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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/23990-h.zip b/23990-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..088bad5 --- /dev/null +++ b/23990-h.zip diff --git a/23990-h/23990-h.htm b/23990-h/23990-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c58b261 --- /dev/null +++ b/23990-h/23990-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,14453 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Moor Fires, by E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Moor Fires, by E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young</h1> +<pre> +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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Moor Fires</p> +<p>Author: E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young</p> +<p>Release Date: December 24, 2007 [eBook #23990]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOOR FIRES***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/cover.jpg"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/></a> +</div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1>MOOR FIRES</h1> + +<h2>BY E. H. YOUNG</h2> + +<h3>Author of "WILLIAM" and "THE MALLETTS"</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h4>NEW YORK<br /> +HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY</h4> + +<h4>PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.</h4> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> + +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">CHAPTER XXXVII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">CHAPTER XXXVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">CHAPTER XXXIX</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>MOOR FIRES</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p>In the dusk of a spring evening, Helen Caniper walked on the long road +from the town. Making nothing of the laden basket she carried, she went +quickly until she drew level with the high fir-wood which stood like a +barrier against any encroachment on the moor, then she looked back and +saw lights darting out to mark the streets she had left behind, as +though a fairy hand illuminated a giant Christmas-tree.</p> + +<p>Among the other trees, black and mysterious on the hill, a cold wind was +moaning. "It's the night wind," Helen murmured. The moor was inhabited +by many winds, and she knew them all, and it was only the night wind +that cried among the trees, for, fearless though it seemed, it had a +dread of the hours that made it. The fir-trees, their bare trunks like a +palisade, swayed gently, and Helen's skirts flapped about her ankles. +More lights glimmered in the town, and she turned towards home.</p> + +<p>The moor stretched now on either hand until it touched a sky from which +all the colour had not departed, and the road shone whitely, pale but +courageous as it kept its lonely path. Helen's feet tapped clearly as +she hurried on, and when she approached the road to Halkett's Farm, the +sound of her going was mingled with that of hoofs, and an old horse, +drawing a dog-cart, laboured round the corner. It was the horse Dr. +Mackenzie had always driven up the long road; it was now driven by his +son, and when he saw that some one motioned him to stop, the young +doctor drew up. He bent forward to see her.</p> + +<p>"It's Helen," he said. "Oh, Helen, how are you?"</p> + +<p>She stood by the step and looked up at him. "I'm very well. I'm glad you +knew me. It's three years."</p> + +<p>"And your hair is up."</p> + +<p>"Miriam and I are twenty," she said gravely, and he laughed.</p> + +<p>The horse shook himself and set the dog-cart swaying; the jingle of his +bit went adventurously across the moor; heather-stalks scratched each +other in the wind.</p> + +<p>"You haven't lighted your lamps," Helen said. "Somebody might run into +you."</p> + +<p>"They might." He jumped down and fumbled for his matches. "The comfort +is that we're not likely to do it to any one, at our pace. When I've +made my fortune I shall buy a horse from George Halkett, one that will +go fast and far."</p> + +<p>"But I like this one," said Helen. "We used to watch for him when we had +measles. He's mixed up with everything. Don't have another one."</p> + +<p>"The fortune's still to make," he said. He had lighted the nearer lamp +and Helen's slim figure had become a thing of shadows. He took the +basket from her and put it under the seat. She was staring over the +horse's back.</p> + +<p>"There was a thing we used to do. We had bets about Dr. Mackenzie's +ties, what colour they were; but we never won or lost, because we never +saw them. His beard was so big. And once Miriam pretended there was a +huge spider on the ceiling, but he wouldn't look up, though she +screamed. He told her not to be a silly little girl. So we never saw +them."</p> + +<p>"I'm not surprised," the young doctor said. "He didn't wear them. What +was the use? He was a practical man."</p> + +<p>"Oh," Helen cried, "isn't that just like life! You bother and bother +about something that doesn't exist and make yourself miserable for +nothing. No, I won't do it."</p> + +<p>"Do you?"</p> + +<p>"It's a great fault of mine," she said.</p> + +<p>He went round the back of the cart and lighted the other lamp. "Now I'm +going to drive you home. That basket's heavy."</p> + +<p>"I have been shopping," she explained. "Tomorrow a visitor is coming."</p> + +<p>"Your father?" he asked quickly.</p> + +<p>"No; he hasn't been again. He's ill, Notya says, and it's too cold for +him here. Dr. Zebedee, aren't you glad to be back on the moor?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't see much of it, you know. My work is chiefly in the +streets—but, yes, I think I'm glad."</p> + +<p>"We've been watching for you, Miriam and I. She'll be angry that I've +seen you first. No; she's thinking too much about tomorrow. It's an +uncle who's coming, a kind of uncle—Notya's brother. We haven't seen +him before and Miriam's excited."</p> + +<p>"And you're not."</p> + +<p>"I don't like new things. They feel dangerous. You don't know what +they'll bring."</p> + +<p>"I thought you weren't going to make yourself miserable," he said. "Jump +up, and we'll take home the fatted calf."</p> + +<p>She hesitated. "I'm not going straight home."</p> + +<p>"Let me deliver the calf, then."</p> + +<p>"No, please; it isn't heavy." She went to the horse's head and stroked +his nose. "I've never known his name. What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Upon my word, I don't believe he has one. He's just the horse. That's +what we always called him."</p> + +<p>"'The horse'! How dreary! It makes him not a person."</p> + +<p>"But the one and only horse!"</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose he minds very much," she murmured. "Good-night, horse. +Good-night, Zebedee. My basket, please. I'm very late."</p> + +<p>"I wish you'd let me take you home. You oughtn't to go wandering over +the moor by night."</p> + +<p>She laughed. "I've done it all my life. Do you remember," she went on +slowly, "what I once told you about the fires? Oh, years ago, when I +first saw you."</p> + +<p>"The fires?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Never mind if you've forgotten."</p> + +<p>"I don't forget things," he said; "I'm remembering." His mind was urged +by his sense of her disappointment and by the sight of her face, which +the shadows saddened. The basket hung on her arm and her hands were +clasped together: she looked like a child and he could not believe in +her twenty years.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter," she said softly.</p> + +<p>"But I do remember. It's the spring fires."</p> + +<p>"The Easter fires."</p> + +<p>"Of course, of course, you told me—"</p> + +<p>"I think they must be burning now. That's where I'm going—to look for +them."</p> + +<p>"I wish I could come too."</p> + +<p>"Do you? Do you? Oh!" She made a step towards him. "The others never +come. They laugh but I still go on. It's safer, isn't it? It can't do +any harm to pray. And now that Uncle Alfred's coming—"</p> + +<p>"Is he a desperate character?"</p> + +<p>She made a gesture with her clasped hands. "It's like opening a door."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't be afraid of open doors," he said—"you, who live on the +moor." He grasped her shoulder in a friendly fashion. "You mustn't be +afraid of anything. Go and find your fires, and don't forget to pray for +me."</p> + +<p>"Of course not. Good-night. Will you be coming again soon?"</p> + +<p>"Old Halkett's pretty ill," was his reply and, climbing to his seat, he +waved his hat and bade the old horse move on.</p> + +<p>The moor lay dark as a lake at Helen's feet and the rustling of the +heather might have been the sound of water fretted by the wind—deep, +black water whose depths no wind could stir. At Helen's right hand a +different darkness was made by the larch-trees clothing Halkett's +hollow, and on her left a yellow gleam, like the light at the masthead +of a ship at sea, betrayed her home. Behind her, and on the other side +of the road, the Brent Farm dogs began to bark, and in the next instant +they were answered from many points of the moor, so that houses and +farmsteads became materialized in the night which had hidden them and +Helen stood in a circle of echoing sound. Often, as a child, she had +waked at such a clamour, and pictured homeless people walking on the +road, and now, though she heard no footsteps, she seemed to feel the +approach of noiseless feet, bringing the unknown. For her, youth's +delights of strength and fleetness were paid for by the thought of the +many years in which her happiness could be assailed. Age might be +feeble, but it had, she considered, the consolation of knowing something +of the limitations of its pain. She wished she could put an unscalable +wall about the moor, so that the soundless feet should stay outside, for +she did not know that already she had heard the footsteps of those whose +actions were weaving her destiny. Helen Caniper might safely throw open +all her doors.</p> + +<p>The barking of the dogs lessened and then ceased; once more only the +whistling of the wind broke the silence, until Helen's skirts rubbed the +heather as she ran and something jingled in her basket. She went fast +to find her fires and, while her mind was fixed on them, she was still +aware of the vast moor she loved, its darkness, its silence, the smells +it gave out, the promise of warmth and fertility in its bosom. She could +not clearly see the ground, but her feet knew it: heather, grass, +stones, and young bracken were to be overcome; here and there a rock or +thorn-bush loomed out blacker than the rest in warning; sometimes a dip +in the earth must be avoided; once or twice dim grey objects rose up and +became sheep that bleated out of her way, and always, as she ran, she +mounted. For a time she was level with the walled garden of her home, +but, passing its limit, she topped a sudden steepness, descended it with +a rush, and lost all glimmerings from road or dwelling-place.</p> + +<p>A greenish sky, threatening to turn black, delicately roofed the world; +no stars had yet come through, and, far away, as though in search of +them, the moor rose to a line of hills. Their rounded tops had no +defiance, their curve was that of a wave without the desire to break, +held in its perfect contour by its own content. The moor itself had the +patience of the wisdom which is faith, and Helen might have heard it +laughing tenderly if she had been less concerned with the discovery of +her fires. She stood still, and her eyes found only the moor, the rocks +and hills.</p> + +<p>"I must go on," she said in a whisper. And now, for pleasure in her +strength, she went in running bounds over a stretch of close-cropped +turf, and space became so changed for her that she hardly knew whether +she leapt a league or foot; and it was all one, for she had a feeling of +great power and happiness in a world which was empty without loneliness. +And then a creeping line of fire arrested her. Not far off, it went +snake-like over the ground, disappeared, and again burned out more +brightly: it edged the pale smoke like embroidery on a veil, and behind +that veil there lived and moved the smoke-god she had created for +herself when she was ten years old. She could not hear the crackling of +the twigs nor smell their burning, and she had no wish to draw nearer. +She stretched out her arms and dropped to her knees and prayed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Thou, behind the smoke," she said aloud, "guard the moor and us. We +will not harm your moor. Amen."</p> + +<p>This was the eleventh time she had prayed to the God behind the smoke, +and he had guarded both the Canipers and the moor, but now she felt the +need to add more words to the childish ones she had never changed.</p> + +<p>"And let me be afraid of nothing," she said firmly, and hesitated for a +second. "For beauty's sake. Amen."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p>After her return over the moor, through the silent garden and the dim +house, Helen was dazzled by the schoolroom lights and she stood blinking +in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"We're all here and all hungry," Rupert said. "You're late."</p> + +<p>"I know." She shut the door and took off her hat. "Miriam, I met +Zebedee."</p> + +<p>"Oh," Miriam said on a disapproving note. She lay on the sofa as though +a wind had flung her there, and her eyes were closed. In her composure +she looked tired, older than Helen and more experienced, but her next +words came youthfully enough. "Just like you. You get everything."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't help it," Helen said mildly. "He came round the corner from +Halkett's Farm. Ought I to have run away?"</p> + +<p>Miriam sat up and laughed, showing dark eyes and shining little teeth +which transformed her face into a childish one.</p> + +<p>"Is he different?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't see very well."</p> + +<p>"He is different," Rupert said; and John, on the window-seat, put down +his book to listen.</p> + +<p>"Tell us," Miriam said.</p> + +<p>"Nothing much, but he is older."</p> + +<p>"So are we."</p> + +<p>"Not in his way."</p> + +<p>"We haven't had the chance," Miriam complained. "I suppose you mean he +has been doing things he ought not to do in London."</p> + +<p>"Not necessarily," Rupert answered lightly and John picked up his book +again. He generally found that his excursions into the affairs of men +and women were dull and fruitless, while his book, on the subject of +manures, satisfied his intellect and was useful in its results.</p> + +<p>There was a silence in which both girls, though differently, were +conscious of a dislike for Zebedee's unknown adventures.</p> + +<p>Miriam laid her head on the red cushion. "I wish tomorrow would come."</p> + +<p>"I bought turbot," Helen said. "I should think he's the kind of man who +likes it."</p> + +<p>"I suggest delicate sauces," Rupert said.</p> + +<p>"You needn't be at all anxious about his food," Miriam assured them. +"I'm going to be the attraction of this visit."</p> + +<p>"How d'you know?"</p> + +<p>Her teeth caught her under-lip. "Because I mean to be."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't make a fool of yourself, my dear."</p> + +<p>"She will," John growled.</p> + +<p>Helen spoke quickly. "Oh, Miriam, I told Zebedee about Dr. Mackenzie's +ties, and, do you know, he never wore any at all!"</p> + +<p>"Old pig! He wouldn't. Mean. Scotch. We might have thought of that. If +Daniel had a beard he would be just the same."</p> + +<p>"It may surprise you to learn," Rupert remarked, "that Daniel takes a +great interest in his appearance lately."</p> + +<p>"That's me again," Miriam said complacently.</p> + +<p>"Ugly people are rather like that," Helen said. "But he wears terrible +boots."</p> + +<p>"He's still at the collar-and-tie stage," Rupert said. "We'll get to +boots later. He needs encouragement—and control. A great deal of +control. He had a bright blue tie on yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Ha!" Miriam shouted in a strangled laugh, and thrust her face into the +cushion. "That's me, too!" she cried. "I told him blue would suit him."</p> + +<p>Rupert wagged his head. "I can't see the fun in that kind of thing, +making a fool of the poor beggar."</p> + +<p>"Well," she flashed, "he shouldn't ask me to marry him!"</p> + +<p>"You'd complain if he didn't."</p> + +<p>"Of course I should—of course! I'm so dull that I'm really grateful to +him, but I'm so dull that I have to tease him, too. It's only clutching +at straws, and Daniel likes it."</p> + +<p>"He's wasted half a crown on his tie, though. I'm going to tell him that +you're not to be trusted."</p> + +<p>"Then I shall devote myself to Zebedee."</p> + +<p>"You won't influence Zebedee's ties," Helen said, "or his collars—the +shiniest ones I have ever seen."</p> + +<p>"She won't influence him at all, my good Helen. What's she got to do it +with?"</p> + +<p>"This!" Miriam said, rising superbly and displaying herself.</p> + +<p>"Shut her up, somebody!" John begged. "This is beastly. Has she nothing +better to do with herself than attracting men? If you met a woman who +made that her profession instead of her play, you'd pass by on the other +side."</p> + +<p>Miriam flushed, frowned, and recovered herself. "I might. I don't think +so. I can't see any harm in pleasing people. If I were clever and +frightened them, or witty and made them laugh, it would be just the +same. I happen to be beautiful." She spread her hands and waved them. +"Tell birds not to fly, tell lambs not to skip, tell me to sit and darn +the socks!" She stood on the fender and looked at herself in the glass. +"Besides," she said, "I don't care. I'm not responsible. If Notya hadn't +buried us all here, I might have been living a useful life!" She cast a +sly glance at John. "I might be making butter like Lily Brent."</p> + +<p>"Not half so good!"</p> + +<p>She ignored that, and went on with her thoughts. "I shall ask Uncle +Alfred what made Notya bring us here."</p> + +<p>She turned and stood, very slim in her dark dress, her eyelids lowered, +her lips parted, expectant of reproof and ready with defiance, but no +one spoke. She constantly forgot that her family knew her, but, +remembering that fact, her tilted eyebrows twitched a little. Her face +broke into mischievous curves and dimples.</p> + +<p>"What d'you bet?"</p> + +<p>"No," Helen said, thinking of her stepmother. "Notya wouldn't like it."</p> + +<p>"Bah! Pish! Faugh! Pshaw—and ugh! What do I care? I shall!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, a rotten thing to do," said John.</p> + +<p>"And, anyhow, it doesn't matter," Helen said. "We're here."</p> + +<p>"Rupert?" Miriam begged.</p> + +<p>"Better not," he answered kindly. "Not worth while." He lay back in a +big chair and watched the world through his tobacco smoke. He had all +Miriam's darkness and much of her beauty, but he had already acquired a +tolerant view of things which made him the best of companions, the least +ambitious of young men. "Live and let live, my dear."</p> + +<p>"I shan't promise. I suppose I'm not up to your standards of honour, but +if a person makes a mystery, why shouldn't the others try to find it +out? That's what it's for! And there's nothing else to do."</p> + +<p>"You're inventing the mystery," Rupert said. "If Notya and our absent +parent didn't get on together—and who could get on with a man who's +always ill?—they were wise in parting, weren't they?"</p> + +<p>"But why the moor?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, I think that was a sudden impulse, and she has always been too +proud to own that it was a mistake."</p> + +<p>"That's the first sensible thing any one has said yet," John remarked. +"I quite agree with you. It's my own idea."</p> + +<p>"I'm a young man of penetration, as I've told you all before."</p> + +<p>"And shoved into a bank!" John grumbled.</p> + +<p>"I like the bank. It's a cheerful place. There's lots of gold about, and +people come and talk to me through the bars."</p> + +<p>"But," Helen began, on the deep notes of her voice, "what should we have +done if she had repented and taken us away? What should we have done?"</p> + +<p>"We might have been happy," Miriam said.</p> + +<p>"John, what would you have done?" Helen persisted.</p> + +<p>"Said nothing, grown up as fast as I could, and come back."</p> + +<p>"So should I."</p> + +<p>Rupert chuckled. "You wouldn't, Helen. You'd have stayed with Notya and +Miriam and me and looked after us all, and longed for this place and +denied yourself."</p> + +<p>"And made us all uncomfortable." Miriam pointed at Helen's grey dress. +"What have you been doing?"</p> + +<p>Helen looked down at the dark marks where her knees had pressed the +ground.</p> + +<p>"It will dry," she said, and went nearer the fire. "Zebedee says old +Halkett's ill."</p> + +<p>"Drink and the devil," Rupert hummed. "He'll die soon."</p> + +<p>"Hope so," John said fervently. "I don't like to think of the bloated +old beast alive."</p> + +<p>"He'll be horrider dead, I think," said Helen. "Dead things should be +beautiful."</p> + +<p>"Well, he won't be. Moreover, nothing is, for long. You've seen sheep's +carcasses after the snows. Don't be romantic."</p> + +<p>"I said they should be."</p> + +<p>"It's a good thing they're not. They wouldn't fertilize the ground. +Can't we have supper?"</p> + +<p>"Here's Notya!" Miriam uttered the warning, and began to poke the fire.</p> + +<p>The room was entered by a small lady who carried her head well. She had +fair, curling hair, serious blue eyes and a mouth which had been +puckered into a kind of sternness.</p> + +<p>"So you have come back, Helen," she said. "You should have told me. I +have been to the road to look for you. You are very late."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'm sorry. I met Dr. Mackenzie."</p> + +<p>"He ought to have brought you home."</p> + +<p>"He wanted to. I got turbot for Uncle Alfred. It's on the kitchen +table."</p> + +<p>"Then I expect the cat has eaten it," said Mrs. Caniper with +resignation, but her mouth widened delightfully into what might have +been its natural shape. "Miriam, go and put it in the larder."</p> + +<p>Surreptitiously and in farewell, Miriam dropped the poker on Helen's +toes. "Why can't she send you?" she muttered. "It's your turbot."</p> + +<p>"But it's your cat."</p> + +<p>Wearing what the Canipers called her deaf expression, their stepmother +looked at the closing door. "I did not hear what Miriam said," she +remarked blandly.</p> + +<p>"She was talking to me."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Mrs. Caniper flushed slowly. "It is discourteous to have private +conversations in public, Helen. I have tried to impress that on +you—unsuccessfully, it seems; but remember that I have tried."</p> + +<p>"Yes, thank you," Helen said, with serious politeness. She made a +movement unnatural to her in its violence, because she was forcing +herself to speak. "But you don't mind if the boys do things like that." +She hesitated and plunged again. "It's Miriam. You're not fair to her. +You never have been."</p> + +<p>Over Mrs. Caniper's small face there swept changes of expression which +Helen was not to forget. Anger and surprise contended together, widening +her eyes and lips, and these were both overcome, after a struggle, by a +revelation of self-pity not less amazing to the woman than to the girl.</p> + +<p>"Has she ever been fair to me?" Mildred Caniper asked stumblingly, +before she went in haste, and Helen knew well why she fumbled for the +door-handle.</p> + +<p>The acute silence of the unhappy filled the room: John rose, collided +clumsily with the table and approached the hearth.</p> + +<p>"Now, what did you do that for?" he said. "I can't stomach these family +affairs."</p> + +<p>Helen smoothed her forehead and subdued the tragedy in her eyes. "I had +to do it," she breathed. "It was true, wasn't it?" She looked at Rupert, +but he was looking at the fire.</p> + +<p>"True, yes," said John, "but it does Miriam no harm. A little +opposition—"</p> + +<p>"No," said Helen, "no. We don't want to drive her to—to being silly."</p> + +<p>"She is silly," John said.</p> + +<p>"No," Helen said again. "She ought not to live here, that's all."</p> + +<p>"She'll have to learn to. Anyhow"—he put his hands into his +pockets—"we can't have Notya looking like that. It's—it won't do."</p> + +<p>"It's quite easy not to hurt people," Helen murmured; "but you had to +hurt her yourself, John, about your gardening."</p> + +<p>"That was different," he said. He was a masculine creature. "I was +fighting for existence."</p> + +<p>"Miriam has an existence, too, you know," Rupert said.</p> + +<p>From the other side of the hall there came a faint chink of plates and +Miriam's low voice singing.</p> + +<p>"She's all right," John assured himself.</p> + +<p>Helen was smiling tenderly at the sound. "But I wonder why Notya is so +hard on her," she sighed.</p> + +<p>Rupert knocked his pipe against the fender. "I should be very glad to +know what our mother was like," he said.</p> + +<p>Long ago, out of excess of loyalty, the Canipers had tacitly agreed not +to discuss those matters on which their stepmother was determinedly +reserved, and now a certain tightening of the atmosphere revealed the +fact that John and Helen were controlling their desires to ask Rupert +what he meant.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p>The Canipers had lived on the moor for sixteen years, and Rupert was the +only one of the children who had more distant memories. These were like +flashes of white light on general darkness, for the low house of his +memory was white and the broad-leaved trees of the garden cast their +shadows on a pale wall: there was a white nursery of unlimited +dimensions and a white bath-room with a fluffy mat which comforted the +soles of his feet and tickled his toes. Another recollection was of the +day when a lady already faintly familiar to him was introduced by an +officious nurse as his new mother, and when he looked up at her, with +interest in her relationship and admiration for her prettiness, he saw +her making herself look very tall and stern as she said clearly, "I am +not your mother, Rupert."</p> + +<p>"Notya mother," he echoed amiably, and so Mildred Caniper received her +name.</p> + +<p>As he grew older, he wondered if he really remembered this occasion or +whether Notya herself had told him of it, but he knew that the house and +the garden wall and the nursery were true. True, too, was a dark man +with a pointed beard whom he called his father, who came and went and at +last disappeared; and his next remembrance was of the moor, the biggest +thing he had ever seen, getting blacker and blacker as the carriage-load +of Canipers jogged up the road. The faces of his stepmother, the +nursemaid, John and the twins, were like paper lanterns on the +background of night, things pale and impermanent, swaying to the +movements of the carriage while this black, outspread earth threatened +them, and, with the quick sympathy natural to him even then, he knew +that Notya was afraid of something too. Then the horse stopped and +Rupert climbed stiffly to the ground and heard the welcome of the +friend whom he was to know thereafter as Mrs. Brent. Her voice and +presence were rich with reassurance: she was fat and hearty, and the +threatening earth had spared her, so he took comfort. The laurels by the +small iron gate rattled at him as he passed, but Mrs. Brent had each boy +by a hand, and no one could be afraid. It was, he remembered, impossible +for the three to go through the gate abreast.</p> + +<p>"Run in now," said Mrs. Brent, and when he had obeyed he heard a tall +grandfather clock ticking in the hall. He could see a staircase running +upwards into shadows, and the half-opened doors made him think of the +mouths of monsters. It seemed a long time before Mrs. Brent followed him +and made a cheerful noise.</p> + +<p>With these memories he could always keep the little girls entranced, +even when great adventures of their own came to them on the moor, for +Notya was a stepmother by her own avowal, and in fairy tales a +stepmother was always cruel. They pretended to believe that she had +carried them away by force, that some day they would be rescued and +taken back to the big white nursery and the fluffy white mat; but Helen +at last spoilt the game by asserting that she did not want to be rescued +and by refusing to allow Notya to be the villain of the piece.</p> + +<p>"She isn't cruel. She's sad," Helen explained.</p> + +<p>"Yes, really; but this is pretending," Rupert said.</p> + +<p>"It's not pretending. It's true," Miriam said, and she went on with the +game though she had to play alone. At the age of twenty she still played +it: Notya was still the cruel stepmother and Miriam's eyes were eager on +a horizon against which the rescuer should stand. At one time he had +been splendid and invincible, a knight to save her, and if his place had +now been taken by the unknown Uncle Alfred, it was only that realism +had influenced her fiction, and with a due sense of economy she used the +materials within her reach.</p> + +<p>Domestic being though Helen was, the white nursery had no attraction for +her: she was more than satisfied with her many-coloured one; its floor +had hills and tiny dales, pools and streams, and it was walled by +greater hills and roofed by sky. On it there grew thorn-bushes which +thrust out thin hands, begging for food, in winter, and which wore a +lady's lovely dress in summertime and a warm red coat for autumn nights. +There was bracken, like little walking-sticks in spring, and when the +leaves uncurled themselves and spread, they made splendid feathers with +which to trim a hat or play at ostrich farms; but, best of all and most +fearsome, as the stems shot upwards and overtopped a child, the bracken +became a forest through which she hardly dared to walk, so dense and +interminable it was. To crawl up and down a fern-covered hillock needed +all Helen's resolution and she would emerge panting and wild-eyed, +blessing the open country and still watchful for what might follow her. +After that experience a mere game of hunters, with John and Rupert +roaring like lions and trumpeting like elephants, was a smaller though +glorious thing, and for hot and less heroic days there was the game of +dairymen, played in the reedy pool or in Halkett's stream with the aid +of old milk-cans of many sizes, lent to the Canipers by the lovable Mrs. +Brent.</p> + +<p>In those days Mrs. Brent furnished them with their ideas of motherhood. +She seemed old to them because her husband was long dead and she was +stout, but she had a dark-eyed girl no older than John, and her she +kissed and nursed, scolded, teased and loved with a joyous confidence +which impressed the Canipers. Their stepmother rarely kissed, her +reprimands had not the familiarity of scoldings, and though she had a +sense of fun which could be reached and used with discretion, there was +no feeling of safety in her company. They were too young to realize that +this was because she was uncertain of herself, as that puckered mouth +revealed. That she loved them they believed; with all the aloofness of +their young souls they were thankful that she did not caress them; but +they liked to see Lily Brent fondled by her mother, and they themselves +suffered Mrs. Brent's endearments with a happy sense of +irresponsibility. It was Mrs. Brent who gave them hot cakes when they +went to the dairy to fetch butter or eggs, and who sometimes let them +skim the milk and eventually lick the ladle, but she was chiefly +wonderful because she could tell them about Mr. Pinderwell. Poor Mr. +Pinderwell was the late owner of the Canipers' home. He had lived for +more than fifty years in the house chosen and furnished for a bride who +had softly fallen ill on the eve of her wedding-day and softly died, and +Mr. Pinderwell, distracted by his loss, had come to live in the big, +lonely house and had grown old and at last died there, in the hall, with +no voice to bewail him but the ticking of the grandfather clock. Going +on her daily visit, for she alone was permitted to approach him, Mrs. +Brent had found him lying with his face on his outflung arm, "just like +a little boy in his bed."</p> + +<p>"And were you frightened?" Miriam asked.</p> + +<p>"There was nothing to be afraid of, my dear," Mrs. Brent replied. "Death +comes to all of us. It's a good thing to get used to the look of him."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Brent had been fond of Mr. Pinderwell. He was a gentleman, she +said, and though his mind had become more and more bewildered towards +the end, he had been unfailingly courteous to her. She would find him +wandering up and down the stairs, carrying a small basket of tools in +his hand, for he took to wood-carving at the last, as the panels of the +bedroom doors were witness, and he would stop to speak about the weather +and beg her to allow him to make her some return for all her kindness.</p> + +<p>"I used to clean up the place for him," Mrs. Brent would always +continue, "and do a little cooking for him, poor old chap! I missed him +when he'd gone, and I was glad when your mother came and took the house, +just as it stood, with his lady's picture and all, and made the place +comfortable again."</p> + +<p>Miriam would press against Mrs. Brent's wide knees. "Will you tell us +the story again, please, Mrs. Brent?"</p> + +<p>"If you're good children, but not today. Run along home."</p> + +<p>At that stage of their development they were hardly interested in the +portrait of Mr. Pinderwell's bride, hanging above the sofa in the +drawing-room. It was the only picture in the house, and from an oval +frame of gilt a pretty lady, crowned with a plait of hair, looked mildly +on these usurpers of her home. She was not real to them, though for +Helen she was to become so, but Mr. Pinderwell, pacing up and down the +stairs, carrying a little chisel, was a living friend. On the wide, +wind-swept landing, they studied his handiwork on the doors, and they +made a discovery which Mrs. Brent had missed. These roughnesses, known +to their fingers from their first day in the house, were letters, and +made names. Laboriously they spelt them out. Jane, on the door of +Helen's room, was easy; Ph[oe]be, on Miriam's, was for a long time +called Pehebe; and Christopher, on another, had a familiar and +adventurous sound.</p> + +<p>"Funny," Rupert said. "What are they?"</p> + +<p>Helen spoke with that decision which often annoyed her relatives. "I +know. It's the names of the children he was going to have. Jane and +Pehebe and Christopher. That's what it is. And these were the rooms he'd +settled for them. Jane is a quiet little girl with a fringe and a white +pinafore, and Pehebe has a sash and cries about things, and Christopher +is a strong boy in socks."</p> + +<p>"Stockings," Rupert said. "He's the oldest."</p> + +<p>"He isn't. He's the baby. He wears socks. He's not so smooth as the +others, and look, poor Mr. Pinderwell hadn't time to put a full stop. +I'm glad I sleep in Jane."</p> + +<p>"And of course you give me a girl who cries!" Miriam said. But the +characters of Mr. Pinderwell's children had been settled, and they were +never altered. Jane and Christopher and Ph[oe]be were added to the +inhabitants whom Mildred Caniper did not see, but these three did not +leave the landing. They lived there quietly in the shadows, speaking +only in whispers, while Mr. Pinderwell continued his restless tramping +and his lady smiled, unwearied, in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>"He's the only one who can get at her and them," Helen said in pain. "I +don't know how their mother can bear it. I wonder if she'd mind if we +hung her on the landing, but then Mr. Pinderwell might miss her. He's so +used to her in the drawing-room, and perhaps she doesn't mind about the +children."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure she doesn't," said John, for he thought she had a silly face.</p> + +<p>This was when John and Rupert went to the Grammar School in the town, +while the girls did their lessons with Mildred Caniper in the schoolroom +of Pinderwell House. Enviously, they watched the boys step across the +moor each morning, but their stepmother could not be persuaded to allow +them to go too. The distance was so great, she said, and there was no +school for girls to which she would entrust them.</p> + +<p>"The boys get all the fun," Miriam said. "They see the people in the +streets, and get a ride in Mrs. Brent's milk-cart nearly every day, and +we sit in the stuffy schoolroom, and Notya's cross."</p> + +<p>"You make her cross on purpose," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"She shouldn't let me," Miriam answered with perspicuity.</p> + +<p>"But it's so silly to make ugliness. It's wicked. Do be good, and let's +try to enjoy the lessons and get them over."</p> + +<p>But Miriam was not to be influenced by these wise counsels. During +lesson hours the strange antipathy between herself and Mildred Caniper +often blazed into a storm, and Helen, who loved to keep life smooth and +gracious, had the double mortification of seeing Miriam, whom she loved, +made naughtier, and Notya, whom she pitied, made more miserable.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that we'd had an ignorant stepmother!" Miriam cried. "If +stepmothers are not witches they ought to be dunces. Everybody knows +that. I'll worry her till she sends us both to boarding-school."</p> + +<p>Mildred Caniper was not to be coerced. Her mouth grew more puckered, her +eyes more serious, and her tongue sharper; for though anger, as she +found, was useless, sarcasm was potent, and in time Miriam gave up the +battle. But she did not intend to forgive Mildred Caniper for a single +injury, and even now that she was almost woman she refused her own +responsibility. Notya had arranged her life, and the evil of it, at +least, should be laid at Notya's door.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p>For Helen, the moor was a personality with moods flecking the solid +substance of its character, and even Miriam, who avowed her hatred of +its monotony, had to admit an occasional difference. There were days +when she thought it was full of secrets and capable of harbouring her +own, and there were other days when she forgot its little hills and +dales and hiding-places and saw it as a large plain, spread under the +glaring eye of the sun, and shelterless, so that when she walked there +she believed that her body and, in some mysterious way, her soul, were +visible to all men.</p> + +<p>Such a day was that on which Uncle Alfred was expected. Miriam went out +with a basket on her arm to find flowers for the decoration of his room, +and she had no sooner banged the garden door behind her and mounted the +first rise than she suffered from this sensation of walking under a +spyglass of great size. There was a wonderful clearness everywhere. The +grass and young heather were a vivid green, the blue of the sky had a +certain harshness and heavily piled clouds rolled across it. Miriam +stood on a hillock and gazed at the scene which looked as though +something must happen to it under the concentration of the eye behind +the glass, but she saw nothing more than the familiar things: the white +road cutting the moor, Brent Farm lying placidly against the gentle +hillside, the chimneys of Halkett's Farm rising amid trees, and her own +home in its walled garden, and, as she looked, a new thought came to +her. Perhaps her expectation was born of a familiarity so intense as to +be unreal and rarely recognized, and with the thought she shut her eyes +tightly and in despair. Nothing would happen. She did not live in a +country subject to convulsions, and when she opened her eyes the same +things would still be there; yet, to give Providence an opportunity of +proving its strength and her folly, she kept her eyelids lowered for a +while. This was another pastime of her childhood: she tried to tempt +God, failed, and laughed at Him instead of at herself.</p> + +<p>She stood there, clad in a colour of rich earth, her head bare and +gilded by the sunlight, both hands on the frail basket, and the white +eyelids giving the strange air of experience to her face.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to look in a minute," she said, and kept her word. Her dark +eyes illumined her face, searched the world and found nothing new. There +was, indeed, the smallest possible change, but surely it was not one in +which God would trouble to take a hand. She could see John's figure +moving slowly on the Brent Farm road. A woman's form appeared in the +porch and went to meet his: the two stood together in the road.</p> + +<p>Miriam made an impatient noise and turned her back on them. She was +irritated by the sight of another woman's power, even though John were +its sole victim, for she knew that the world of men had only to become +aware of her existence and the track to Pinderwell House would be +impassable.</p> + +<p>"There's no false modesty about me!" she cried to an astonished sheep, +and threw a tuft of heather at it.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she lifted her chin and began to sing on notes too high for +her, and tunelessly, as sign of her defiance, and the words of her song +dealt with the dreariness of the moor and her determination to escape +from it; but in the midst of them she laughed delightedly.</p> + +<p>"I'm an idiot! Uncle Alfred's coming. But if he fails me"—she kicked +the basket and ran after it—"I'll do that to him!"</p> + +<p>She sang naturally now, in her low, husky voice, as she searched the +banks for violets, but once she broke off to murmur, without humour, +with serious belief, "He can't fail me. Who could? No one but Notya." +Such was her faith in the word's acknowledgement of charm.</p> + +<p>She found the violets, but she would not pick them because they stared +at her with a confidence like her own, and with an appealing innocence, +and thinking she might get primroses under Halkett's larches she went on +swiftly, waving the basket as though it were an Indian club.</p> + +<p>She stopped when she met the stream which foamed into the stealthy quiet +of the wood, and on a large flat stone she sat and was splashed by the +noisy water. The larch-trees were alive with feathery green, and their +arms waved with the wind, but when Miriam peered through their trunks, +all was grave and secret except the stream which shouted louder than +before in proof of courage. She did not like the trees, but the +neighbourhood of Halkett's Farm had an attraction for her. Down there, +in the hollow, old Halkett was drinking himself to death, after a life +which had been sober in no respect. Mrs. Samson, the charwoman, now +exerting herself at Pinderwell House, and the wife of one of Halkett's +hands, had many tales of the old man's wickedness and many nodded hints +that the son was taking after him. The Halketts were all alike, she +said. They married young and their wives died early, leaving their men +to take comfort, or celebrate relief, in their own way.