one of the war tunes--when Rachel entered. + +"Janet, I want to speak to you." + +Janet looked up--startled. And yet something in her was not startled! She +had been strangely expectant all these days. It seemed to her she had +already seen Rachel come in like that--had already heard her say those +words. + +She shut up the hay-box, and came gently forward. + +"Here, Rachel?" + +"You've nearly done?" + +"In a few minutes. If you'll go into the sitting-room, I'll join you +directly." + +And while she hurried through the rest of her work, her mind was really +running forward in prophecy. She more or less knew what she was going +to hear. And as she closed the kitchen door behind her there was in her a +tremulous sense as though of some sacred responsibility. + +Rachel was crouching over the fire as usual, and Janet drew up a stool +beside her, and laid a hand on her knee. + +"What is it?" + +Rachel turned. + +"I told you one secret, Janet, the other day. Now this is another. And +it's--" She flushed, and broke off, beginning again after a moment--"I +didn't mean to tell you, or any one. I can't make up my mind whether I'm +bound to or not. But I want you to advise me, Janet. I'm awfully +troubled." + +And suddenly, she slipped to the floor, and laid her head against Janet's +knees, hiding her face. + +Janet bent over her, instinctively caressing the brown hair. She was only +three or four years older than Rachel, but she looked much older, and the +close linen cap she wore on butter-making afternoons, and had not yet +removed, gave her a gently austere look, like that of a religious. + +"Tell me--I'll do my best." + +"In the first place," said Rachel, in a low voice, "who do you think was +the ghost?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"The ghost--was Roger Delane!" + +Janet uttered an exclamation of surprise and horror--while fact after +fact rushed together in her mind, fitting into one explanatory whole. Why +had she never thought of that possibility, among all the others? + +"Oh, Rachel, have you ever seen him?" + +"Twice. He stopped me on the road, when I was coming back from +Millsborough on Armistice Day. And he came to see me the day after. You +remember you were astonished to find I had sent the girls to the +Shepherds' dance? I did it to get them out of the way--and if you hadn't +said you were going to that service I should have had to invent something +to send you away." + +"I always thought he was in Canada?" said Janet, in bewilderment. "What +did he want? Have you told Captain Ellesborough?" + +"No, I haven't told George. I don't know whether I shall. Roger wanted +money--as usual. I gave him some." + +"_You gave him some! Rachel!_" + +"I had to--I had to buy him off. And I've seen John Dempsey also without +your knowing. And I've had to bribe him too." + +Rachel was now sitting up, very hard and erect, her hands round her +knees. Her first object seemed to be to avoid emotion, and to prevent +Janet from showing any. Janet had gone very pale. The name "Dick Tanner" +was drumming in her ear. + +"I know you can't understand me, Janet," said Rachel, after a pause, "you +could never do what I've done. I dare say when you've let me tell you the +story you'll not be able to forgive me. You'll think I ought never to +have let you settle with me--that I told a lie when I said I wasn't a bad +woman--that I've disgraced you. I hope you won't. That--that would about +finish it." Her voice shook at last. + +Janet was speechless. But instinctively she laid a hand on Rachel's +shoulder. And at the touch, in a moment, the story came out. + +Confused and hardly intelligible! For Rachel herself could scarcely now +disentangle all the threads and motives of it. But certain things stood +out--the figure of a young artist, sensitive, pure-minded, sincere, with +certain fatal weaknesses of judgment and will, which had made him a +rolling stone, and the despair of his best friends, but, as compared with +Roger Delane after six months of marriage--Hyperion to a satyr; then the +attraction of such a man for his neighbour, a young wife, brought up in a +refined home, the child of a saint and dreamer, outraged since her +marriage in every fibre by the conduct and ways of her husband, and +smarting under the sense of her own folly; their friendship, so +blameless till its last moment, with nothing to hide, and little to +regret, a woman's only refuge indeed from hours of degradation and +misery; and finally the triumph of something which was not passion, at +least on Rachel's side, but of mere opportunity, strengthened, made +irresistible, by the woman's pain and despair: so the tale, the common +tale, ran. + +"I didn't love him," said Rachel at last, her hands over her eyes--"I +don't pretend I did. I liked him--I was awfully sorry for him--as he was +for me. But--well, there it is! I went over to his house. I honestly +thought his sister was there; but, above all, I wanted him to sympathize +with me--and pity me--because he knew everything. And she wasn't +there--and I stayed three days and nights with him. _Voila_!" + +There was silence a little. Janet's thoughts were in a tumult. Rachel +began again: + +"Now, why am I telling you all this? I need never have told anybody--at +least up to a few days ago. Poor Dick was drowned just before I got my +divorce, in a boat accident on Lake Nipissing. He had gone there to +paint, and was camping out. If he hadn't been drowned, perhaps, he would +have made me marry him. So there was no one in the world who knew I was +ever with him except--" + +She turned sharply upon Janet-- + +"Except this man who turned up here in George's own camp--and in the +village, two months ago, but whom I never saw till this week--_this +week_--Armistice Day--John Dempsey. That was a queer chance, wasn't it? +The sort of thing nobody could have expected. I was coming back from +Millsborough. I was--well, just that evening, I was awfully happy. I +expected nothing. And then--within twenty minutes--" + +She told the story to Janet's astounded ears, of the two apparitions in +the road, of her two interviews--first with Dempsey, and the following +evening with Delane--and of her own attempts to bribe them both. + +And at that her composure broke down. + +"Why did I do it?" she said wildly, springing to her feet. "It was +idiotic! Why didn't I just accept the boy's story, and say quietly, 'Yes, +I was staying with the Tanners'? And why didn't I defy Roger--go straight +to George, and hand him over to the police? Don't you see why? Because it +is true!