</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes! They're a hearty, jolly lot," she often said, and smacked her +lips. She was proud and almost envious of the Halketts' exploits, for +her own husband was a meek man who never misused her and seldom drank.</p> + +<p>Widely different as Mrs. Samson and Miriam believed themselves to be, +they had a common elementary pleasure in things of ill report, a savage +excitement in the presence of certain kinds of danger, and Miriam sat +half fearfully by the larch-wood and hoped something terrible would +happen. If there was a bad old man on the moor it was a pity that she +should not benefit by him, yet she dreaded his approach and would have +run from him, for he was ugly, with a pendulous nose and a small leering +eye. She decided to stay at a safe distance from the house and not to +venture among the larches: any primroses growing there should live +undisturbed, timid and pale, within earshot of old Halkett's ragings, +and Uncle Alfred must go without his flowers. Helen had said he would +not like them, but that was only because Helen did not like the thought +of Uncle Alfred. Helen did not want new things: she was content: she was +not wearied by the slow hours, the routine of the quiet house with its +stately, polished furniture, chosen long ago by Mr. Pinderwell, the +rumbling of cart-wheels on the road, and the homely sounds of John +working in the garden. She belonged, as she herself averred, to people +and to places.</p> + +<p>"And I," Miriam called aloud, touching her breast—"I belong to nobody, +though everything belongs to me."</p> + +<p>In that announcement she outcried the stream, and through the +comparative quietness that followed a hideous noise rumbled and shrieked +upwards from the hollow. Bestial, but humanly inarticulate, it filled +the air and ceased: there was the loud thud of furniture overthrown, a +woman's voice, and silence. Then, while Miriam's legs shook and her back +was chilled, she heard a sweet, clear whistling and the sound of feet. A +minute later George Halkett issued from the trees.</p> + +<p>"George!" she said, and half put out her hand.</p> + +<p>He stood before her, his mouth still pursed for whistling, and jerked +his head over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"You heard that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Oh, yes!"</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry."</p> + +<p>"It's my fault for being here. Was it—what was it?"</p> + +<p>His eyes narrowed and she could see a blue slit between lashes so thick +that they seemed furred.</p> + +<p>"My father. He's ill. I'm sorry you heard."</p> + +<p>"Will he—do it again?"</p> + +<p>"He's quiet now and Mrs. Biggs can manage him."</p> + +<p>"Isn't she afraid?"</p> + +<p>"Not she." His thoughts plainly left old Halkett and settled themselves +on her. "Are you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." She shuddered. "But then, I'm not used to it."</p> + +<p>He was beating his leggings with his cane. "There's a lot in use," he +said vaguely. He was a tall man, and on his tanned face were no signs of +the excesses imputed to him, perhaps out of vainglory, by Mrs. Samson. A +brown moustache followed the line of a lip which was sometimes pouted +sullenly, yet with a simplicity which could be lovable. The hair was +short and crisp on his round head.</p> + +<p>Miriam watched his shapely hands playing with the cane, and she looked +up to find his eyes attentively on her. She smiled without haste. She +had a gift for smiling. Her mouth stretched delicately, her lips parted +to show a gleam of teeth, opened widely for a flash, and closed again.</p> + +<p>"What are you laughing at?" he asked her, and there was a faint glow in +his cheeks.</p> + +<p>"That wasn't laughing. That was smiling. When I laugh I say ha, ha!"</p> + +<p>"Well, you looked pleased about something," he mumbled.</p> + +<p>"No, I was just being friendly to you."</p> + +<p>He took a step nearer. "That's all very well. Last time I met you you +hadn't a look for me, and you saw me right enough."</p> + +<p>"Yes, George, I saw you, but I wasn't in the mood for you."</p> + +<p>"And now you are?"</p> + +<p>She looked down. "Do you like people always to be the same? I don't." +Laughter bubbled in her voice. "I get moments, George, when my thoughts +are so—so celestial that though I see earthly things like you, I don't +understand them. They're like shadows, like trees walking." She pointed +a finger. "Tell me where that comes from!"</p> + +<p>He looked about him. "What?"</p> + +<p>She addressed the stream. "He doesn't know the foundation of the English +language, English morals—I said morals, George—the spiritual food of +his fathers. Do you ever go to church?"</p> + +<p>He did not answer: he was frowning at his boots.</p> + +<p>"Neither do I," she said. "Help me up."</p> + +<p>His hand shot out, but she did not take it. She leapt to her feet and +jumped the stream, and when he said something in a low voice she put her +fingers to her ears and shook her head, pretending that she could not +hear and smiling pleasantly. Then she beckoned to him, but it was his +turn to shake his head.</p> + +<p>"Puss, puss, puss!" she called, twitching her finger at him. "Don't +laugh! Well, I'll come to you." At his side, she looked up solemnly. +"Let us be sensible and go where we needn't shout at each other. Beside +that rock. I want to tell you something."</p> + +<p>When they had settled themselves on a cushion of turf, she drew her +knees to her chin and clasped her hands round them, and in that position +she swayed lightly to and fro.</p> + +<p>"I think I am going away," she said, and stared at the horizon. For a +space she listened to the chirping of a cheerful insect and the small, +regular noise of Halkett's breathing, but as he made no other sound she +turned sharply and looked at him.</p> + +<p>"All right," he said.</p> + +<p>She moved impatiently, for that was not what she wished to hear, and, +even if it expressed his feeling, it was the wrong word. He had +roughnesses which almost persuaded her to neglect him.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you sorry?"</p> + +<p>There was courage in his decision to be truthful. He showed her the full +blue of his eyes, and said "Yes" so simply that she felt compassionate. +"Where?" he added.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to be adopted by an uncle," she said boldly.</p> + +<p>"You'll like that?"</p> + +<p>"I'm tired of the moor."</p> + +<p>"You don't fit it. I couldn't tire of it, but it'll be—different when +you've gone."</p> + +<p>She consoled him. "I may not go at once."</p> + +<p>"How soon?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Are you really going?" he asked and his look pleaded with her for +honesty.</p> + +<p>"I shall have to arrange it all with Uncle Alfred."</p> + +<p>He straightened himself against the rock, but he said nothing.</p> + +<p>"And we're just beginning to be friends," she added sensibly, with the +faintest accent of regret.</p> + +<p>At that he stirred again, and "No," he said steadily, "that's not true. +We're not friends—couldn't be. You think I'm a fool, but I can see +you're despising me all the time. I can see that, and I wonder why."</p> + +<p>She caught her lip. "Well, George," she began, and thought quickly. "I +have heard dreadful stories about you. You can't expect me to be—not to +be careful with you."</p> + +<p>"What stories?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I couldn't tell you."</p> + +<p>"H'm. There never was a Halkett but was painted so black that he got to +think it was his natural colour. That doesn't matter. And you don't care +about the stories. You've some notion—D'you know that I went to the +same school as your brothers?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know." She swung herself to her knees. "But you're not like +them. But that isn't it either. It's because you're a man." She laughed +a little as she knelt before him. "I can't help feeling that I can—that +men are mine—to play with. There! I've told you a secret."</p> + +<p>"I'd guessed it long ago," he muttered. He stood up and turned aside. +"You're not going to play with me."</p> + +<p>"Just a little bit, George!"</p> + +<p>"Not a little bit."</p> + +<p>"Very well," she said humbly, and rose too. "I may never see you again, +so I'll say good-bye."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," he answered, and held her hand.</p> + +<p>"And if I don't go away, and if I feel that I don't want to play with +you, but just to—well, really to be friends with you, can I be?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he said slowly. "I don't trust you."</p> + +<p>She nodded, teasing her lip again. "Very well," she repeated. "I shall +remember. Yes. You're going to be very unhappy, you know."</p> + +<p>"Why?" he asked dully.</p> + +<p>"For saying that to me."</p> + +<p>"But it's the truth."</p> + +<p>She shook her little hands at him and spoke loudly. "You seem to think +the truth's excuse enough for anything, but you're wrong, George, and if +you were worth it, I should hate you."</p> + +<p>Then she turned from him, and as he watched her run towards home he +wished he had lied to her and risked bewitchment.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p>The efforts of Mildred Caniper, Helen and Mrs. Samson produced a +brighter polish on floors and furniture, a richer brilliance from brass, +a whiter gleam from silver, in a house which was already irreproachable, +and the smell of cleanliness was overcome by that of wood fires in the +sitting-rooms and in Christopher where Uncle Alfred was to sleep. A bowl +of primroses, brought by John from Lily Brent's garden and as yellow as +her butter, stood on a table near the visitor's bed: the firelight cast +shadows on the white counterpane, a new rug was awaiting Uncle Alfred's +feet. In the dining-room, the table was spread with the best cloth and +the candles were ready to be lighted.</p> + +<p>"When we see the trap," Miriam said, "I'll go round with a taper. And +we'd better light the lamp in the kitchen passage or Uncle Alfred may +trip over something when he hangs up his coat."</p> + +<p>"There won't be anything for him to trip over," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"How do you know? It's just the sort of accident that happens to +families that want to make a good impression. We'd better do it. Where +are the steps?"</p> + +<p>"The lamp hasn't been trimmed for months, and we can't have a smell of +oil. Leave it alone. The hall is so beautifully dim. Rupert must take +his coat and hang it up for him."</p> + +<p>"Very well," Miriam said resignedly; "but if Notya or John had suggested +the lamp, you would have jumped at it."</p> + +<p>"No, I should have fetched the steps."</p> + +<p>"Oh, funny, funny! Now I'm going to dress."</p> + +<p>"There are two hours."</p> + +<p>"It will take me as long as that. What shall I wear? Black or red? It's +important, Helen. Tell me."</p> + +<p>"Black is safer."</p> + +<p>"Yes, if only I had pearls. I should look lovely in black and pearls."</p> + +<p>"Pearls," Helen said slowly, "would suit me."</p> + +<p>"You're better without them."</p> + +<p>"I shall never have them."</p> + +<p>"When I've a lot of money I'll give you some."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"Because," Miriam called out when she was half way up the stairs, "I'm +going to marry a rich man."</p> + +<p>"It would be wise," Helen answered, and went to the open door.</p> + +<p>She could hear Notya moving in her bedroom, and she wondered how a +sister must feel at the approach of a brother she had not seen for many +years. She knew that if she should ever be parted from John or Rupert +there would be no shyness at their meeting and no effusion: things would +be just as they had been, for she was certain of an affection based on +understanding, and now the thought of her brothers kept her warm in +spite of the daunting coldness of the light lying on the moor and the +fact that doors were opening to a stranger.</p> + +<p>She checked a little sigh and stepped on to the gravel path, rounded the +house and crossed the garden to find John locking up the hen-house for +the night. He glanced at her but did not speak, and she stood with her +hands clasped before her and watched the swaying of the poplars. The +leaves were spreading and soon they would begin their incessant +whispering while they peeped through the windows of the house to see +what the Canipers were doing.</p> + +<p>"They know all our secrets," she said aloud.</p> + +<p>John dropped the key into his pocket. "Have we any?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not. I should have said our fears."</p> + +<p>"Our hopes," he said stubbornly.</p> + +<p>"I haven't many of those," she told him and, to hide her trouble, she +put the fingers of both hands to her forehead.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you? You sound pretty morbid."</p> + +<p>"No, I'm only—careful. John, are you afraid of life?"</p> + +<p>His eyes fell on the rows of springing vegetables. "Look at 'em coming +up," he murmured. "Rather not. I couldn't grow things." He gathered up +his tools and put them in the shed.</p> + +<p>"You see," she said, "one never knows what's going to happen, but it's +no good worrying, and I suppose one must just go on."</p> + +<p>"It's the only thing to do," John assured her gravely. "Have you made +yourself beautiful for the uncle?"</p> + +<p>She pointed to an upper window smeared with light. "I have left that to +Miriam, but I must go and put on my best frock."</p> + +<p>"You always look all right," he said. "I suppose it's because your +hair's so smooth."</p> + +<p>"No," she answered, and laughed with her transforming gaiety, "it's just +because I'm mediocre and don't get noticed."</p> + +<p>He hesitated and decided to be bold. "I'll tell you something, as you're +so down in the mouth. Rupert thinks you're better looking than Miriam. +There! Go and look at yourself." He waved her off, and the questions +fell from her lips unuttered.</p> + +<p>She lighted a candle and went upstairs, but when she had passed into the +dark peace of Jane and put the candle on her dressing-table, she found +she needed more illumination by which to see this face which Rupert +considered fair.</p> + +<p>"Miriam will have heaps of them," she said and knocked at Ph[oe]be's +door.</p> + +<p>"I've come to borrow a candle," she said as she was told to enter, and +added, "Oh, what waste! I hope Notya won't come in."</p> + +<p>"She can't unless I let her," Miriam answered grimly.</p> + +<p>There were lights on the mantelpiece, on the dressing-table, on the +washstand, and two in tall sticks burned before the cheval glass as +though it had been an altar.</p> + +<p>"You can take one of them," Miriam said airily.</p> + +<p>The warm whiteness of her skin gleamed against her under-linen like a +pale fruit fallen by chance on frozen snow: her hair was held up by the +white comb she had been using, and this stood out at an impetuous angle. +She went nearer to the mirror.</p> + +<p>"I've been thinking," she said, "what a lovely woman my mother must have +been. Do you think I look like a Spanish dancer? Now, don't tell me +you've never seen one. Take your candle and go away."</p> + +<p>Helen obeyed and shut both doors quietly. She put the second candle +beside the first and studied her pale face. She was not beautiful, and +Rupert was absurd. She was colourless and rather dull, and to compare +her with the radiant being in the other room was to hold a stable +lantern to a star.</p> + +<p>She turned from her contemplation and, changing grey dress for grey +dressing-gown, she brushed her long, straight hair. Ten minutes later +she left the room and went about the house to see that all was ready for +the guest.</p> + +<p>She put coal on the fire in Christopher and left the door ajar so that +the flames might cast warm light on the landing: she took a towel from +the rail and changed it for another finer one; then she went quietly +down the stairs, with a smile for Mr. Pinderwell, and fancied she smelt +the spring through the open windows. The hall had a dimness which hid +and revealed the rich mahogany of the clock and cupboard and the table +from which more primroses sent up a memory of moonlight and a fragrance +which was no sooner seized than lost. She could hear Mrs. Samson in the +kitchen as she watched over the turbot, and from the schoolroom there +came the scraping of a chair. John had dressed as quickly as herself.</p> + +<p>In the dining-room she found her stepmother standing by the fire.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you look sweet!" Helen exclaimed. "I love you in that dark blue."</p> + +<p>"I think I'll wait in the drawing-room," Mildred Caniper said, and went +away.</p> + +<p>Once more, Helen wandered to the doorway; she always sought the open +when she was unhappy and, as she looked over the gathering darkness, she +tried not to remember the tone of Notya's words.</p> + +<p>"It's like pushing me off a wall I'm trying to climb," she thought, "but +I mean to climb it." And for the second time within an hour, she gave +tongue to her sustaining maxim: "I must just go on."</p> + +<p>She hoped Uncle Alfred was not expectant of affection.</p> + +<p>Night was coming down. The road was hardly separable from the moor, and +it was the Brent Farm dogs which warned her of the visitor's approach. +Two yellow dots slowly swelled into carriage lamps, and the rolling of +wheels and the thud of hoofs were faintly heard. She went quickly to the +schoolroom.</p> + +<p>"John, the trap's coming."</p> + +<p>"Well, what d'you want me to do about it? Stop it?"</p> + +<p>"I wish you could."</p> + +<p>"Now, don't get fussy."</p> + +<p>"I'm not."</p> + +<p>"Not get fussy?"</p> + +<p>"Not getting fussy."</p> + +<p>"That's better. If your grammar's all right the nerves must be in +order."</p> + +<p>"You're stupid, John. I only want some one to support me—on the step."</p> + +<p>"Need we stand there? Rupert's with him. Won't that do?"</p> + +<p>"No, I think we ought to say how-d'you-do, here, and then pass him on to +Notya in the drawing-room."</p> + +<p>"Very good. Stand firm. But they'll be hours rolling up the track. What +the devil do we want with an uncle? The last time we stood like this was +when our revered father paid us a call. Five years ago—six?"</p> + +<p>"Six."</p> + +<p>"H'm. If I ever have any children—Where's Miriam? I suppose she's going +to make a dramatic entry when she's sure she can't be missed."</p> + +<p>"I hope so," Helen said. "The first sight of Miriam—"</p> + +<p>"You're ridiculous. She's no more attractive than any other girl, and +it's this admiration that's been her undoing."</p> + +<p>"Is she undone?"</p> + +<p>"She's useless."</p> + +<p>"Like a flower."</p> + +<p>"No, she has a tongue."</p> + +<p>"Oh, John, you're getting bad-tempered."</p> + +<p>"I'm getting tired of this damned step."</p> + +<p>"You swear rather a lot," she said mildly. "They're on the track. Oh, +Rupert's talking. Isn't it a comfortable sound?"</p> + +<p>A few minutes later, she held open the gate and, all unaware of the +beauty of her manners, she welcomed a small, neat man who wore an +eyeglass. John took possession of him and led him into the hall and +Helen waited for Rupert, who followed with the bag. She could see that +his eyebrows were lifted comically.</p> + +<p>"Well?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Awful. I know he isn't dumb because I've heard him speak, nor deaf +because he noticed that the horse had a loose shoe, but that's all I can +tell you, my dear. I talked—I had to talk. You can't sit in the dark +for miles with some one you don't know and say nothing, but I've been +sweating blood." He put the bag down and leaned against the gate. "That +man," he said emphatically, "is a mining engineer. He—oh, good-night, +Gibbons—he's been all over the globe, so Notya tells us. You'd think he +might have picked up a little small talk as well as a fortune, but no. +If he's picked it up, he's jolly careful with it. I tell you, I've made +a fool of myself, and talked to a thing as unresponsive as a stone +wall."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you talked too much."</p> + +<p>"I know I did, but I've a hopeful disposition, and I've cured hard cases +before now. Of course he must have been thinking me an insufferable +idiot, but the darkness and his neighbourhood were too much for me. And +that horse of Gibbons's! It's only fit for the knacker. Oh, Lord! I +believe I told him the population of the town. There's humiliation for +you! He grunted now and then. Well, I'll show the man I can keep quiet +too. We ought to have sent John to meet him. They'd have been happy +enough together."</p> + +<p>"You know," Helen said sympathetically, "I don't suppose he heard half +you said or was thinking about you at all."</p> + +<p>Rupert laughed delightedly and put his arm through hers as he picked up +the bag.</p> + +<p>"Come in. No doubt you're right."</p> + +<p>"I believe he's really afraid of us," she added. "I should be."</p> + +<p>As they entered the hall, they saw Miriam floating down the stairs. One +hand on the rail kept time with her descent; her black dress, of airy +make, fluffed from stair to stair; the white neck holding her little +head was as luminous as the pearls she wanted. She paused on one foot +with the other pointed.</p> + +<p>"Where is he?" she whispered.</p> + +<p>"Just coming out of the drawing-room," Rupert answered quickly, +encouraging her. "Stay like that. Chin a little higher. Yes. You're like +Beatrix Esmond coming down the stairs. Excellent!"</p> + +<p>A touch from Helen silenced him as Mildred Caniper and her brother +turned the corner of the passage. They both stood still at the sight of +this dark-clad vision which rested immobile for an instant before it +smiled brilliantly and finished the flight.</p> + +<p>"This is Miriam," Mildred Caniper said in hard tones.</p> + +<p>Miriam cast a quick, wavering glance at her and returned to meet the +gaze of Uncle Alfred, who had not taken her hand. At last, seeing it +outstretched, he took it limply.</p> + +<p>"Ah—Miriam," he said, with a queer kind of cough.</p> + +<p>"She's knocked him all of a heap," Rupert told himself vulgarly as he +carried the bag upstairs, and once more he wished he knew what his +mother had been like.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p>At supper, Uncle Alfred was monosyllabic, and the Canipers, realizing +that he was much shyer than themselves, became hospitable. Notya made +the droll remarks of which she was sometimes capable, and Miriam showed +off without fear of a rebuke. It was a comely party, and Mrs. Samson +breathed her heavy pleasure in it as she removed the plates. When the +meal was over and Uncle Alfred was smoking placidly in the drawing-room, +Helen wandered out to the garden gate. There she found John biting an +empty pipe.</p> + +<p>After their fashion, they kept silence for a time before Helen said, +"Would it matter if I went for a walk?"</p> + +<p>"I was thinking of having one myself."</p> + +<p>"He won't miss you and me," she said. "May I come with you, or were you +going to Brent Farm?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not going there. Come on."</p> + +<p>The wind met them lightly as they headed towards the road. The night was +very dark, and the ground seemed to lift itself before them and sink +again at their approach.</p> + +<p>"It's like butting into a wave," John said. "I keep shutting my eyes, +ready for the shock."</p> + +<p>"Yes." Helen began to talk as though she were alone. "The moor is always +like the sea, when it's green and when it's black. It moves, too, +gently. And now the air feels like water, heavy and soft. And yet the +wind's far more alive than water. I'd like to have a wind bath every +day. Oh, I'm glad we live here."</p> + +<p>She stumbled, and John caught her by the elbow.</p> + +<p>"Want a hand?"</p> + +<p>"No, thank you. It's these slippers."</p> + +<p>"High heels?"</p> + +<p>"No, a stone. I wonder if the fires are out. It's so long since last +night. We'd better not go far, John."</p> + +<p>"We'll stop at Halkett's turning."</p> + +<p>They took the road, and their pace quickened to the drum beats of their +feet.</p> + +<p>"It sounds like winter," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"But it feels like spring."</p> + +<p>She thought she heard resentment for that season in his voice. "Well, +why don't you go and tell her?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, shut up! What's the use? I've no money. A nice suitor I'd make for +a woman like that!"</p> + +<p>Helen's voice sang above their footsteps and the swishing of her dress. +"Silly, old-fashioned ideas you've got! They're rather insulting to her, +I think."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, if she cares; but if she doesn't—She'd send me off like a +stray dog."</p> + +<p>"That's pride. You shouldn't be proud in love."</p> + +<p>"You should be proud in everything, I believe. And what do you know +about it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—I think. Can you hear a horse, a long way off? And of course I want +to be married, too, but Miriam is sure to be, and then Notya would be +left alone. Besides, I couldn't leave the moor, and there's no one but +George Halkett here!"</p> + +<p>"H'm. You're not going to marry him."</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not—but I'm sorry for him."</p> + +<p>"You needn't be. He's no good. You must have nothing to do with him. Ask +Lily Brent. He tried to kiss her once, the beast, but she nearly broke +his nose, and serve him right."</p> + +<p>"Oh? Did she mind?"</p> + +<p>"Mind!"</p> + +<p>"I don't think I should have. He looks clean, and if he really wanted to +kiss me very badly, I expect I should let him. It's such a little +thing."</p> + +<p>"Good heavens, girl!" He stopped in a stride and turned to her. "That +kind of charity is very ill-advised."</p> + +<p>Her laughter floated over his head with the coolness of the wind. "I +hope I shan't have to give way to it."</p> + +<p>He continued to be serious. "Well, you're not ignorant. Rupert and I +made up our minds to that as soon as we knew anything ourselves; but +women are such fools, such fools! Tender-hearted idiots!"</p> + +<p>"Is that why you're afraid to go to Lily Brent?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Ah, that's different," he mumbled. "She's more like a man."</p> + +<p>Helen was smiling as they walked on. "If you could have Lily Brent and +give up your garden, or keep your garden and lose her—"</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to talk about it," he said.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to know how much love really matters. That horse is much +nearer now. We'll see the lights soon. And there's some one by the +roadside, smoking. It's George. Good-evening, George."</p> + +<p>His deep voice rumbled through the darkness, exchanging salutations. +"I'm waiting for the doctor."</p> + +<p>"Some one's coming now."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's his old nag. That horse makes you believe in eternity, +anyhow."</p> + +<p>She felt a sudden, painful anger. "He's a friend of mine—the horse," +and quietly, she repeated to herself, "The horse," because he had no +name by which she could endear him.</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Halkett worse?" John asked, from the edge of the road.</p> + +<p>The red end of Halkett's cigar glowed and faded. "I'm anxious about +him."</p> + +<p>The yellow lights of the approaching dog-cart swept the borders of the +moor and Helen felt herself caught in the illumination. The horse +stopped and she heard the doctor's clear-cut voice.</p> + +<p>"Is that you, Helen?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Anything wrong?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm just here with John," she said and went close to the cart. "And +George is waiting for you."</p> + +<p>"He'd better hop up, then." He bent towards her. "Did you find the +fires?"</p> + +<p>She nodded with the vehemence of her gladness that he should remember. +"And," she whispered hurriedly, "you were quite right about the doors. +Uncle Alfred's going to be a friend."</p> + +<p>"That's good. Hullo, Halkett. Get up, will you, and we'll go on. Where's +John?"</p> + +<p>"Sitting on the bank."</p> + +<p>The cart shook under Halkett's added weight, and as he took his seat he +bulked enormous in the darkness. Dwarfed by that nearness, the doctor +sat with his hat in one hand and gathered the reins up with the other.</p> + +<p>"No, just a minute!" Helen cried. "I want to stroke the horse." Her +voice had laughter in it.</p> + +<p>"There's a patient waiting for me, you know."</p> + +<p>"Yes. There! It's done. Go on. Good-night."</p> + +<p>The cart took the corner in a blur of lamplight and shadow, tipped over +a large stone and disappeared down the high-banked lane, leaving Helen +with an impressive, half-alarming memory of the two jolted figures, +black, with white ovals for faces, side by side, and Zebedee's spare +frame clearing itself, now and then, from the other's breadth.</p> + +<p>In the drawing-room, Uncle Alfred sat on one side of the hearth and +Miriam on the other. The room was softly lighted by candles and the +fire, and at the dimmer end Mr. Pinderwell's bride was smiling. The +sound of Mildred Caniper's needle, as she worked at an embroidery +frame, was added to the noises of the fire and Uncle Alfred's regular +pulling at his pipe. Rupert was proving his capacity for silence on the +piano stool.</p> + +<p>"And which country," Miriam asked, leaning towards her uncle, "do you +like best?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—well, I hardly know."</p> + +<p>"I never care for the sound of Africa—so hot."</p> + +<p>"Hottish," conceded Uncle Alfred.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lord!" Rupert groaned in spirit.</p> + +<p>"And South America, full of crocodiles, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Is it?"</p> + +<p>"Haven't you been there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes—parts of it."</p> + +<p>"Miriam," said Mildred Caniper, "Alfred is not a geography book."</p> + +<p>"But he ought to be," she dared.</p> + +<p>"And," the cool voice went on, "you never cared for geography, I +remember."</p> + +<p>Miriam sat back sullenly, stiffening until her prettily shod feet +reached an inch further along the fender. Rupert would not relieve the +situation and the visitor smoked on, watching Miriam through his tobacco +smoke, until a knock came at the door.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, M'm—"</p> + +<p>"It's Mother Samson," said Rupert. "Shall I look after her?"</p> + +<p>"No. I will go." The door closed quietly behind Mrs. Caniper.</p> + +<p>Uncle Alfred lowered his pipe. "You are extraordinarily like your +mother," he said in quick and agitated tones, and the life of the room +was changed amazingly. Rupert turned on his seat, and his elbow scraped +the piano notes so that they jangled like a hundred questions. Miriam +slipped out of her chair.</p> + +<p>"Am I?" she asked from her knees. "I knew I was. Tell me!"</p> + +<p>He put his hand to his breast-pocket. "Ah," he said, as a step sounded +in the passage, "perhaps tomorrow—"</p> + +<p>Miriam lifted the poker. "Because you mustn't poke the fire, Uncle +Alfred," she was saying as Mildred Caniper came back. "You haven't known +us long enough." She turned to her stepmother. "Did Mrs. Samson want her +money? She's saving up. She's going to have a new dress this summer +because she hasn't had one since she was married."</p> + +<p>"And if she hadn't married," Rupert went on, feeling like a conspirator, +"she would have had one every year."</p> + +<p>"That gives one something to think about—yes," said Uncle Alfred, doing +his share. He was astonished at himself. He had spent the greater part +of his life in avoiding relationships which might hamper him and already +he was in league with these young people and finding pleasure in the +situation.</p> + +<p>Miriam was looking at him darkly, mischievously, from the hearthrug. +"Tomorrow," she said, resting on the word, "I'll take you for a walk to +see the sights. There are rabbits, sheep, new lambs, very white and +lively, a hare if we're lucky, ponies, perhaps, if we go far enough. +We've all these things on the moor. Oh," her grimace missed foolishness +by the hair's breadth which fortune always meted to her, "it's a +wonderful place. Will you come with me?"</p> + +<p>He nodded with a guilty quickness. "What are these ponies?"</p> + +<p>"Little wild ones, with long tails."</p> + +<p>"I'm fond of horses," he said and immediately looked ashamed of the +confession. "Ha, ha, 'um," he half hummed, trying to cloak +embarrassment.</p> + +<p>"I'm fond of all animals," Miriam said with loud bitterness, "but we are +only allowed to have a cat."</p> + +<p>"Hens," Rupert reminded her.</p> + +<p>"They're not animals; they're idiots."</p> + +<p>"Would you like to keep a cow in the garden?" Mildred Caniper enquired +in the pleasantly cold tones which left Miriam powerless.</p> + +<p>Uncle Alfred's tuneless humming began again. "Yes, fond of horses," he +said vaguely, his eyes quick on woman and girl.</p> + +<p>"And can you ride?" Miriam asked politely, implying that it was not +necessary for the whole family to be ill-mannered.</p> + +<p>"I've had to—yes, but I don't care about it. No, I like to look at +them."</p> + +<p>"We rode when we were children," his sister said.</p> + +<p>"Hung on."</p> + +<p>"Well, yes."</p> + +<p>Miriam would not encourage these reminiscences, so belated on the part +of her stepmother. "We have a neighbour who grows horses," she said. +"And he's a wonderful rider. Rupert, don't you think he'd like to show +them to Uncle Alfred? On Saturday afternoon, couldn't you take him to +the farm?"</p> + +<p>"But I'm going on Saturday," Uncle Alfred interposed.</p> + +<p>"Saturday! And today's Thursday! Oh!"</p> + +<p>"At least I think so," he said weakly.</p> + +<p>Secretly she shook her head at him. "No, no," she signed, and said +aloud, "A Sunday in the country—"</p> + +<p>"No place of worship within four miles," Rupert announced.</p> + +<p>"Ah," Uncle Alfred said with a gleam of humour, "that's distinctly +cheering."</p> + +<p>Miriam beat her hands together softly. "And yet," she said, "I've +sometimes been to church for a diversion. Have you?"</p> + +<p>"Never," he answered firmly.</p> + +<p>"I counted the bald heads," she said mournfully, "but they didn't last +out." She looked up and saw that Uncle Alfred was laughing silently: she +glanced over her shoulder and saw Mildred Caniper's lips compressed, and +she had a double triumph. This was the moment when it would be wise for +her to go to bed. Like a dark flower, lifting itself to the sun, she +rose from her knees in a single, steady movement.</p> + +<p>"Good-night," she said with a little air. "And we'll have our walk +tomorrow?"</p> + +<p>He was at the door, holding it open. "Yes, but—in the afternoon, if we +may. I am not an early riser, and I don't feel very lively in the +mornings."</p> + +<p>"Ah," she thought as she went upstairs, "he wouldn't have said that to +my mother. He's getting old: but never mind, I'm like a lady in a +romance! I believe he loved my mother and I'll make him love me."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p>She was not allowed time for that achievement. On the morning of the day +which was to have been productive of so much happiness, the postman +brought a letter with a foreign stamp, and Miriam took it to the kitchen +where her stepmother and Helen were discussing meals.</p> + +<p>"A letter," Miriam said flippantly, "from Italy."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Miriam. Put it on the table." The faint colour our deepened +on her cheeks. "I'm afraid one of you will have to go into the town +again. I forgot to ask Rupert to order the meat. Miriam—"</p> + +<p>"No, I can't go. I'm engaged to Uncle Alfred."</p> + +<p>"I think we might easily persuade him to excuse you. He really dislikes +walking, though he would not say so."</p> + +<p>"Or," Helen said with tact, "we could get chickens from Lily Brent. +Wouldn't that be better?"</p> + +<p>"Very well. Now, about sweets."</p> + +<p>"This letter," Miriam said, bending over it and growing bold in the +knowledge that Uncle Alfred was not far off, "this letter looks as if it +wants to be opened. All the way from Italy," she mumbled so that Mildred +Caniper could not distinguish the words, "and neglected when it gets +here. If he took the trouble to write to me, I wouldn't treat him like +that. Poor letter! Poor Mr. Caniper! No wonder he went away to Italy." +She stood up. "His writing is very straggly," she said clearly.</p> + +<p>Mildred Caniper put out a hand which Miriam pretended not to see.</p> + +<p>"Shall I order the chickens?" she asked; but no one answered, for her +stepmother was reading the letter, and Helen preserved silence as though +she were in a church. With care that the dishes should not click +against each other, she put the newly washed china on the dresser and +laid the silver in its place, and now and then she glanced at Notya, who +stood beside the table. It was some time before she folded the letter +with a crackle and looked up. Her eyes wandered from Helen to Miriam, +and rested there with an unconsciousness so rare as to be startling.</p> + +<p>"Philip is ill," she said in a voice carried by her thoughts to a great +distance. She corrected herself. "Your father is ill." She picked up the +envelope and looked at it. "That's why his writing is so—straggly." She +seemed to be thinking not only of Philip Caniper, but of many things +besides, so that her words, like her thoughts, came through obstacles.</p> + +<p>Intensely interested in a Notya moved to some sign of an emotion which +was not annoyance, Miriam stood in the doorway and took care to make no +movement which might betray her; but Helen stared at the fire and +suffered the pain she had always felt for her stepmother's distresses.</p> + +<p>"However—" Mildred Caniper said at last, and set briskly to work, while +Miriam disappeared into the shadows of the hall and Helen watched the +flames playing round the kettle in which the water for Uncle Alfred's +breakfast was bubbling.</p> + +<p>"How ill is he?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Are you speaking of your father?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—please."</p> + +<p>"I wish you would use names instead of pronouns. A good deal worse, I am +afraid."</p> + +<p>"And there's nobody to look after him—our father?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly there is."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I'm glad," Helen said, looking candidly at Notya. "We can't pretend +to care about him—can we? But I don't like to have a father who is +ill."</p> + +<p>"If he had known that—" the other began, and stopped the foolish little +sarcasm in time. "It is no use discussing things, Helen. We have to do +them."</p> + +<p>"Well, let us go to Italy," Helen said.</p> + +<p>Mildred Caniper did not conceal her surprise. Her lips dropped apart, +and she stood, balancing in a spoon the egg she was about to boil for +Uncle Alfred, and gazed at Helen, before she recovered herself and said +easily, "You are rather absurd, Helen, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>But Helen knew that she was not. "I thought that was just what you were +wanting to do," she answered.</p> + +<p>The egg went into the saucepan and was followed by another.</p> + +<p>"We can't," Mildred Caniper said with the admonishing air which sat like +an imposition on her; "we cannot always do as we wish."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know that," Helen said. She put on a pair of gloves, armed +herself with brooms and dusters, and left the room.</p> + +<p>It seemed to her that people wilfully complicated life. She put a just +value on the restraint which had been a great part of her training, but +a pretence which had the transparency of its weakness moved her to a +patient kind of scorn, and in that moment she had a flash of insight +which showed her that she had sometimes failed to understand her +stepmother because she had not suspected the variability of the elder +woman's character. Mildred Caniper produced an impression of strength in +which she herself did not believe; she had imprisoned her impulses in +coldness, and they only escaped in the sharp utterances of her tongue; +she was uncertain of her power, and she insisted on its acceptance.</p> + +<p>"And she's miserable, miserable," Helen's heart cried out, and she +laughed unhappily herself. "And Miriam's afraid of her! There's nothing +to be afraid of. She knows that, and she's afraid we'll find it out all +the time. And it might all have been so simple and so—so smooth."</p> + +<p>Helen was considered by the other Canipers and herself as the dullest of +the family, and this morning she swept, dusted and polished in the old +ignorance of her acuteness, nor would the knowledge of it have consoled +her. She was puzzling over the cause which kept the man in Italy apart +from the woman here, and when she gave that up in weariness, she tried +to picture him in a white house beside an eternally blue sea. The +windows of the house had jalousies of a purplish red, there were +palm-trees in the sloping garden and, at the foot of it, waves rocked a +shallow, tethered boat. And her father was in bed, no doubt; the flush +redder on his thin cheeks, his pointed black beard jerked over the +sheet. She had seen him lying so on his last visit to the moor, and she +had an important little feeling of triumph in the memory of that +familiarity. She was not sentimental about this distant parent, for he +was less real than old Halkett, far less real than Mr. Pinderwell; yet +it seemed cruel that he should lie in that warm southern country without +a wife or daughter to care for him.</p> + +<p>"Helen," Miriam said from Ph[oe]be's door, "do you think he is going to +die?"</p> + +<p>"How can I tell?"</p> + +<p>"And you don't care?"</p> + +<p>"Not much, of course, but I'm sorry for him."</p> + +<p>"Sweet thing! And if he dies, shall we wear black?"</p> + +<p>Helen's pale lips condescended to a rather mocking smile. "I see you +mean to."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you can do the proper thing and look nice at the same time—" +She broke off and fidgeted. "I don't mind his dying if he does it far +away, but, oh, wouldn't it be horrible if he did it here? Ill people +make me sick."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you go and do something yourself? Go and amuse Uncle Alfred."</p> + +<p>"No, he's not nice in the mornings. He said so, and I've peeped at him. +Liverish."</p> + +<p>"Order the chickens, then, but ask Notya first."</p> + +<p>"Where is she?"</p> + +<p>Together they peeped over the banisters and listened.</p> + +<p>"You'd better ask," Miriam said. "I wonder where she is. Call her," she +added, daring Helen to break one of the rules of that quiet house; and +Helen, who had discovered the truth that day, lifted her voice clearly.</p> + +<p>"If she's not cross," Miriam whispered, "we'll know she's worried."</p> + +<p>"Oh," Helen said soberly, "how horrid of us! I wish I hadn't."</p> + +<p>Miriam's elbow was in her side. "Here she comes, look!"</p> + +<p>They could see the crown of Mildred Caniper's fair head, the white blot +of her clasped hands.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" she asked quietly, turning up her face.</p> + +<p>"Shall Miriam order the chickens?" Helen called down.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes—yes," she answered, and went away.</p> + +<p>"Ha, ha! Quite successful! Any special kind of chicken? Black legs? +Yellow legs?"</p> + +<p>"She'll give you the best she has," Helen said.</p> + +<p>Miriam popped her head round the door of the dining-room where Uncle +Alfred was smoking, waved her hand, and spared him the necessity of +speech by running from the house. The sun shone in a callous sky and the +wind bit at her playfully as she went down the track, to remind her +that though she wore neither hat nor coat, summer was still weeks away. +Miriam faced all the seasons now with equanimity, for Uncle Alfred was +in the dining-room, and she intended that her future should be bound up +with his. Gaily she mounted the Brent Farm road, with a word for a +melancholy calf which had lost its way, and a feeling of affection for +all she saw and soon meant to leave. She liked the long front of the +farmhouse with its windows latticed into diamonds, the porch sentinelled +by large white stones, the path outlined with smaller ones and the green +gate with its two steps into the field.</p> + +<p>The dairy door stood open, and Miriam found both Lily Brent and John +within. They stood with the whole space of the floor between them and +there was a certain likeness in their attitudes. Each leaned against the +stone shelf which jutted, waist high, from the wall, but neither took +support from it. Her brown eyes were level with his grey ones; her hands +were on her hips, while his arms were folded across his breast.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Napoleon!" Miriam said. "Good-morning, Lily. Is he being +tiresome? He looks it."</p> + +<p>"We're only arguing," she said. "We often do it."</p> + +<p>This was the little girl whom Mrs. Brent, now in her ample grave, had +slapped and kissed and teased, to the edification of the Canipers. She +had grown tall and very straight; her thick dark hair was twisted +tightly round her head; her skirt was short, revealing firm ankles and +wooden shoes, and she wore a jersey which fitted her body closely and +left her brown neck bare. Her watchful eyes were like those of some shy +animal, but her lips had the faculty of repose. Helen had once compared +her to a mettlesome young horse and there was about her some quality of +the male. She might have been a youth scorning passion because she +feared it.</p> + +<p>"If it's a very important argument," said Miriam, "I'll retire. There's +a sad baby calf down by your gate. I could go and talk to him."</p> + +<p>"Silly little beast!" Lily said; "he's always making a fuss. Listen to +this, Miriam. John wants to pay me for letting him work a strip of my +land that's been lying idle all these years."</p> + +<p>"If you won't let me pay rent—"</p> + +<p>"He hasn't any money, Lily."</p> + +<p>"I can try to pay you by helping on the farm. You can lie in bed and let +me do your share of milking."</p> + +<p>"He'll do no harm," Miriam asserted.</p> + +<p>"I know that. He's been doing odd jobs for us ever since we began +carrying his vegetables to town. He likes to pay for all he gets. You're +mean-spirited, John."</p> + +<p>"All right. I'll be mean-spirited, and I'll be here for this evening's +milking."</p> + +<p>"That's settled, then," she said, with a great semblance of relief.</p> + +<p>"And Mrs. Caniper of Pinderwell House will be very much obliged if +you'll let her have two chickens as soon as possible."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, miss. I'll go and see about them."</p> + +<p>Miriam let out a little scream and put her hands to her ears.</p> + +<p>"No, no, don't kill them yet! Not till you're quite sure that I'm safely +on the other side of the road. John, stop her!"</p> + +<p>"You're a little goose," Lily said. "They're lying quite comfortably +dead in the larder."</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank Heaven! Shall I tell you a horrible secret of my past life? +Once when I was very small, I crept through Halkett's larch-wood just to +see what was happening down there, because Mrs. Samson had been hinting +things, and what I saw—oh, what do you think I saw?" She shuddered +and, covering her face, she let one bright eye peep round the protecting +hand. "I saw that idiot boy wringing a hen's neck! And now," she ended, +"I simply can't eat chicken."</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear!" John said, and clucked his tongue. "Dreadful confession of +a young girl!"</p> + +<p>Lily Brent was laughing. "And to think I've wrung their necks myself!"</p> + +<p>"Have you? Ugh! Nasty!"</p> + +<p>"It is, but some one had to do it."</p> + +<p>"Don't do it again," said John quickly.</p> + +<p>She raised her eyebrows, met his glance, and looked away.</p> + +<p>"I can't get on with my work while you two are gossiping here."</p> + +<p>"Come home, John. Father's iller. Notya's too much worried to be cross. +She had a letter—Aren't you interested?"</p> + +<p>He was thinking, "I'll start breaking up that ground tomorrow," and +behind that conscious thought there was another: "I shall be able to +watch her going in and out."</p> + +<p>"John—"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not interested. Go home and look after your uncle. I've a lot +to think about."</p> + +<p>She left him sitting on a fence and staring creatively at his knees.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<p>Helen met Miriam in the hall.</p> + +<p>"There's been a telegram and Notya's going to Italy."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" Miriam said, but her bright looks faded when Helen added, "With +Uncle Alfred."</p> + +<p>Miriam dropped her head and thrust her doubled fists under her chin, in +the angry movement of her childhood. "Oh, isn't that just my luck!" she +muttered fiercely. "I—I hadn't done with Uncle Alfred."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps father hasn't done with life," Helen remarked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't be pious! Don't be pious! You're always adorning tales. +You're a prig!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I haven't time to think about that now," Helen said with the +excellent humour which made amends for her many virtues. "I'm helping +Notya to pack and I want you to ask George Halkett if he will drive her +down. The train goes at a quarter to three."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," Miriam said, looking like the heroine in a play, "but I +can't go there. I—don't approve of George."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Helen cried, screwing up her face. "Has John been telling you +about Lily Brent?"</p> + +<p>"No. What? Tell me!" Miriam answered with complete forgetfulness of her +pose.</p> + +<p>"Some nonsense. George tried to kiss her."</p> + +<p>"Did he?" There was a flat tone in Miriam's voice.</p> + +<p>"And she hit him, and now John thinks he's wicked."</p> + +<p>"So he is." She was hardly aware of what she said, for she was +hesitating between the immediate establishment of her supremacy and the +punishment of George, and having decided that his punishment should +include sufficient tribute, she said firmly, "I won't have anything to +do with him."</p> + +<p>"Then I'll go. Help Notya if you can."</p> + +<p>Miriam took a step nearer. "What is she like?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—queer."</p> + +<p>"Then perhaps I'd rather go to George," she whispered.</p> + +<p>"I'm halfway there already," Helen said from the door.</p> + +<p>She slipped across the moor with the speed which came so easily to her, +and her breathing had hardly quickened when she issued from the +larch-wood and stood on the cobble-stones before the low white house. +Already the leaves of a rose-tree by the door were budding, for in that +sheltered place the sun was gathered warmly. So, too, she thought, +darkness would lie closely there and rain would shoot down in thick +splinters with intent to hurt. She was oppressed by a sense of +concentration in this tree-lined hollow, and before she stepped across +the yard she lifted and shook her shoulders to free them of the weight. +She remembered one summer day when the air had been clogged by the scent +of marigolds, but this was not their season, and the smell of the +larches came healthfully on the winds that struggled through the trees.</p> + +<p>She had raised her hand to knock on the open door when she heard a step, +and turned to see George Halkett.</p> + +<p>"George," she said without preamble, "I've come to ask you to do +something for us. Our stepmother has unexpectedly to catch a train. +Could you, would you, drive her down—and a box, and our uncle, and his +bag?"</p> + +<p>She found, to her surprise, that John's story had given George a new +place in her mind. She had been accustomed to see him as a mere part of +the farm which bore his name, and now she looked at him with a different +curiosity. She imagined him bending over Lily Brent and, with a strong +distaste, she pictured him starting back at her assault. It seemed to +her, she could not tell why, that no woman should raise her hand against +a man, and that this restraint was less for her dignity than for his.</p> + +<p>"I'll do it with pleasure," George was saying.</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much," she murmured, and named the time. "Is Mr. Halkett +better?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid he's never going to get better, Miss Helen," he said, using +the title he had given her long ago because of a childish dignity which +amused him.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," she said, and wondered if she spoke the truth.</p> + +<p>Her gaze, very wide and serious, affected his, and as they looked at +each other she realized that, with those half-closed eyes of his, he was +considering her as he had never done before. She became conscious of her +physical self at once, and this was an experience strange to her; she +remembered the gown she wore, the fashion of her hair, her grey +stockings and worn, low shoes; slowly, almost imperceptibly, she shifted +a foot which was twisted inwards, and having done this, she found that +she did not like George's appraisement. With a broken word of farewell +and thanks she quickly left him.</p> + +<p>"I didn't like that," she said emphatically to the broad freedom of the +moor. George's interest was like the hollow: it hemmed her in and made +her hot, but here the wide winds swept over her with a cleansing cold. +Nevertheless, when she went to Notya's room, she took the opportunity of +scanning herself in the glass.</p> + +<p>"You have been running," Mildred Caniper said.</p> + +<p>"No, not lately."</p> + +<p>"You are very pink."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Mildred Caniper's tone changed suddenly. "And I don't know where you +have been. I wish you would not run off without warning. And I could not +find Miriam anywhere." From anger she sank back to helplessness. "I +don't know what to take," she said, and her hands jerked on her lap.</p> + +<p>"Let's see," Helen said cheerfully. "Warm things for the journey, and +cooler things for when you get there." She made no show of consulting +Notya and, moving with leisurely competence from wardrobe to chest of +drawers, she laid little heaps of clothing on the bed.</p> + +<p>"Handkerchiefs: one, two, three, four—"</p> + +<p>"I shan't need many."</p> + +<p>"But you'd better take a lot."</p> + +<p>"I shall soon come back."</p> + +<p>"Five, six, seven," Helen counted on, and her whispers sounded loudly in +the room where Mildred Caniper's thoughts were busy.</p> + +<p>"You haven't a very warm coat, so you must take mine," Helen said, and +when she looked up she discovered in her stepmother the extraordinary +stillness of a being whose soul has gone on a long journey. Her voice +came, as before, from that great distance, yet with surprising +clearness, as though she spoke through some instrument which reduced the +volume and accentuated the peculiarities of her tones.</p> + +<p>"One ought never to be afraid of anything," the small voice +said—"never." Her lips tightened, and slowly she seemed to return to +the body which sat on the sofa by the window. "I don't know what to +take," she said again.</p> + +<p>"I'm doing it," Helen told her. "You mustn't lose the train."</p> + +<p>"No." She stood up, and, going to the dressing-table, she leaned on it +as though she searched intently for something lying there. "I expect he +will be dead," she said. "It's a long way. All those frontiers—"</p> + +<p>Helen looked at the bent back, and her pity shaped itself in eager +words. "Shall I come with you? Let me! I can get ready—"</p> + +<p>Mildred Caniper straightened herself and turned, and Helen recognized +the blue light in her eye.</p> + +<p>"Your presence, Helen," she said distinctly, "will not reduce the number +of the frontiers." Her manner blamed Helen for her own lack of +self-control; but to this her stepchildren were accustomed, and Helen +felt no anger.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," she answered pleasantly; "it would not do that."</p> + +<p>She packed on methodically, and while she feigned absorption in that +business her thoughts were swift and troubled, as they were when she was +a little girl and, suffering for Notya's sake, wept in the heather. It +was impossible to help this woman whose curling hair mocked her +sternness, whose sternness so easily collapsed and as easily recovered +at a word; it was, perhaps, intrusive to attempt it, yet the desire was +as quick as Helen's blood.</p> + +<p>"You are much too helpful, Helen," Mildred Caniper went on, and softened +that harshness quickly. "You must learn that no one can help anybody +else." She smiled. "You must deny yourself the luxury of trying!"</p> + +<p>"I shall remember," Helen said with her quiet acquiescence, "but I must +go now and see about your lunch. Would you mind writing the labels? +Uncle Alfred will want one for his bag. Oh, I know I'm irritating," she +added on a wave of feeling which had to break, "but I can't help it. +I—I'm like that." She reflected with humiliation that it was absurd to +obtrude herself thus on a scene shadowed by tragedy, yet when she saw a +glint of real amusement on Mildred Caniper's face, a new thought came to +her. Perhaps reserve was not so great a virtue as she had believed. She +must not forget; nor must she forget that Miriam considered her a prig, +that Mildred Caniper found her too helpful. She pressed her hands +against her forehead and concentrated her energies on the travellers' +food.</p> + +<p>The minutes, busy as they were, dragged by like hours. Uncle Alfred ate +his luncheon with the deliberation of a man who cannot expect to renew +his digestive apparatus, and the road remained empty of George Halkett +and his trap. Mildred Caniper, calm now, and dressed for her journey, +had many instructions for Helen concerning food, the employment of Mrs. +Samson, bills to be paid, and other domestic details which at this +moment lacked reality.</p> + +<p>"And," she ended, "tell Rupert not to be late. The house should be +locked up at ten o'clock."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Helen answered, but when she looked at her stepmother she could +see only the distressed figure which had sat on the sofa, with hands +jerking on its knee. Did she love Philip Caniper? Had they quarrelled +long ago, and did she now want to make amends? No, no! She shut her +eyes. She must not pry. She felt as though she had caught herself +reading a letter which belonged to some one else.</p> + +<p>Not deterred by such squeamishness, Miriam watched the luncheon-party +with an almost indecent eagerness. Her curiosity about Mildred Caniper +was blurred by pleasure in her departure, and each mouthful unwillingly +taken by that lady seemed to minister to Miriam's freedom. Now and then +she went to the garden gate to look for George, yet with her hurry to +drive out her stepmother there was that luckless necessity to let Uncle +Alfred go. On him her dark gaze was fastened expectantly. Surely he had +something to say to her; doubtless he waited for a fitting opportunity, +and she was determined that he should have it, but she realized that he +was past the age when he would leap from an unfinished meal to whisper +with her. This put a disturbing limit to her power, and with an +instinct for preserving her faith in herself she slightly shifted the +view from which she looked at him. So she was reassured, and she waited +like an affectionate grand-daughter in the dark corner of the passage +where his coat and hat were hanging.</p> + +<p>"Let me help you on," she said.</p> + +<p>"Thank you. Thank you. This is a sad business."</p> + +<p>She handed him his hat. She found that, after all, she could say +nothing, and though hope was dying in her, she made no effort to revive +it.</p> + +<p>"Well—good-bye," Uncle Alfred was saying, and holding out his hand.</p> + +<p>She gave hers limply. "Good-bye." She hardly looked at him. Uncle +Alfred, who had loved her mother, was going without so much as a +cheering word. He looked old and rather dull as he went on with his +precise small steps into the hall and she walked listlessly behind him.</p> + +<p>"He's like a little performing animal," she thought.</p> + +<p>Fumbling in his breast pocket, he turned to her. "If you should need +me," he said, and produced his card. "I'll write and tell you what +happens—er—when we get there."</p> + +<p>She thanked and passed him coldly, for she felt that he had broken faith +with her.</p> + +<p>Outside the gate George Halkett sat in his high dog-cart and idly laid +the whip across the horse's back. John stood and talked to him with the +courtesy exacted by the circumstances, but George's eye caught the +sunlight on Miriam's hair, and sullenly he bowed to her. She smiled +back, putting the venom and swiftness of her emotion into that salute. +She watched until his head slowly turned towards her again, and then it +happened that she was looking far beyond the chimneys of Brent Farm.</p> + +<p>"Now he's angry," she told herself, and pleasure went like a creeping +thing down her back. She could see by the stubborn set of his head that +he would not risk another glance.</p> + +<p>Behind her, on the step, Notya was still talking to Helen.</p> + +<p>Uncle Alfred stopped swinging his eyeglass and clicked the gold case of +his watch. "We must be going," he said, and Miriam's heart cried out, +"Yes; go, go, go!"</p> + +<p>Lightly and strangely, Mildred Caniper kissed the cheeks of Miriam and +Helen and shook John's hand, before she took her place beside George +Halkett, with a word of thanks. Uncle Alfred stiffly climbed to his +perch at the back, and, incommoded by his sister's box, he sat there, +clasping the handrail. A few shufflings of his feet and rearrangements +of his body told of his discomfort, and on his face there was the +knowledge that this was but the prelude to worse things. Mildred Caniper +did not look back nor wave a hand, but Uncle Alfred's unfortunate +position necessitated a direct view of his young relatives. Three times +he lifted his hat, and at last the cart swung into the road and he need +look no more.</p> + +<p>Miriam fanned herself with her little apron. "Now, how long can we count +on in the most unfavourable circumstances?" she asked, but, to her +astonishment, the others walked off without a word. She set her teeth in +her under-lip and stared through tears at the lessening cart. She began +to sing so that she might keep down the sobs that hurt her throat, and +the words told of her satisfaction that Uncle Alfred was perched +uncomfortably on the back seat of the cart.</p> + +<p>"And I wish he would fall off," she sang. "Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, +dear!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + + +<p>The three did not meet again until the sun had set and the brilliant sky +had taken on the pale, cold colour in which, like a reluctant bride, it +waited for the night. Then John put away his tools and Miriam began to +stir about the house which was alive with a secret life of stone and +woodwork, of footsteps silenced long ago, and thoughts which refused to +die: then, too, Helen came back from the moor where she had gone for +comfort. Her feet were wet, her hair was for once in disarray, but her +eyes shone with a faith restored. Warring in her always were two +beliefs, one bright with the beauty and serenity which were her idea of +good, the other dark with the necessity of sacrifice and propitiation. +She had not the freedom of her youth, and she saw each good day as a +thing to be accepted humbly and ultimately to be paid for, yet she would +show no sign of fear. She had to go on steadily under the banner of a +tranquil face, and now the moor and the winds that played on it had made +that going easier.</p> + +<p>She passed through the darkening garden, glanced at the poplars, which +looked like brooms sweeping away the early stars, and entered the house +by the kitchen door. John and Miriam sat by a leaping fire, but the room +was littered with unwashed dishes and the remains of meals.</p> + +<p>"Well," Miriam said in answer to Helen's swift glance and the immediate +upturning of her sleeves, "why should I do it all? Look at her, John, +trying to shame me."</p> + +<p>"I'm not. I just can't bear it."</p> + +<p>"Have some tea first," John said.</p> + +<p>"Let me pile up the plates."</p> + +<p>"Have some tea," Miriam echoed, "and I'll make toast; but you shouldn't +have gone away without telling me. I didn't know where you were, and the +house was full of emptiness."</p> + +<p>"I found her snivelling about you," John said. "She wanted me to go out +and look for you with a lantern! After a day's work!"</p> + +<p>"Things," Miriam murmured, "might have got hold of her."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't have minded moor things. Oh, these stained knives! John, +did she really cry?"</p> + +<p>"Nearly, I did."</p> + +<p>"Not she!"</p> + +<p>"I did, Helen. I thought the dark would come, and you'd be lost perhaps, +out on the moor—O-oh!"</p> + +<p>"I think I'd like it—wrapped up in the night."</p> + +<p>"But the noises would send you mad. Your eyes are all red. Have you been +crying too?"</p> + +<p>"It's the wind. Here's the rain coming. And where's my hair?" She +smoothed it back and took off her muddy shoes before she sat down in the +armchair and looked about her. "Isn't it as if somebody were dead?" she +asked. "There are more shadows."</p> + +<p>"I'll turn up the lamp," John said.</p> + +<p>The tinkle of Helen's cup and saucer had the clearness of a bell in the +quiet room, and she moved more stealthily. Miriam paused as she spread +butter on the toast.</p> + +<p>"This house is full of dead people," she whispered. "If you begin to +think about them—John, you're not going, are you?"</p> + +<p>"Only to draw the curtains. Yes, here's the rain."</p> + +<p>"And soon Notya will be on the sea," Helen said, listening to the sounds +of storm.</p> + +<p>"And I hope," Miriam added on a rich burst of laughter, "that Uncle +Alfred will be sea-sick. Oh, wouldn't he look queer!" She flourished the +knife. "Can't we be merry when we have the chance? Now that she's gone, +why should the house still feel full of her? It isn't fair!"</p> + +<p>"You're dripping butter on the floor," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"Make your old toast yourself, then!"</p> + +<p>"It's not only Notya," Helen went on, as she picked up the knife. "It's +the Pinderwells and their thoughts, and the people who lived here before +them. Their thoughts are in the walls and they come out when the house +is quiet."</p> + +<p>"Then let us make a noise!" Miriam cried. "Tomorrow's Saturday, and +Daniel will come up. Shall we ask him to stay? It would make more live +people in the house."</p> + +<p>"If he stays, I'm not going to have Rupert in my room again. He talks in +his sleep."</p> + +<p>"It's better than snoring," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"Awful to marry a man who snores," Miriam remarked. "Uncle Alfred does. +I heard him."</p> + +<p>"You're not thinking of marrying him?" John asked.</p> + +<p>"No. I don't like the little man," she said incisively. "He gave me his +card as though he'd met me in a train. In case we needed him! I've +thrown it into Mrs. Pinderwell's desk." She looked frowningly at the +fire. "But he liked me," she said, throwing up her head and defying the +silent criticism of the company. "Yes, he did, but I hadn't enough +time."</p> + +<p>"That's better than too much," Helen said shrewdly, and stretched her +stockinged feet to the bars. "Thank you for the tea, and now let us wash +up."</p> + +<p>"You're scorching," Miriam said, and no one moved. The lamplight had +driven the shadows further back, and the room was the more peaceful for +the cry of the wind and the hissing of the rain.</p> + +<p>"Rupert will get wet," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"Poor lad!" John mocked drowsily over his pipe.</p> + +<p>"And he doesn't know about our father," Miriam said from her little +stool. "Our father, who may be in Heaven."</p> + +<p>"That's where Notya is afraid he is," Helen sighed remembering her +stepmother's lonely figure on the sofa backed by the bare window and the +great moor.</p> + +<p>"Does she hate him as much as that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I hate jokes about Heaven and Hell. They're so obvious," Helen +said.</p> + +<p>"If they weren't, you wouldn't see them, my dear."</p> + +<p>Helen let that pass, but trouble looked from her eyes and sounded in her +voice. "She wanted to see him and she was afraid, and no one should ever +be afraid. It's ugly."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," Miriam said hopefully, "he will be ill for a very long time, +and then she'll have to stay with him, and we can have fun. Fun! Where +can we get it? What right had she to bring us here?"</p> + +<p>"For God's sake," John said, "don't begin that again. We're warm and fed +and roofed, and it's raining outside, and we needn't stir. That ought to +make you thankful for your mercies. Suppose you were a tramp."</p> + +<p>"Yes, suppose I was a tramp." She clasped her knees and forgot her anger +in this make-believe. "A young tramp. Just like me, but ragged."</p> + +<p>"Cold and wet."</p> + +<p>"My hair would still be curly and my face would be very brown."</p> + +<p>"You'd be dirty," Helen reminded her, "and your boots would be crumpled +and too big and sodden." She looked at her own slim feet. "That is what +I should hate."</p> + +<p>"Of course there'd be disadvantages, but if I were a tramp and dwelt on +my mercies, what would they be? First—freedom!"</p> + +<p>"Ha!" John snorted.</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Freedom! Where is it?"</p> + +<p>"With the lady tramp."</p> + +<p>"And what is it?"</p> + +<p>"Being able to do what you like," Miriam said promptly, "and having no +Notya."</p> + +<p>John was trying to look patient. "Very well. Let us consider that."</p> + +<p>"Yes, grandpapa," Miriam answered meekly, and tweaked Helen's toe.</p> + +<p>"You think the tramp can do what she likes, but she has no money in her +pocket, so she can't buy the comfortable bed and the good meal she is +longing for. She can only go to the first workhouse or sell herself for +the price of a glass of gin."</p> + +<p>"A pretty tramp like me," Miriam began, and stopped at Helen's pleading. +"But John and I are facing facts, so you must not be squeamish. When you +come to think of it," she went on, "lady tramps generally have gentlemen +tramps with them."</p> + +<p>"And there's your Notya."</p> + +<p>"Ah!"</p> + +<p>"And he'd beat you."</p> + +<p>"I might like it."</p> + +<p>"And he'd be foul-mouthed."</p> + +<p>"Horrid!" Helen exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"But I should be used to nothing else."</p> + +<p>"And if you came down our high road one day and begged at our door, and +saw some one like yourself, some one clean and fresh and innocent—"</p> + +<p>"So that's what he thinks of me!"</p> + +<p>"Hush! I like this," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"Even if there were a stern stepmother in the background, you'd be +envious of that girl. You might obey no laws, but you'd find yourself +the slave of something, your own vice, perhaps, or folly, or the will of +that gentleman tramp of yours." He ended with a sharp tap of his +emptied pipe, and sank back in a thoughtful silence.</p> + +<p>Helen's hands slid down her stockings from knee to ankle and back again: +her eyes were on the fire, but they saw the wet high road and the ragged +woman with skirt flapping against shapeless boots. The storm's voice +rose and fell, and sometimes nothing could be heard but the howling of +the wind, and she knew that the poplars were bent under it; but when it +rested for a moment the steady falling of the rain had a kind of +reassurance. In the room, there were small sounds of shifting coals and +breathing people.</p> + +<p>Miriam sat on her stool like a bird on a branch. Her head was on one +side, the tilted eyebrows gave her face an enquiring look, and she +smiled with a light mischief. "You ought to have been a preacher, John +dear," she said. "And you took—they always do—rather an unfair case."</p> + +<p>"Take any case you like, you can't get freedom. When you're older you +won't want it."</p> + +<p>"You're very young, John, to have found that out," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"But you know it."</p> + +<p>Miriam clapped her hands in warning. "Don't say," she begged, "that it's +because you are a woman!"</p> + +<p>"Is that the reason?" Helen asked.</p> + +<p>"No, it's because you are a Helen, a silly, a slave! And John makes +himself believe it because he's in love with a woman who is going to +manage him. Clever me!"</p> + +<p>Colour was in John's cheeks. "Clever enough," he said, "but an awful +little fool. Let's do something."</p> + +<p>"When I have been sitting still for a long time," Helen said, as though +she produced wisdom, "I'm afraid to move in case something springs on +me. I get stiff-necked. I feel—I feel that we're lost children with no +one to take care of us."</p> + +<p>"I'm rather glad I'm not that tramp," Miriam owned, and shivered.</p> + +<p>"And I do wish Notya were safe at home."</p> + +<p>"I don't," said Miriam stubbornly.</p> + +<p>The wind whistled with a shrill note like a call, and upstairs a door +banged loudly.</p> + +<p>"Which room?" Miriam whispered.</p> + +<p>"Hers, I think. We left the windows open," John said in a sensible loud +voice. "I'll go and shut them."</p> + +<p>"Don't go. I won't be left here!" Miriam cried. "This house—this house +is too big."</p> + +<p>"It's because she isn't here," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"John, you're the oldest. Make us happy."</p> + +<p>"But I'm feeling scared myself," he said comically. "And the front +door's wide open, I'll bet."</p> + +<p>"And that swearing tramp could walk in if he liked!"</p> + +<p>"But we mustn't be afraid of open doors," Helen said, and listened to +her own words for a moment. Then she smiled, remembering where she had +heard them. "We're frightening each other, and we must wash up. Look at +the muddle!"</p> + +<p>"It will make a clatter," Miriam objected, "and if you hadn't gone for +that walk and made the house feel lonely, I shouldn't be like this now. +Something's peeping at me!"</p> + +<p>"It's only Mr. Pinderwell," Helen said. "Come and dry."</p> + +<p>"I shall sleep in your bed tonight."</p> + +<p>"Then I shall sleep in yours."</p> + +<p>"I wish Rupert would come."</p> + +<p>"John, do go and shut the windows."</p> + +<p>"But take a light."</p> + +<p>"It would be blown out."</p> + +<p>Helen lowered the mop she had been wielding. "And Notya—where is she?"</p> + +<p>John lifted his shoulders and opened the door. A gust of wind came down +the passage, the front door was loudly shut, and Rupert whistled +clearly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, here he is," Miriam said on a deep breath, and went to meet him.</p> + +<p>John pointed towards the hall. "I don't know why he should make us all +feel brave."</p> + +<p>"There's something—beautiful about him," Helen said.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + + +<p>Helen was ironing in the kitchen the next afternoon when Daniel +Mackenzie appeared in the doorway. She turned to him with a welcome, but +the perfection of her manner was lost on Daniel: for the kitchen was +empty of Miriam, and that was all he noticed.</p> + +<p>"Hasn't Rupert come with you?" Helen asked.</p> + +<p>"I missed him," he said in his melancholy voice. "Perhaps he missed me," +he added with resignation. He was a tall young man with large hands and +feet, and his eyes were vague behind his spectacles. "I thought he would +be here. Is everybody out?"</p> + +<p>"Notya's away, you know."</p> + +<p>"He told me."</p> + +<p>"And John and Miriam—I don't know where they are."</p> + +<p>He found it difficult to talk to Helen, and as he sat down in the +armchair he searched his mind for a remark. "I thought people always +ironed on Tuesdays," he said at last.</p> + +<p>"Some people do. These are just odd things."</p> + +<p>"Eliza does. She makes us have cold supper. And on Mondays. It's too +bad."</p> + +<p>"But there can't be much to do for you."</p> + +<p>"I don't know. There's washing on Monday, and on Sunday she goes to +church—so she says."</p> + +<p>Helen changed her iron and worked on. She moved rhythmically and her +bare forearms were small and shapely, but Daniel did not look at her. He +seemed to be interested in the wrinkled boots he wore, and occasionally +he uttered a sad; "Puss, Puss," to the cat sleeping before the fire. A +light breeze was blowing outside and Helen sometimes paused to look +through the open window.</p> + +<p>"Our poplars are getting their leaves," she said. "It's strange that I +have never seen your garden. Are there any trees in it?"</p> + +<p>He sat like a half-empty sack of grain, and slowly, with an effort, he +raised his head. "What did you say?"</p> + +<p>"Have you any trees in your garden?"</p> + +<p>"There's a holly bush in the front and one of those thin trees that have +berries—red berries."</p> + +<p>"A rowan! Oh, I'm glad you have a rowan!" She looked as though he had +made a gift to her.</p> + +<p>He was born to ask questions. "Why?" he said, with his first gleam of +interest.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I like them. Is there a garden at the back?"</p> + +<p>"Apple-trees," he sighed. "No fruit."</p> + +<p>"They must want pruning. You know, gardening would do you good."</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "Too long in the back."</p> + +<p>"And Zebedee hasn't time?"</p> + +<p>"No, he hasn't time." Daniel was wondering where Miriam was, and how +long Rupert would be, and though Helen knew she wearied him, she went on +serenely.</p> + +<p>"Is he very busy now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I can't think why people get ill in the spring, just when the lovely +summer's coming. Does he get called up at night?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so." He was growing tired of this. "But when I'm in bed, I'm +asleep, you know."</p> + +<p>"Ah, that's nice for you," Helen said with a touch of irony as she +carefully pulled out the lace of a dainty collar. "Isn't he rather +lonely when you are up here?"</p> + +<p>"Lonely!" Daniel's mouth dropped wider and while he tried to answer this +absurd question adequately, Rupert entered the room.</p> + +<p>"I told you to meet me outside the Bull, you old idiot."</p> + +<p>Like Miriam, Rupert had the effect of fortifying the life of his +surroundings, but, unlike her, he had a happy trick of seeming more +interested in others than in himself. He saw at once, with something +keener than his keen eyes, that Daniel was bored, that Helen was at work +on more than ironing, and with his entrance he scattered the vague +dissension which was abroad. The kitchen recovered from the gloom with +which Daniel had shadowed it and Daniel himself grew brighter.</p> + +<p>"I thought you said the Plover."</p> + +<p>"You didn't listen. Even you couldn't mistake one for the other, but +I've scored off you. Helen, we shall want a good tea. I drove up with +Zebedee, and he's coming here when he's finished with old Halkett."</p> + +<p>She stood with a cooling iron in her hand. "I'll make some scones. I +expect Eliza gives him horrid food. And for supper there's cold chicken +and salad and plenty of pudding; but how shall we put up the horse?"</p> + +<p>"Don't worry, Martha. He's only coming to tea. He won't stay long."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, he will." She had no doubt of it. "I want him to. Make up the +fire for me, Daniel, please." She folded away the ironing cloth and +gathered up the little damp cuffs and collars she had not ironed. A +faint smile curved her steady lips, for nothing gave her more happiness +than serving those who had a claim on her, and Zebedee's claim was his +lack of womankind to care for him and her own gratitude for his +existence. He was the one person to whom she could give the name of +friend, yet their communion had seldom expressed itself in confidences: +the knowledge of it lay snugly and unspoken in her heart.</p> + +<p>"He has never had anything to eat in this house before," she said with +a solemnity which provoked Rupert to laughter.</p> + +<p>"What a sacrament women make of meals!"</p> + +<p>"I wish they all did," Daniel said in the bass notes of genuine feeling.</p> + +<p>"I don't know why you keep that awful woman," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"Don't start him on Eliza," Rupert begged. "Eliza and the intricacies of +English law—"</p> + +<p>"Have you seen her?" Daniel persisted.</p> + +<p>"No, but of course she's awful if she doesn't give you proper food."</p> + +<p>His look proclaimed his realization that he had never appreciated Helen +before. "I'm not greedy," he said earnestly, "but I've got to be fed." +He sent a wavering glance from his chest to his boots. "Bulk is what I +need, and fat foods, and it's a continuous fight to get them."</p> + +<p>Rupert roared aloud, but there was sympathy in Helen's hidden mirth. +"I'll see what I can do for you today," she said, like an attentive +landlady. "And you are going to stay the night. I fry bacon—oh, +wonderfully, and you shall have some for breakfast. But now," she added, +with a little air of dismissal, "I am going to make the scones."</p> + +<p>"Let's have a walk," Rupert said.</p> + +<p>"I've walked enough." He had an impulse to stay with Helen.</p> + +<p>"Then come outside and smoke. It's as warm as June."</p> + +<p>Daniel rose slowly, lifting his body piece by piece. "I shouldn't like +you to think," he said, "that I care too much for food."</p> + +<p>"I don't."</p> + +<p>"But I've got to be kept going."</p> + +<p>"I quite understand," she answered busily. Her hands were in the flour; +a patch of it, on her pale cheek, showed that her skin had a warm, faint +colour of its own.</p> + +<p>"We'll sit outside and watch for Zebedee," Rupert told her.</p> + +<p>She had baked the scones, changed her dress and made the table ready +before the guest arrived. From the dining-room she heard his clear +voice, broken by Miriam's low gay one, and, looking from the window, she +saw them both at the gate. Out of sight, behind the wall, Daniel and +Rupert were talking, involved in one of their interminable discussions, +and there were sounds made by the horse as he stretched to eat the +grass. For an instant, Helen felt old and forgotten; she remembered +Notya, who was in trouble, and she herself was shrouded by her own +readiness to see misfortune; all her little preparations, the flowers on +the table, the scones before the fire, her pretty dress, were gathered +into one foolishness when she saw Zebedee pushing open the gate and +looking down at Miriam. There was a sudden new pain in Helen's heart, +and in a blinding light which dazzled her she saw that the pain was +compounded of jealousy because Miriam was beautiful, and of renunciation +because it would be impossible to keep anything which Miriam wanted.</p> + +<p>But in the hall, these feelings, like a nightmare in their blackness, +passed away when Zebedee uttered the cheerful "Hullo!" with which he had +so often greeted her. There were comfort and safety in his +neighbourhood, in his swift, judging way of looking at people, as +though, without curiosity, he wished to assure himself of their +well-being and health, and while there was something professional in the +glance, it seemed to be a guarantee of his own honesty. His eyes, grey +with brown flecks in them, expected people to be reasonable and happy.</p> + +<p>Helen said simply, "I am so glad you have come."</p> + +<p>"I made him," Miriam said, and put her hand fleetingly on his arm.</p> + +<p>"You didn't. Rupert asked him."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I waylaid him. He was sneaking home."</p> + +<p>"No, no, I wasn't."</p> + +<p>"Somewhere else, then!"</p> + +<p>He thrust his gloves into the pocket of his coat.</p> + +<p>"You were coming, weren't you?" Helen asked.</p> + +<p>"Of course I was."</p> + +<p>She smiled with her extraordinary, almost comic, radiance. "I'll go and +make the tea."</p> + +<p>Because Daniel blundered through the doorway at that moment, Miriam +followed Helen to the kitchen.</p> + +<p>"He's going to teach me to drive," she said. "But what a horse! It goes +on from generation to generation, like the practice!"</p> + +<p>George Halkett had laughed at the horse, too, and Helen felt a cold +resentment against him and Miriam.</p> + +<p>"Your hair is very untidy, and your cheeks are blue," she said.</p> + +<p>"Now you're being a cat. We certainly don't miss Notya when you are +here. I'm in the delightful position, my dear, of being able to afford +blue cheeks and untidy hair. Daniel won't notice them."</p> + +<p>"No, he's arguing with Rupert."</p> + +<p>"He came into the house after me. I'm going back to tease him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do leave the poor thing alone."</p> + +<p>"No, I shan't. He'd be disappointed."</p> + +<p>Helen stood by the fire and watched the kettle and listened to the +noises in the schoolroom. Then a shuffling step came down the passage +and Daniel spoke.</p> + +<p>"Can I help you?"</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much." She knew that he had come for refuge and she +filled the teapot and put it into his hands. "Don't drop it."</p> + +<p>"I'll be careful," he said humbly.</p> + +<p>Walking in the trail of the tea he spilt, she followed him with the +kettle. She had not the heart to scold him, and at the dining-room door +he let out a sharp sound.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, has it gone through your boot?" she asked, checking her +laughter.</p> + +<p>"I should just think it has!"</p> + +<p>Miriam, whose ears were like a hare's, cried from the schoolroom: "Then +perhaps he'll have to have his boot cut off, and that would spoil that +lovely pair! Whatever you do, Zebedee, try to spare his boot!"