--_it's true!_--and I'm terrified. If I lost George, I should +kill myself. I never thought I should be--I could be--in love with +anybody like this. But yet I suppose it was in me all the time. I was +always seeking--reaching out--to somebody I could love with every bit of +me, soul and body--somebody I could follow--for I can't manage for +myself--I'm not like you, Janet. And now I've found him--and--Do you know +what that is?" + +She pulled a letter out of her pocket, and looked at Janet through a mist +of despairing tears. + +"It's a letter from George. It came this morning. He wants me to marry +him at once--next week. He's got some new work in France, and he saw that +I was miserable because he was going away. And why shouldn't I? _Why +shouldn't I?_ I love him. There's nothing wrong with me, except that +wretched story. Well, there are two reasons. First"--she spoke with slow +and bitter emphasis--"I don't believe for a moment Roger will keep his +word. I know him. He is frightfully ill. He says he's dying. He may +die--before he's got through this money. That would be the best thing +that could happen to me--wouldn't it? But probably he won't die--and +certainly he'll get through the money! Then he'll come back--and I shall +begin bribing him again--and telling lies to hide it from George--and +in the end it'll be no use--for Roger's quite reckless--you can't appeal +to him through anything but money. He'll see George, whatever I do, and +try it on with him. And then--George will know how to deal with _him_, I +dare say--but when we are alone--and he asks _me_--" + +She sank down again on the floor, kneeling, and put her hands on Janet's +knees. + +"You see, Janet, don't you? You see?" + +It was the cry of a soul in anguish. + +"You poor, poor thing!" + +Janet, trembling from head to foot, bowed her head on Rachel's, and the +two clung together, in silence, broken only by two deep sobs from Rachel. +Then Janet disengaged herself. She was pale, but no longer agitated, and +her blue eyes which were her only beauty were clear and shining. + +"You'll let me say just what I feel, Rachel?" + +"Of course." + +"You can't marry him without telling him. No, no--you couldn't do that!" + +Rachel said nothing. She was, sitting on the floor, her eyes turned away +from Janet. + +"You couldn't do that, Rachel," Janet resumed, as though she were +urgently thinking her way; "you'd never have a happy moment." + +"Oh, yes, of course," said Rachel, throwing up her head with a half +scornful gesture. "One says that--but how do you know? I might never +think of it again--if Roger and that man Dempsey were out of the way. +It's dead--it's _dead_! Why do we trouble about such things!" + +"It would be dead," said Janet in a low voice, "if you'd told him--and +he'd forgiven!" + +"What has he to do with it?" cried Rachel, stubbornly, "it was before he +knew me. I was a different being." + +"No--it is always the same self, which we are making, all the time. Don't +you see--dear, dear Rachel!--it's your chance now to put it all behind +you--just by being true. Oh, I don't want to preach to you--but I see it +so clearly!" + +"But it isn't as a man would see it--a man like George," said Rachel, +shaking her head. "Look there"--she pointed to a little bundle of letters +lying on the table--"there are letters from his people which he brought +me this morning. It's awful!--how they take me at his valuation--just +because he loves me. I must be everything that's good, because he says +so. And you can see what kind of people they are--what they think of +him--and what they imagine about me--what they think I _must_ be--for +him to love me. I don't mean they're prigs--they aren't a bit. It's just +their life coming out, quite naturally. You see what they are--quite +simply--what they can't help being, and what they expect from him and the +woman he marries. And he's got to take me home to them--some time--to +present me to them. The divorce is difficult enough. Even if they think +of me as quite innocent, it will be hard for them, that George should +marry a divorced woman." + +"What have they to do with it?" interrupted Janet. "It's only George that +matters--no other person has any right whatever to know! You needn't +consider anybody else." + +"Yes--but think of _him_. It's bad enough that I should know something he +doesn't know--but at least _he's_ spared. He can take me home to his +mother--whom he adores--and if _I_ know that I'm a cheat and a sham--he +doesn't--it will be all easy for him." + +Janet was silenced for the moment by the sheer passion of the voice. She +sat, groping a little, under the stress of her own thought, and praying +inwardly--without words--for light and guidance. + +"And think of _me_, please!" Rachel went on. "If I tell him, it's +done--for ever. He'll forgive me, I think. He may be everything +that's dear, and good, and kind"--her voice broke--"but it'd hit him +dreadfully hard. A man like that can't forget such a thing. When I've +once said it, I shall have changed everything between us. He must +think--some time--when he's alone--when I'm not there--'It was Dick +Tanner once--it will be some one else another time!' I shall have been +pulled down from the place where he puts me now--even after he knows +all about Roger and the divorce--pulled down for good and all--however +much he may pity me--however good he may be to me. It will be love +perhaps--but another kind of love. He can't trust me again. No one could. +And it's that I can't bear--I can't _bear_!" + +She looked defiantly at Janet, and the little room with its simple +furnishings seemed too small a stage for such an energy of fear and +distress. + +"Yes--that you could bear," said Janet quietly, "with him to help +you--and God. It would all straighten out in the end--because the first +step would be right." + +Rachel turned upon her. + +"Now that I've told you," she cried, "can _you_ ever think the same of me +again? You know you can't!" + +Janet caught her cold hands, and held them close, looking up to her. + +"Not the same--no, not the same! But if I cared for you before, Rachel--I +care for you ten thousand times more now. Don't you see?