</p> + +<p>"She never leaves me alone," Daniel muttered to the pot.</p> + +<p>"Don't take any notice of her," Helen said.</p> + +<p>Daniel looked up mournfully. "Wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"No. Sit here and talk to me." She called through the open door. "Come +in, everybody!" With Daniel on one side of the table and Zebedee on the +other, John's absence was the less apparent. Twilight had not yet come, +but Helen had lighted candles to give the room a festive look, and there +was a feeling of freedom and friendship in the house. They all talked of +unimportant things, and there was laughter amid the chinking of the +cups. For the young men, the presence of the girls had a potent, hardly +admitted charm: for Miriam there was the exciting antagonism of sex: for +Helen there was a pleasure which made her want to take deep breaths.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Miriam cried at last, and flung herself back in her chair. "Isn't +this good? Why can't it always be like this?"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" Helen said.</p> + +<p>"You know it's nicer without her."</p> + +<p>"I didn't want you to tempt things," Helen explained.</p> + +<p>"She's as superstitious as a savage," Rupert said. "Talk to her, +Zebedee, man of science."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I will." His glance was humorous but not quite untroubled.</p> + +<p>"When?" she said, with great willingness.</p> + +<p>"After tea."</p> + +<p>"We've finished, haven't we?" Miriam asked. "Daniel, be quick and drink +that. We're all waiting for you. And don't slop it on your waistcoat. +There's a good boy! Very nice. Come into the drawing-room and I'll play +to you. I might even sing. Ask Helen if you may get down."</p> + +<p>"May I?" he asked, and went after Miriam.</p> + +<p>The notes of the old piano tinkled through the hall. Miriam was playing +a waltz, lightly and gaily.</p> + +<p>"I'll go and make Daniel dance with me," Rupert said.</p> + +<p>"Don't tease him any more."</p> + +<p>"It'll do him good, and I want Zebedee to have a chance of lecturing +you."</p> + +<p>"It's not easy to lecture you," Zebedee said.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Above their voices and the tinkling music there now came Daniel's +protest, Rupert's persuasions, and Miriam's laughter: then these all +died away and the waltz called out plaintively and with desire.</p> + +<p>"She is making the piano cry," Helen said.</p> + +<p>Zebedee did not speak, for he was listening: the whole house was +listening. No other sound came from the drawing-room, and Helen fancied +that Mr. Penderwell was standing on the stairs, held by the memory of +days when he had taken his lady by her tiny waist and felt the whiff of +her muslin skirts against him as they whirled. The children on the +landing were wide-eyed and hushed in their quiet play. The sounds grew +fainter; they faded away as though the ballroom had grown dark and +empty, and for a little space all the listeners seemed to be easing +themselves of sighs. Then Miriam's whistle, like a blackbird's, came +clearly. She did not know how well she had been playing.</p> + +<p>Helen stood up. "I wonder if the horse has walked away. Go into the +drawing-room. I'll see."</p> + +<p>"No. I'll come with you."</p> + +<p>The music had subdued their voices and, because they had heard it +together, they seemed to be wrapped round by it in a world unknown to +anybody else. Quietly they went out of the house and found the horse, +only a few yards distant, with his feet tangled in the reins.</p> + +<p>"You ought to have fastened him to the post," Helen said, and together +they led him back.</p> + +<p>"Shall we take him out of the cart?"</p> + +<p>"But I ought to go home."</p> + +<p>"No," she said.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not."</p> + +<p>The sunshine had gone, and over the moor the light was grey; grey clouds +hung low in the sky, and as he looked down at her, it seemed to Zebedee +that Helen was some emanation of grey earth and air.</p> + +<p>"We'll take him out," she said.</p> + +<p>"And then what shall we do with him?"</p> + +<p>"I believe he'd be quite happy in the kitchen!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's a domesticated old boy."</p> + +<p>"We can't put him in the hen-house. Just tie him to the post and let him +eat."</p> + +<p>When that was done, she would have gone into the house, but Zebedee kept +her back.</p> + +<p>"Mayn't we stay in the garden? Are you warm enough?"</p> + +<p>She nodded to both questions. "Let us go round to the back." The path at +the side of the house was dark with shrubs. "I don't like this little +bit," she said. "I hardly ever walk on it. It's—"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, they don't come out. They stay there and get unhappy."</p> + +<p>"The bushes?"</p> + +<p>"The spirits in them."</p> + +<p>He walked beside her with his hands behind his back and his head bent.</p> + +<p>"You're thinking," she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Don't," she begged, "think away from me."</p> + +<p>He stopped, surprised. "I'm not doing that—but why?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she said, looking him in the eyes, "but I should hate +it."</p> + +<p>"I was wondering how to bring myself to scold you."</p> + +<p>They had reached the lawn and, caught by the light from the +drawing-room, they stood under the poplars and watched the shadows +moving on walls and ceiling. The piano and the people in the room were +out of sight, and Miriam's small, husky voice came with a hint of +mystery.</p> + +<p>"'Drink to me only with thine eyes,'" she sang.</p> + +<p>"'And I will pledge with mine,'" Rupert joined in richly.</p> + +<p>"'Or leave a kiss within the cup—'"</p> + +<p>In silence, under the trees, Helen and Zebedee listened to the singing, +to voices wrangling about the words, and when a figure appeared at the +window they turned together and retreated beyond the privet hedge, +behind John's vegetable garden and through the door on to the moor.</p> + +<p>The earth was so black that the rising ground was exaggerated into a +hill; against it, Helen's figure was like a wraith, yet Zebedee was +acutely conscious of her slim solidity. He was also half afraid of her, +and he had an easily controlled desire to run from the delight she gave +him, a delight which hurt and reminded him too clearly of past joys.</p> + +<p>"Now," she said, and stood before him in her dangerous simplicity. "What +are you going to say?"</p> + +<p>She seemed to have walked out of the darkness into his life, a few +nights ago, an unexpected invasion, but one not to be repelled, nor did +he wish to repel it. He was amazed to hear himself uttering his thoughts +aloud.</p> + +<p>"I always liked you when you were a little girl," he said, as though he +accounted for something to himself.</p> + +<p>"Better than Miriam?" she asked quickly.</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said, and paused. "But I feel as if Miriam—" She stopped +again and waited for his next words, but he saw the steepness of the +path on which he had set his feet and he would not follow it.</p> + +<p>"And I used to think you looked—well, brave."</p> + +<p>"Did I? Don't I now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; so you see, you must be."</p> + +<p>"I'll try. Three stars," she said, looking up. "But mayn't I—mayn't I +say the things I'm thinking?"</p> + +<p>"I hope you will," he answered gravely; "but then, you must be careful +what you think."</p> + +<p>"This is a very gentle lecture," she said. "Four stars, now. Five. When +I've counted seven, we'll go back, but I rather hoped you would be a +little cross."</p> + +<p>Pleased, yet half irritated, by this simplicity, he stood in silence +while she counted her seven stars.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + + +<p>It had long been a custom of the Canipers to spend each warm Sunday +evening in the heather, and there, if Daniel were not already with them, +they would find him waiting, or they would watch for his gaunt, loose +figure to come across the moor. This habit had begun when his father was +alive, and the stern chapel-goer's anger must be dared before Daniel +could appear with the light of a martyr on his brow. In those days, +Zebedee, who was working under the old doctor, sometimes arrived with +Daniel, and sank with an unexpressed relief into the lair which was a +little hollow in the moor, where heather grew thickly on the sides, but +permitted pale violets and golden tormentilla to creep about the grassy +bottom. Zebedee was more than ten years older than his brother, and he +suffered from a loneliness which made their honest welcome of great +value to him. He liked to listen to the boys' precocious talk and watch +the grace and beauty of the girls before he went back to the ugly house +in the town of dreary streets, to the work he liked and wearied himself +over, and the father he did not understand. Then he went away, and he +never knew how bitterly Helen missed him, how she had recognized the +tired look which said he had been working too hard, and the unhappy look +which betrayed his quarrels with his father, and how, in her own +fashion, she had tried to smooth those looks away, and now he had +returned with a new expression on his face. It was that, she thought, of +a man who, knowing misery like a great block in his path, had ridden +over it and not looked back. She knew what Rupert meant by saying he was +different, and again she felt a strong dislike for all his experiences +which she had not shared.</p> + +<p>On the evening after his visit, the Canipers and Daniel went to the +trysting place. Helen wrapped herself in a shawl and lay down with her +head on her arms and one eye for the clouds, but she did not listen to +the talk, and she had no definite thoughts. The voices of Rupert and +Daniel were like the buzzing of bees, a sound of warmth and summer, and +the smell of their tobacco came and went on the wind. She was aware that +John, having smoked for a time and disagreed with everything that was +said, had walked off towards the road, and the succeeding peace was +proof that Miriam too, had disappeared.</p> + +<p>Helen rolled on her back and went floating with the clouds. While she +merely watched them, she thought they kept a level course, but to go +with them was like riding on a swollen sea, and as she rose and fell in +slow and splendid curves, she discovered differences of colour and +quality in a medium which seemed invariable from below. She swooped +downwards like a bird on steady wings and saw the moor lifting itself +towards her until she anticipated a shock; she was carried upwards +through a blue that strained to keep its colour, yet wearied into a +pallor which almost let out the stars. She saw the eye of a hawk as its +victims knew it, and for a time she kept pace with a lark and saw the +music in his throat before he uttered it. Joy escaped her in a little +sound, and then she felt that the earth was solid under her.</p> + +<p>Daniel and Rupert were still discussing the great things which did not +matter, and idly she marvelled at their capacity for argument and +quarrel; but she realized that for Rupert, at least, this was a sport +equivalent to her game of sailing with the clouds, and when she turned +to look at him, she saw him leaning against his heather bush, wearing +the expression most annoying to an antagonist, and flicking broken +heather stalks at Daniel's angular and monumental knees.</p> + +<p>"You talk of the mind," Rupert said, "as though it were the stomach."</p> + +<p>"I do," Daniel said heavily.</p> + +<p>"And your stomach at that! Bulk and fat foods—"</p> + +<p>"This is merely personal," Daniel said, "and a sign that you are being +beaten, as usual. I was going to say that in a day of fuller knowledge +we shall be able to predict the effect of emotions with the same +certainty—"</p> + +<p>"With which you now predict the effect of Eliza's diet. God forbid! +Anyhow, I shall be dead. Come on."</p> + +<p>Daniel stood up obediently, for they had now reached the point where +they always rose and walked off side by side, in the silence of +amusement and indignation.</p> + +<p>There was a rustling in the heather, and she heard no more of them. Then +the thud of approaching footsteps ran along the ground, and she sat up +to see Miriam with Zebedee.</p> + +<p>"I went fishing," Miriam said, "and this is what I caught."</p> + +<p>He smiled at Helen a little uncertainly. "I had some time to spare, and +I thought you wouldn't mind if I came up here. You used to let me."</p> + +<p>"I've always wanted you to come back," she said with her disconcerting +frankness.</p> + +<p>"You may sit down," Miriam said, "and go on telling us about your +childhood. Helen, we'd hardly said how d'you do when he began on that. +It's a sure sign of age."</p> + +<p>"I am old."</p> + +<p>"Oh," Helen murmured. "No." She dropped back into her bed. She could see +Zebedee's grey coat sleeve and the movements of his arm as he found and +filled his pipe, and by moving her head half an inch she saw his collar +and his lean cheek.</p> + +<p>"Yes, old," he said, "and the reason I mentioned my unfortunate +childhood was to point a moral in content. When I was young I was made +to go to chapel twice on Sundays, three times counting Sunday-school, +and here I find you all wandering about the moor."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather have had the chapel," Miriam said. "One could at least look +at people's hats."</p> + +<p>"The hats in our particular Bethel were chiefly bonnets. Bonnets with +things in them that nodded, and generally black." He stared across the +moor. "I don't know that the memory of them is a thing to cherish."</p> + +<p>Helen tried to do justice to the absent. "We were never told not to go. +We could do what we liked."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but we weren't encouraged," Miriam chuckled. "You have to be +encouraged, don't you, Zebedee, before you go into places like that?"</p> + +<p>"My father had other methods," he said grimly.</p> + +<p>The silence tightened on his memories, and no one spoke until Miriam +said, almost gently, "Please tell us some more."</p> + +<p>"The pews were a bright yellow, and looked sticky. The roof was painted +blue, with stars. There was a man in a black gown with special knowledge +on the subject of sin."</p> + +<p>"That," Miriam said pensively, "must have been amusing."</p> + +<p>"No. Only dreary and somehow rather unclean. I liked to go to the +surgery afterwards and smell the antiseptics."</p> + +<p>"I wish the horrible black-gowned man could know that," Helen said +fiercely.</p> + +<p>He looked down, smiling tolerantly. "But it doesn't matter now."</p> + +<p>"It does. It will always matter. You were little—" She broke off and +huddled herself closer in her shawl, as though she held a small thing in +its folds.</p> + +<p>He found nothing to say; he was swept by gratitude for this tenderness. +It was, he knew, what she would have given to anything needing comfort, +but it was no less wonderful for that and he was warmed by it and, at +the same time, disturbed. She seemed to have her hands near his heart, +and they were pressing closer.</p> + +<p>"Go on," said Miriam, unconscious of the emotions that lived near her. +"I like to hear about other people's miseries. Were you rather a funny +little boy?"</p> + +<p>"I expect so."</p> + +<p>"Pale and plain, I should think," she said consideringly, "with too big +a nose. Oh, it's all right now, rather nice, but little boys so often +have noses out of proportion. I shall have girls. Did you wear black +clothes on Sunday?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid so."</p> + +<p>"Poor little ugly thing! Helen, are you listening? Black clothes! And +your hair oiled?"</p> + +<p>"No, not so bad as that. My mother was a very particular lady."</p> + +<p>"Can you tell us about her?" Helen asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't know that I can."</p> + +<p>"You oughtn't to have suggested it," Miriam said in a reproof which was +ready to turn to mockery at a hint from Zebedee.</p> + +<p>"He won't tell us if he doesn't want to. You wouldn't be hurt by +anything we said, would you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not. The difficulty is that there seems nothing to tell. She +was so quiet, as I remember her, and so meek, and yet one felt quite +safe with her. I don't think she was afraid, as I was, but there was +something, something that made things uncertain. I can't explain."</p> + +<p>"I expect she was too gentle at the beginning," Helen said. "She let him +have his own way and then she was never able to catch up, and all the +time—all the time she was thinking perhaps you were going to suffer +because she had made that mistake. And that would make her so anxious +not to make another, wouldn't it? And so—"</p> + +<p>"And so it would go on. But how did you discover that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know some things," she said, and ended feebly, "about some +things."</p> + +<p>"She died when I was thirteen and Daniel three, and my father was very +unhappy."</p> + +<p>"I didn't like your father a bit," Miriam said.</p> + +<p>"He was a good man in his way, his uncomfortable way."</p> + +<p>"Then I like them wickeder than that."</p> + +<p>"It made him uncomfortable too, you know."</p> + +<p>"If you're going to preach—"</p> + +<p>He laughed. "I didn't mean to. I was only offering you the experience of +my maturity!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm getting stiff and cold. Helen likes that kind of thing. Give +it to her while I get warm. Unless you'll lend me your shawl, Helen?"</p> + +<p>"No, I won't."</p> + +<p>"I must go too," said Zebedee, but he did not move and Helen did not +speak. His thoughts were on her while his eyes were on the dark line of +moor touching the sky; yet he thought less of her than of the strange +ways of life and the force which drew him to this woman whom he had +known a child so short a time ago. He wondered if what he felt were +real, if the night and the mystery of the moor had not bewitched him, +for she had come to him at night out of the darkness with the wind +whistling round her. It was so easy, as he knew, for a solitary being to +fasten eagerly on another, like a beaten boat to the safety of a buoy, +but while he thus admonished himself, he had no genuine doubt. He knew +that she was what he wanted: her youth, her wisdom, her smoothness, her +serenity, and the many things which made her, even the stubbornness +which underlay her calm.</p> + +<p>Into these reflections her voice came loudly, calling him from the +heights.</p> + +<p>"I do wish you wouldn't keep Eliza. She's a most unsuitable person to +look after you."</p> + +<p>He laughed so heartily and so long that she sat up to look at him. "I +don't know what's amusing you," she said.</p> + +<p>"It's so extraordinarily like you!"</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"And why don't you think her suitable?"</p> + +<p>"From things Daniel has told me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Daniel is an old maid. She's ugly and disagreeable, but she +delivers messages accurately, and that's all I care about. Don't believe +all Daniel's stories."</p> + +<p>"They worry me," she said.</p> + +<p>"Do you worry about every one's affairs?" he asked, and feared she would +hear the jealousy in his voice.</p> + +<p>"I know so few people, you see. Oughtn't I to?"</p> + +<p>"I'm humbly thankful," he said with a light gravity.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll go on. Aren't you lonely on Sundays in that house with only +the holly bush and the rowan and the apple-trees that bear no fruit? Why +don't you come up here?"</p> + +<p>"May I?"</p> + +<p>"You belong to the moor, too," she said.</p> + +<p>He nodded his thanks for that. "Who told you about our trees? Daniel +again?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; but I asked him."</p> + +<p>He stood up. "I must go back. Thank you and good night."</p> + +<p>It was getting dark and, with a heavy feeling in her heart, she watched +him walk away, while Miriam ran up with a whirl of skirts, crying out, +"Is he going? Is he going? Come and see him to the road."</p> + +<p>Helen shook her head. She would let Miriam have anything she wanted, but +she would not share with her. She turned her back on the thin striding +figure and the small running one behind it, and she went into the house. +There, the remembrance of Mildred Caniper went with her from room to +room, and the house itself seemed to close on Helen and hold her in.</p> + +<p>She stood at the schoolroom window and watched the twilight give place +to night. In the garden, the laurel bushes were quite black and it +seemed to her that the whole world was dead except herself and the +lurking shadows that filled the house. Zebedee, who tramped the long +road to the town, had become hardly more than a toy which had been wound +up and would go on for ever. Then, on the hillside, a spark leapt out, +and she knew that John or Lily Brent had lighted the kitchen lamp.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + + +<p>Miriam took Zebedee to the road and, finding him uninteresting, she gave +him a scant good-night and left him. She sank into the heather and told +herself many times that she did not know what to do. She had wit enough +to realize that she was almost ridiculous in her discontent, but for +that Notya must be blamed, and her own immediate necessity was to find +amusement. In all the vastness of the moor, George Halkett was the only +being who could give her a taste of what she wanted, and she had +quarrelled with George Halkett. She sat and glowered at the white road +cutting the darkness of the moor and she thought it had the cruel look +of a sharp and powerful knife. It seemed to threaten her and, though she +had all youth's faith in her good fortune, at times she was taken by a +panic lest she should turn out to be one of those whom fate left +stranded. That fear was on her now, for there were such women, she knew, +and sometimes they were beautiful! Perhaps they were often beautiful, +and in the long run it might be better to be good, yet she would not +have exchanged her looks for all the virtues in the world.</p> + +<p>"Nobody would!" she cried aloud, and, seizing two bunches of heather by +their stalks, she shook them violently.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, she might grow old on the moor and marry Daniel in +despair. She shuddered. No one could love Daniel enough to pardon his +appearance, and amusement would soon change to hatred. She tormented +herself with pictures of their common life. She saw his shapeless +clothes lying about the room she had to share with him; his boots stared +up at her from the hall with much of his own expression. She heard him +talking legally to her through their meals and saw him gazing at her +with his peculiar, timid worship. But if they had children, they would +have Daniel's stamp on them, and then he would grow bold and take all +she gave for granted. Girls and boys alike, they would be big and gaunt +and clumsy, but considerate and good.</p> + +<p>She threw her arms across her breast and held herself in a fury of +self-possession. Marriage suddenly appeared to her as an ugly thing even +if it attained to the ideal. No, no! Men were good to play with, to +tease and torture, but she had fixed her limits, and she fixed them with +some astonishment for her own reserve. The discovery of this inherent +coldness had its effect: it bounded her future in a manner which was too +disturbing for much contemplation, but it also gave her a new freedom of +action, assuring her that she need have no fears for her own restraint, +that when her chance came, she might go into the world like a Helen of +Troy who could never be beguiled. In the meantime, though she had +quarrelled with George Halkett, she remembered that she had not forsworn +his company; she had only sworn to punish him for having told the truth, +and she easily pretended not to know that her resentment was no more +than an excuse.</p> + +<p>She swung herself to her feet, and not without fear, for the moor had +never been her friend, she walked quickly towards the patch of darkness +made by the larch-trees. "I am being driven to this," she thought +dramatically and with the froth of her mind. She went with her head held +tragically high, but in her throat, where humour met excitement, there +was a little run of laughter.</p> + +<p>The trees stood without movement, as though they were weighted by +foreknowledge and there was alarm in the voice of the stream. She +stopped short of the water and stood by the brown path that led down to +the farm, and her feet could feel the softness of many falls of larch +needles. She listened and she could hear nothing but the small noises of +the wood and all round it the moor was like a circle of enchantment +keeping back intruders. There was no wind, but she was cold and her +desire for George had changed its quality. She wanted the presence of +another human being in this stillness; she would have welcomed Mrs. +Samson with a shout and even Notya with a smile, but she found herself +unable to turn and make for home. It would have been like letting danger +loose on her.</p> + +<p>"George!" she called loudly, before she knew she was going to do it. +"George, George, George!" Her voice, shriller than its wont, raged at +her predicament.</p> + +<p>A dog barked in the hollow and came nearer. She heard George silence +him, and she knew that man and dog were approaching through the wood. +Then her fears vanished and she strolled a few paces from the trees and +stood, an easy mark for George when he appeared.</p> + +<p>"Was it you who called?" he asked her from a little distance.</p> + +<p>"Me?" Now he was close to her, and she saw his guarded eyes soften +unwillingly.</p> + +<p>"Somebody called. Didn't you hear the dog barking? Somebody called +'George!'"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," she ventured in the falsely innocent manner which both +recognized as foolish and unworthy and in which both took a different +delight, "perhaps it was—thought-reading!"</p> + +<p>"With the dog?" he sneered.</p> + +<p>"You and the dog," she said, joining them deliberately. "It's getting so +dark that I can hardly see your cross face. That's a good thing, because +I want to say thank you for driving Uncle Alfred and Notya to the +station."</p> + +<p>"That's all right," he said, and added with a sullen curiosity, "Is he +the one who's going to adopt you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"He hasn't done it yet?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure that I want to go. George, shall I tell you something? +Something charming, a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night—I did +call you!"</p> + +<p>"Well," he said after a pause, "I knew that."</p> + +<p>"You weren't certain. Tell the truth! Were you certain?"</p> + +<p>"No, I was not," he said with the sulky honesty which should have moved +her.</p> + +<p>"And had you been thinking of me?"</p> + +<p>He would not answer that.</p> + +<p>"I shan't be hurt," she said, swaying from foot to foot, "because I +know!" Against the invading blackness her face and teeth gleamed +clearly.</p> + +<p>"You're like a black cat!" he burst out, in forgetfulness of himself.</p> + +<p>"A witch's cat!"</p> + +<p>"A witch."</p> + +<p>"Do you think witches are ever afraid? Only when they see the cross, +isn't it? But I was, George, when I called out."</p> + +<p>"What of?"</p> + +<p>"I—don't know. The quietness and the dark."</p> + +<p>He gave a short laugh which tried to conceal his pleasure in her +weakness.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you ever?"</p> + +<p>"Can't remember it."</p> + +<p>"Not of anything?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"How—stupid of you."</p> + +<p>"Stupid?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, when the world's full of things you don't understand."</p> + +<p>"But nothing happens."</p> + +<p>That was her own complaint, but from him the words came in the security +of content. "But tonight—" she began, shivered lightly and raised her +hand. "What's that?"</p> + +<p>He lifted his head; the dog, sitting at his feet, had cocked his ears. +"Nothing."</p> + +<p>"I heard something."</p> + +<p>Hardly heeded, he put his strong fingers on her wrist and grasped it. +His voice was rich and soft. "What's the matter with you tonight?"</p> + +<p>Unmistakably now, a sound came from the hollow; not, this time, the +raging of old Halkett, but a woman's cry for help, clear and insistent.</p> + +<p>"It must be my father," he said, and his hand fell away from Miriam's; +but for a few seconds he stared at her as though she could tell him what +had happened. Then he went after the dog in his swift passage through +the trees, while, urged by an instinct to help and a need for George's +solid company, Miriam followed. She was soon outstripped, so that her +descent was made alone. Twigs crackled under her feet, the ranks of +trees seemed to rush past her as she went, and, with the return of +self-remembrance, she knew that this was how she had felt long ago when +she read fairy stories about forests and enchanted castles.</p> + +<p>Yet she would have been less alarmed at the sight of a moated, +loop-holed pile than at this of Halkett's farm, a white-washed +homestead, with light beaming from a window on the ground floor, the +whole encompassed by a merely mortal possibility of strange events. Her +impulse had been to rush into the house, but she stood still, feeling +the presence of the trees like a thick curtain shutting away the outer, +upper world and, having paused, she found that she could not pursue her +course.</p> + +<p>"I must go back," she whispered. After all, this was not her affair.</p> + +<p>A murmur of voices came from the lighted room; the movement of a horse +in the stables was the friendliest sound she had ever heard. +Reluctantly, for she was alive with curiosity, she turned to go when a +step rang on the flagged passage of the farm and George stood in the +doorway. He beckoned and met her half way across the yard.</p> + +<p>"He's gone," he said, and he looked dazed. "Can't believe it," he +muttered.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she said under her breath. "Oh, dear!" It was her turn to put a +hand on him, for she was afraid of death.</p> + +<p>"Can't believe it," he said again, and taking her with him, he went as +though he were drawn, towards the lighted windows and looked in.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, assuring himself that this thing really was.</p> + +<p>Fascinated by the steadfastness of his gaze, Miriam looked too and drew +back with a muffled cry. She had seen the old man rigid on a red velvet +sofa, his head on a yellow cushion, his grey hair in some way coarsened +by the state of death, his limbs clad in the garments of every day and +strangely insulted by them. Near him, with her back to the window and +straight and stiff as a sentinel, sat Mrs. Biggs, the housekeeper, the +knob of her smooth black hair defying destiny.</p> + +<p>Still whispering, Miriam begged, "George, don't look any more." Her +horror was as much for the immobile woman as for the dead man. "Come +away, before she turns round. I want to go home. George—I'm sorry."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said.</p> + +<p>"Good-night."</p> + +<p>"Good-night," he answered, and she saw him look through the window +again.</p> + +<p>Going across the moor, she cried feebly. She wished old Halkett had not +been lying on the red sofa. He should have died in the big kitchen of +his fathers, or upstairs in a great bed, not in that commonly-furnished +little sitting-room where the work-basket of Mrs. Biggs kept company +with a cheap china lamp and photographs in frames. She wondered how they +would manage to undress him, and for how long Mrs. Biggs would sit +beside him like a fate, a fate in a red blouse and a brown skirt. +Perhaps even now they were pulling off his clothes. Terrible for George +to have to do that, she thought, yet it seemed natural enough work for +Mrs. Biggs, with her hard mouth and cold eyes, and no doubt she had +often put him to bed in the lusty days of his carousals. Perhaps the +dead could really see from under their stiff eyelids, and old Halkett +would laugh at the difficulty with which they disrobed him for this last +time. Perhaps he had been watching when George and she looked through +the window. Until now she had never seen him when he did not leer at +her, and she felt that he must still be leering under the mask of death.</p> + +<p>The taint of what she had looked on hung heavily about her, and the +fresh air of the moor could not clear it away. Crying still, in little +whimpers which consoled her, she stole through the garden and the house +to the beautiful solitude of Ph[oe]be's room and the cleanliness of +linen sheets.</p> + +<p>Supperless she lay there, by turn welcoming and rejecting the pictures +which appeared on the dark wall of her mind, and when Helen knocked on +the door she was not bidden to enter.</p> + +<p>"Don't you want anything to eat?" she called.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"I—feel sick."</p> + +<p>"Then mayn't I come in and look after you?" Helen asked in a voice +which impelled Miriam to bark an angry negative.</p> + +<p>It was Helen, who liked to help people, to whom this thing should have +happened, yet Miriam possessed her experience jealously; it had broken +into the monotony of life and to that extent she was grateful.</p> + +<p>"And I must be very kind to George," she decided before she went to +sleep.</p> + +<p>She dropped her white eyelids the next morning when John gave the news +of the old man's death, for she did not want to betray her knowledge.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Helen said, and Rupert remarked lightly and watchfully that +Zebedee would now be less often on the moor.</p> + +<p>"There's still the funeral," Helen said oddly.</p> + +<p>"And let's hope they'll bury him soon," John added, and so finished with +old Halkett.</p> + +<p>Helen was still thoughtful. "Perhaps we ought to go and be nice to +George. There won't be anything we can do, but we might ask him if there +is."</p> + +<p>"The less you have to do with George—" John began, and Miriam +interrupted him, clicking her tongue.</p> + +<p>"Helen, Helen, haven't you heard about George and Lily Brent? A dreadful +story. Ask John."</p> + +<p>"If you're not careful," he said menacingly, "I'll do what she did to +him."</p> + +<p>"No, no, you won't, Johnny; for, in spite of everything, you're a little +gentleman."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do be quiet, you two! Rupert's trying to say something."</p> + +<p>"Send a note of condolence to George," he advised, "and I'll go to the +funeral. It's no good asking John to do it. He wouldn't shine. Heavens! +it's late, and I haven't cleaned the boots!"</p> + +<p>The boys went about their business and left the girls to theirs.</p> + +<p>"I don't think a note is enough for George," Helen said as she rolled up +her sleeves. "A man without a mother or a father, and only a Mrs. +Biggs!"</p> + +<p>"H'm," Miriam commented. "Except for Mrs. Biggs, I don't know that he's +to be pitied. Still, I'm quite willing to be agreeable, unless you mean +to go and knock at the farm door?"</p> + +<p>"No. Couldn't we catch him somewhere!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Miriam said too promptly. She made a cautious pause. "He won't be +riding on the moor today, because there'll be undertakers and things. If +we went down the road—or shall I go alone?"</p> + +<p>"Both of us—to represent the family. And we can say we're sorry—"</p> + +<p>"But we're not."</p> + +<p>"Yes, in a way. Sorry he hadn't a nicer father to be sorry for."</p> + +<p>"What about ours?" Miriam asked.</p> + +<p>"He may be dead, too, by now."</p> + +<p>"And that will matter less to us than old Halkett does to George."</p> + +<p>"But the great thing," Helen said, "is to have people one can't be +ashamed of."</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"I know; but it's true. And our father would always look nice and be +polite, even when he was dying. Old Halkett—"</p> + +<p>"Don't talk about him! Come along. We'll catch George on his way to that +shop with the pictures of hearses in the window. If I die before you, +don't put me in one of those black carts."</p> + +<p>"I don't think I could put you into anything," Helen said with simple +fervour.</p> + +<p>"Then you'd have to mummify me and stick me up in the hall beside the +grandfather clock, and you'd think the ticking was my heart."</p> + +<p>"There are hearts beating all over the house now," Helen said. "But this +is not meeting George," she added, and rolled her sleeves down again.</p> + +<p>They waylaid him successfully where the road met Halkett's lane, and +from his horse he looked down on the two upturned faces.</p> + +<p>"We've heard about Mr. Halkett," Helen said, gazing with friendliness +and without embarrassment into his eyes. "I suppose there's nothing we +can do?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, thanks."</p> + +<p>"And Rupert said he would like to go to the funeral, if he may."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I'll let him know about it." He glanced at Miriam and +hesitated, yet when he spoke it was in a franker voice than the one she +was used to hear. "I'm afraid you were upset last night."</p> + +<p>Her answering look made a pact between them. "We didn't hear about it +till this morning."</p> + +<p>He nodded, watching her through his thick lashes. He gave her a strong +impression that he was despising her a little, and she saw him look from +her to Helen as though he made comparisons. Indeed, at that moment, he +thought that these sisters were like thirst and the means to quench it, +like heat and shade; and a sudden restlessness made him shift in his +seat.</p> + +<p>"I expect you have a lot to do," Helen said. "Good-bye."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye. And thank you," he said gruffly, and caught the flash of +Miriam's smile as he turned.</p> + +<p>Helen stood looking after him. "Poor George!" she said. "I rather like +him. I wish he wouldn't drink."</p> + +<p>"Exaggerated stories," Miriam remarked neatly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, but he looks as if he had never had a chance of being nice."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe he has ever wanted one," Miriam said.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + + +<p>Uncle Alfred wrote a short note from Calais, and on the day when old +Halkett was taken to his grave another letter came to say that Philip +Caniper was dead before the travellers could reach him.</p> + +<p>"Then we're poor little orphans, like George," Miriam said, and, with +the peering look which asked how far she might venture, she added, "And, +like George, we have our Mrs. Biggs."</p> + +<p>If Helen heard those words, she made no sign. "She'll never be happy +again," she said.</p> + +<p>"Well, she never has been happy, and she has never wanted us to be +happy, so nothing's changed."</p> + +<p>"What can we do?" Helen went on, and her thoughts alighted on such +practical kindnesses as a perfect state of cleanliness in the house to +which Notya would return, flowers in her bedroom for a welcome, and a +great willingness to do what pleased her. "But we mustn't be too +obvious," she murmured to herself.</p> + +<p>"And whatever you do, don't slobber."</p> + +<p>"Is it likely?" Helen asked superbly.</p> + +<p>The firmest intentions in that direction would have been frustrated by +the sight of Mildred Caniper's cold face, and Helen saw with surprise +that it was almost as it had always been. Her "Well, Helen!" was as calm +as her kiss, and only when she raised her veil was her bitter need of +sleep revealed. Then, too, Helen saw that her features and her fair, +bright colouring had suffered an indefinable blurring, as though, in +some spiritual process, their sharpness had been lost, and while she +looked at her, Helen felt the full weight of responsibility for this +woman settling once more on her own slim shoulders. Yet she noticed that +the shadows which had hung so thickly in the house became thinner as +soon as Mildred Caniper entered it. No doubt they had slipped into the +body which was their home.</p> + +<p>"Daniel is here," Helen said, "because it's Saturday and we didn't know +you were coming."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"I thought you might be sorry. And we have asked him to stay the night."</p> + +<p>"I promise not to turn him out," Mildred Caniper said, with her humorous +look, and Helen laughed back with a friendliness for which Miriam, +listening in a corner, admired her secretly.</p> + +<p>"But I shall want to talk to you this evening when you are all +together," Notya said.</p> + +<p>For that ceremony, Miriam wore her customary black with an air which at +once changed the dress into one of mourning; the fashion of her hair was +subdued to match her manners, and Daniel, having a dim notion that he +might unknowingly have offended, asked in his clumsy way what troubled +her.</p> + +<p>She edged closer to him and looked up, and he could see that she was +laughing at herself, though that helped him not at all.</p> + +<p>"Isn't my father dead? And aren't we going to have a family consultation +in the dining-room? Well, here am I."</p> + +<p>"I see."</p> + +<p>"What do you see?"</p> + +<p>He turned away. "I'm not going to tell you."</p> + +<p>"Ah, Daniel dear, do! I know I'm horrid and frivolous and vain, and I +tease you, but I'm very fond of you and I should love—oh, love—you to +tell me something nice. Quick, Daniel! Quick, before the others come +in!"</p> + +<p>He was red, and his forehead glistened as he said, "You'll only throw it +up at me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, as if I would! I don't care for that expression, but I won't. +Daniel, some one's coming!"</p> + +<p>He blew his nose and bent over his book, yet through the trumpeting and +the manipulation of his handkerchief, she heard a word.</p> + +<p>"Beautiful," he mumbled.</p> + +<p>"Always?"</p> + +<p>He nodded, and like a delighted child, she clapped her hands.</p> + +<p>Rupert, less debonair than usual, opened the door. "Come on," he said. +"We're all ready. Daniel, stay where you are. We don't want you tumbling +into the conclave."</p> + +<p>"All right, all right."</p> + +<p>"Got something to keep you quiet?"</p> + +<p>"Greek grammar."</p> + +<p>"Good man. Now then!" He plunged across the hall as though it were an +icy bath.</p> + +<p>In the candle-lighted dining-room, Mildred Caniper sat by a wood fire. +The table barricaded her from the four Canipers who sat and looked at +her with serious eyes, and suddenly she found that she had very little +to say. Those eyes and the four mouths curved, in their different ways, +for passion and resolve, seemed to be making courteous mock of her; yet +three at least of the Canipers were conscious only of pity for her +loneliness behind the shining table.