--it will be the +same with him?" + +Rachel shook her head. + +"No--a _man's_ different," she repeated, "a man's different!" + +"Anyway, you _must_," said Janet resolutely, "you know you must. You +don't need me to tell you." + +Rachel wrenched herself away with a little moan and hid her face in her +hands as she leaned against the mantelpiece. Janet, looking up, and +transfigured by that spiritual energy, that ultimate instinctive faith +which was the root force in her, went on, pleading. + +"Dear Rachel, one goes on living side by side--doing one's daily +work--and thinking just one's ordinary thoughts--and all the time one +never speaks of the biggest things of all--the only things that matter, +really. Isn't it God that matters--and the law in our hearts? If we break +it--if we aren't true--if we wrong those that love us--if we injure and +deceive--how will it be when we grow old--when we come to die? Whatever +our gain--we shall have lost our souls?" + +"You think I should injure him by marrying him?" cried Rachel. + +"No--no! A thousand times, no! But by deceiving him--by not trusting +him--with all your heart, and all your life--that would be the worst +injury." + +"How do you know all there may have been in his life?" said Rachel, +vehemently--"I don't ask." + +"I think you do know." + +Rachel considered the words, finally dropping her face again out of +sight. + +"Well, I dare say I do!" she said wearily. "Of course he's a hundred +times too good for me." + +"Don't turn it off like that! It's for oneself one has to think--one's +own fulfilling of the law. Love--_is_ the fulfilling of the law. And love +means trust--and truth." + +Janet's voice sank. She had said her say. Rachel was silent for some +time, and Janet sat motionless. The clock and the fire were the only +sounds. At last Rachel moved. With a long sigh, she pressed back the +ruffled hair from her temples, and standing tiptoe before a small mirror +that hung over the mantelpiece, she began to pin up some coils that had +broken loose. When that was done, she turned slowly towards Janet. + +"Very well. That's settled. How shall it be done? Shall I write it or say +it?" + +Janet gasped a little between laughing and crying. Then she caught +Rachel's cold unresisting hand, and laid it tenderly against her own +cheek. + +"Write it." + +"All right." The voice was that of an automaton. "How shall I send it?" + +"Would you--would you trust me to take it?" + +"You mean--you'd talk to him?" + +"If you gave me leave." + +Rachel thought a little, and then made a scarcely perceptible sign of +assent. A few more words passed as to the best time at which to find +Ellesborough at leisure. It was decided that Janet should aim at catching +him in the midday dinner hour. "I should bicycle, and get home before +dark." + +"And now let's talk of something else," said Rachel, imperiously. + +She found some business letters that had to be answered, and set to work +on them. Janet wrote up her milk records and dairy accounts. The fire +sank gently to its end. Janet's cat came with tail outstretched, and +rubbed itself sociably, first against Janet's skirts, and then against +Rachel. No trace remained in the little room, where the two women sat at +their daily work, of the scene which had passed between them, except in +Rachel's pallor, and the occasional shaking of her hand as it passed over +the paper. + +Then when Janet put up her papers with a look at the clock, which was +just going to strike ten o'clock, Rachel too cleared away, and with that +instinct for air and the open which was a relic of her Canadian life, and +made any closed room after a time an oppression to her, she threw a cloak +over her shoulders, and went out again to breathe the night. There was a +young horse who, on the previous day, had needed the vet. She went across +the yard to the stable to look at him. + +All was well with the horse, whose swollen hock had been comfortably +bandaged by Hastings before he left. But as she stood beside him, close +to the divided door, opening on the hill, of which both the horizontal +halves were now shut, she was aware of certain movements on the other +side of the door--some one passing it--footsteps. Her nerves gave a +jump. Could it be?--_again_! Impetuously she went to the door, threw open +the upper half, and looked out. Nothing--but the faint starlight on the +hill, and the woods crowning it. + +She called. + +"Who's there?" But no one answered. + +Fancy, of course. But with the knowledge she now had, she could not bring +herself to go round the farm. Instead she carefully closed the stable +shutter, and ran back across the yard into the shelter of the house, +locking the front door behind her, and going into the sitting-room and +the kitchen, to see that the windows were fastened. + +Janet was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. They kissed each +other gravely, in silence, like those who feel that the time for speech +is done. Then Rachel went into her room, and Janet heard her turn the +key. Janet herself slept intermittently. But whenever she woke, it seemed +to her that there was some slight sound in the next room--a movement or +a rustle, which showed that Rachel was still awake--and up? + +It was a night indeed which left Rachel with that sense of strange +illuminations, of life painfully enlarged and deepened, which love and +suffering may always bring to the woman who is capable of love and +suffering. She had spent the hours in writing to Ellesborough, and in +that letter she had unpacked her heart to its depths, Janet guessed. When +she received the letter from Rachel on the morrow, she handled it as a +sacred thing. + + + + +XV + + +The frost held. A sun of pearl and fire rose over the hill, as the stars +finally faded out in the winter morning, and a brilliant rime lay +sparkling on all the pastures and