</p> + +<p>"After all," she said, trying to be at ease, "there is not much to tell +you; but I felt that, perhaps, you have never understood your father +very well."</p> + +<p>"He did not give us the opportunity," Rupert said.</p> + +<p>John had his shoulders raised as though he would shield his ears from +family discordances, and he swore inwardly at Rupert for answering back. +What was the good of that? The man was dead, and he might be allowed to +rest. It was strange, he thought, that Rupert, under his charming ways, +had a hardness of which he himself was not capable.</p> + +<p>"No," Mildred Caniper was saying, and by her tone she shifted the blame +from her husband to his children. The word acted as a full stop to her +confidences, and there was an uneasy pause.</p> + +<p>"But tell us, please," Helen said, leaning forward.</p> + +<p>"Oh, please," Rupert added.</p> + +<p>Mildred Caniper smiled waveringly, between pride and pain. "I was only +going to tell you a little about him, but now I don't know that I can." +She swallowed hard. "I wanted you to know how gifted he was."</p> + +<p>"How?" Rupert asked.</p> + +<p>"He wrote," she said, defying their criticism of what they had not seen, +"but he destroyed all he did because he was never satisfied. I found +nothing—anywhere."</p> + +<p>Here was a father whom Rupert could understand, and for the first time +he regretted not having known him; but to John it was foolishness for a +man to set his hand to work which was not good enough to stand. He must +content himself with a humbler job.</p> + +<p>"He liked only the best," Mildred Caniper said, doing her duty by him, +and the next moment she caught the full shaft of Miriam's unwary glance +which was bright with the conviction that her father's desertion needed +no more explanation.</p> + +<p>Mildred Caniper's mind registered the personal affront, and swept on to +its implication as rain sweeps up a valley. The result was darkness, and +as she sat straight and motionless in her chair, she seemed to herself +to struggle, for her soul sighted despair. Long ago, she had taken life +into her hands and used it roughly, and life was taking its slow +revenge. In the shuttered room by the sea, the dead man, deaf to the +words with which she had hurried to him, and here, in this house, the +eyes of Miriam announced her failure, yet to that cold clay and to this +living flesh she had been, and was, a power.</p> + +<p>She dropped her hands limply. She was tired of this fictitious power; +she was almost ready to pretend no longer; and with that thought she +found herself being observed by Helen with a tenderness she was not +willing to endure. She spoke abruptly, resigning the pious task of +sweetening Philip Caniper's memory.</p> + +<p>"Your father has left you each nearly a hundred pounds a year"—she +glanced at Miriam—"to be handed over when you have reached the age of +twenty-one."</p> + +<p>There was a feeling that some one ought to thank him, but no one spoke, +and his children left the room with an unaccountable sense of guilt.</p> + +<p>In the safety of the schoolroom Miriam's voice rose bitterly: "Oh, why +aren't we an ordinary family? Why can't we cry for a father who leaves +us nearly a hundred pounds?"</p> + +<p>"Try to," Rupert advised. He was smiling queerly to himself.</p> + +<p>"Helen, isn't it horrid?"</p> + +<p>"No: I don't like crying."</p> + +<p>"John, you look as though you're going to refuse the money. I will if +you do. John—"</p> + +<p>"Don't be a little fool," he said. "Refuse it! I'm holding on to it with +both hands."</p> + +<p>She drooped forlornly, but no one seemed to notice her. Daniel was +absorbed in the Greek grammar, and the others were thinking their own +thoughts.</p> + +<p>"I'll go on to the moor," she told herself, and she slipped through the +window in search of what adventure she could find. Outside the garden +she paused and nodded towards the house.</p> + +<p>"I don't care," she said. "It's all their fault. And Helen—oh, I could +kill Helen!" Wickedly she tried to mimic Helen's face.</p> + +<p>A few minutes later John followed through the window, and he went into +the darkness with a strange excitement. For a time he did not think, for +he was experiencing all the relief of daring to feel freely, and the +effect was at first only a lightening of the heart and feet. Hardly +knowing where he wandered, he found himself on the moor behind Brent +Farm, and there, in the heather, he sat down to light his pipe. He was +puzzled when the match quivered in his hand, and then he became aware +that innumerable pulses were beating in his body, and with that +realization others rushed on him, and he knew how he had held himself in +check for months, and how he desired the touch of Lily Brent's splendid +strength and the sight of her drowsy, threatening eyes. Picturing her, +he could not rest, and he rose and marched aimlessly to and fro. He had +been a fool, he told himself: he had denied his youth and doubted her: +proud in poverty, he should have gone to her and offered all he had, the +love and labour of his body and brain, honouring her in asking her to +take him empty-handed if she would take him at all. Now he must go to +her as though she could be bought at the price of a hundred pounds a +years and the poor thing he had once called his pride, known now for a +mere notion gathered from some source outside himself. He who had +scorned convention had been its easy victim, and he bit hard at his pipe +stem and grunted in disgust.</p> + +<p>"We get half our ideas out of books," he said. "No woman would have been +such a fool. They get things at first hand."</p> + +<p>He stopped and pointed at the farm. No doubt the woman down there had +read his thoughts and laughed at him, yes, loving him or not, she must +be laughing at him. He laughed himself, then listened for the chance +sound of her distant voice. He could hear footsteps on the cobbled yard, +the clattering of a pail, the shrill stave of a song uttered by the +maid-servant, but no more; and he paced on until the lights in Brent +Farm went out and his own home was darkened.</p> + +<p>In the grey of the morning, he went down the track. Mists were lying on +the moor; above them, trees showed like things afloat, and when he +crossed the road he felt that he was breasting silent floods. Through +his thick boots he could feel the cold of ground soaked by a night of +unexpected rain, and against his gaiters the long grasses rid themselves +of their loads of drops and swung back to their places as he passed. He +turned at the sound of footsteps on the road and saw one of Halkett's +men walking through that semblance of grey water. The man gave a nod of +greeting, John raised a hand, and the peace of the waking day was not +shattered by human speech.</p> + +<p>In the corner of the meadow near the house, the cows, looming large and +mysterious and unfamiliar, were waiting with hanging heads, and John +stood and looked at them in a kind of dream before he fetched his pail +and stool and settled down to work. His hands were not steady and the +cow was restless at his touch, and when he spoke to her the sound of his +own voice startled him, for the world was leagued with silence and even +the hissing of the milk into the pail had the extravagance of a cascade.</p> + +<p>As he worked, he watched the house. No smoke came from its chimneys, but +at length he heard the opening of a door and Lily Brent appeared. He +thought she was like the morning, fresh and young, with all the promise +and danger of a new day, and while he looked at her his hands dropped +idle. She stood on the step and nodded to him before she walked across +the grass.</p> + +<p>"You here alone?" she said, and there was a fine frown on her brow. +"Where's the rest of them? If I don't rout them out myself—"</p> + +<p>"Don't," he said. "It's early, and it's Sunday morning. They'll come +soon enough." He stood up and rested his folded arms on the cow's back +and looked at Lily.</p> + +<p>"She'll have the pail over," she warned him quickly.</p> + +<p>He put it out of danger and returned.</p> + +<p>"You haven't fetched my stool," she said.</p> + +<p>"I forgot it. Wait a bit. I'll get it soon."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you this morning? We're wasting time."</p> + +<p>"Let's waste time," he said. He looked round at the mists floating off +the moor. The light was clearing; the cows had dwindled; the road was no +longer a fairy flood but a highway for the feet of men.</p> + +<p>"I want you to pretend it's yesterday," he said.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you, John?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to tell you. Will you pretend it's yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. It's Saturday morning, a busy day for us. We ought to get to +work."</p> + +<p>"Come a step nearer," he said, and she obeyed.</p> + +<p>He clutched the hair on the cow's back and spoke in a harsh voice. "Will +you marry me?" he said, frowning and looking her in the eyes. "I've +hardly any money, but I love you. I want you. I didn't know what to do. +If I'd waited till I had as much as you, I might have lost you. I didn't +know what to do, but I thought I'd tell you."</p> + +<p>"You needn't explain any more," she said. Her hands, too, fell on the +cow's back, and with a little movement she bade him take them. He +gathered her fingers into his and turned and twisted them.</p> + +<p>"I thought—if you wanted me—why should we live on opposite sides of +the way? I can help you—and I love you." He relied on that.</p> + +<p>"I love you," he said again.</p> + +<p>He heard her ask softly, "Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because—because—oh, you're all I want. You're like the earth, like +herbs, like fresh green grass. I've got your hands: give me the rest of +you!"</p> + +<p>Her eyes flashed open, he saw and heard her laugh, and their lips met +across the bulky barrier.</p> + +<p>"But I want you in my arms," he said, and in the clearing light he held +her there, though the sound of an opening window told them that the farm +was waking.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + + +<p>On the night of Mildred Caniper's return, Helen felt that the house had +changed. A new emotion was mingling with the rest, and it was as +unmistakable as a scent, and like a scent, it would grow fainter, but +now it hung in every room and on the stairs. Surely Mr. Pinderwell must +be disturbed by it. She fancied his grey old face puckered in +bewilderment and his steps going faster up and down the stairs. Helen, +too, was restless, and having slept uneasily, she woke in the dark of +the night.</p> + +<p>Outside her widely-opened windows the poplars were moving gently. They +seemed near enough to touch, but she found something formidable in their +aspect. Black, tall and bare, they watched her to the accompaniment of +their indifferent whispering and swaying, and they warned her that +whatever might be her lot, theirs would continue to be this one of lofty +swinging. So, aware of all that happened they had always watched and +whispered, and only tonight was she resentful in her love for them. +Could they not feel a little sorrow for the woman burdened with trouble +who had come back to the house? Had not the sense of that trouble stolen +through the doors and windows? Beyond the garden walls there was, she +knew, immunity from human pain. The moor understood it and therefore +remained unmoved. It was the winds that grieved, the grey clouds that +mourned and the sunshine that exulted; under all these, and changed only +on the surface, the moor spread itself tranquilly, but the poplars were +different. For Helen, all trees were people in another shape and she +could not remember a time when these had not been her friends, but now +they seemed not to care, and she started up in the sudden suspicion that +nothing cared, that perhaps the great world of earth and sky and +growing things had lives as absorbing and more selfish than her own.</p> + +<p>"But only perhaps," she said aloud, asserting her faith in what she +loved.</p> + +<p>She pushed the pillow behind her back and stared into the clearing +darkness of Jane's large bare room. The curved front of her elegant +dressing-table with its oval mirror became distinct. Helen's clothes lay +like a patch of moonlight on a chair, the tallboy and the little stool +by which she reached the topmost drawers changed from their semblances +of beasts to sedate and beautiful furniture. By the bedside, soft +slippers waited with an invitation, and into them Helen soon slipped her +feet, for it seemed to her that the trouble thickened with each minute +and that Notya must be in need of help.</p> + +<p>Yet, when she had noiselessly opened the door of the room opposite, she +found Mildred Caniper sleeping in her narrow bed with the steadiness of +complete fatigue, with something, too, touchingly childlike in her pose. +She might have been a child who had cried bitterly for hours before she +at last found rest, but Notya's grief, Helen divined, had not the +simplicity which allowed of tears nor the beauty which was Mr. +Pinderwell's consolation. It was not death which had hurt her.</p> + +<p>Mildred Caniper's head had slid from the pillow and lay on her +outstretched arm; the other arm, slender and round as youth, was thrown +outside the bed-clothes, and only when Helen bent quite low could she +see the frown of trouble between the brows. Then, feeling like a spy, +she returned to the darkness of the landing where Ph[oe]be and Jane and +Christopher were wondering what she did.</p> + +<p>She might have been a mother who, waking from a bad dream, goes about +the house to see that all is safe: she wished she could go into each +room to make sure that its occupant was there, but such kindnesses had +never been encouraged in a family trained to restraint; moreover, Miriam +might wake in fright, Rupert was a light sleeper and John had an +uncertain temper. There was nothing to do but to go back to bed, and she +did not want to do that. She could not sleep, and she would rather stay +on the landing with the Pinderwells, so she leaned against the wall and +folded her arms across her breast. She wanted to be allowed to care for +people practically and she wished her brothers and sister were small +enough to be held in the arms which had to be contented with herself. +She had, she complained silently to the Pinderwells, to pretend not to +care for the others very much, lest she should weary them. But she had +her secret visions of a large house with unencumbered shining floors on +which children could slide, with a broad staircase down which they would +come heavily, holding to the rails and bringing both feet to each stair. +She lived there with them happily, not thwarted by moods and past +miseries, and though she had not yet seen the father of those children +about the house, tonight, as she stood in the covering darkness, she +thought she heard his footsteps in the garden where the children played +among the trees.</p> + +<p>She moved abruptly, slipped, and sat down with a thud. Her laughter, +like a ghost's, trickled through the stillness, and even while she +laughed a door was opened and John appeared, holding a lighted candle in +his hand.</p> + +<p>"It's only me," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"What the devil are you up to?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not up to anything. I'm on the floor."</p> + +<p>"Ill?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"I thought I heard some one prowling about."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't you sleep either?"</p> + +<p>He put his fingers through his hair. "No, I couldn't sleep."</p> + +<p>"The house is full of—something, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Fools, I think," he answered, laughing a little. "Look here, you +mustn't sit there. It's cold. Get up."</p> + +<p>"Help me."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you put on your dressing-gown?"</p> + +<p>"You didn't."</p> + +<p>"I don't wear this flimsy rubbish. Go back to bed."</p> + +<p>"Yes. What's the time?"</p> + +<p>"One o'clock. The longest night I've ever known!"</p> + +<p>Rather wistfully she looked at him. "What's the matter, John?"</p> + +<p>"I'm waiting for tomorrow," he said almost roughly.</p> + +<p>"So am I," she said, surprising herself so that she repeated the words +slowly, to know their meaning. "So am I—and it's here."</p> + +<p>"Not till the dawn," he said. "Go to sleep."</p> + +<p>Together their doors were softly closed and Helen knew now whose +footsteps were in the children's garden. She went to the window and +nodded to the poplars. "And you knew, I suppose; but so did I, really, +all the time."</p> + +<p>She slept profoundly and woke to a new wonder for the possibilities of +life, a new fear for the dangers which might assail those who had much +to cherish; and now she descried dimly the truth she was one day to see +in the full light, that there is no gain without loss and no loss +without gain, that things are divinely balanced, though man may +sometimes throw his clumsy weight into the scale. Yet under these +serious thoughts there was a song in her heart and her pleasure in its +music shone out of her eyes so brilliantly that Rupert, watching her +with tolerant amusement, asked what had befallen her.</p> + +<p>"It's only that it's Sunday," the quick-witted Miriam said and Helen +replied with the gravity which was more misleading than a lie: "Yes, +that's all."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, when Zebedee arrived on the moor, her brightness faded. +Already the desire of possession hurt her and Miriam had attached +herself to him as though she owned him. She was telling him about Philip +Caniper's death, about the money which was to come to them, and +asserting that Daniel now wanted to marry her more than ever. Daniel was +protesting through his blushes, and Zebedee was laughing. It all seemed +very foolish, and she was annoyed with Zebedee for even pretending to be +amused.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't," she murmured and lay back.</p> + +<p>"Be quiet, prig!"</p> + +<p>"She's not that, is she?" Zebedee asked, his strangely flecked eyes +twinkling.</p> + +<p>"Oh, a bad one. She disapproves of everything she doesn't like herself."</p> + +<p>"Helen, wake up! I want to know if this is true."</p> + +<p>"Do you think it is?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid it's very likely."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear!" she sighed, "I don't know what to do about it. A person +without opinions is just nothing, and you really were being very silly +just now. I hate jokes about marrying."</p> + +<p>"H'm, they are rather feeble," Zebedee owned.</p> + +<p>"Vulgar, I think," she said, with her little air of Mildred Caniper.</p> + +<p>"Ah," said Rupert, tapping Daniel lightly on the head, "a man with a +brain like this can't develop a taste for the real thing. I've seen him +shaking over jokes that made me want to cry, but you mustn't expect too +much of him. He does very well. Come along, my boy, and let's have some +reasonable talk."</p> + +<p>"He doesn't want to go!" Miriam cried.</p> + +<p>"But he must. I know what's good for him."</p> + +<p>"He looks just like an overgrown dancing bear," Miriam said as she +watched the two figures stepping across the moor.</p> + +<p>Helen continued her own gloomy thoughts. "No one can like a prig."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," Zebedee assured her cheerfully, "I can. Besides, you'll grow +out of it."</p> + +<p>"She never will! She's getting worse, and it's with living here. As a +doctor, I think you might prescribe a change for her—for all of us. +What will become of us? I can't," she added bitterly, "be expected to +marry a dancing bear!"</p> + +<p>"If you're speaking of Daniel—" Zebedee began sharply.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't you be cross, too! I did think I had one friend!"</p> + +<p>"Daniel's a good man. He may be queer to look at, but he's sound. You +only hurt yourself, you know, when you speak like that."</p> + +<p>Miriam pouted and was silent, and Helen was not sure whether to be angry +with Zebedee for speaking thus to her who must be spoiled, or glad that +he could do it to one so beautiful, while he could preserve friendliness +for a prig. But her life-long loyalty refused this incipient rivalry; +once more she decided that Miriam must have what she wanted, and she lay +with clenched hands and a tranquil brow while she listened to the +chatter which proclaimed Miriam's recovery.</p> + +<p>Helen could see nothing but a sky which was colourless and unclouded, +and she wished she could be like that—vague, immaterial, without form. +Perhaps to reach that state was happiness; it might be negation, but it +would be peace and she had a young, desperate wish to die and escape the +alternations of joy and pain. "And yet this is nothing," she said with +foresight, and she stood up. "I'm going home."</p> + +<p>"No!" Zebedee exclaimed in the middle of one of Miriam's sentences.</p> + +<p>"I must. Notya's all alone. Good-night."</p> + +<p>He would not say the word, and he walked beside her. "But I'm your +guest," he reminded her.</p> + +<p>"I know. But you see, she's lonely."</p> + +<p>"And I've been lonely all my life."</p> + +<p>She caught her breath. "Have you?" Her hands moved against her skirt and +she looked uneasily about her. "Have you?" She was pulled two ways, and +with a feeling of escape, she found an answer for him. "But you are you. +You're not like her. You're strong. You can manage without any one."</p> + +<p>"I've had to."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she moaned, "don't make me feel unhappy about going."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't have you unhappy about anything."</p> + +<p>"You're a wonderful friend to me. Good-night."</p> + +<p>He watched her move away, but when she had gone a few paces she ran +back.</p> + +<p>"It wasn't quite the truth," she said. "It was only partly Notya."</p> + +<p>"You're not angry with me?"</p> + +<p>"With you? I couldn't be. It was just my silly self, only I didn't want +to be half truthful with you."</p> + +<p>Their hands touched and parted, and he waited until she was out of sight +before he went back to Miriam.</p> + +<p>"You're a little pest," he said, "wasting my time—"</p> + +<p>"Ha, ha! I knew. I won't waste any more of it. Wasn't it horrid of me? +If you hadn't scolded me I might have been kind; but I always, always +pay people out."</p> + +<p>"Silly thing to do," he muttered, and went off.</p> + +<p>Miriam chuckled under her whistling as she strolled across the moor. +She did not whistle a tune, but uttered sweet, plaintive notes like a +bird's call, and as she reached the stream a tall figure rose up from +the darkness of the ground.</p> + +<p>"Oh, are you here, George?" she said. "I'm glad. I'm sick of +everything."</p> + +<p>"H'm. I'm glad I'm useful. Are the others having their usual +prayer-meeting?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"That Mackenzie of yours and your brother, sitting in the dip and +talking. I can't think what on earth they find to say."</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, George, they are very clever people. Let us sit down. +You can't—I mean you and I can't appreciate them properly."</p> + +<p>"The Mackenzie looks a fool."</p> + +<p>"He is a great friend of mine. You must not be rude. Manners makyth man. +According to that, you are not always a man when you're with me."</p> + +<p>He breathed deeply. "There's something about you—"</p> + +<p>"Now you're blaming me, and that's not gallant."</p> + +<p>"You think I'm not fit to breathe the same air with you, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sometimes." She sat hugging her knees and swaying to and fro, and +with each forward movement her face neared his. "But at others you are +quite presentable. Last night you were charming to me, George."</p> + +<p>"I can be what I choose. D'you know that I had the same education as +your brothers?"</p> + +<p>"You're always saying that. But you forget that you didn't have me for a +sister."</p> + +<p>"No, thank God."</p> + +<p>"Now—!"</p> + +<p>"That's a compliment."</p> + +<p>"Oh! And, George," she peered at him and dared herself to say the +words, though old Halkett's ghost might be lurking among the trees: "I +don't think your father can have been a ve-ry good influence on a wild +young man like you."</p> + +<p>"The old man's dead. Leave it at that. And who says I'm wild?"</p> + +<p>"Aren't you? Don't disappoint me."</p> + +<p>"I'm all right," he said with admirable simplicity, "if I don't drink."</p> + +<p>"Then you mustn't, and yet I love to think that you're a bold, bad man."</p> + +<p>His eyes, which rarely widened, did so now, and in the gathering dusk +she saw a flash of light.</p> + +<p>"You see, it makes me feel so brave, George."</p> + +<p>"It ought to."</p> + +<p>There was danger in his presence and she liked invoking it; but there +was a certain coarseness, also invoked by her, from which she shrank, +towards which she crept, step by step, again. She made no answer to his +words. In her black dress and against the darkness of the wood, she was +hardly more than a face and two small hands. There was a gentle movement +among the trees; they were singing their welcome of a peaceful night; +the running of the stream came loudly, giving itself courage for the +plunge into the wood.</p> + +<p>Miriam spoke in a low voice. "It's getting late. The others must have +gone in. They'll wonder where I am."</p> + +<p>"And they'd be horrified, I suppose, if they knew."</p> + +<p>She bent towards him so that he might see her reproachful face.</p> + +<p>"You've spoilt this lovely night. You don't match the sky and stars. I +wish I hadn't met you."</p> + +<p>"You needn't have done," he said.</p> + +<p>"Are you sorry I did?" she challenged him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know," he muttered almost to himself. "That's it. I never +know."</p> + +<p>She choked down the lilt of triumph in her voice. "I'll leave you to +think, about it," she said and, looking at the high fir-wood, she added, +"But I thought we were going to be such friends, after all."</p> + +<p>Halkett stood up, and he said nothing, for his feelings were not to be +put into words he could say to her. In her presence he suffered a +mingling of pain and pleasure, anger and delight; cruelty strove in him +with gentleness, coarseness with courtesy; he wanted to kiss her roughly +and cast her off, yet he would have been grateful for the chance of +serving her.</p> + +<p>"George," she said quietly.</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"When you think of life, what do you see?"</p> + +<p>"I—don't know."</p> + +<p>"But you must."</p> + +<p>He compelled his imagination. "The moor, and the farm, and the folks in +the town, standing on the pavement, and Oxford Street in London—and +Paris."</p> + +<p>"Have you been to Paris?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't think about it if I hadn't."</p> + +<p>She gave the laugh which coolly put him from her. "Couldn't you? Poor +George!" She balanced from her heels to her toes and back again, with +steadying movements of her arms, so that she was like a bird refusing to +take flight. "I don't see things plainly like that," she murmured. "It's +like a black ball going round and round with sparks inside, and me; and +the blackness and the sparks are feelings and thoughts, and things that +have happened and are going to happen, all mixing themselves up with the +me in the middle. George, do you feel how strange it is? I can't +explain, but here we are on the moor, with the sky above us, and the +earth underneath—and why? But I'm really rolling over and over in the +black ball, and I can't stop and I can't go on. I'm just inside."</p> + +<p>"I know," he said. "It's all mixed. It's—" He kicked a heather-bush. +"You want a thing and you don't want it—I don't know."</p> + +<p>"I always know what I want," she said, and into her thoughtfulness there +crept the personal taint. "I want every one to adore me. Good-night, +George. I wonder if we shall ever meet again!"</p> + +<p>In the garden, with her hands folded on her knee, Helen was sitting +meekly on a stool under the poplars and watching the swaying of the +tree-tops.</p> + +<p>"The young nun at prayer," Miriam said. "I thought you came back to be +with Notya."</p> + +<p>"She seemed not to want me."</p> + +<p>"Then you sacrificed me for nothing. That's just like you."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"By throwing me into the alluring company of that young man. If I love +him and he doesn't love me, well, you've blighted my life. And if he +loves me and I don't love him—"</p> + +<p>"You are always talking about love," Helen said with an accent of +distaste.</p> + +<p>"I know it's not the sort of thing a young virgin should be interested +in; but after all, what else can be so interesting to the Y. V.?"</p> + +<p>"But you spoil it."</p> + +<p>"I don't. Do you mind if I put my head on your knee? No, I'm not +comfortable. That's better. It's you who spoil it with being sentimental +and one-love-one-life-ish. Now for me it's a game that nymphs and +goddesses might play at."</p> + +<p>"But you can't play it alone," said Helen, troubled.</p> + +<p>"No, that's the fun of it." She smiled against Helen's dress. "I wonder +if my young man is at home yet. And there's only a cold supper for him! +Dear, dear, dear!"</p> + +<p>With her apparent obtuseness, Helen said, "It won't matter so much in +the summertime."</p> + +<p>"Ah, that's a comfort," Miriam said, and rolled her head luxuriously.</p> + +<p>John came through the French window.</p> + +<p>"I've been looking for you both," he said. "I want to tell you +something."</p> + +<p>"Now it's coming," Miriam muttered.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, then," Helen said. "We can't see you so high up."</p> + +<p>"What! in my best clothes? All right." The light was dim, but they felt +the joviality that hung about him and saw his teeth exposed in a smile +he could not subdue. "The ground's damp, you know. There's a heavy dew."</p> + +<p>There was a silence through which the poplars whispered in excitement.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I am a little deaf," Miriam said politely, "but I haven't heard +you telling us anything."</p> + +<p>"Yes; he said the ground was damp."</p> + +<p>"So he did! Come along, we'll go in."</p> + +<p>"No, don't!" he begged. "I know I'm not getting on very fast, but the +fact is—I can't bear women to be called after flowers. If it weren't +for that I should have told you long ago. And hers is one of the worst," +he added sadly.</p> + +<p>Miriam and Helen shook each other with their silent laughter.</p> + +<p>"You can call her something else," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. C. would be a jaunty way of addressing her."</p> + +<p>"Well, anyway, she's going to marry me, bless her heart. Get up! Notya +wants to know why supper isn't ready." He did a clumsy caper on the +grass. "Who's glad?"</p> + +<p>"I am," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"When?" Miriam asked.</p> + +<p>"Soon."</p> + +<p>"What did Notya say?" was Helen's question.</p> + +<p>"Nothing worth repeating. Don't talk of that."</p> + +<p>"Well," Miriam remarked, "it will be a very interesting affair to +watch."</p> + +<p>"Confound your impudence!"</p> + +<p>"You're sure to have heaps of children," she warned him.</p> + +<p>"Hope so."</p> + +<p>"You'll forget how many there are, and mix them up with the dogs and the +cats and the geese. They'll be very dirty."</p> + +<p>"And perfectly happy."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. Now Helen's will always be clean little prigs who couldn't be +naughty if they tried. I shall like yours best, John, though they won't +be clean enough to kiss."</p> + +<p>"Shut up!" he said.</p> + +<p>"I shall be a lovely aunt. I shall come from London Town with a +cornucopia of presents. We're beginning to go," she went on. "First +John, and then me, as soon as I am twenty-one."</p> + +<p>"But Rupert will be here," Helen said quickly.</p> + +<p>"He'll marry, too, and you'll be left with Notya. Somebody will have to +look after her old age. And as you've always been so fond of her—!"</p> + +<p>"There would be the moor," Helen said, answering all her unspoken +thoughts.</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't comfort me!"</p> + +<p>"Don't worry, my dear," John said kindly; "the gods are surely tender +with the good."</p> + +<p>"But she won't grow old," Helen said earnestly. "I don't believe she +could grow old. It would be terrible." And it was of Mildred Caniper and +not of herself she thought.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + + +<p>Mildred Caniper was wearing her deaf expression when they went into the +house, and getting supper ready as a form of reproof. John was another +of her failures. He had chosen work she despised for him, and now, +though it was impossible to despise Lily Brent, it was impossible not to +disapprove of such a marriage for a Caniper. But when she was helpless, +Mrs. Caniper had learnt to preserve her pride in suavity, and as they +sat down to supper she remarked that she would call on Lily Brent +tomorrow.</p> + +<p>"How funny!" Helen said at once.</p> + +<p>Miriam darted a look meant to warn Helen that Notya was in no mood for +controversy, and John frowned in readiness to take offence.</p> + +<p>"Why funny?" he growled.</p> + +<p>"I was just wondering if Notya would put on a hat and gloves to do it." +She turned to Mildred Caniper. "Will you?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I have not considered such a detail."</p> + +<p>"None of us," Helen went on blandly, "has ever put on a hat to go to the +farm. I should hate any of us to do it. Notya, you can't."</p> + +<p>"You forget," Mildred Caniper said in her coldest tones, "that I have +not been accustomed to going there."</p> + +<p>"Well, do notice Lily's primroses," Helen said pleasantly. "They're like +sunshine, and she's like—"</p> + +<p>"No, please," John begged.</p> + +<p>"I wonder why Rupert has not come to supper," Mildred Caniper said, +changing the subject, and Helen wondered pityingly why one who had known +unhappiness should not be eager to spare others.</p> + +<p>"But," Miriam began, her interest overcoming dread of her stepmother's +prejudices, "we shall have to wear hats for John's wedding. I shall +have a new one and a new dress, a dusky blue, I think, with a sheen on +it."</p> + +<p>"Did you mention my wedding?" John asked politely.</p> + +<p>"Yes. And a peacock's feather in my hat. No, that's unlucky, but so +beautiful."</p> + +<p>"Nothing beautiful," Helen said, "can be unlucky."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't risk it. But what can I have?"</p> + +<p>"For my wedding," John announced, "you'll have nothing, unless you want +to sit alone in the garden in your new clothes. You're not going to be +present at the ceremony. Good Lord! I'll have Rupert and Daniel for +witnesses, and we'll come home in time to do the milking, but there'll +be no show. It would make me sick."</p> + +<p>"Not even a party?"</p> + +<p>"What the—what on earth should we have a party for?"</p> + +<p>"For fun, of course. Daniel and Zebedee and us." She leaned towards him. +"And George, John, just to show that all's forgiven!" To see if she had +dared too much, she cast a glance at Mildred Caniper, but that lady sat +in the stillness of determined indifference.</p> + +<p>"Not one of you!" John said. "It's our wedding, and we're going to do +what we like with it."</p> + +<p>"But when you're going to be happy—as I suppose you think you are—you +ought to let other people join in. Here's a chance of a little fun—"</p> + +<p>"There's nothing funny about being married," Helen said in her deep +tones.</p> + +<p>"Depends who—whom—you're marrying, doesn't it?" Miriam asked, and +looking at Mildred Caniper once more, she found that she need not be +afraid, for though the expression was the same, its effect was +different. Notya looked as though she could not rouse her energies to +active disapproval; as though she would never say her rare, amusing +things again, and Miriam was reminded of the turnip lanterns they had +made in their youth—hollowness and flickering light within.</p> + +<p>The succeeding days encouraged that reminder, for something had gone +from Mildred Caniper and left her stubbornly frail in mind and body. +Rupert believed that hope had died in her but the Canipers did not speak +of the change which was plain to all of them. She was a presence of +flesh and blood, and she would always be a presence, for she had that +power, but she approached Mr. Pinderwell in their thoughts, and they +began to use towards her the kind of tenderness they felt for him. +Sometimes she became aware of it and let out an irony with a sharpness +which sent Helen about the house more gaily and persuaded her that Notya +would be better when summer came, for surely no one could resist the +sun.</p> + +<p>John's soft heart forgave his stepmother's coldness towards his marriage +and his bride, and prompted him to a generous suggestion. He made it +shyly and earnestly one night in the drawing-room where Mildred Caniper +sat under the picture of Mr. Pinderwell's lady.</p> + +<p>"Notya," he began, "we want you to come to our wedding, too. Just you +and Rupert and Daniel. Will you?"</p> + +<p>She looked faintly amused, yet, the next moment, he had a fear that she +was going to cry. "Thank you, John."</p> + +<p>"We both want you," he said awkwardly, and went nearer.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you have asked me, but I won't come. I'm afraid I should only +spoil it. I do spoil things." She smiled at him and looked at the hands +on her knee. "It seems to me that that's what I do best."</p> + +<p>He did not know what to say and, having made inarticulate noises in his +throat, he went quickly to the schoolroom.</p> + +<p>"Go to Notya, some one, and make her angry. She's being miserable in the +drawing-room. Tell her you've broken something!"</p> + +<p>"I won't," Miriam said. "I've had too much of that, and I'm going to +enjoy the unwonted peace. You go, Helen."</p> + +<p>"Leave her alone," Rupert advised. "You won't cure Notya's unhappiness +so easily as that."</p> + +<p>"When the summer comes—" Helen began, cheerfully deceiving herself, and +John interrupted.</p> + +<p>"Summer is here already. It's June next week."</p> + +<p>He was married in his own way on the first day of that month, and Miriam +uttered no more regrets. She was comparatively contented with the +present. Mildred Caniper seldom thwarted her, and she knew that every +day George Halkett rode or walked where he might see her, and her memory +of that splendid summer was to be one of sunlight blotted with the +shapes of man and horse moving across the moor. George was not always +successful in his search, for she knew that he would pall as a daily +dish, but on Sundays if Daniel would not be beguiled, and if it was not +worth while to tease Helen through Zebedee, she seldom failed to make +her light secret way to the larch-wood where he waited.</p> + +<p>Her excitement, when she felt any, was only sexual because the danger +she sought and the power she wielded were of that kind, and she was +chiefly conscious of light-hearted enjoyment and the new experience of +an understanding with the moor. Secrecy quickened her perceptions and +she found that nature deliberately helped her, but whether for its own +purposes or hers she could not tell. The earth which had once been her +enemy now seemed to be her friend, and where she had seen monotony she +discovered delicate differences of hour and mood. If she needed shelter, +the hollows deepened themselves at her approach, shadows grew darker and +the moor lifted itself to hide her. She seemed to take a friend on all +her journeys, but she was not quite happy in its company. It was a +silent, scheming friend and she was not sure of it; there were times +when she suspected laughter at which she would grow defiant and then, +pretending that she went openly in search of pleasure, she sang and +whistled loudly on her way.</p> + +<p>There was an evening when that sound was answered by the noise of hoofs +behind her, the music of a chinking bridle, the creaking of leather and +the hard breathing of a horse. She did not turn as George drew rein +beside her and said "Good-evening," in his half sulky tones. She had her +hands behind her back and she looked at the sky.</p> + +<p>"'Sunset and evening star,'" she said solemnly, "'and one clear call for +me.' Do you know those beautiful words, George?"</p> + +<p>He did not answer. She could hear him fidgeting with whip and reins, but +she gazed upward still.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry I can't recite the rest. I have forgotten it, but if you will +promise to read it, I'll lend you a copy. On Sunday evenings you ought +to sit at home and improve your mind."</p> + +<p>He gave a laugh like a cough. "I don't care about my mind," he said, and +he touched the horse with his heel so that she had to move aside. He saw +warm anger chase the pious expression from her face.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" she cried, "that is the kind of thing you do! You're rough! You +make me hate you! Why!" her voice fell from its height, "that's a new +horse!" Her hands were busy on neck and nose. "I like him. What is he +called?"</p> + +<p>Halkett was looking at her with an eagerness through which her words +could hardly pierce. She was wonderful to watch, soft as a kitten, swift +as a bird.</p> + +<p>"What do you call him, George?" she said again, and tapped his boot.</p> + +<p>"'Charlie'—this one."</p> + +<p>She laughed. "You choose dull names. Is he as wicked as Daisy?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing like."</p> + +<p>"Why did you get him, then?"</p> + +<p>"I want him for hard work."</p> + +<p>"I believe you're lazy. If you don't walk you'll get fat. You're the +kind of man that does."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, but that's a long way off. Riding is hard work enough and my +father was a fine man up to sixty."</p> + +<p>A thin shock of fear ran through her at the remembrance of old Halkett's +ruined shape. "I was always frightened of him," she said in a small +voice, and she looked at George as though she asked for reassurance. +There was a cold grey light on the moor; darkness was not far off and it +held a chill wind in leash.</p> + +<p>"Do you wish he wasn't dead?" she whispered.</p> + +<p>He lifted his shoulders and pursed his mouth. "No," he said.</p> + +<p>"Are you lonely in that house?"</p> + +<p>"There's Mrs. Biggs, you know," he said with a sneer.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," she murmured doubtfully, and drew closer.</p> + +<p>"So you don't think she's enough for me?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I don't. That's why I'm so kind to you. She couldn't be +listening to us, could she? Everything seems to be listening."</p> + +<p>"So you're kind to me, are you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, raising her eyebrows and nodding her head, until she +looked like a dark poppy in a wind.</p> + +<p>"And when I saw you on the road the other day you wouldn't look at me. +That's the second time."