on the slopes of the down. The +brilliance had partly vanished from the lower grounds when Janet started +on her way; but on the high commons, winter was at its gayest and +loveliest. The distant woods were a mist of brown and azure, encircling +the broad frost-whitened spaces; the great single beeches and oaks under +which Spenser or Sidney--the great Will himself--might have walked, shot +up, magnificent, into a clear sky, proudly sheltering the gnarled thorns +and furze-bushes which marched beside and round them, like dwarfs in a +pageant. + +Half way up the hill, Janet came across old Betts bringing down a small +cart-full of furze for fodder, and she stopped to speak to him. A little +later on, nearer to the camp she overtook Dempsey, who rather officiously +joined her, and assuming at once that she was in quest of the Camp +Commandant, directed her to a short cut leading straight to +Ellesborough's quarters. There was a slight something in the manner of +both men that jarred on Janet--as though their lips said one thing and +their eyes another--furtive in the case of Betts, a trifle insolent +in that of Dempsey. She with her tragic knowledge guessed uncomfortably +at what it meant. Dempsey--as she had made up her mind after ten minutes' +talk with him--was a vain gossip. It had been madness on Rachel's part to +give him the smallest hold on her. Very likely he had not yet actually +betrayed her--his hope of favours to come might have been sufficient to +prevent that. But his self-importance would certainly show itself +somehow--in a hint or a laugh. He had probably already roused in the +village mind a prying curiosity, a suspicion of something underhand, +which might alter Rachel's whole relation to her neighbours. For once +give an English country-side reason to suspect a scandal, and it will +pluck it bare in time, with a slow and secret persistence. + +Well, after all, if the situation became disagreeable, Rachel would only +have to choose Ellesborough's country as her own, and begin her new life +there. + +_Supposing that all went well!_ Janet's mind went through some painful +alterations of confidence and fear, as she walked her bicycle along the +rough forest-track leading to Ellesborough's hut. She believed him to be +deeply in love with Rachel, and the spiritual passion in her seemed to +realize in the man's inmost nature, behind all his practical ability, +and his short business manner, powers of pity and tenderness like her +own. But if she were wrong? If this second revelation put too great a +strain upon one brought up in an exceptionally strict school where +certain standards of conduct were simply taken for granted? + +Mystic, and puritan as she was, there were moments when Janet felt +her responsibility almost unbearable. Rachel deserted--Rachel in +despair--Rachel turning on the woman who had advised her to her +undoing--all these images were beating on Janet's tremulous sense, as the +small military hut where Ellesborough and two of his junior officers +lived came into view, together with that wide hollow of the forestry camp +where he and Rachel had first met. The letter in her pocket seemed a +living and sinister thing. She had still power to retain it--to keep it +imprisoned. + +A lady in the dress of the Women's Forestry Corps appeared on another +path leading to Ellesborough's hut. Janet recognized Mrs. Fergusson, +and was soon greeted by a shout of welcome. + +"Well, so Miss Henderson's engaged to our Captain!" said Mrs. Fergusson, +with a smiling countenance, as they shook hands. "The girls here, and +I, are awfully interested. The camp began it! But do you want the +Captain? I'm afraid he isn't here." + +Janet's countenance fell. + +"I thought I should be sure to find him in the dinner hour." + +"No, he went up to town by the first train this morning on some business +with the Ministry. We expect him back about three." + +It was not one o'clock. Janet pondered what to do. + +"You wanted to see him?" said Mrs. Fergusson, full of sympathy. + +"I brought a letter for him. If I leave it, will he be sure to get it +directly he returns?" + +"His servant's in the hut. Let's talk to him." + +Mrs. Fergusson rapped at the door of the hut, and walked in. An elderly +batman appeared. + +"I have a letter for Captain Ellesborough--an important letter--on +business," said Janet. "I was to wait for an answer. But as he isn't +here, where shall I leave it, so that he will be certain to get it?" + +"On his table, if you please, ma'am," said the soldier, opening the door +of the Captain's small sitting-room--"I'll see that he gets it." + +"It'll be quite safe?" said Janet anxiously, placing it herself in a +prominent place on the writing-table. + +"Lor, yes, ma'am. Nobody comes in here but me, when the Captain's away. +I'll tell him of it directly he comes home." + +"May I just write a little note myself? I expected to find Captain +Ellesborough in." + +The servant handed her a sheet of paper. She wrote--"I brought Rachel's +letter, and am very disappointed not to see you. Come at once. Don't +delay. Janet Leighton." + +She slipped it into an envelope, which she addressed and left beside the +other. Then she reluctantly left the hut with Mrs. Fergusson. + +"I am so sorry you didn't find him," said that lady. "Was it something +about the wedding?" she added, smiling, her feminine curiosity getting +the better of her. + +"Oh, no--not yet," said Janet, startled. + +"Well, I suppose it won't be long," laughed Mrs. Fergusson. "He's +desperately in love, you know!" + +Janet smiled in return, and Mrs. Fergusson, delighted to have the chance, +broke out into praises of her Commandant. + +"You see, we women who are doing all this new work with men, we know a +jolly deal more about them than we ever did before. I can tell you, it +searches us out, this joint life--both women and men. In this camp you +can't hide what you are--the sort of man--or the sort of woman. And +there isn't a woman in this camp, if she's been here any time, who +wouldn't trust the Captain for all she's worth--who wouldn't tell him her +love-affairs, or her debts--or march up to a machine-gun, if he told her. +In a sense, they're in love with