</p> + +<p>"I did."</p> + +<p>"As if I'd been a sheep."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Laughter bubbled in her. "You did look rather like one. I was +occupied in thinking deeply, seriously, intently—"</p> + +<p>"That's no excuse."</p> + +<p>"My good George, I shouldn't think of excusing myself to you. I chose to +ignore you and I shall probably ignore you again."</p> + +<p>"Two can play at that game."</p> + +<p>"Well, dear me, I shan't mind."</p> + +<p>He bent in the saddle, and she did not like the polished whiteness of +his eyeballs. His voice was very low and heavy. "You think you can go on +making a mock of me for ever."</p> + +<p>She started back. "No, George, no."</p> + +<p>"You do, by God!" He lifted his whip to shake it in the face of heaven.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't, George, please! I can't stay"—she crept nearer—"if you go +on like that. What have I done? It's you who treat me badly. Won't you +be nice? Tell me about something." She put her face against the horse's +neck. "Tell me about riding. It must be beautiful in the dark. Isn't it +dangerous? Dare you gallop?"</p> + +<p>"Well, we do."</p> + +<p>"Such lots of rabbit-holes."</p> + +<p>"What does it matter?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, you're very cross."</p> + +<p>"I can't help it," he said like an unhappy child. "I can't help it." And +he put his hand to his head with an uncertain movement.</p> + +<p>"Oh." With a practical air she sought for an impersonal topic. "Tell me +about Paris."</p> + +<p>"Paris." There was no need for him to speak above a murmur. "I want to +take you there."</p> + +<p>"Do you?"</p> + +<p>He leant lower. "Will you come?"</p> + +<p>Her eyes moved under his, but they did not turn aside. "I think I'm +going there with some one else," she said softly, and before her vision +of this eager lover there popped a spruce picture of Uncle Alfred.</p> + +<p>"That isn't true," Halkett said, but despair was in his voice.</p> + +<p>She was angered instantly. "I beg your pardon?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't true," he said again.</p> + +<p>"Very well," she said, and she began to walk away, but he called after +her vehemently, bitterly, "Because I won't let you go!"</p> + +<p>She laughed at that and came back to her place, to say indulgently, "How +silly you are! I'm only going with an aged uncle!"</p> + +<p>"But he's not the man to take you there."</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Come with me now."</p> + +<p>"Shall I?"</p> + +<p>"Get up beside me and I'll carry you away."</p> + +<p>She was held by his trouble, but she spoke lightly. "Could he swim with +us both across the Channel? No, I don't think I want to come tonight. +Some day—"</p> + +<p>"When?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said on a high note, "perhaps when I'm very tired of things."</p> + +<p>"You're tired already."</p> + +<p>"Not so much as that. And we're talking nonsense, and I must go."</p> + +<p>"Not yet."</p> + +<p>"I must. It's nearly time for bed, and I'm not sure that it's polite of +you to sit on that horse while I stand here."</p> + +<p>"Come up and you'll see how well he goes."</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't bear us both."</p> + +<p>"Pooh! You're a feather."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I couldn't. Wouldn't he jump?"</p> + +<p>"He'd better try!"</p> + +<p>"Now, don't be cruel to him."</p> + +<p>"What do you know about it? I've ridden since I could walk."</p> + +<p>"Lucky you!"</p> + +<p>"I'll teach you."</p> + +<p>"Could you?"</p> + +<p>"Give me a chance."</p> + +<p>"Here's one! No, no, I didn't mean it," she cried as he dismounted and +lifted her to the saddle. "Oh, I feel so high up. Don't move him till I +get used to it. I'm not safe on this saddle. Put me a little further on, +George. That's further forward! I'm nearly on his neck. No, I don't +think I like it. Take me down."</p> + +<p>"Keep still." The words were almost threatening in the gloom. "Sit +steady. I'm coming up."</p> + +<p>"No, don't. I shall fall off!"</p> + +<p>But already he was behind her, holding her closely with one arm. "There! +He's quiet enough. I couldn't do this with Daisy. And he's sure-footed. +He was bred on the moor." He set the horse trotting gently. "He goes +well, doesn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Don't you like it?"</p> + +<p>"Ye-es."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"There isn't room enough," she said, and moved her shoulders.</p> + +<p>He spoke in her ear. "If I don't hold you, you'll fall off. Here's a +smooth bit coming. Now, lad, show us what you can do and remember what +you're carrying!"</p> + +<p>The saddle creaked and the bit jangled and George's arm tightened round +her. Though she did not like his nearness, she leaned closer for safety, +and he and the horse seemed to be one animal, strong and swift and +merciless. Once or twice she gasped, "Please, George, not quite so +fast," but the centaur paid no heed. She shut her eyes because she did +not like to see the darkness sliding under them as they passed, and they +seemed to be galloping into a blackness that was empty and unending. Her +hands clutched the arm that fenced her breasts: her breath came quickly, +exhilaration was mixed with fear, and now she was part of the joint body +that carried her and held her.</p> + +<p>She hardly knew when the pace had slackened; she was benumbed with new +sensations, darkness, speed and strength. She had forgotten that this +was a man she leaned against. Then the horse stood still and she felt +Halkett's face near hers, his breath on her cheeks, a new pressure of +his arm and, unable to endure this different nearness, she gave his +binding hand a sharp blow with her knuckles, jerked her head backwards +against his and escaped his grasp; but she had to fall to do it, and +from the ground she heard his chuckle as he looked down at her.</p> + +<p>At that moment she would have killed him gladly; she felt her body +soiled by his, but her mind was curiously untouched. It knew no disgust +for his desire nor for her folly, and while she hated him for sitting +there and laughing at her fall, this was still a game she loved and +meant to play. In the heather she sat and glowered at him, but now she +could hardly see his face.</p> + +<p>"That was a silly thing to do," she heard him say. "You might easily +have been kicked. What did you do it for?"</p> + +<p>She would not own her knowledge of his real offence, and she muttered +angrily, "Galloping like that—"</p> + +<p>"Didn't you like it? He's as steady as a rock."</p> + +<p>"How could I know that?"</p> + +<p>"And I thought you had some pluck."</p> + +<p>"I have. I sat quite still."</p> + +<p>Again he laughed. "I made you."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she burst out. "I'll never trust you again."</p> + +<p>"You would if you knew—if you knew—but never mind. I wanted to see you +on a horse. You shall have him to yourself next time. I'll get a side +saddle."</p> + +<p>"I don't want one," she said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, you do. Let me help you up. Say you forgive me."</p> + +<p>With her hand in his she murmured, "But you are always doing something. +And my head aches."</p> + +<p>"Does it? I'm sorry. What made it ache?"</p> + +<p>"It—I—I bumped myself when I fell."</p> + +<p>"Poor little head! It was silly of you, wasn't it? Let me put you on his +back again, and I'll walk you slowly home."</p> + +<p>He was faithful to his word, letting her go without a pressure of the +hand, and she crept into the house with the uneasy conviction that Helen +was right, that George wanted the chance he had never had, and her own +responsibility was black over her bed as she tried to sleep. Turning +from side to side and at last sitting up with a jerk, she decided to +evade responsibility by evading George, and with that resolution she +heaved a deep sigh at the prospect of her young life despoiled by duty.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + + +<p>Zebedee had the lover's gift of finding time which did not exist for +other men, and there were few Sundays when he did not spend some minutes +or some hours on the moor. There were blank days when Helen failed him +because she thought Mildred Caniper was lonely, others when she ran out +for a word and swiftly left him to the memory of her grace and her +transforming smile; yet oftenest, she was waiting for him in the little +hollow of earth, and those hours were the best he had ever known. It was +good to sit and see the sky slowly losing colour and watch the moths +flit out, and though neither he nor she was much given to speech, each +knew that the other was content.</p> + +<p>"Helen," he said one night in late September when they were left alone, +"I want to tell you something."</p> + +<p>She did not stir, and she answered slowly, softly, in the voice of one +who slept, "Tell it."</p> + +<p>"It's about beauty. I'd never seen it till you showed it to me."</p> + +<p>"Did I? When?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure. That night—"</p> + +<p>"On the moor?"</p> + +<p>"Always on the moor! When you had the basket. It was the first time +after I came back."</p> + +<p>"But you couldn't see me in the darkness."</p> + +<p>"Yes, a little. You remember you told me to light the lamps. And I could +hear you—your voice running with the wind—And then each day since. I +want to thank you."</p> + +<p>"Oh—" She made a little sound of depreciation and happiness.</p> + +<p>"Those old Sundays—"</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes! The shining pews and the painted stars. This is better."</p> + +<p>"Yes, this is better. Heather instead of the sticky pews—"</p> + +<p>"And real stars," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"And you for priestess."</p> + +<p>"No, I'm just a worshipper."</p> + +<p>"But you show the way. You give light to them that sit in darkness."</p> + +<p>"Ah, don't." There was pain in her voice. "Don't give me things. At +least, don't give me praise. I'm afraid of having things."</p> + +<p>"But why, my dear?" The words dropped away into the gathering dusk, and +they both listened to them as they went.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid they will be taken away again."</p> + +<p>"Don't have that feeling. It will be hard on those who want to give +you—much."</p> + +<p>"I hadn't thought of that," she cried, and started up as though she were +glad to blame him. "And you never tell me anything. Why don't you? Why +don't you tell me about your work? I could have that. There would be no +harm in that."</p> + +<p>"Harm? No. May I?"</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't you? They all tell me things. Don't you want somebody to +talk to?"</p> + +<p>"I want you, if you care to hear."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Zebedee, yes," she said, and sank into her place.</p> + +<p>"Helen," he said unsteadily, "I wish you would grow up, and yet, Helen, +what a pity that you should change."</p> + +<p>She did not answer; she might have been asleep, and he sat in a +stillness born of his disturbance at her nearness, her pale smooth skin, +her smooth brown hair, the young curves of her body. If he had moved, it +would have been to crush her beautiful, firm mouth, but her youth was a +chain wound round him, and though he was in bonds he seemed to be alive +for the first time. He and Helen were the sole realities. He could see +Miriam's figure, black against the sky as she stood or stooped to pick a +flower, but she had no meaning for him, and the voices of the young men, +not far off, might have been the droning of some late bee. The world was +a cup to hold him and this girl, and over that cup he had a feeling of +mastery and yet of helplessness, and all his past days dwindled to a +streak of drab existence. Life had begun, and it went at such a pace +that he did not know how much of it was already spent when Helen sat up, +and looking at him with drowsy eyes, asked, "What is happening?"</p> + +<p>"There was magic abroad. The sun has been going down behind the moor, +and night is coming on. I must be going home."</p> + +<p>"Don't go. Yes, it's getting dark. There will be stars soon. I love the +night. Don't go. How low the birds are flying. They are like big moths. +The magic hasn't gone."</p> + +<p>Grey-gowned, grey-eyed, white-faced, he thought she was like a moth +herself, fragile and impalpable in the gloom, a moth motionless on a +flower, and when he saw her smile he thought the moth was making ready +for flight.</p> + +<p>"I want this to go on for ever," she said. "The moor and the night and +you. You're such a friend—you and the Pinderwells. I don't know how I +should live without you."</p> + +<p>"Do you know what you're saying to me?"</p> + +<p>"I'm telling you I like you, and it's true. And you like me. It's so +comfortable to know that."</p> + +<p>"Comfortable!"</p> + +<p>"Isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Comfortable?" he said again. "Oh, my love—" He broke off, and looking +at each other, both fell dumb.</p> + +<p>He got to his feet and looked down with an expression which was strange +to her, for into that moment of avowal there had come a fleeting +antagonism towards the woman who, in spite of all her gifts to him, had +taken his possession of himself: yet through his shamed resentment, he +knew that he adored her.</p> + +<p>"Zebedee," she said in a broken voice. "Oh, isn't it a funny name! +Zebedee, don't look at me like that."</p> + +<p>"How shall I look at you?" he asked, not clearly.</p> + +<p>"In the old way. But don't say things." She sprang up. "Not tonight."</p> + +<p>"When?" he asked sternly.</p> + +<p>"I—don't know. Tonight I feel afraid. It's—too much. I shan't be able +to keep it, Zebedee. It's too good. And we can't get this for nothing."</p> + +<p>"I'm willing to pay for it. I want to pay for it, in the pain of parting +from you now, in the work of all my days—" He stopped in his +realization of how little he had to give. "I can't tell you," he added +simply.</p> + +<p>"Will it hurt you to leave me tonight?" she whispered.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>She touched his sleeve. "I don't like you to be hurt, yet I like that. +Will you come next Sunday?"</p> + +<p>"Not if you're afraid. I can't come to see you if you won't let me say +things."</p> + +<p>"I'll try not to be afraid; only, only, say them very softly so that +nothing else can hear."</p> + +<p>He laughed and caught her hand and kissed it. "I shall do exactly what I +like," he said; but as he strode away without another word he knew from +something in the way she stood and looked at him, something of patience +and resolve, that their future was not in his hands alone.</p> + +<p>When he was out of sight and hearing, Helen moved stiffly, as though she +waked from a long sleep and was uncertain where she was. The familiar +light shone in the kitchen of Brent Farm, yet the house seemed unreal +and remote, marooned in the high heather. The heather was thick and rich +that year, and the flowers touched her hands. The smell of honey was +heavy in the air, and thousands of small, pale moths made a +honey-coloured cloud between the purple moor and the night blue of the +sky. If she strained her ears, Helen could hear the singing of Halkett's +stream and it said things she had not heard before. A sound of voices +came from the road and she knew that some faithful Christians of the +moor were returning from their worship in the town: she remembered them +crude and ugly in their Sunday clothes, but they gathered mystery from +distance and the night. Perhaps they came from that chapel where Zebedee +had spent his unhappy hours. She turned and her hands swept the heather +flowers. This was now his praying place, as it had always been hers, and +when the Easter fires came again they would pray to them together.</p> + +<p>At the garden door her hand fell from the latch and she faced the moor. +She lifted her arms and dropped them in a kind of pleading for mercy +from those whom she had served faithfully; then she smoothed her face +and went into the house.</p> + +<p>In the drawing-room, Mildred Caniper was sitting on the sofa, and near +her John and Lily had disposed themselves like guests.</p> + +<p>Helen stopped in the doorway. "Then the light in your house meant +nothing," she said reproachfully.</p> + +<p>"What should it mean?" John asked.</p> + +<p>"Happiness and peace—somewhere," she said.</p> + +<p>"It does mean that," and turning to Lily, he asked, "Doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, but don't brag about it."</p> + +<p>They laughed together, and they sat with an alert tranquillity of +health which made Mildred Caniper look very small and frail. She was +listening courteously to the simple things John told her about animals +and crops and butter-sales, but Helen knew that she was almost too tired +to understand, and she felt trouble sweeping over her own happiness.</p> + +<p>To hide that trouble, she asked quickly, "Where are the others?" and an +invisible Rupert answered her.</p> + +<p>"You're the last in." He sat outside the window, and as she approached, +he added, "And I hope you have had a happy time."</p> + +<p>"Yes." She looked back into the room.</p> + +<p>"Daniel wouldn't stay," Rupert went on, smoking his pipe placidly. "If +it hadn't been for my good offices, my dear, he'd have hauled Zebedee +off long ago. He suddenly thought of a plan for getting rid of Eliza. +Why aren't you thanking me?"</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't have gone."</p> + +<p>"Oh, ho!"</p> + +<p>"But they ought to get rid of Eliza. I've told Zebedee."</p> + +<p>"Quite right," Rupert said solemnly. His dark eyes twinkled at the +answering stars. "When I have lunch with Daniel, I'm afraid of being +poisoned, though she rather likes me, and she's offensively ugly—ugh! +Yet I like to think that even Eliza has had her little story. Are you +listening, Helen? I'm being pastoral and kind. I'm going to tell you how +Eliza fell in love with a travelling tinker."</p> + +<p>"Is it true?"</p> + +<p>"As true as anything else."</p> + +<p>"Go on."</p> + +<p>"It happened when Eliza was quite young, not beautiful, but fresh and +ruddy. She walked out one summer night to meet the farm hand who was +courting her, but he was not at the appointed place, so Eliza walked +on, and she had a sore heart because she thought her lover was +unfaithful. She was walking over high downs with hollows in them and the +grass cropped close by sheep, and there was a breeze blowing the smell +of clover from some field, and suddenly she stood on the edge of a +hollow in which a fire was burning, and by the fire there sat a man. He +looked big as he sat there, but when he stood up he was a giant, in +corduroys, and a check cap over his black eyes. Picturesque beggar. And +the farm hand had deserted her, and there was a smell of burning wood, +and the sky was like a velvet curtain. What would you? Eliza did not go +home that night, nor the next, nor the next. She stayed with the +travelling tinker until he tired of her, and that was very soon. For +him, she was no more than the fly that happened to get into his web, but +for Eliza, the tinker—the tinker was beauty and romance. The tinker was +life. And he sent her back to the ways of virtue permanently soured, yet +proud. Thus, my dear young friend, we see—"</p> + +<p>"Don't!" Helen cried. "You're making me sorry for Eliza. I don't want to +be sorry for her. And you're making me like the tinker. He's attractive. +How horrid that he should be attractive." She shuddered and shook her +head. "Your story is too full of firelight—and the night. I'll go and +get supper ready."</p> + +<p>"Miriam's doing it. Stay here and I'll tell you some more."</p> + +<p>But she slipped past him and reached the kitchen from the garden.</p> + +<p>"Rupert has been telling me a story," she said a little breathlessly to +Miriam who was filling a tray with the noisy indifference of a careless +maid-servant.</p> + +<p>"Hang the plates! Hang the dishes! What story?"</p> + +<p>"It's rather wonderful, I think. It's about the Mackenzies' Eliza."</p> + +<p>"Then of course it's wonderful. And hang the knives and forks!" She +threw them on the tray.</p> + +<p>"And there's a travelling tinker in it." With her hands at her throat, +she looked into the fire and Miriam looked at her.</p> + +<p>"I'll ask him to tell it to me," she said, but very soon she returned to +the kitchen, grumbling. "What nonsense! It's not respectable, and it +isn't even true."</p> + +<p>"It's as true as anything else," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you're mad. And so is Rupert. Let's have supper and go to bed. Why +can't we have a servant to do all this? Why don't we pay for one +ourselves?"</p> + +<p>"I don't want one."</p> + +<p>"But I do, and my hands are ruined."</p> + +<p>"Upstairs in Jane," Helen said, "in the small right-hand drawer of my +chest of drawers, there's the lotion—"</p> + +<p>"It's not only my hands! It's my whole life! Your lotion isn't going to +cure my life!" She sat on the edge of a chair and drooped there.</p> + +<p>"No," Helen said. "But what's the matter with your life?"</p> + +<p>Miriam flapped her hands. "I'm so tired of being good. I want—I want—"</p> + +<p>Helen knelt beside her. "Is it Zebedee you want?" Her voice and her body +shook with self-sacrifice and love and when Miriam's head dropped to her +shoulder Helen was willing to give her all she had.</p> + +<p>"I'm not crying," Miriam said, after an agitated pause. "I'm not +overcome. I'm only laughing so much that I can't make a sound! Zebedee! +Oh! No! That's very funny." She straightened herself. "Helen dear, did +you think you'd discovered my little secret, my maidenly little secret? +I only want Uncle Alfred to come and take me away. This is a dreadful +family to belong to, but there are humorous moments. It's almost worth +while. John, here's Helen suggesting that I'm in love with Zebedee!"</p> + +<p>"Well, why not?" he asked, but he was hardly thinking of what he said. +"I've left Lily on guard in there. Notya has gone to sleep."</p> + +<p>"But she can't have," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"She has, my child."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure she's not—are you sure she is asleep?"</p> + +<p>"Like a baby."</p> + +<p>"Then we shall have to make a noise and wake her. She would never +forgive us if she found out that we knew, so tell Lily to come out and +then we must all burst in."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + + +<p>Lily and John went down the track: Mildred Caniper climbed slowly, but +with dignity, up the stairs; Miriam was heard to bang her bedroom door +and Rupert and Helen were left together in the schoolroom.</p> + +<p>"I can't get the tinker out of my head," she told him.</p> + +<p>"I must have done it very well."</p> + +<p>"Miriam didn't like it. She thought it silly."</p> + +<p>"So it is."</p> + +<p>"No, it's real, so real that he has been sitting in our hollow," she +complained.</p> + +<p>"That won't do. Turn him out. He doesn't belong to our moor."</p> + +<p>"No. I think I'll go for a walk and forget him."</p> + +<p>"I should," he said, in his sympathetic way. "I won't go to bed till you +come back." He pulled his chair nearer to the lamp, opened a book and +contentedly heard Helen leave the house, for though he was fond of her +there were times when her forebodings and her conscience became +wearisome. Let the moor be her confessor tonight!</p> + +<p>Helen dropped into the darkness like a swimmer taking deep water quietly +and at once she was immersed in happiness. She forgot her stepmother +sitting so stiffly on the sofa and for a little while she forgot that +the future which held her and Zebedee in its embrace held a solitary +Mildred Caniper less warmly. In the scented night, Helen allowed herself +to taste joy without misgiving.</p> + +<p>She walked slowly because she was hemmed in by feelings which were +blissful and undefined: she knew only that the world smelt sweeter than +it had ever done, that the stars shone with amazing brightness. Through +the darkness she could see the splendid curves of the moor and the +shapes of thorn bushes thick with leaves. The familiar friends of other +days seemed to wait upon her happiness, but the stars laughed at her as +they had always done. She looked up and saw a host of them, clear and +distant, shining in a sky so blue and vast that to see it was like +flight. They were secure in their high places, and with the smiling +benignity of gods they assured her of her littleness, and gladly she +accepted that assurance, for she shared her littleness with Zebedee, and +now she understood that her happiness was made of small great things, of +the hope of caring for him, of keeping that shining house in order, of +cradling children in wide, airy rooms. She had a sudden desire to mend +Zebedee's clothes and put them neatly in their places, to feel the +smoothness of his freshly-laundered collars in her hand.</p> + +<p>She sat down in the heather and it was her turn to laugh up at the stars +who could do none of these things and lived in isolated grandeur. The +earth was nearer to her finite mind. It was warm with the sunshine of +many days and trodden by human, beloved feet; it offered up food and +drink and consolation. Darker than the sky, it had no colour but its +own, yet Helen sat among pale spikes of blossom.</p> + +<p>It was a night when even those beings who could not wander in the +daytime must be content to lie and listen to the silence, when evil must +run from the face of beauty and hide itself in streets. All round her, +Helen fancied shapes without substance, lying in worship of the night +which was their element, and when she rose from her bed at last she +moved with quietness lest she should disturb them.</p> + +<p>She had not gone far before she was aware that some one else was walking +on the moor. For a moment she thought it must be Rupert in search of +her, but Rupert would have called out, and this person, while he +rustled through the heather, let forth a low whistled note, and though +he went with care, it was for some purpose of his own and not for +courtesy towards the mystery of the night.</p> + +<p>She could not decide from what direction the sounds came; she stopped +and they stopped; then she heard the whistle again, but nearer now, and +with a sudden realization of loneliness and of the womanhood which had +seldom troubled her, she ran with all her strength and speed for home.</p> + +<p>Memories ran with her strangely, and brought back that day when she had +been hotly chased by Mrs. Brent's big bull, and she remembered how, +through all his fears for her, Rupert had laughed as though he would +never stop. She laughed in recollection, but more in fear. The bull had +snorted, his hoofs had thundered after her, as these feet were +thundering now.</p> + +<p>"But this is the tinker, the tinker!" her mind cried in terror, and +overcome by her quickened breathing, by some sense of the inevitable in +this affair, she stumbled as she ran. She saved herself, but a hand +caught at her wrist and some one uttered a sound of satisfaction.</p> + +<p>She did not struggle, but she wondered why God had made woman's strength +so disproportionate to man's, and looking up, she saw that it was George +Halkett who held her. At the same moment he would have loosed her hand, +but she clung to his because she was trembling fiercely.</p> + +<p>"Oh, George," she said, "it's you! And I thought it was some one +horrid!"</p> + +<p>She could not see him blush. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. She gleamed, in +the starlight, as he had seen pale rocks gleaming on such a night, but +she felt like the warm flesh she was, and the oval of her face was plain +to him; he thought he could see the fear leaving her widely-opened eyes. +"I'm sorry," he said again, and made an awkward movement. "I +thought—I—Wouldn't you like to sit down? There's a stone here."</p> + +<p>"It's the one I fell against!" She dropped on to it and laughed. "You +weren't there, were you, years and years ago, when the bull chased me? +That red bull of Mrs. Brent's? He was old and cross. No, of course you +weren't."</p> + +<p>"I remember the beast. He had a broken horn."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Just a stump. It made him frightful. I dream about him now. And +when you were running after me—"</p> + +<p>He broke in with a muffled exclamation and shifted from one foot to the +other like a chidden child. "I'm sorry," he said again, and muttered, +"Fool!" as he bent towards her. "Did you hurt yourself against that +stone? Are you all right? You've only slippers on."</p> + +<p>"I've nearly stopped shaking," she said practically. "And it doesn't +matter. You didn't mean to do it. I must go home. Rupert is waiting for +me."</p> + +<p>His voice was humble. "I don't believe I've spoken to you since that day +in the hollow."</p> + +<p>She remembered that occasion and the curious moment when she felt his +eyes on her, and she was reminded that though he had not been running +after her, he had certainly been running after somebody. She glanced at +him and he looked very tall as he stood there, as tall as the tinker.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you sit down?" she asked quickly, and as he did so she added, +on a new thought, "But perhaps I'm keeping you. Perhaps—Don't wait for +me."</p> + +<p>"I've nothing else to do," he told her.</p> + +<p>"I spoke to you," she said, "the day after your father died."</p> + +<p>"I meant alone," he answered.</p> + +<p>They sat in silence after that, and for Helen the smell of heather was +the speech of those immaterial ones who lay about her. Some change had +taken place among the stars: they were paler, nearer, as though they had +grown tired of eminence and wanted commerce with the earth. The great +quiet had failed before the encroachment of little sounds as of +burrowing, nocturnal hunting, and the struggles of a breeze that was +always foiled.</p> + +<p>"Do you know what time it is?" Helen asked in a small voice.</p> + +<p>He held his watch sideways, but he had to strike a match, and its light +drew all the eyes of the moor.</p> + +<p>"Quick!" Helen said.</p> + +<p>He was not to be hurried. "Not far off midnight."</p> + +<p>"And Rupert's waiting! Good-night, George."</p> + +<p>"And you've forgiven me?" he asked as they parted at the gate.</p> + +<p>"No." She laughed almost as Miriam might have done, and startled him. +"I'll forgive you," she said, "I'll forgive you when you really hurt +me." She gave him her cool hand and, holding it, he half asked, half +told her, "That's a promise."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Good-night."</p> + +<p>Slowly she walked through the dark hall, hesitated at the schoolroom +door and opened it.</p> + +<p>"I've come back," she said, and disappeared before Rupert could reply, +for she was afraid he would make some allusion to the tinker.</p> + +<p>It was characteristic of her that, as she undressed, carefully laying +her clothes aside, her concern was for George's moral welfare rather +than for the safety of the person for whom he had mistaken her, and this +was because she happened to know George, had known him nearly all her +life, while the identity of the other was a blank to her, because she +had no peculiar feeling for her sex; men and women were separated or +united only by their claim on her.</p> + +<p>Mildred Caniper, whose claim was great, came down to breakfast the next +morning with a return of energy that gladdened Helen and set Miriam +thinking swiftly of all the things she had left undone. But Mildred +Caniper was fair, and where she no longer ruled, she would not +criticize. She condescended, however, to ask one question.</p> + +<p>"Who was on the moor last night?"</p> + +<p>"Daniel," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"Zebedee," said Miriam.</p> + +<p>"Zebedee?" she said, pretending not to know to whom that name belonged.</p> + +<p>"Dr. Mackenzie."</p> + +<p>"Oh."</p> + +<p>"The father of James and John," Miriam murmured.</p> + +<p>"So he has children?" Mrs. Caniper went on with her superb assumption +that no one joked in conversation with her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't think so," Helen said earnestly. "He isn't married! Miriam +meant the gentleman in the Bible."</p> + +<p>"I see." Her glance pitied Miriam. "But this was early in the evening. +Some one came in very late. Rupert, perhaps."</p> + +<p>"No, it was me," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"I," Mildred Caniper corrected.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I."</p> + +<p>"Did I hear voices?"</p> + +<p>"Did you?" Helen returned in another tone and with an innocence that +surprised herself and revealed the deceit latent in the mouth of the +most truthful. It was long since she had been so near a lie and lying +was ugly: it made smudges on the world; but disloyalty was no better, +and though she could not have explained the debt, she felt that she owed +George silence. She had to choose. He had been like a child as he +fumbled over his apologies and she could not but be tender with a +child. Yet only a few seconds earlier she had thought he was the tinker. +Oh, why had Rupert ever told her of the tinker?</p> + +<p>"I would rather you did not wander on the moor so late at night," +Mildred Caniper said.</p> + +<p>"But it's the best time of all."</p> + +<p>"I would rather you did not."</p> + +<p>"Very well. I'll try to remember."</p> + +<p>A sign from Miriam drew Helen into the garden.</p> + +<p>"Silly of you to come in by the front way. Of course she heard. If the +garden door is locked, you can climb the wall and get on to the scullery +roof. Then there's my window."</p> + +<p>Helen measured the distance with her eye. "It's too high up."</p> + +<p>"Throw up a shoe and I'll lower a chair for you."</p> + +<p>"But—this is horrid," Helen said. "Why should I?"</p> + +<p>Miriam's thin shoulders went up and down. "You never know, you never +know," she chanted. "You never know what you may come to."</p> + +<p>"Don't!" Helen begged. She leaned against a poplar and looked mournfully +from the window to Miriam's face.</p> + +<p>"No," Miriam said, "I've never done it. I only planned it in case of +need. It would be a way of escape, too, if she ever locked me up. She's +capable of that. Helen, I don't like this rejuvenation!"</p> + +<p>"Don't," Helen said again.</p> + +<p>"I haven't mended the sheets she gave me weeks ago."</p> + +<p>"I'll help you with them."</p> + +<p>"Good, kind, Christian girl! There's nothing like having a reputation to +keep up. That's why I told you about my secret road."</p> + +<p>"You're—vulgar."</p> + +<p>"No, I'm human, and very young, and rather beautiful. And quite +intelligent." There came on her face the look which made her seem old +and tired with her own knowledge. "Was it Zebedee last night?"</p> + +<p>Heat ran over Helen's body like a living thing.</p> + +<p>"You're hateful," she stammered. "As though Zebedee and I—as though +Zebedee and I would meet by stealth!"</p> + +<p>"Honestly, I can't see why you shouldn't. Why shouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>Helen smoothed her forehead with both hands. "It was the way you said +it," she murmured painfully and then straightened herself. "Of course +nothing Zebedee would do could be anything but good. I beg his pardon." +And in a failing voice, she explained again, "It was the way you said +it."</p> + +<p>"I suppose I'm not really a nice person," Miriam replied.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + + +<p>During the week that followed, a remembrance of her responsibilities +came back to Helen and when she looked at Mildred Caniper, alternating +between energy and lassitude, the shining house seemed wearily far off, +or, at the best, Notya was in it, bringing her own shadows. Helen had +been too happy, she told herself. She must not be greedy, she must hold +very lightly to her desires lest they should turn and hurt her, yet with +all her heart she wanted to see Zebedee, who was a surety for everything +that was good.</p> + +<p>By Rupert he sent letters which delighted her and gave her a sense of +safety by their restraint, and on Sunday another letter was delivered by +Daniel because Zebedee was kept in town by a serious case.</p> + +<p>"So there will be no fear of my saying all those things that were ready +on my tongue," he wrote, to tease, perhaps to test her, and she cried +out to herself, "Oh, I'd let him say anything in the whole world if only +he would come!" And she added, on her own broken laughter, "At least, I +think so."</p> + +<p>She felt the need to prove her courage, but she also wanted an excuse +fit to offer to the fates, and when she had examined the larder and the +store cupboard she found that the household was in immediate need of +things which must be brought from the town. She laughed at her own +quibble, but it satisfied her and, refusing Miriam's company, she set +off on Monday afternoon.</p> + +<p>It was a soft day and the air, moist on her cheek, smelt of damp, black +earth. The moor would be in its gorgeous autumn dress for some months +yet and the distances were cloaked in blue, promising the wayfarer a +heaven which receded with every step.</p> + +<p>With a destination of her own, Helen was not daunted. Walking with her +light long stride, she passed the side road leading to Halkett's farm +and remembered how George and Zebedee, seated side by side, something +like figures on a frieze, had swung down that road to tend old Halkett. +Beyond the high fir-wood she came upon the fields where old Halkett had +grown his crops: here and there were the cottages of his hands, with +dahlias and staring children in the gardens, and before long other +houses edged the road and she saw the thronging roofs of the town.</p> + +<p>It was Zebedee who chanced to open to her when she knocked and she saw a +grave face change to one of youth as he took her by the wrist to draw +her in.</p> + +<p>"Do you always look like that when I'm not here?" she asked anxiously, +quickly, but he did not answer.</p> + +<p>"It's you!" he said. "You!"</p> + +<p>In the darkness of the passage they could hardly see each other, but he +had not loosed his grasp and with a deft turn of the wrist she thrust +her whole hand into his.</p> + +<p>"I was tired of waiting for you," she said. "A whole week! I was afraid +you were never coming back!"</p> + +<p>"You know I'd come back to you if I were dead."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know." She leaned towards him and laughed and, wrenching himself +free from the contemplation of her, he led her to his room. There he +shut the door and stood against it.</p> + +<p>"I want to look at you. No, I don't think I'd better look at you." He +spoke in his quick usual way. "Come and sit down. Is that chair all +right? And here's a cushion for you, but I don't believe it's clean. +Everything looks dirty now that you are in the room. Helen, are you sure +it's you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Are you sure you're glad? I want to sit and laugh and laugh, do +all the laughing I've never had. And I want to cry—with loud noises. +Which shall I do? Oh—I can't do either!"</p> + +<p>"I've hardly ever seen you in a hat before. You must take it off. No, +let me find the pins. Now you're my Helen again. Sit there. Don't move. +Don't run away. I'm going to tell Eliza about tea."</p> + +<p>She heard a murmur in the passage, the jingle of money, the front door +opened and shut and she knew the Eliza had been sent out to buy cakes.</p> + +<p>"I had to get rid of her," Zebedee said. "I had to have you to myself." +He knelt before her. "I'm going to take off your gloves. What do you +wear them for? So that I can take them off?"</p> + +<p>He did it slowly. Each hand was like a flower unsheathed, and when he +had kissed her fingers and her palms he looked up and saw a face made +tragic by sudden knowledge of passion. Her eyes were dark with it and +her mouth had shaped itself for his.</p> + +<p>"Helen—!"</p> + +<p>"I know—I know—"</p> + +<p>"And there's nothing to say."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter—doesn't matter—" His head was on her knees and her +hands stroked his hair. He heard her whispering: "What soft hair! It's +like a baby's." She laughed. "So soft! No, no. Stay there. I want to +stroke it."</p> + +<p>"But I want to see you. I haven't seen you since I kissed you. And +you're more beautiful. I love you more—" He rose, and would not see the +persuasion of her arms. "Ah, dear, dearest one, forget I love you. You +are too young and too beautiful for me, Desire."</p> + +<p>"But I shall soon be old. You don't want to wait until I'm old."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to wait at all."</p> + +<p>"And I'm twenty, Zebedee."</p> + +<p>"Twenty! Well, Heaven bless you for it," he said and swung the hand she +held out to him.</p> + +<p>"And this is true," she said.</p> + +<p>"It is."</p> + +<p>"And I never thought it would be. I was afraid Miriam was loving you."</p> + +<p>"But," he said, still swinging, "I was never in any danger of loving +Miriam."</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "I couldn't have let her be unhappy."</p> + +<p>"And me?"</p> + +<p>She gave him an illuminating smile. "You're just myself. It doesn't +matter if one hurts oneself."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" He bent her fingers and straightened them. "How small they are. I +could break them—funny things. So you'd marry me to Miriam if she +wanted me. That isn't altogether satisfactory, my dear. To be +you—that's perfect, but treat me more kindly than you treat yourself."</p> + +<p>"Just the same—it must be. Swing my hand again. I like it." She went on +in a low voice. "All the time, I've been thinking she would come +between."</p> + +<p>"She can't now."</p> + +<p>She looked up, troubled, and begged, "Don't say so. Sometimes she's just +like a bat, flying into one's face. Only more lovely, and I can't be +angry with her."</p> + +<p>"I could. But let's talk about you and me, how much we love each other, +and how nice we are."</p> + +<p>"We do, don't we?"</p> + +<p>"We are, aren't we?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, how silly!"</p> + +<p>"Let's be sillier than any one has ever been before."</p> + +<p>"Listen!" Helen said and Zebedee stopped on his way to her.</p> + +<p>"It's that woman. Why didn't something run over her? Is my hair +ruffled?"</p> + +<p>"Come quickly and let me smooth it. Nice hair."</p> + +<p>"Yours is always smooth, but do you know, it curls a little."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no."</p> + +<p>"It does, really, on the temples. Come and look. No, stay there. She'll +be in soon, confound her."</p> + +<p>"We ought to be talking sensibly."</p> + +<p>"Can we?"</p> + +<p>"I can. Shall I put my hat on?"</p> + +<p>"No, no, not for one greater than Eliza. I'm afraid of you in a hat. Now +I'll sit here and you can begin your sensible conversation."</p> + +<p>"I'm serious, truly. It's about Notya. She's funny, Zebedee. At night I +can hear her walking about her room and she's hardly ever strict. She +doesn't care. I wish you would make her well."</p> + +<p>"Will she let me try?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't ask her that because I pretend not to notice. We all do. +She's like a person who—who can't forget. I—don't know."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, darling."</p> + +<p>"Don't be. I'm always afraid of being sorry or glad because you don't +know what will happen. Father leaving us like that, making her +miserable—it's given you to me." She looked up at him. "The world's +difficult."</p> + +<p>"Always; but there are times when it is good. Helen—"</p> + +<p>Eliza entered, walking heavily in creaking boots, and when Helen looked +at her, she wondered at the tinker. Eliza was hard-featured: she had not +much hair, and on it a cap hung precariously. Spreading a cloth on a +small table, she went about her business slowly, carrying one thing at a +time and leaving the door open as a protest against Helen's presence.</p> + +<p>"Who'll pour?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"You can leave the table there."</p> + +<p>"They were out of sugar cakes. I got buns."</p> + +<p>He looked at them. "If that's the best they can do, they ought to be +ashamed of themselves."</p> + +<p>"If you want cakes you should get them in the morning. I've kept the +change to pay the milkman."</p> + +<p>With a flourish of the cosy Zebedee turned to Helen as the door was +shut.</p> + +<p>"Isn't she dreadful?"</p> + +<p>"She wants a new pair of boots."</p> + +<p>"And a new face."</p> + +<p>"I know she doesn't clean the house properly. How often does she sweep +this carpet? It isn't clean, but I wouldn't mind that if she took care +of you."</p> + +<p>"Daniel beat her on the supper question. He thought she'd leave rather +than give in, and he was hopeful, but she saw through that. She stuck."</p> + +<p>"Isn't she fond of you?" Helen asked wistfully.</p> + +<p>"No, darling, we detest each other. Do I put the milk in first?"</p> + +<p>"Bring the table to me and I'll do it. Is she honest?"</p> + +<p>"Rigidly. I notice that the dishonest are generally pleasing. No, you +can't have the table. It would hide a lot of you. I want to talk to you, +Helen. Have one of these stale buns. What a meal for you! We've got to +settle this affair."</p> + +<p>"But it is settled."</p> + +<p>"Eat your bun and listen, and don't be forward."</p> + +<p>She laughed at him. "It was forward to come here, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"It was adorable. But since last Sunday, I have been thinking. What do +you know about life, about men? I'm just the one who has chanced across +your path. It's like stealing you. It isn't fair."</p> + +<p>"There's Daniel," she said solemnly. "And the dentist. And your father +when we had measles. And George Halkett—"</p> + +<p>"Be serious."</p> + +<p>"There's the tinker."</p> + +<p>"Who on earth is he?"</p> + +<p>"A man Rupert told me about, a made-up man, but he has come alive in my +mind. I wish he hadn't. I might meet him. Once I nearly did, and if I +met him, Zebedee—"</p> + +<p>"Darling, I wish you'd listen. Suppose you married me—"</p> + +<p>"You want me to marry you?"</p> + +<p>"My dear, precious child—"</p> + +<p>"I wasn't sure. Go on."</p> + +<p>"If you married me, and afterwards you found some one you liked better, +as well you might, what would happen then?"</p> + +<p>"I should make the best of you."</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't run away?"</p> + +<p>"If I went, I should walk, but I shouldn't go. I'm like that. I belong +to people and to places."</p> + +<p>"You belong to me."</p> + +<p>"Not yet. Not quite. I wish I did, because then I should feel safe, but +now I belong to the one who needs me most. Notya, perhaps."</p> + +<p>"And if we were married?"</p> + +<p>"Then I should just be yours."</p> + +<p>"But we are married."</p> + +<p>"No," she said.</p> + +<p>"I don't see the distinction."</p> + +<p>"But it's there," she said, and once more he felt the iron under her +grace.</p> + +<p>"This isn't modern, Helen."</p> + +<p>"No, I'm simple."</p> + +<p>"And I don't like it." He was grave; the muscles in his cheek were +twitching and the brown flecks in his eyes moved quickly. "Marry me at +once."</p> + +<p>"You said I was too young!"</p> + +<p>"I say it still." He paced the room. "It's true, but neither your youth +nor anything else shall take you from me, and, oh, my little heart, be +good to me."</p> + +<p>"I can't be good enough and I'll marry you when you want me."</p> + +<p>"This week?"</p> + +<p>She caught his hand and laid her cheek against it. "Oh, I would, I +would, if Notya didn't need me."</p> + +<p>"No one," he said, "needs you as I do. We'll be married in the spring."</p> + +<p>Her hand and her smile acknowledged what he said while her eyes were +busy on his thin face, his worn, well-brushed clothes, the books and +papers on his desk, the arrangements of the room.</p> + +<p>"I don't like any of your furniture," she said suddenly. "And those +ornaments are ugly."</p> + +<p>He took them from the mantelpiece and threw them into the waste-paper +basket.</p> + +<p>"Anything else? It won't hold the furniture."</p> + +<p>"Ah, you're nice," she said, and, going to the window, she looked out on +the garden, where the apple-trees twisted themselves out of a rough +lawn.</p> + +<p>"When you marry me," Zebedee said, standing beside her and speaking +quietly, "we'll leave this house to Daniel and Eliza. There's one +outside the town, on the moor road, but set back in a big garden, a +square house. Shall we—shall we go and look at it?"</p> + +<p>"Shall we?" she repeated, and they faced each other unsmiling.</p> + +<p>"It's an old house, with big square windows, and there's a rising copse +behind it."</p> + +<p>"I know," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"There's a little stream that falls into the road."</p> + +<p>"Does it run inside the garden?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I'm not sure about."</p> + +<p>"It must."</p> + +<p>He put his hand on her shoulder. "We could peep through the windows. Are +you coming?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she said and there was a fluttering movement in her +throat. "Don't you think it's rather dangerously near the road?"</p> + +<p>"We could lock the gate," he said.</p> + +<p>She dropped her face into her hands. "No, I can't come. I'm afraid. It's +tempting things to happen."</p> + +<p>"It has been empty for a long time," he went on in the same quiet tones. +"I should think we could get it cheap."</p> + +<p>She looked up again. "And I shall have a hundred pounds a year. That +would pay the rent and keep the garden tidy."</p> + +<p>He turned on her sharply. "Mind, I'm going to buy your clothes!"</p> + +<p>"I can make them all," she said serenely. She leaned against him. "We +love each other—and we know so little about each other. I don't even +know how old you are!"</p> + +<p>"I'm nearly thirty-one."</p> + +<p>"That's rather old. You must know more than I do."</p> + +<p>"I expect I do."</p> + +<p>A faint line came between her eyebrows. "Perhaps you have been in love +before."</p> + +<p>"I have." His lips tightened at the memory.</p> + +<p>"Very much in love?"</p> + +<p>"Pretty badly."</p> + +<p>"Then I hope she's dead!"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"I can't bear her to be alive. Oh, Zebedee, why didn't you wait for +me?"</p> + +<p>"I should have loved you less, child."</p> + +<p>"Would you? You never loved her like this?"</p> + +<p>"She wasn't you."</p> + +<p>In a little while she said, "I don't understand love. Why should we +matter so much to each other? So much that we're afraid? Or do we only +think we do? Perhaps that's it. It can't matter so much as we make out, +because we die and it's all over, and no one cares any more about our +little lives." On a sigh he heard her last words. "We mustn't struggle."</p> + +<p>"Struggle?"</p> + +<p>"For what we want."</p> + +<p>To this he made no answer, but he had a strange feeling that the firm, +fine body he held was something more perishable than glass and might be +broken with a word.</p> + +<p>He took her to the moor, but when they passed the empty house she would +not look at it.</p> + +<p>"The stream does run through the garden," he said. "We could sail boats +on it." And he added thoughtfully, "We should have to dam it up +somewhere to make a harbour."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + + +<p>Disease fell heavily on the town that autumn and Zebedee and Helen had +to snatch their meetings hurriedly on the moor. She found that Miriam +was right and she had no difficulty and no shame in running out into the +darkness for a clasp of hands, a few words, a shadowy glimpse of Zebedee +by the light of the carriage lamps, while the old horse stood patiently +between the shafts and breathed visibly against the frosty night. Over +the sodden or frozen ground, the peat squelching or the heather stalks +snapping under her feet, she would make her way to that place where she +hoped to find her lover with his quick words and his scarce caresses +and, returning with the wind of the moor on her and eyes wide with +wonder and the night, she would get a paternal smile from Rupert and a +gibing word from Miriam, and be almost unaware of both. For weeks, her +days were only preludes to the short perfection of his presence and her +nights were filled with happy dreams: the eyes which had once been so +watchful over Mildred Caniper were now turned inwards or levelled on the +road; she went under a spell which shut out fear.</p> + +<p>In December she was brought back to a normal world by the illness of +Mildred Caniper. One morning, without a word of explanation or +complaint, she went back to her bed, and Helen found her there, lying +inert and staring at the ceiling. She had not taken down her hair and +under the crown of it her face looked small and pinched, her eyes were +like blue pools threatening to over-run their banks.</p> + +<p>"Is your head aching?" Helen said.</p> + +<p>"I—don't think so."</p> + +<p>"What is it, then?"</p> + +<p>"I was afraid I could not—go on," she said carefully. "I was afraid of +doing something silly and I was giddy."</p> + +<p>"Are you better now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I want to rest."</p> + +<p>"Try to sleep."</p> + +<p>"It isn't sleep I want. It's rest, rest."</p> + +<p>Helen went away, but before long she came back with a dark curtain to +shroud the window.</p> + +<p>"No, no! I want light, not shadows," Mildred cried in a shrill voice. "A +dark room—" Her voice fell away in the track of her troubled memories, +and when she spoke again it was in her ordinary tones. "I beg your +pardon, Helen. You startled me. I think I must have dozed and dreamed."</p> + +<p>"And you won't have the curtain?"</p> + +<p>"No. Let there be light." She lay there helpless, while thoughts preyed +on her, as vultures might prey on something moribund.</p> + +<p>At dinner-time she refused to help herself to food, though she ate if +Helen fed her. "The spoon is heavy," she complained.</p> + +<p>Miriam was white and nervous. "She ought to have Zebedee," she said. +"She looks funny. She frightens me."</p> + +<p>"We could wait until tomorrow," Helen said. "He is so busy and I don't +want to bring him up for nothing. He's being overworked."</p> + +<p>"But for Notya!" Miriam exclaimed. "And don't you want to see him?" She +could not keep still. "I can't bear people to be ill. He ought to come."</p> + +<p>"Go and ask John."</p> + +<p>"What does he know about it?" she whispered. "I keep thinking perhaps +she will go mad."</p> + +<p>"That's silly."</p> + +<p>"It isn't. She looks—queer. If she does, I shall run away. I'm going to +George. He'll drive into the town. You mustn't sacrifice Notya to +Zebedee, you know."</p> + +<p>Helen let out an ugly, scornful sound that angered Miriam.</p> + +<p>"Old sheep!" she said, and Helen had to spare a smile, but she was +thoughtful.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps John would go."</p> + +<p>"But why not George?"</p> + +<p>"We're always asking favours."</p> + +<p>"Pooh! He likes them and I don't mind asking."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, it would be rather a relief. I don't know what to do with +her."</p> + +<p>The sense of responsibility towards George which had once kept Miriam +awake had also kept her from him in a great effort of self-denial, and +it was many days since she had done more than wave a greeting or give +him a few light words.</p> + +<p>"I believe I've offended you," he had told her not long ago, but she +assured him that it was not so.</p> + +<p>"Then I can't make you out," he muttered.</p> + +<p>She shut her eyes and showed him her long lashes. "No, I'm a mystery. +Think about me, George." And before he had time to utter his genuine, +clumsy speech, she ran away.</p> + +<p>"But I can't avoid temptation much longer," she told herself. "Life's +too dull."</p> + +<p>And now this illness which alarmed her was like a door opening slowly.</p> + +<p>"And it's the hand of God that left it ajar," she said as she sped +across the moor.</p> + +<p>Her steps slackened as she neared the larch-wood, for she had not +ventured into it since the night of old Halkett's death; but it was +possible that George would be working in the yard and, tiptoeing down +the soft path, she issued on the cobble-stones.</p> + +<p>George was not there, nor could she hear him, and she was constrained to +knock on the closed door, but the face of Mrs. Biggs, who appeared +after a stealthy pause, was not encouraging to the visitor. She looked +at Miriam and her thin lips parted and joined again without speech.</p> + +<p>"I want Mr. Halkett," Miriam said, straightening herself and speaking +haughtily because she guessed that Mrs. Biggs was suspicious of her +friendliness with George.</p> + +<p>"He's out. You'll have to wait," she said and shut the door.</p> + +<p>A cold wind was swooping into the hollow, but Miriam was hot with a +gathering anger that rushed into words as Halkett appeared.</p> + +<p>"George!" She ran to him. "I hate that woman. I always did. I wish you +wouldn't keep her. Oh, I hate her!"</p> + +<p>"But you didn't come here to tell me that," he said. In her haste she +had allowed him to take her hand and the touch of her softened his +resentment at her neglect; amusement narrowed his eyes until she could +not see their blue.</p> + +<p>"She's horrid, she's rude; she left me on the step. I didn't want to go +in, but she oughtn't to have left me standing there."</p> + +<p>"She ought not. I'll tell her."</p> + +<p>"Dare you?"</p> + +<p>"Dare I!" he repeated boastfully.</p> + +<p>"But you mustn't! Don't, George, please don't. Promise you won't. +Promise, George."</p> + +<p>"All right."</p> + +<p>"Thank you." She drew her hand away.</p> + +<p>"The fact is, she's always pretty hard on you."</p> + +<p>Miriam's flame went out. "You don't mean," she said coldly, "that you +discuss me with her?"</p> + +<p>"No, I do not."</p> + +<p>"You swear you never have?"</p> + +<p>He had a pleasing and indulgent smile. "Yes, I swear it, but she +dislikes the whole lot of you, and you can't always stop a woman's +talk."</p> + +<p>"You should be able to," she said. She wished she had not come for +George did not realize what was due to her. She would go to John and she +nodded a cold good-bye.</p> + +<p>Her hands were in the pockets of her brown woollen coat, her shoulders +were lifted towards her ears; she was less beautiful than he had ever +seen her, yet in her kindest moments she had not seemed so near to him. +He was elated by this discovery; he did not seek its cause and, had he +done so, he was not acute enough to see that hitherto the feelings she +had shown him had been chiefly feigned, and that this real resentment, +marking her face with petulance, revealed her nature to be common with +his own.</p> + +<p>"But you've not told me what you came for," he said.</p> + +<p>She was reluctant, but she spoke. "To ask you to do something for us."</p> + +<p>"You know I'll do it."</p> + +<p>Still sulky, she took a few steps and leaned against the house wall; she +had the look of a boy caught in a fault.</p> + +<p>"We want the doctor."</p> + +<p>"Who's ill?"</p> + +<p>"It's Notya."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know." She forgot her grievance. "I don't like thinking of it. +It makes me sick."</p> + +<p>"Is she very bad?"</p> + +<p>"No, but I think he ought to come."</p> + +<p>"Must I bring him back?"</p> + +<p>"Just leave a message, please, if it doesn't put you out."</p> + +<p>In the pause before he spoke, he studied the dark head against the +white-washed wall, the slim body, the little feet crossed on the +cobbles, and then he stammered:</p> + +<p>"You—you're like a rose-tree growing up."</p> + +<p>She spread her arms and turned and drooped her head to encourage the +resemblance. "Like that?"</p> + +<p>He nodded, with the clumsiness of his emotions. "Look here—"</p> + +<p>"Now, don't be tiresome. Oh, you can tell me what you were going to +say."</p> + +<p>"All these weeks—"</p> + +<p>"I know, but it was for your sake, George."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"It's difficult to explain, but one night my good angel bent over my +bed, like a mother—or was it your good angel?"</p> + +<p>He grinned. "I don't believe you'd know one if you saw one."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I shouldn't," she admitted, with a laugh. "Would you?"</p> + +<p>"I fancy I've seen one."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Biggs?" she dared. "Me?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to tell you."</p> + +<p>"I expect it's me. But run away and bring the doctor."</p> + +<p>"I say—will you wait till I get back?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't. Think of Mrs. Biggs!"</p> + +<p>"Not here. Up in the wood. But never mind. Come and see me saddle the +little mare."</p> + +<p>She liked the smell of the long, dim stable, the sound of the horses +moving in their stalls, the regular crunching as they ate their hay. +Years ago, she had been in this place with John and Rupert and she had +forgotten nothing. There were the corn-bins under the windows and the +pieces of old harness still hanging on big nails; above, there was the +loft that looked as vast as ever in the shadowy gloom, and again it +invited her ascent by the iron steps between the stalls.</p> + +<p>From the harness-room Halkett fetched a saddle, and as he put it on the +mare's back, he said, "Come and say how d'you do to her."</p> + +<p>"It's Daisy. She'll go fast. Isn't she beautiful! She's rubbing her nose +on me. I wish I could ride her."</p> + +<p>"She might let you—for half a minute. Charlie's the boy for you. Come +and see what's in the harness-room."</p> + +<p>"Not now. There isn't time."</p> + +<p>"Wait for me then." There was pleading in his voice. "Wait in the wood. +I've something to show you. Will you do that for me?"</p> + +<p>He was standing close to her, and she did not look up. "I ought to go +back, but I don't want to. I don't like ill people. They sicken me."</p> + +<p>"Don't go, then."</p> + +<p>Now she looked at him in search of the assurance she wanted. "I needn't, +need I? Helen can manage, can't she?"</p> + +<p>He forgot to answer because she was like a flower suddenly brought to +life in Daisy's stall, a flower for grace and beauty, but a woman for +something that made him deaf to what she said.</p> + +<p>"She can manage, can't she?"</p> + +<p>"Of course." He snatched an armful of hay from a rack and led her to the +larch trees and there he scraped together the fallen needles and laid +the hay on them to make a bed for her.</p> + +<p>"Rest there. Go to sleep and I'll be back before you wake."</p> + +<p>She lay curled on her side until all sounds of him had passed and then +she rolled on to her back and drew up her knees. It was dark and warm in +the little wood; the straight trunks of the larches were as menacing as +spears and the sky looked like a great banner tattered by their points. +Though she lay still, she seemed to be marching with a host, and the +light wind in the trees was the music of its going, the riven banner was +a trophy carried proudly and, at a little distance, the rushing of the +brook was the sound of feet following behind. For a long time she went +with that triumphant army, but at length there came other sounds that +forced themselves on her hearing and changed her from a gallant soldier +to a girl half frightened in a wood.</p> + +<p>She sat up and listened to the galloping of a horse and a voice singing +in gay snatches. The sounds rose and sank and died away and came forth +lustily again, and in the singing there was something full-blooded and +urgent, as though the singer came from some danger joyfully escaped or +hurried to some tryst. She stood up and, holding to a tree, she leaned +sideways to listen. She heard Halkett speaking jovially to the mare as +he pulled her up on the cobbles and gave her a parting smack of his open +hand: then there began a sweet whistling invaded by other sounds, by +Daisy's stamping in her stall, a corn-bin opened and shut, and Halkett's +footsteps in the yard. Soon they were lost in the softness of the larch +needles, but the whistling warned her of his coming and alarmed her with +its pulsing lilt, and as she moved away and tried to make no noise, a +dry branch snapped under her feet.</p> + +<p>"Where are you?" he called out.</p> + +<p>"Here," she answered, and awaited him. She could see the light gleaming +in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Were you running off?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't run."</p> + +<p>He wound his arm about a tree and said, "We came at a pace, the mare and +I."</p> + +<p>"I heard you. Is Dr. Mackenzie coming?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—fast as that old nag of his will bring him."</p> + +<p>She slipped limply to the ground for she was chilled. She had braced +herself for danger and it had turned aside, and she felt no +thankfulness: she merely found George Halkett dull.</p> + +<p>"Thank you for going," she said in cool tones. "Now I must go back and +see how Notya is."</p> + +<p>"No. I want to show you the side saddle."</p> + +<p>"Which?"</p> + +<p>"The one for you."</p> + +<p>Adventure was hovering again. "For me? Are you really going to teach me +to ride?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't I say so?"</p> + +<p>"But when?"</p> + +<p>"When the rest of the world's in their beds."</p> + +<p>"Oh. Won't it be too dark?"</p> + +<p>"We'll manage. We'll try it first in daylight, right over the moor where +no one goes. Most nights are not much darker than it is now, though. I +can see you easily."</p> + +<p>"Can you?" She was rocking herself in the way to which she had +accustomed him. "What can you see?"</p> + +<p>"Black hair and black eyes. Come here."</p> + +<p>"I'm quite comfortable and you should never tell a lady to come to you, +George."</p> + +<p>"Are you asking me to come to you?"</p> + +<p>"Don't be silly. Aren't you going to show me the saddle?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Where's your hand? I'll help you up. There you are! No, I'll keep +your hand. The ground's steep and you might fall."</p> + +<p>"No. Let me have it, George."</p> + +<p>Her resistance broke the bonds he had laid on himself, and over her +there fell a kind of wavering darkness in which she was drawn to him and +held against his breast. His coat smelt of peat and tobacco; she felt +his strength and the tense muscles under his clothes, and she did not +struggle to get free of him. Ages of warm, dark time seemed to have +passed over her before she realized that he was doing something to her +hair. He was kissing it and, without any thought, obedient to the hour, +she turned up her face to share those kisses. He uttered a low sound and +put a hand to either of her cheeks, marking her mouth for his, and it +was then she pushed him from her, stepped back, and shook herself and +cried, "Oh, oh, you have been drinking!"</p> + +<p>As she retreated, he advanced, but she fenced him off with outstretched +hands.</p> + +<p>"Go away. You have been drinking."</p> + +<p>"I swear I haven't. I had one glass down there. I was thirsty—and no +wonder. I swear I had no more. It's you, you that's sent it to my head."</p> + +<p>At that, half was forgiven, but she said, "Anyhow, it's horrid and it +makes me hate you. Go away. Don't touch me. Don't come near." In her +retreat she stumbled against a tree and felt a bitterness of reproach +because he did not ask if she were hurt.</p> + +<p>"I'll show you I'm sober," he grumbled. "What do you know about it? +You're a schoolgirl."</p> + +<p>"Then if you think that you should be still more ashamed."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not. You made me mad and—you didn't seem to mind it."</p> + +<p>"I didn't, but I do now, and I'm going."</p> + +<p>He followed her to the wood's edge and there she turned.</p> + +<p>"If your head is so weak you ought never to take spirits."</p> + +<p>"My head isn't weak, and I'm not a drunkard. Ask any one. It's you that +are—"</p> + +<p>She offered the word—"Intoxicating?" And she let a smile break through +her lips before she ran away.</p> + +<p>She felt no mental revulsion against his embrace; the physical one was +only against the smell of spirits which she disliked, and she was the +richer for an experience she did not want to repeat. She saw no reason, +however, why he should not be tempted to offer it. She had tasted of the +fruit, and now she desired no more than the delight of seeing it held +out to her and refusing it.</p> + +<p>The moor was friendly to her as she crossed it and if she had suffered +from any sense of guilt, it would have reassured her. Spread under the +pale colour of the declining sun, she thought it was a big eye that +twinkled at her. She looked at the walls of her home and felt unwilling +to be enclosed by them; she looked towards the road, and seeing the +doctor's trap, she decided to stay on the moor until he had been and +gone, and when at last she entered she found the house ominously dark +and quiet. The familiar scent of the hall was a chiding in itself and +she went nervously to the schoolroom, where a line of light marked its +meeting with the floor.</p> + +<p>Helen sat by the table, mending linen in the lamplight. She gave one +upward glance and went on working.</p> + +<p>"Well?" Miriam said.</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Did he come?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"What did he say?"</p> + +<p>"He called it collapse."</p> + +<p>"How clever of him!"</p> + +<p>"I have left the tea-things for you to wash, and will you please get +supper?"</p> + +<p>"You needn't talk like that. I'm willing to do my share."</p> + +<p>"You shirked it today, and though I know you're frightened of her, +that's no excuse for leaving me alone."</p> + +<p>Miriam leaned on the table and asked in a gentler voice, "Is she likely +to be ill long?"</p> + +<p>"It's very likely."</p> + +<p>"Well, we shan't miss her while you are with us, but it's a pity, when +we might have peace. You're just like her. I hope you'll never have any +children, for they'd be as miserable as I am, only there wouldn't be one +like me. How could there be? One only has to think of Zebedee."</p> + +<p>Helen stood up and brought her hand so heavily to the table that the +lamplight flared.</p> + +<p>"Go!" she said, "go—" Her voice and body shook, her arms slid limply +over her mending, and she tumbled into her chair, crying with sobs that +seemed to quaver for a long time in her breast. Miriam could not have +imagined such a weeping, and it frightened her. With one finger she +touched Helen's shoulder, and over and over again she said, "I'm sorry, +Helen. I'm sorry. Don't cry. I'm sorry—" until she heard Rupert +whistling on the track. At that Helen stirred and wiped her eyes, but +Miriam darted from the room, shouted cheerfully to Rupert and, keeping +him in talk, led him to the dining-room, while Helen sat staring with +blurred eyes at the linen pile, and seeing the misery in Mildred +Caniper's face.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + + +<p>It was a bitter winter, with more rain than snow, more snow than +sunshine, and it seemed to Helen that half her life was spent in +watching for Zebedee's figure bent against the storm as he drove up the +road, while Mildred Caniper lay slackly in her bed. She no longer stared +at the ceiling, for though her body had collapsed, her will had only +wavered, and it was righting itself slowly, and the old thoughts which +had been hunting her for years had not yet overcome her. Like hounds, +they bayed behind, and some day their breath would be on her neck, their +teeth in her flesh, and she would fall to them. This was the threat in +the sound which reached her, soft or loud, as bells are heard in the +wind, and in the meantime she steadied herself with varying arguments. +Said one of these, "The past is over," yet she saw the whole future of +these Canipers as the product of her acts. Reason, unsubdued, refused to +allow her so much power, and she gave in; but she knew that if good +befell the children she could claim no credit; if evil, she would take +all the blame. There remained the comfortable assurance that she had +done her best, and then Miriam's face mocked her as it peeped furtively +round the bedroom door. Thus she was brought back to her starting place, +and finding the circle a giddy one, she determined to travel on it no +more, and with her old rigidity, she kept this resolve. It was, however, +less difficult than it would once have been, for her mind was weary and +glad of an excuse to take the easiest path. She lay in bed according to +Zebedee's bidding, hardly moving under the clothes, and listening to the +noises in the house. She was astonished by their number and +significance. All through the night, cooling coals ticked in the grate +or dropped on to the hearth; sometimes a mouse scratched or cheeped in +the walls, and on the landing there were movements for which Helen could +have accounted: Mr. Pinderwell, more conscious of his loss in the +darkness, and unaware that his children had taken form, was moving from +door to door and scraping his hands across the panels. Often the wind +howled dolorously round the house while rain slashed furiously at the +windows, and there were stealthy nights when snow wound a white muffler +against the noises of the world. The clock in the hall sent out clear +messages as to the passing of man's division of time, and at length +there came the dawn, aged and eternally young, certain of itself, with a +grey amusement for man's devices. Before that, Helen had opened her door +and gone in soft slippers to light the kitchen fire, and presently +Rupert was heard to whistle as he dressed. Meanwhile, as though it +looked for something, the light spread itself in Mildred Caniper's room +and she attuned her ears for the different noises of the day. There was +Miriam's laughter, more frequent than it had been before her stepmother +was tied to bed, and provocative of a wry smile from the invalid; there +was her farewell shout to Rupert when he took the road, her husky +singing as she worked about the house. Occasionally Mildred heard the +stormy sound of Mrs. Samson's breathing as she polished the landing +floor, or her voice raised in an anecdote too good to keep. Brooms +knocked against the woodwork or swished on the bare floors, and still +the clock, hardly noticed now, let out its warning that human life is +short, or as it might be, over long. Later, but not on every day of the +week, the jingle of a bit, the turning of wheels, rose to Mildred's +window, telling her that the doctor had arrived, and though she had a +grudge against all who saw her incapacitated, she found herself looking +forward to his visits. He did not smile too much, nor stay too long, +though it was remarkable that his leave-taking of her was not +immediately followed by the renewed jingling of the bit. She was sure +her condition did not call for prolonged discussion and, as she +remembered Miriam who was free to come and go unchecked, to laugh away a +man's wits, as her mother had done before her, Mildred Caniper grew hot +and restless: she felt that she must get up and resume control, yet she +knew that it would never be hers in full measure again, and while, in a +rare, false moment, she pretended that the protection of Zebedee was her +aim, truth stared at her with the reminder that the legacy of her old +envy of the mother was this desire to thwart the daughter.</p> + +<p>After that, her thoughts were long and bitter, and their signs were on +her face when Helen returned.</p> + +<p>"What have you been doing?" Helen demanded, for she no longer had any +awe of Mildred Caniper, a woman who had been helpless in her hands.</p> + +<p>"Please don't be ridiculous, Helen."</p> + +<p>"I'm not."</p> + +<p>"This absurd air of authority—"</p> + +<p>"But you look—"</p> + +<p>"We won't discuss how I look. Where is Miriam?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Yes, I do. She went to Brent Farm to get some cream. +Zeb—He says you're to have cream."</p> + +<p>Mildred made a movement which was meant to express baffled patience. "I +have tried to persuade you not to use pronouns instead of proper names. +Can't you hear how vulgar it is?"</p> + +<p>"Dr. Mackenzie wishes you to have cream," Helen said meekly.</p> + +<p>"I do not need cream, and his visits are becoming quite unnecessary."</p> + +<p>"So he said today."</p> + +<p>"Oh."</p> + +<p>"But I," Helen said, smiling to herself, "wish him to come."</p> + +<p>"And no doubt the discussion of what primarily concerns me is what kept +Dr. Mackenzie so long this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"How did you know he stayed?"</p> + +<p>"My good Helen, though I am in bed, I am neither deaf nor an imbecile."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know," Helen said with a seriousness which might as well have +been mockery as stupidity. "I gave him—I gave Dr. Mackenzie tea. He +was driving further, and it's such a stormy day."</p> + +<p>"Quite right. He looks overworked—ill. I don't suppose he is properly +cared for."</p> + +<p>"He has a cough. He says he often gets one," Helen almost pleaded, and +she went, at the first opportunity, from the room.</p> + +<p>She encountered Jane's solemn and sympathetic stare. "I can't have +neglected him, can I?" she asked of the little girl in the pinafore, and +the shadows on the landing once more became alive with the unknown. "He +does cough a lot, Jane, but he says it's nothing, and he tells the +truth." She added involuntarily and with her hand at her throat, "I've +been so happy," and immediately the words buzzed round her with menace. +She should not have said that; it was a thing hardly to be thought, and +she had betrayed her secret, but it comforted her to remember that this +was nearly the end of January, and before long the Easter fires would +burn again and she could pray.</p> + +<p>Between the present and that one hour in the year when she might ask for +help, Zebedee's cough persisted and grew worse. He had to own to a +weakness of the lungs; he suffered every winter, more or less, and +there had been one which had driven him to warmer climes.</p> + +<p>"And you never told me that before!" she cried, with her hand in that +tell-tale position at her throat.</p> + +<p>"My dear, there has been no time to tell you anything. There hasn't been +one day when we could be lavish. We've counted seconds. Would I talk +about my lungs?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps we don't really know each other," Helen said, hoping he would +not intercept this hostage she was offering to fortune, and she looked +at him under her raised brows, and smiled a little, tempting him.</p> + +<p>"We don't," he said firmly, and she drew a breath. "We only know we want +each other, and all the rest of our lives is to be the adventure of +finding each other out."</p> + +<p>"But I'm not adventurous," she said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you'll like it," he assured her, smiling with his wonderfully white +teeth and still more with the little lines round his eyes. He looked at +her with that practical air of adoration which was as precious to her as +his rare caress; she felt doubly honoured because, in his love-making, +he preserved a humour which did not disguise his worship of her. "You'll +like it," he said cheerfully. "Why don't you marry me now and take care +of me?"</p> + +<p>She made a gesture towards the upper room. "How can I?"</p> + +<p>"No, you can't. Not," he added, "so much on that account, as simply +because you can't. I'd rather wait a few months more—"</p> + +<p>"You must," she said, and faintly irritated him. She looked at her +clasped hands. "Zebedee, do you feel you want to be taken care of?" Her +voice was anxious and, though he divined how much was balanced on his +answer, he would not adjust it nicely.</p> + +<p>"Not exactly," he said honestly, and he saw a light of relief and a +shadow of disappointment chase each other on her face.</p> + +<p>"After all, I think I do know you rather well," he murmured, as he took +her by the shoulders. "Do you understand what I am doing?"</p> + +<p>"You're telling me the truth."</p> + +<p>"And at what a cost?"</p> + +<p>She nodded. "But you couldn't help telling me the truth."</p> + +<p>"And if I bemoaned my loneliness, how my collars get lost in the wash, +how tired I am of Eliza's cooking and her face, how bad my cough is, +then you'd let me carry you away?"</p> + +<p>"I might. Zebedee—are those things true, too?"</p> + +<p>"Not particularly."</p> + +<p>"And your cough isn't bad?"</p> + +<p>He hesitated. "It is rather bad."</p> + +<p>"And you're a doctor!"</p> + +<p>"But my dear, darling, love—I've no control over the weather."</p> + +<p>"You ought to go away," she said in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"I hope it won't come to that," he said.</p> + +<p>It was Rupert who asked her a week later if she had jilted Zebedee.</p> + +<p>"Why?" she asked quickly.</p> + +<p>"He's ill, woman."</p> + +<p>"I know."</p> + +<p>"But really ill. You ought to send him away until the spring."</p> + +<p>Her lips moved for a few seconds before she uttered "Yes," and after +that sound she was mute under the double fear of keeping him and parting +from him, but, since to let him go would give her the greater pain, it +was the lesser fear, and it might be that the powers who were always +waiting near to demand a price would, in this manner, let her get her +paying done. She welcomed the chance of paying in advance and she kept +silence while she strengthened herself to do it bravely.</p> + +<p>Because she did not speak, Rupert elaborated. "When Zebedee loses his +temper, there's something wrong."</p> + +<p>"Has he done that?"</p> + +<p>"Daniel daren't speak to him."</p> + +<p>"He never speaks to people: he expounds."</p> + +<p>"True; but your young man was distinctly short with me, even me, +yesterday. Listen to your worldly brother, Helen. Why don't you marry +him and take him into the sun? It's shining somewhere, one supposes."</p> + +<p>"I can't."</p> + +<p>"Why not? There's Miriam."</p> + +<p>"What good is she?"</p> + +<p>"You never give her a chance. You're one of those self-sacrificing, +selfish people who stunt other people's growth. It's like not letting a +baby learn to walk for fear it falls and hurts itself, or tumbles into +the best flower-beds and ruins 'em. Have you ever thought of that?"</p> + +<p>"But she's happier than she used to be," Helen said and smiled as though +nothing more were needed. "And soon she will be going away. She won't +stay after she is twenty-one."</p> + +<p>"D'you think that fairy-tale is going to come true?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. She always does what she wants, you know. And she is counting +on Uncle Alfred, though she says she isn't. She had a letter from him +the other day."</p> + +<p>"And when she has gone, what are you going to do?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what I'm going to do."</p> + +<p>"Things won't be easier for you then. You'd better face that."</p> + +<p>"But she'll be better—Notya will be better."</p> + +<p>"And you'll marry Zebedee."</p> + +<p>"I don't like saying what I'm going to do."</p> + +<p>Rupert's dark eyes had a hard, bright light. "Are you supposed to love +that unfortunate man? Look here, you're not going to be tied to Notya +all her life. Zebedee and I won't have it."</p> + +<p>"What's going to happen to her, then?"</p> + +<p>"Bless the child! She's grown up. She can look after herself."</p> + +<p>"But I can't leave just you and her in this house together."</p> + +<p>He said in rather a strained voice, "I shan't be here. The bank's +sending me to the new branch."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Helen said.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry about it. I tried not to seem efficient, but there's +something about me—charm, I think. They must have noticed how I talk to +the old ladies who don't know how to make out their cheques. So they're +sending me, but I don't know that I ought to leave you all."</p> + +<p>"Of course you must."</p> + +<p>"I can come home on Saturdays."</p> + +<p>"Yes. And Notya's better, and John is near. Why shouldn't you go?"</p> + +<p>"Because your face fell."</p> + +<p>"It's only that everybody's going. It seems like the end of things." She +pictured the house without Rupert and she had a sense of desolation, for +no one would whistle on the track at night and make the house warmer and +more beautiful with his entrance; there would be no one to look up from +his book with unfailing readiness to listen to everything and understand +it; no one to say pleasant things which made her happy.</p> + +<p>"Why," she said, plumbing the depths of loss, "there'll be no one to get +up early for!"</p> + +<p>"Ah, it's Miriam who'll feel that!" he said.</p> + +<p>"And even Daniel won't come any more. He's tired of Miriam's +foolishness."</p> + +<p>"To tell you a secret, he's in love with some one else. But he has no +luck. No wonder! If you could be married to him for ten years before you +married him at all—"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," Helen said thoughtfully. "Those funny men—" She did not +finish her thought. "It will be queer without you," and after a pause +she added the one word, "lonely."</p> + +<p>It was strange that Miriam, whom she loved best, should never present +herself to Helen's mind as a companion: the sisters, indeed, rarely +spoke together except to argue some domestic point, to scold each other, +or to tease, yet each was conscious of the other's admiration, though +Helen looked on Miriam as a pretty ornament or toy, and Miriam gazed +dubiously at what she called the piety of the other.</p> + +<p>"Yes, lonely," she said, but in her heart she was glad that her payment +should be great, and she said loudly, as though she recited her creed: +"I wouldn't change anything. I believe in the things that happen."</p> + +<p>"May they reward you!" he said solemnly.</p> + +<p>"When will you have to go?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure. Pretty soon. Look here, my dear, you three lone women +ought to have a dog to take man's place as your natural protector—and +so on."</p> + +<p>"Have you told Zebedee you are going?"