him, because--as you've no doubt found +out, he has a way with him! But they all know that he's never been +anything to them but the best of Commandants, and a good friend. Oh, I +could never have run this camp but for him. He and I'll go together! Of +course we're shutting up very soon." + +So the pleasant Irishwoman ran on, as she walked beside Janet and her +bicycle to the top of the hill. Janet listened and smiled. Her own mind +said ditto to it all. But nevertheless, the more Ellesborough was set on +a pinnacle by this enthusiastic friend and spectator of his daily life, +the more Rachel's friend trembled for Rachel. A lover "not too bright and +good" to understand--and forgive--that was what was wanted. + +She reached the farm-gate about two o'clock, and Rachel was there, +waiting for her. But before they met, Rachel watching her approach, saw +that there was no news for her. + +"He wasn't there?" she said, drearily, as Janet reached her. + +Janet explained, and they walked up the farm lane together. + +"I would have waited if I could," she said in distress. "But it would +have looked strange. Mrs. Fergusson would have suspected something +wrong." + +"Oh no, you couldn't have waited," said Rachel, decidedly. "Well!"--she +threw her arms out in a great stretch--"it's done. In half an hour he'll +be reading the letter. It's like waiting for one's execution, isn't it? +Nothing can stop it; I may be dead before tea!" She gave a wild laugh. + +"Rachel!" + +"Well, that's how I feel. If he gives me up, it will be death--though I +dare say I shall go on fussing round the farm, and people will still talk +to me as if I were alive. But!"--she shrugged her shoulders. + +"He won't give you up--" said Janet, much troubled--"because--because +he's a good man." + +"All the more reason. If I were he, I should give me up. Shall I tell you +a queer thing, Janet? I hate Roger, as much as I can hate anybody. It +would be a great relief to me if I heard he were dead. And yet at the +same time I see--oh yes, I see quite plainly--that I treated him badly. +He told me so the other night--and it is so--it's _true_. I never had the +least patience with him. And now he's dying--at least he says so--and +though I hate him--though I pray I may never, never see him again, yet +I'm sorry for him. Isn't that strange?" + +She looked at Janet with a queer flickering defiance, which was also a +kind of remorse, in her eyes. + +"No, it isn't strange." + +"Why not?--when I hate him?" + +"One can be sorry even for those one hates. I suppose God is," Janet +added, after a pause. + +Rachel made a little face of scorn. + +"Why should God hate any one? He made us. He's responsible. He must have +known what He was doing. If He really pitied us, would He have made us at +all?" + +Janet made a little protesting sound--a sound of pain. + +"Does it give you the shivers, old woman, when I talk like that?" Rachel +slipped her hand affectionately through Janet's arm. "Well, I won't, +then. But if--" she caught her breath a little--"if George casts me off, +don't expect me to sing psalms and take it piously. I don't know myself +just lately--I seem quite strange to myself." + +And Janet, glancing at her sideways, wondered indeed where all that +rosy-cheeked, ripe bloom had gone, which so far had made the constant +charm of Rachel Henderson. Instead a bloodless face, with pinched lines, +and heavy-lidded eyes! What a formidable thing was this "love," that she +herself had never known, though she had had her quiet dreams of husband +and children, like her fellows. + +Rachel, however, would not let herself be talked with or pitied. She +walked resolutely to the house, and went off to the fields to watch +Halsey cutting and trimming a hedge. + +"If he doesn't come before dark," she said, under her breath, to Janet, +before setting off--"it will be finished. If he does--" + +She hurried away without finishing the sentence, and was presently taking +a lesson from old Halsey, in what is fast becoming one of the rarest of +the rural arts. But in little more than half an hour, Janet bringing in +the cows, saw her return and go into the house. The afternoon was still +lovely--the sky, a pale gold, with thin bars of grey cloud lying across +it, and the woods, all delicate shades of brown and purple, with their +topmost branches clear against the gold. The old red walls and tiled +roofs of the farm, the fields, the great hay and straw stacks, were all +drenched in the soft winter light. + +Rachel went up to her room, and sat down before the bare deal +dressing-table which held her looking-glass, and the very few articles of +personal luxury she possessed; a pair of silver-backed brushes and a +hand-glass that had belonged to an aunt, a small leather case in which +she kept some modest trinkets--a pearl brooch, a bracelet or two, and a +locket that had been her mother's--and, standing on either side of the +glass, two photographs of her father and mother. + +There was a clock on the mantelpiece. "Nearly four o'clock--" she +thought--"I'll give it an hour. He'd send--if he couldn't come, and he +wanted to come--but if nothing happens--I shall know what to think." + +As this passed through her mind, she opened one of the drawers of the +dressing-table, in which she kept her gloves and handkerchiefs. Suddenly +she perceived at the back of the drawer a small leathern case. The colour +rushed into her face. She took it out and ran quickly down the stairs to +the kitchen. Janet and the girls were busy milking. The coast was clear. + +A bright fire which Janet had just made up was burning in the kitchen. +Rachel went up to it and thrust the leathern case into the red core of +it. Some crackling--a disagreeable smell--and the little thing had soon +vanished. Rachel went slowly upstairs again, and locked the door of her +room behind her. The drawer of the dressing-table was still open, and +there was visible in it the object she was really in search of, when the +little leathern case caught her eye--a small cloth-bound book marked +"Diary." + +She took it out, and sat with it in her hand, thinking. How was it she +had never yet destroyed that case? The Greek cameo brooch it held--Dick +Tanner's gift to her--how vividly she recalled her first evening alone at +the farm, when she had dropped it into the old well, and had listened to +the splash of it in the summer silence. She remembered thinking vaguely, +and no doubt foolishly, that the cameo would drop more heavily and more +certainly without the case, which was wood, though covered with leather, +and she had therefore taken the brooch out, and had probably put back the +case absently into her pocket. And thence it had found its way back among +her things, how she did not know. + +The little adventure had excited and unnerved her. It seemed somehow of +evil omen that she should have come across that particular thing at this +moment. Opening the diary with a rather trembling hand, she looked +through it. She was not orderly or systematic enough to keep a diary +regularly, and it only contained a few entries, at long intervals, +relating mostly to her married life--and to the death of her child. She +glanced through them with that strange sense of unreality--of standing +already outside her life, of which she had spoken to Janet. There were +some blank pages at the end of the book; and, in her restlessness, just +to pass the time and to find some outlet for the storm of feeling within, +she began to write, at first slowly, and then very rapidly. + +"He must have got my letter by now. I sent it by Janet this morning. He +wasn't there--but by now he must have got home--he is probably reading +it at this moment. Whatever happens to me--I want just to say this--to +write it down now, while I can--I shall never blame George, and I shall +always love him--with all my heart, with all my soul. He has the right to +say he can't trust me--I told him so in my letter this morning--that I am +not fit to be his wife. He has the right--and very likely he will say it. +The terrible thing is that I don't trust myself. If I look forward and +ask myself--shall I always feel as I do now?--I can't honestly be sure. +There is something in me that wants change--always something new--some +fresh experience. I can't even imagine the time when I shouldn't love +George. The mere thought of losing him is awful--unspeakable. But yet--I +will write it down frankly!--nothing has ever lasted with me very long. +It is like the farm. I used to love every minute of the day, every bit of +the work, however dull and dirty it was; and now--I love it still--but I +seem already--sometimes--to be looking forward to the day when I shall be +tired of it. + +"Why am I made like that? I don't know. But I can't feel that I am +responsible. + +"Perhaps if George forgives me, I shall be so happy that everything will +change--my own character first of all. That is my hope. For though I +suppose I am vain--though I like people to admire me and make much of +me--I am not really in love with myself at all. If I were, I couldn't be +in love with George--we are so different. + +"I don't feel yet that I know him. Perhaps now I never shall. I often +find myself wishing that he had something to confess to me. I would +hardly let him--he should never humble himself to me. But to feel that I +_could_ forgive him something, and that he would owe me something--would +be very sweet, very heavenly. I would make it so easy for him. Is he +feeling like that towards me? 'Poor child--she was very young--and so +miserable!' + +"I mustn't write like this--it makes me cry. There is a beautiful yellow +sunset outside, and the world seems very still. He must be here soon--or +a messenger. Janet asked him not to wait. + +"After all, I don't think I am so changeable. I have just been running +myself down--but I don't really believe I could ever change--towards him. +Oh, George!--George!--my George!--come to me!--don't give me up. George, +darling, you could do anything with me you liked--don't despair of me! +In the Gospel, it was the bad women who were forgiven because they loved +'much.' Now I understand why. Because love makes new. It is so terribly +_strong_. It is either a poison--or life--immortal life. I have never +been able to believe in the things Janet believes in. But I think I do +now believe in immortality--in something within you that can't die--when +once it has begun to live." + + * * * * * + +And then she laid her pencil down--and sat with the book on her +knee--looking towards the gold and grey of the sky--the tears running +quietly down her cheeks. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, Hastings had come hurriedly into the shippen, where Janet and +the two girls were milking. He came to stand beside her, silent, but +fidgeting so, that she presently looked up in astonishment. + +"Did you want me?" + +"I wanted to tell you something," he said in a low voice, stooping over +her--"Don't let the girls hear. But that man's been seen again. The +tramp." + +Janet started. She jumped up, asked Betty, who had finished, to take her +place, and went with Hastings out of the barn. + +"There are two or three people think they've seen him lately," he said +hurriedly. "A man from Dobson's farm"--(the farm which lay between +Great End and the village)--"who was on the hill yesterday evening, just +before dark, was certain he saw somebody hanging about the back of the +farm in a queer way--" + +"Last night?" echoed Janet. + +"Yes. And there are two people who remember meeting a man on the X--road +who said he was going to Walton End. And the police have been inquiring, +but nobody at Walton End knows anything about such a man. However, they +have a description of him at last. A tall, dark fellow--gentlemanly +manners--seems delicate. I don't like the look of it, Miss Janet. Seems +to me as though it weren't just a tramp, hanging about for what he can +steal. Do you know of anybody who has a down on Miss Henderson--who'd +like to frighten her, or put blackmail on her?" + +Janet considered. She was tempted to take the faithful fellow to some +extent into her confidence, but she rapidly decided against it. She +suggested that he should himself sleep for a few nights at the +farm, and carefully examine the neighbourhood of it, last thing; and that +she should bicycle over to Millsborough at once, and have some further +talk with the Superintendent of Police there. + +"Besides--I'd like to be out of the way," she thought. "They won't want +anybody hanging round!" + +For there was steadily growing up in her a blissful confidence that all +would be once more settled and settled for good, before the night fell. +Spectators were entirely out of place! Nor would she disturb Rachel's +mind by any talk just then of what seemed to be a fresh attempt at +terrorism on the part of her wretched husband. Hastings would be in +charge for the moment, and Ellesborough would be on the spot for +consultation before darkness had really set in. + +So as before, she told Hastings not to alarm Miss Henderson. But he was +not to leave the farm-buildings, and possibly the Superintendent of +Police would return with her. "And then--either Rachel or the Captain +will have to tell the police the truth!" Just as she was starting, Rachel +came downstairs in some surprise. + +"Where are you off to?" + +"I have forgotten something I wanted from Millsborough. I shall be back +in an hour or so." + +Rachel abstractedly nodded assent. The golden light from the west +transfigured her, as she stood in the doorway. She was pale, but it +seemed to Janet that she was no longer excited--that there was in her +too something of the confidence which had sprung up in the heart of her +friend. She had the look of one for whom the Valley of the Shadow is +past, and her beauty had never struck Janet as it struck her at that +moment. Its grosser elements seemed all refined away. The girlish look +was quite gone; she seemed older and graver; but there breathed about +her "a diviner air." + +Janet, who was much the shorter, mounted on the step to kiss her. +Caresses were not at all common between them, but Rachel returned it, and +their eyes met in a quiet look which said what her lips forbore. Then +Janet departed, and Rachel waved to her as she passed through the gate. + +Hastings crossed the yard, and Rachel called to him. + +"Are you off soon?" + +"No, Miss. I shall sleep over the stable. That horse wants looking +after." + +Rachel acquiesced, with a vague feeling of satisfaction, and Hastings +disappeared within the stable opposite. + +She went back into the sitting-room, which was still flooded with the +last reflections from the western sky beyond the fields, though the light +was fading rapidly, and the stars were coming out. What a strange effect +it was--she suddenly noticed it afresh--that of the two large windows +exactly facing each other in so small a room! One had an odd sense of +being indoors and out, at the same time; the down on one side, the +farm-yard on the other, and in the midst, the fire, the table and chairs, +the pictures, and the red carpet, seemed all parts of the same scene. + +She made up the fire. She brought in a few Xmas roses, from a border +under the kitchen window, and arranged them in a glass on the table. It +was then time to draw the blinds. But she could not make up her mind to +shut out the saffron sky, or the view of the road. + +Something in the distance!--an approaching figure, and the noise of a +motor-bicycle. She caught at a chair a moment, as though to steady +herself; and then she went to the window, and stood there watching. He +saw her quite plainly in the level light, and leaving his bicycle at the +gate, he came towards her. There was no one in the yard, and before he +entered he stood a moment, bare-headed, gazing at her, as she stood +framed in the window. Everything that she wished to know was written in +his face. A little sob broke the silence of the sitting-room. + +Then he opened the doors and closed them behind him. Without a word she +seemed to glide over the room towards him; and now, she was on his +breast, gathered close against the man's passionately beating heart. +Neither spoke--neither was able to speak. + +Then--suddenly--a crash of breaking glass--a shot. The woman he was +holding fell from Ellesborough's arms; he only just caught her. Another +shot--which grazed his own coat. + +"Rachel!" + +It was a cry of horror. Her eyes were closing. But she still smiled at +him, as he laid her on the floor, imploring her to speak. There was a +stain of blood on the lips, and through them came a few shuddering +gasps. + +Hastings rushed into the room-- + +"Good God, Sir!" + +"A doctor!--Go for a doctor!" said Ellesborough hoarsely--"No--she's +gone!" + +He sank down beside her, putting his ear to her lips. In vain. No sound +was there. The smiling mouth had settled and shut. Without a murmur or +a sigh, Rachel had passed for ever from this warm world and the arms of +her lover, at the bidding of the "fierce workman Death." + +When Janet, a doctor, and the Superintendent of Police arrived, it was +to find Ellesborough sitting motionless beside the body, while the two +girls, a blanched and shivering pair, watched for Janet at +the door. + +"Can you throw any light upon it, Sir?" said the Superintendent, +respectfully, at last, when the Doctor had finished his examination, and +still Ellesborough did not speak. + +The Captain looked up. + +"Her husband did it"--he said, quietly--"the man who was her husband." + +A shudder of surprise ran through the room. + +"Did I hear you right, Sir?" said the Superintendent. "Miss Henderson +passed for unmarried." + +"She married a man called Roger Delane in Canada," said Ellesborough, +in the same monotonous voice. "She divorced him--for cruelty and +adultery--two years ago. A few days since he waylaid her in the dark, and +threatened her. I didn't know this till she wrote to me to-day. She said +that she was afraid of him--that she thought he was mad--and I came over +at once to see how I could protect her. We were engaged to be married." + +The Superintendent drew a furtive hand across his eyes. Then he produced +his note-book, and took the evidence in order. Hastings came in from a +lantern search of the farm-buildings, the hill-side, and the nearest +fringes of wood, to report that he had found no trace of the murderer. +The news, however, had by this time spread through the village, and the +kitchen was full of persons who had hurried to the farm--Old Halsey and +John Dempsey among them--to tell what they knew, and had seen. +Ellesborough roused himself from his stupor, and came to assist the +police in the preliminary examination of witnesses and inspection of the +farm. Once he and Janet passed each other, but they did not attempt to +speak. Each indeed shrank from the other. A word of pity would have been +merely a deepened agony. + +But the farm emptied at last. A body of police had been sent out to scout +the woods, to watch the roads and the railway stations. Ellesborough and +Hastings had lifted the dead woman upon a temporary bier which had been +raised in the sitting-room. Then Hastings had drawn Ellesborough +away, and Janet, with a village mother, had rendered the last offices. + +When Ellesborough re-entered, he found a white vision, lying in a bare +room, from which all traces of ordinary living had been as far as +possible cleared away. Only the Christmas roses which Rachel had +gathered that afternoon were now on her breast. Her hands were folded +over them. Her beautiful hair lay unbound on the pillow--Janet's +trembling hands had refused to cut it. + +At sight of Ellesborough, Janet rose from her kneeling posture beside the +dead, as white and frozen almost as Rachel herself--with something in her +hand--a small book. She held it out to Ellesborough. + +"The Superintendent asked my leave to go into her room--in case there was +anything which could help them. He brought me this. She had been writing +in it--He asked me to look at it. I did--just enough to see--that no one +had any right to it--but you. She wrote it I think about an hour before +you came. It was her last word." + +"I have her letters also"--said Ellesborough, almost inaudibly, as he +took the book--"You brought it--you kind woman! You were her good +angel--God reward you!" + +Then at last a convulsion of weeping showed in Janet's face. She laid her +hand in his, and went noiselessly away. + +Ellesborough sat beside his dead love all night. The farm was peaceful +again after that rush of the Furies through it, which had left this wreck +behind. Rachel's diary and letter lay before him. They were as her still +living voice in his ears, and as the words sank into memory they pierced +through all the rigidities of a noble nature, rending and kneading as +they went. He recalled his own solitary hour of bitterness after her +letter reached him. The story it contained had gone very hard with him, +though never for one moment had he even in thought forsaken her. There +was some comfort in that. But the memory which upheld him, which +alone kept him from despair, was the memory of her face at the window, +the sense still lingering in his own physical pulses of her young +clinging life in his arms, of the fluttering of her poor heart against +his breast, the exquisite happiness of her kiss--the kiss which death cut +short. + +No--he had not failed her. That was all he had to live by. And without +it, it seemed to him, he could not have endured to live. + + * * * * * + +The two girls had sobbed themselves to sleep at last. But Janet did not +sleep. Tears came naturally as the hours went by--tears and the agonized +relief of prayer to one for whom prayer was a daily need of the soul. And +in the early morning there flooded in upon her a strange consciousness of +Rachel's spirit in hers--a strange suspicion that after all the gods had +not wrought so hardly with Rachel. A few days before she had attended the +funeral in the village church, of a young wife just happily married, who +had died in three days, of virulent influenza. Never had the words of the +Anglican service pleased her so little. What mockery--what fulsome +mockery--to thank God because "it hath pleased Thee to deliver this our +sister, out of the miseries of this troublesome world." But the words +recurred to her now--mysteriously--with healing power. Had it been after +all "deliverance" for Rachel, from this "troublesome world," and the +temptations that surround those who are not strong enough for the +wrestle that Fate sets them--that a God appoints them? She had met her +lover--after fear and anguish; and had known him hers, utterly and wholly +hers, for one supreme moment. And from that height--that perfection--God +had called her. No lesser thing could ever touch her now. + +Such are the moments of religious exaltation which cheat even the +sharpest griefs of men and women. Janet would decline from her Pisgah +height only too soon; but, for the time, thoughts like these gave her the +strength to bear. + +When the house began to move again, she went down to Ellesborough. She +drew him into the kitchen--made a fire, and brought him food. Presently +she found calm enough to tell him many details of the previous days. And +the man's sound nature responded. Once he grasped her hand, and kissed +it--as though he thanked her dumbly again, for himself and Rachel. It +seemed to Janet indeed, as she sat by him, that Rachel had left her a +trust. She took it up instinctively--from this first desolate morning. +For there are women set apart for friendship--Janet was one of them--as +others are set apart for love. + + * * * * * + +And with the first break of light on the new November day, the search +parties in the hills came upon what they sought. Some one remembered the +deserted hut--and from that moment the hunt was easy. Finally in the +dripping heart of the wood the pursuers found the murderer lying face +downwards in front of the dead fire, with the revolver beside him with +which he had taken first Rachel's life, and then his own. Some sheets of +paper were scattered near him, on which he had written an incoherent and +grandiloquent confession. But of such acts there is no real explanation. +They are the product of that black seed in human nature which is born +with a man, and flowers in due time, through devious stages, into such a +deed as that which destroyed Rachel Henderson. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARVEST*** + + +******* This file should be named 13801.txt or 13801.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/8/0/13801 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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