</p> + +<p>"Yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Then he will be getting one."</p> + +<p>"H'm. He seems to be a satisfactory lover."</p> + +<p>"He is, you know."</p> + +<p>"Thank God for him."</p> + +<p>"Would you?" Helen said. She had a practical as well as a superstitious +distaste for offering thanks for benefits not actually received, and +also a disbelief in the present certainty of her possession, but she +took hope. John had gone, Rupert was going, of her own will she would +send Zebedee away, and then surely the powers would be appeased, and if +she suffered enough from loneliness, from dread of seeing Mildred +Caniper ill again, of never getting her lover back, the rulers of her +life might be willing, at the end, to let her have Zebedee and the +shining house—the shining house which lately had taken firmer shape, +and stood squarely back from the road, with a little copse of trees +rising behind.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + + +<p>She cried out when next she saw him, for between this and their next +meeting he had grown gaunter, more nervous, sharper in voice and +gesture.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you're ill!" she said, and stepped back as though she did not know +him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm ill." He held to a chair and tipped it back and forth. "For +goodness' sake, don't talk about it any more. I'm ill. That's settled. +Now let's get on to something else."</p> + +<p>He saw her lip quiver and, uttering a desperate, "I'm sorry," he turned +from her to the window.</p> + +<p>The wisdom she could use so well with others was of no avail with him: +he was too much herself to be treated cunningly. She felt that she +floated on a sea vastly bigger than she had ever known, and its waves +were love and fear and cruelty and fate, but in a moment he turned and +she saw a raft on which she might sail for ever.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me."</p> + +<p>"You've made me love you more."</p> + +<p>"With being a brute to you?"</p> + +<p>"Were you one? But—don't often be angry. I might get used to it!"</p> + +<p>He laughed. "Oh, Helen, you wonder! But I've spoilt our memories."</p> + +<p>"With such a little thing? And when I liked it?"</p> + +<p>"You nearly cried. I don't want to remember that."</p> + +<p>"But I shall like to because we're nearer than we were," she said, and +to that he solemnly agreed. "And I am going to talk about it."</p> + +<p>"Anything, of course."</p> + +<p>"You look tired and hungry and sleepy, and I'm going to send you away."</p> + +<p>"My dear," he said with a grimace, "I've got to go."</p> + +<p>"Give me the credit of sending you."</p> + +<p>"I don't want it. Ah! you've no idea what leaving you is like."</p> + +<p>"But I know—"</p> + +<p>"That's not the same thing."</p> + +<p>"It's worse, I believe. Darling one, go away and come back to me, but +don't come back until you're well. I want—I want to do without you +now—and get it over." Her eyes, close to his, were bright with the +vision of things he could not see. "Get it over," she said again, "and +then, perhaps, we shall be safe."</p> + +<p>He had it in him at that moment to say he would not go because of his +own fear for her, but he only took her on his knee and rocked her as +though she were a baby on the point of sleep and he proved that, after +all, he knew her very well, for when he spoke he said, "I don't think I +can go."</p> + +<p>She started up. "Have you thought of something?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>"You."</p> + +<p>"Me?" she asked on a long note.</p> + +<p>"I don't know whether I can trust you."</p> + +<p>"Me?" she said again.</p> + +<p>"Don't you remember how I asked you to be brave?"</p> + +<p>"I tried, but it was easier then because I hadn't you." Her arm +tightened round his neck. "Now you're another to look after."</p> + +<p>He held her off from him. "What am I to do with you? What am I to do +with you? How can I leave this funny little creature who is afraid of +shadows?"</p> + +<p>"That night," she said in a small voice, "you told me I looked brave."</p> + +<p>"Yes, brave and sane. And I have often thought—don't laugh at me—I +have thought that was how Joan of Arc must have looked."</p> + +<p>"And now?"</p> + +<p>"Now you are like a Joan who does not hear her voices any more."</p> + +<p>She slipped from his knee to hers. "You're disappointed then?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"You ought to be."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps."</p> + +<p>"Would you love me more if I were brave?"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe I could."</p> + +<p>She laughed, and with her head aslant, she asked, "Then what's the good +of trying?"</p> + +<p>"Just to make it easier for me," he said.</p> + +<p>She uttered a little sound like one who stands in mountain mists and +through a rent in the grey curtain sees a light shining in the valley.</p> + +<p>"Would it do that for you? Oh, if it's going to help you, I'm afraid no +longer." She reached out and held his face between the finger-tips of +her two hands. "I promise not to be afraid. Already"—she looked about +her—"I am not afraid. How wonderful you are! And what a wise physician! +Physician, heal thyself. You'll go away?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I can go now."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"For a voyage. The Mediterranean. Not a liner—on some slow-going boat."</p> + +<p>"Not a leaky one," she begged.</p> + +<p>"Ah, I'd come back if she had no bottom to her. Nothing is going to hurt +me or keep me from you!"</p> + +<p>She did not protest against his boasting, but smiled because she knew he +meant to test her.</p> + +<p>"You'll be away a long time," she said.</p> + +<p>"And you'll marry me when I come back?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. If I can."</p> + +<p>"Why not? In April? May? June? In June—a lovely month. It has a sound +of marriage in it. But after all," he said thoughtfully, "it seems a +pity to go. And I wouldn't," he added with defiance, "if I were not +afraid of being ill on your hands."</p> + +<p>"My hands would like it rather."</p> + +<p>"Bless them!"</p> + +<p>"Oh—what silly things we say—and do—and you haven't seen Notya yet."</p> + +<p>"Come along then," he said, and as they went up the stairs together +Helen thought Mr. Pinderwell smiled.</p> + +<p>It was after this visit that Mildred Caniper coolly asked Helen if Dr. +Mackenzie were in the habit of using endearments towards her.</p> + +<p>"Not often," Helen said. Slightly flushed and trying not to laugh, she +stood at the bed-foot and faced Mildred Caniper fairly.</p> + +<p>"You allow it?"</p> + +<p>"I—like it."</p> + +<p>Mildred Caniper closed her eyes. "Please ask him not to do it in my +presence."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell him when he comes again," Helen answered agreeably, and her +stepmother realized that the only weapons to which this girl was +vulnerable were ones not willingly used: such foolish things as tears or +sickness; she seemed impervious to finer tools. Helen's looks at the +moment were unabashed: she was trying to remember what Zebedee had said, +both for its own sake and to gauge its effect on Notya to whose memory +it was clear enough, and its naturalness, the slight and unmistakable +change in his voice as he spoke to Helen, hurt her so much with their +reminder of what she had missed that pain made her strike once more.</p> + +<p>"This is what I might have expected from Miriam."</p> + +<p>"But," said Helen, all innocence, "she doesn't care for him."</p> + +<p>"And you do."</p> + +<p>She did not wish to say yes; she could not say no; she kept her +half-smiling silence.</p> + +<p>"How long has this been going on?" The tones were sharp with impotence.</p> + +<p>"Oh—well—since you went to Italy. At least," she murmured vaguely, +"that was when he came to tea."</p> + +<p>But Mildred did not hear the last homely sentence, and Helen's next +words came from a great distance, even from the shuttered room in Italy.</p> + +<p>"And why should you mind? Why shouldn't we—like each other?"</p> + +<p>Mildred Caniper opened her remarkably blue eyes, and said, almost in +triumph, "You'll be disappointed."</p> + +<p>At that Helen laughed with a security which was pathetic and annoying to +the woman in the bed.</p> + +<p>"Life—" Mildred Caniper began, and stopped. She had not yet reached the +stage, she reflected, when she must utter platitudes about the common +lot. She looked at Helen with unusual candour. "I have never spoken to +you of these things," she said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I shouldn't like you to!" Helen cried, and her hands were near her +ears.</p> + +<p>Mildred allowed her lips to curve. "I am not referring to the facts of +generation," she said drily, and her smile broadened, her eyebrows +lifted humorously. "I am quite aware that the—the advantages of a +country life include an early arrival at that kind of knowledge. +Besides, you were fortunate in your brothers. And then there were all +the books."</p> + +<p>"The books?"</p> + +<p>"The ones Rupert used to bring you."</p> + +<p>"So you knew about them."</p> + +<p>"I have had to remind you before, Helen, that I am not out of my mind."</p> + +<p>"What else do you know?" Helen asked with interest, and sat down on the +bed.</p> + +<p>This was Miriam's inquiry when the conversation was reported to her.</p> + +<p>"She didn't tell me anything else. I think she had said more than she +meant. She is like that sometimes, now. It's because she hasn't so much +strength."</p> + +<p>"I expect she knows everything we ever did."</p> + +<p>"Well, we never did much."</p> + +<p>"No. And everything we do now."</p> + +<p>"She didn't know about Zebedee."</p> + +<p>"Oh, she wouldn't suspect you."</p> + +<p>"Then don't do anything you shouldn't," Helen said mildly.</p> + +<p>"Her 'should' and my 'should' are very different members of the same +family, my dear." She peered into Helen's face and squeaked, "And what +the devil is there to do?"</p> + +<p>"Don't use words like that."</p> + +<p>"Wow! Wow! This is the devil's St. Helena, I imagine. There's nothing to +be done in it. I believe she has eyes all round her head."</p> + +<p>"He's a gentleman always, in pictures."</p> + +<p>"Are you really stupid?"</p> + +<p>"I think so."</p> + +<p>"I was talking about Notya."</p> + +<p>"Oh."</p> + +<p>"And I believe she can see with her ears and hear with her eyes. +Helen—Helen, you don't think she gets up sometimes in the night, and +prowls about, do you?"</p> + +<p>"I should hear her."</p> + +<p>"Oh. Are you sure?"</p> + +<p>"I sleep so lightly. The other night—"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"I was waked by a sheep coughing outside the garden."</p> + +<p>Miriam burst out laughing. "Did you think it was Zebedee?" She laughed a +great deal more than was necessary. "Now she's putting on her +never-smiled-again expression! Will he be back before I go away?"</p> + +<p>Helen looked at her dumbly. She heard the garden gate shutting behind +John and Zebedee, Rupert and Miriam, with a clang which seemed to forbid +return, and her dread of Zebedee's going became sharper, though beneath +her dread there lay the courage she had promised him.</p> + +<p>"And there will be the dog," she found herself saying aloud.</p> + +<p>The animal, when he arrived, leapt from the dog-cart in which he had +been unwillingly conveyed and proved to be an Airedale, guaranteed to be +a perfect watch-dog and suspicious of all strangers.</p> + +<p>Proudly, Zebedee delivered himself of these recommendations.</p> + +<p>"He's trained, thoroughly trained to bite. And he's enormously strong. +Just look at his neck! Look at his teeth—get through anything."</p> + +<p>Helen was kneeling to the dog and asking, "Are you sure he'll bite +people? He seems to like me very much."</p> + +<p>"I've been telling him about you. My precious child, you can't have a +dog who leaps at people unprovoked. He'd be a public danger. You must +say 'Rats!' or something like that when you want him to attack."</p> + +<p>"Well—I love him," she said.</p> + +<p>"And I've something else for you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!"</p> + +<p>"Shut your eyes—"</p> + +<p>"And open my mouth?"</p> + +<p>"No, give me your hand. There! Will you wear that for me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! Oh! It's the loveliest thing I've ever seen in my life! Much! Oh, +it's perfect. It's so white."</p> + +<p>"Tell me I'm rather a success today."</p> + +<p>"You're one all the time. Did you have it made for me?"</p> + +<p>"D'you think I'd get you something out of a shop window? I made it up. +And there's another thing—"</p> + +<p>"But you won't have any money left!" she cried.</p> + +<p>"Then I won't tell you about the third thing."</p> + +<p>She said solemnly, "You ought to have no secrets from me."</p> + +<p>"Have you none from me?"</p> + +<p>"Not one. Except—but that's so silly—except the tinker."</p> + +<p>"Tell me that one."</p> + +<p>She obeyed him, and she frowned a little, because she could not +understand why the thing should need telling. "And then I went on to the +moor, and George Halkett ran after me, and I thought it was the tinker."</p> + +<p>"Why," Zebedee asked, "did he run after you?"</p> + +<p>"He must have thought I was some one else."</p> + +<p>"Why does he run after anybody?"</p> + +<p>"Because he's George, I think, and if John were here he would tell you +the story of how he tried to kiss Lily Brent!"</p> + +<p>"That sort of animal oughtn't to be let loose."</p> + +<p>"I like him," Helen said. "I'm sorry for him."</p> + +<p>"H'm," said Zebedee. "Well, you have the dog."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said, "he isn't like that with me. We've known each other all +our lives. And you don't mind about the tinker?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think so."</p> + +<p>"It's not nearly so bad," she persuaded him, "as the real woman you once +liked."</p> + +<p>He did not contradict her. "We're not going to argue about dreams and +the past. We haven't time for that."</p> + +<p>"And I haven't begun to thank you! I knew you were going to bring a +dog!"</p> + +<p>"Who told you?"</p> + +<p>"I just knew you'd think of it. But two lovely presents in one day, and +both from you! But I feel—I feel—"</p> + +<p>"I know. You want to drown the dog and throw the ring away as hostages +for my safety."</p> + +<p>"Yes, don't laugh."</p> + +<p>"My dear," he said wearily, "there are moments when one can do nothing +else."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry. And don't be angry with me in case you make me love you too +much to let you go! And I'm brave, really. I promise to be good."</p> + +<p>He nodded in his quick way while he looked at her as though, in spite of +all he said, he feared he might never look at her again, and she was +proud of his firm lips and steady eyes in the moment of the passionate +admiration which lived with her like a presence while he was away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + + +<p>Helen passed into a pale windy world one February morning and walked +slowly down the track. There was no sharpness in the air and the colours +of approaching spring seemed to hover between earth and heaven, though +they promised soon to lay themselves down to make new green and splendid +purple and misty blue. Slow-moving clouds paced across the sky, and as +she looked at them Helen thought of Zebedee sailing under richer colour +and with white canvas in the place of clouds. She wondered if time crept +with him as slowly as it did with her; if he had as much faith in her +courage as she had in his return. She knew he would come back, and she +had trained herself to patience: indeed, it was no hard matter, for hers +had always been a world in which there was no haste. The seasons had +their leisured way; the people moved with heavy feet; the moor lay in +its wisdom, suffering decay and growth. Even the Brent Farm cattle made +bright but stationary patches in the field before the house, and as she +drew nearer she came upon John and Lily leaning on a fence. Their elbows +touched; their faces were content, as slowly they discussed the fate of +the cow they contemplated, and Helen sat down to await their leisure.</p> + +<p>Before her, the moor sloped to the road and rose again, lifting +Pinderwell House on its bosom, and to her right, from the hidden +chimneys of Halkett's Farm, she could see smoke rising as though it were +the easy breath of some monster lying snug among the trees. There was no +other movement, though the sober front of Pinderwell House was animated +for an instant by the shaking of some white substance from a window. +Miriam was at her household tasks, and Helen waved a hand to the dark +being who had made life smoother for her since her night of stormy +weeping. She waved a hand of gratitude and friendship, but the signal +was not noticed, the house returned to its discretion, John and Lily +talked sparsely but with complete understanding, and Helen grew drowsy +in the sunshine. She was happier than she had ever been, for Zebedee had +laid peace on her, like a spell, and the warmth of that happiness stole +up from her feet and spread over her breast; it curled the corners of +her mouth so that John, turning to look at her, asked her why she +smiled.</p> + +<p>"I'm comfortable," she said.</p> + +<p>"Never been comfortable before?"</p> + +<p>She gave him the clear depths of her eyes. "Not often."</p> + +<p>He went away, driving the cow before him, and Lily stood looking after +him.</p> + +<p>"He's wonderful," she said. "He comes along and takes hold of things and +begins to teach me my own business."</p> + +<p>"So you're pleased with him?" Helen said demurely.</p> + +<p>"Yes," the other answered with twitching lips, "he's doing very well." +Her laughter faded, and she said softly, "I wonder if they often +happen—marriages like ours."</p> + +<p>"Tell me about it."</p> + +<p>"Nothing to tell. It's just as if it's always been, and every minute it +seems fresh."</p> + +<p>"No," Helen said consideringly, "I shouldn't think it often happens. +I've come for a pound of butter, please."</p> + +<p>"How's Mrs. Caniper?"</p> + +<p>"She's better, but I think she would be rather glad to die. I let her +make a cake yesterday, and it did her good. Come and see her soon."</p> + +<p>"I will. Let's go to the dairy. Will you have it in halves or quarters? +Look at my new stamp!"</p> + +<p>"What is it meant to be?"</p> + +<p>"Well! It's a Shetland pony, of course."</p> + +<p>"I like the pineapple better. I don't think a pony seems right on +butter. I'll have the pineapple."</p> + +<p>"John says there's as much sense in one as in the other, because we +don't get butter from either of them."</p> + +<p>"The pineapple is food, though."</p> + +<p>"So's the pony, by some accounts!" She leaned in her old attitude +against a shelf, and eyed Helen nervously. "Talking of ponies, have you +seen anything of these ghostly riders?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what they are."</p> + +<p>"That's what my—our—shepherd calls them. He saw them late one night, a +while back. One was a woman, he said, and the air was cold with them and +set him sneezing. That's what he says."</p> + +<p>"It was some of the wild ponies, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Maybe."</p> + +<p>"You don't think it was really ghosts?"</p> + +<p>"No, for I've seen them myself." She paused. "I haven't said anything to +John, but I'm wondering if I ought."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>Lily's gaze widened in her attempt to see what Helen's point of view +would be and she spoke slowly, that, if possible, she might not offend.</p> + +<p>"It was George Halkett I saw. There was no woman, but he was leading one +horse and riding another. It was one night when John was late on the +moor and I went to look for him. George didn't see me. I kept quiet till +he'd gone by. There was a side saddle on the led horse."</p> + +<p>"Well?" Helen said.</p> + +<p>"That's all. I thought you ought to know."</p> + +<p>In that moment Helen hated Lily. "Is it Miriam you're hinting at?" she +asked on a high note.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is. You're making me feel mean, but I'm glad I've told you. +It's worried me, and John—I didn't like to tell John, for he has a +grudge against the man, and he might have made trouble before he need."</p> + +<p>"I think that's what you're doing," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"That may be. I took the risk. I know George Halkett. Miriam, having a +bit of fun, might find herself landed in a mess. I'm sorry, Helen. I +hope I'm wrong."</p> + +<p>Helen was half ashamed to hear herself asking, "How late was it?"</p> + +<p>"About twelve."</p> + +<p>"But I'm awake half the night. I should have heard. Besides—would there +be any harm?"</p> + +<p>"Just as much as there is in playing with fire," Lily said.</p> + +<p>"'Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth,'" Helen said, +looking at the ground.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but there's more than a little fire in Miriam, and George +Halkett's a man, you know."</p> + +<p>Helen raised her head and said, "We've lived here all our lives, and we +have been very lonely, but I have hardly spoken to a man who was not +gentle. John and Rupert and Zebedee and Daniel, all these—no one has +spoken roughly to us. It makes one trustful. And George is always kind, +Lily."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but Miriam—she's not like you."</p> + +<p>"She's much more beautiful."</p> + +<p>Lily's laughter was half a groan. "That won't make George any gentler, +my dear."</p> + +<p>"Won't it?"</p> + +<p>Lily shook her head. "But perhaps there's nothing in it. I'm sorry to +have added to your worries, but Miriam's so restless and discontented, +and I thought—"</p> + +<p>"Ah," Helen interrupted gladly, "but lately she has been different. +Lately she has been happier. Oh!" She saw where her words had led her, +and with a little gesture of bewilderment she turned and walked away.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, after all, the things that happened were not necessarily best, +and for the first time Helen felt a blind anger against the unknown. In +a moment of sharp vision, she saw what this vaguely concentrated life +had done for her and Miriam, and she wondered by whose law it had been +decreed that no human being could have a destiny unconditioned by some +one else, and though she also saw that this law was the glory as well as +the tragedy of life, she rebelled against it now, lest the radiant being +whom she loved should be dishonoured or disillusioned.</p> + +<p>Helen's firm curved lips took a harder line as she went slowly home, for +it seemed to her that in an active world the principle of just going on +left all the foes unconquered and ready for the next victim who should +pass that way.</p> + +<p>She slept fitfully that night, and once she woke to a sound of galloping +on the moor. She knew it was made by more animals than two, yet her +heart beat quickly, and her thoughts sprang together to make a picture +of George Halkett leading a horse without a rider through the night, +waiting in the darkness with his ears stretched for the sound of one +coming through the heather.</p> + +<p>She started up in bed, for the mysterious allurement of George's image +was strong enough to make her understand what it might be for Miriam, +and she held herself to the bed lest she should be tempted to play the +spy; yet, had she brought herself to open her sister's door, she would +have been shamed and gladdened by the sight of that pretty sleeper lying +athwart her bed in profound unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>Miriam, whose heart was still untouched by God or man, could lie and +sleep soundly, though she knew George waited for her on the moor. The +restlessness that had first driven her there had sent her home again, +that, by a timely abstention, she might recover the full taste of +adventure, and that, by the same means, George might learn her worth. +She was a little puzzled by his behaviour, and she began to find +monotony in its decorum. According to his promise, he had taught her to +ride, and while all her faculties were bent on that business, she hardly +noticed him, but with confidence in her own seat and Charlie's +steadiness, there came freedom to look at George, and with it the desire +to rule the expression of his face and the modulations of his voice.</p> + +<p>He would not be beguiled. "I'm teaching you to ride," he said, and +though she mocked him he was not stirred to quarrel. She was temporarily +incapable of realizing that while she learnt to ride, he learnt to +honour her, and found safety for himself and her in silence; nor, had +she realized it, would she have welcomed it. What she wanted was the +pleasure of being hunted and seeing the hunter discomfited, and though +she could not get that from him, she had a new joy when Charlie carried +her strongly and safely across the moor; again she knew the feeling of +passing through a void, of sailing on a thunder-cloud without hope of +rescue and careless of it, and she paid a heavy price when she decided +that it would do George good to wait in vain for her. She would not have +him disrespectful, but she desired him ardent; she wished to see that +stubbornly set mouth open to utter longings, and, when she went to bed +after a dull day, she laughed to think of how he waited and stared into +the gloom.</p> + +<p>A fortnight passed before she stole out on a misty night and at the +appointed place found him like a grey carved figure on a grey carved +horse. Only his lips moved when she peered at him through the mist. He +said, "This is the fifteenth night. If you'd waited till tomorrow, you +wouldn't have found me here."</p> + +<p>"George," she said, with her face close to his knee, "how unkind you are +to me. And, oh, George, do you really think I should have cared?"</p> + +<p>In the mist, she, too, had the look of one not made of flesh and blood, +but she had no likeness to some figure carved: she was the spirit of the +mist with its drops on her hair, a thing intangible, yet dowered with +power to make herself a torment. So she looked, but Halkett had felt the +touch of her, and taking her by the wrist, he dragged her upwards while +he bent down to her.</p> + +<p>"You—you—!" he panted.</p> + +<p>"You're hurting, George!"</p> + +<p>"What do I care? I haven't seen you for two weeks. I've been—been +starving for you."</p> + +<p>She spoke coolly, with a ringing quality in her tones. "You would see me +better if you didn't come so near."</p> + +<p>Immediately he loosened her without looking at her, and she stood +chafing her hands, hating his indifference, though she knew it was +assumed, uncertain how to regain her supremacy. Then she let instinct +guide her, and she looked a little piteous.</p> + +<p>"Don't be rough with me. I didn't mean—I don't like you to be rough +with me."</p> + +<p>He was off his horse and standing by her at those words, and, still +watchful for rebuffs, he took her hand and stroked it gently.</p> + +<p>"Did I hurt you, then?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Why are you like that?" She lifted her head and gave him the oval +face, the dark, reproachful eyes like night.</p> + +<p>"Because I'm mad for you—mad for you. Little one—you make me mad. And +you'll never marry me. I know that. And I'm a fool to let you play the +devil with me. I know that, too. A mad fool. But you—you're in my +blood."</p> + +<p>Softly she said, "You never told me that before. You needn't scold me +so. How should I know you wanted that?"</p> + +<p>"You knew I loved you."</p> + +<p>"No. I knew you liked me and I hoped—"</p> + +<p>He bent his head to listen.</p> + +<p>"I hoped you loved me."</p> + +<p>His words came thickly, a muddy torrent. "Then marry me, marry me, +Miriam. Marry me. I want—I can't—You must say you'll marry me."</p> + +<p>Keeping her eyes on him, she moved slowly away, and from behind +Charlie's back she laughed with a genuine merriment that wounded +inexpressibly.</p> + +<p>"You're funny, George," she said. "Very funny. At present I have no +intention of doing anything but riding Charlie."</p> + +<p>Through a mist doubled and coloured by his red rage, he watched her +climb into the saddle and, before she was fairly settled in it, he gave +the horse a blow that sent him galloping indignantly out of sight.</p> + +<p>Halkett did not care if she were thrown, for his anger and his passion +were confounded into one emotion, and he would have rejoiced to see her +on the ground, her little figure twisted with her fall, but he did not +follow her. He went home in the rain that was now falling fast, and when +the mare was stabled he brewed himself a drink that brought oblivion.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + + +<p>Helen waked, that night, from a short deep sleep, to hear the falling of +heavy rain and sharp gusts of wind that bowed the poplars. As the storm +strengthened, raindrops were blown on to her pillow, and she could hear +the wind gathering itself up before it swept moaning across the moor and +broke with a miserable cry against the walls. She hoped Mildred Caniper +slept through a wailing that might have a personal note for her, and as +she prepared to leave the room and listen on the landing, she thought +she heard a new sound cutting through the swish of the rainfall and the +shriek of wind. It was a smaller sound, as though a child were alone and +crying in the night, and she leaned from her window to look into the +garden. The rain wetted her hair and hands and neck, while she stared +into varying depths of blackness—the poplars against the sky, the lawn, +like water, the close trees by the wall—and as she told herself that +the wind had many voices, she heard a loud, unwary sob and the impact of +one hard substance on another.</p> + +<p>Some one was climbing the garden wall, and a minute later a head rose +above the scullery roof. It was Miriam, crying, with wet clothes +clinging to her, and Helen called out softly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, is that you?" she answered, and laughed through a tangled breath. +"I'm drenched."</p> + +<p>"Wait! I'll go into Ph[oe]be and help you through."</p> + +<p>"There's a chair here. I left it. I'm afraid it's ruined!"</p> + +<p>Helen entered the other room as Miriam dropped from the window-ledge to +the floor.</p> + +<p>"Don't make a noise. We mustn't wake her. Oh, oh, you look—you look +like rags!"</p> + +<p>Miriam sat limply; she shook with cold and sobs and laughter. Water +dripped from every part of her, and when Helen helped her up, all the +streams became one river.</p> + +<p>Helen let go of the cold hands and sank to the bed. "There must be +gallons of it! And you—!"</p> + +<p>"I'm frozen. Mop it up. Towels—anything. I'll fling my clothes out of +the window. They are quite used to the scullery roof."</p> + +<p>"Speak quietly. Whisper. She may hear you!"</p> + +<p>"That would be—the devil, wouldn't it? Good thing Rupert isn't here! +Put something at the bottom of the door. Lock it. My fingers are numb. +Oh, dear, oh, dear, I can't undo my things."</p> + +<p>"Let me. You ought to have hot water, and there's no fire. I'll rub you +down. And your hair! Wring it out, child. What were you doing on the +moor?"</p> + +<p>"Just amusing myself."</p> + +<p>"With George Halkett?"</p> + +<p>"We-ell, I was with him in the spirit, oh, yes, I was; but in the flesh, +only for a very little while. What made you think I was with him?"</p> + +<p>"Something I heard. Are you warmer now?"</p> + +<p>"Much warmer. Give me my nightgown, please. Oh, it's comfortable, and +out there I was so cold, so cold. Oh," she cried out, "I should love to +set his farm on fire!"</p> + +<p>"Hush!"</p> + +<p>"But I would! If I'd had matches, and if it hadn't been raining, and if +I'd thought about it, I would have done it then."</p> + +<p>"But what did he do to you?" Helen's eyes were sombre. "He surely didn't +touch you?"</p> + +<p>Miriam's arrested laughter marked their differences. She remembered +George Halkett's hand on hers and the wilder, more distant passion of +his arms clasping her among the larches.</p> + +<p>"It wasn't that," she said. "He asked me to marry him—and it wasn't +that. I met him to go riding, and I think I must have teased him. Yes, I +did, because he hit my horse, and I couldn't hold him, and I fell off at +last. I lay in the heather for a long time. It was wet, Helen, and I was +all alone. I cried at first. I would have killed him if he had come +near. I would, somehow, but he never came. He didn't care, and I might +have been killed, just because I teased him. Then I cried again. Would +you mind coming into bed with me to keep me warm? I'm glad I'm here. I +lost my way. I thought I should be out there all night. It was dark, and +the wind howled like demons, and the rain, the rain—! Closer, Helen."</p> + +<p>"Did he frighten you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course he didn't. I was angry. Oh"—the small teeth gritted on each +other—"angry! But I'll pay him out. I swear I will."</p> + +<p>"Don't swear it. Don't do it. I wish Rupert were here. I'm glad Zebedee +gave me Jim."</p> + +<p>"Pooh! Do you think George will break into the house? Jim would fly at +him. I'd like that. He's got to be paid out."</p> + +<p>Helen moved in the bed. "What's the good of doing that?"</p> + +<p>"The good! He made me bite the earth. I joggled and joggled, and at last +I went over with a bump, and when I bumped I vowed I'd hurt him."</p> + +<p>"You needn't keep that kind of vow."</p> + +<p>"Then what was the good of making it? We always keep our promises."</p> + +<p>"Promise not to see him any more."</p> + +<p>"Don't worry. I've finished with him—very nearly. Will you stay with me +all night? There's not much room, but I want you to keep hold of me. I'm +warm now, and so beautifully sleepy."</p> + +<p>Her breathing became even, but once it halted to let her say, "He's a +beast, but I can't help rather liking him."</p> + +<p>She slept soon afterwards, but Helen lay awake with her arm growing +stiff under Miriam's body, and her mind wondering if that pain were +symbolic of what wild folly might inflict.</p> + +<p>It was noticeable that Miriam did not venture on the moor in the days +that followed, but every day Helen went there with Jim, who needed +exercise and was only restrained from chasing sheep by timely employment +of his energy, and every day Halkett, watching the house, saw these two +sally forth together. They went at an easy pace, the woman with her +skirt outblown, her breast fronting the wind, her head thrown back, her +hands behind her, the dog marching by her side, and in their clearness +of cut, their pale colour, for which the moor was dado and the sky +frieze, he found some memory of sculptures he had seen and hardly +heeded, ancient things with the eternity of youth on them, the captured +splendour of moving limb and passionate brain. Then he was aware of +fresh wind and fruitful earth, but as she passed out of sight, he was +imprisoned again by stifling furies. He had begun to love Miriam with a +sincerity that wished to win and not to force her; he had controlled the +wild heritage of his fathers and tried to forget the sweetness of her +body in the larch-wood; he was determined not to take what she would not +give him gladly; and now, by her own act, she had changed his striving +love into desire—desire to hurt, to feel her struggling in his arms, +hating his kisses, paying a bitter price for her misuse of him. He had a +vicious pleasure in waiting for the hour when he should feel her body +straining away from his, and each night, as he sat drinking, he lived +through that ecstasy; each day, as he went about his work, he kept an +eye on the comings and goings of the Canipers, waiting for his chance. +Miriam did not appear, and that sign of fear inflamed him; but on Sunday +morning she walked on the moor with Rupert, holding him by the arm and +making a parade of happiness, and in the afternoon, Daniel was added to +the train.</p> + +<p>Monday came, and no small, black-haired figure darted from the house: +only Helen and the majestic dog walked together like some memory of a +younger world.</p> + +<p>His mind held two pictures as he sat alone at night, and, corresponding +to them, two natures had command of him. He saw Helen like dawn and +Miriam like night, and as one irritated him with her calm, the other +roused him with her fire, and he came to watch for Helen that he might +sneer inwardly at her, with almost as much eagerness as he watched for +Miriam that he might mutter foul language, like loathed caresses.</p> + +<p>Drink and desire and craving for peace were all at work in him. The +dreams he had been building were broken by a callous hand, and he sat +among the ruins. He could laugh, now, at his fair hopes, but they had +had their part in him, and he could never go back to the days when he +rode and drank and loved promiscuously, with a light heart. She had +robbed, too, when she cast down his house, but there was no end to her +offence, for when, out of coarser things, this timid love had begun to +creep, it had been thrown back at him with a gibe.</p> + +<p>He was in a state when the strongest suggestion would have its way with +him. He wanted to make Miriam suffer; he wanted to be dealt with kindly, +and he had a pitiful and unconscious willingness to take another's +mould. So, when he saw Helen on the moor, the sneering born of her +distance from him changed slowly to a desire for nearness, and he +remembered with what friendliness they had sat together in the heather +one autumn night, and how peace had seemed to lie upon them both. A +woman like that might keep a man straight, he thought, and when she +stopped to speak to him one morning, her smile was balm to his hurts.</p> + +<p>She looked at him in her frank way. "You don't look well, George."</p> + +<p>"Oh—I'm all right," he said, hitting his gaiters with his stick.</p> + +<p>"It's a lovely day," she said, "and you have some lambs already. I hope +the snow won't come and kill them."</p> + +<p>"Hope not. We're bound to lose some of them, though."</p> + +<p>Why, he asked himself angrily, was she not afraid of him who was +planning injury to her sister? She made him feel as though he could +never injure any one.</p> + +<p>"You haven't noticed my dog," she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes—" he began. He had been noticing him for days, marching beside her +against the sky. "He's a fine beast."</p> + +<p>"Isn't he?" Her finger-tips were on Jim's head.</p> + +<p>"You want a dog now there's no man in your house."</p> + +<p>She laughed a little as she said, "And he feels his responsibility, +don't you, Jim?"</p> + +<p>"Come here, lad," Halkett called to him. "Come on. That's right!"</p> + +<p>"He seems to like you."</p> + +<p>"I never knew the dog that didn't; but don't make him too soft, or he'll +be no good to you."</p> + +<p>"Well," she said gaily, "you are not likely to break into our house!"</p> + +<p>His flush alarmed her, for it told her that she had happened on the +neighbourhood of his thoughts, and her mind was in a flurry to assert +her innocence and engender his, but no words came to her, and her hand +joined his in fondling the dog's head.</p> + +<p>"Well, I must be going on," George said, and after an uncertain instant +he walked away, impoverished and enriched.</p> + +<p>Helen sat down heavily, as though one of her own heart-beats had pushed +her there, and putting her arm round Jim's neck, she leaned her head on +him.</p> + +<p>"Jim," she said, "don't you wish Zebedee would come back? If I hadn't +promised—" She looked about her. George had disappeared, and near by +grey sheep were eating with a concentration that disdained her and the +dog. It was a peaceful scene, and a few early lambs dotted it with +white. "It's silly to feel like this," she said. "Let's go and find +Miriam."</p> + +<p>She was discovered in the garden, digging.</p> + +<p>"But why?" Helen asked.</p> + +<p>"I must have exercise." Her hair was loosened, her teeth worked on her +under-lip as her foot worked on the spade. "You don't know how I miss my +riding!"</p> + +<p>"I've just seen George."</p> + +<p>"Have you?"</p> + +<p>"I spoke to him."</p> + +<p>"How brave! How did he look?"</p> + +<p>"Horrid. His eyes were bloodshot."</p> + +<p>"Ah! He has been drinking. That's despair. Perhaps it's time I tried to +cheer him up."</p> + +<p>"Don't make him angry."</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to. I'm not vindictive. I'm rather nice. I've recovered +from my rage, and now I wouldn't set his farm on fire for worlds. Why, +if I saw it blazing, I should run to help! But I'd like to tease him +just a little bit."</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't. I think it's rather mean, he looks so miserable. +And I'm sure it isn't safe. Please, Miriam."</p> + +<p>"I can take care of myself, my dear."</p> + +<p>"I'm not so sure."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I can. I'm going to make it up with him. I must, or I shall +never be able to walk about the moor again."</p> + +<p>"I wish you didn't live here," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"Well, so do I. But it's not for long." She was working vigorously, and, +with her peculiar faculty for fitting her surroundings, she looked as +though she had been begotten of sun and rain and soil. Helen took +delight in her bright colour, strong hands and ready foot.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," Helen said thoughtfully, "if Uncle Alfred would take you +now."</p> + +<p>"Do you want to save me from George's clutches?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do."</p> + +<p>Miriam threw back her head and laughed. "You funny little thing! You're +rather sweet. George hasn't a clutch strong enough to hold me. You can +be sure of that."</p> + +<p>She was herself so certain that she waylaid him on the moor next day, +but to her amazement he did not answer her smile of greeting and passed +on without a word.</p> + +<p>"George!" she called after him.</p> + +<p>"Well?" He looked beyond her at the place where green moor met blue sky: +he felt he had done with her, and Helen's trust had taken all the +sweetness from revenge.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you going to say good-morning? I came on purpose to see you."</p> + +<p>"You needn't trouble," he said and, stealing a look at her, he weakened.</p> + +<p>"But I need." He was wavering, she knew, and her mouth and eyes promised +laughter, her body seemed to sway towards him.</p> + +<p>"I want—I want to forgive you, George."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you are, no doubt, but I don't want to be, so I forgive my +trespassers, and I've come to make friends."</p> + +<p>"You've said that before."</p> + +<p>"I've always meant it. Must I hold out my arm any longer?"</p> + +<p>"No." She was too tempting for his strength. He took her by the +shoulders, looked greedily at her, saw the shrinking he had longed for +and pressed his mouth on hers. She gave a cry that made a bird start +from the heather, but he held her to him and felt her struggling with a +force that could not last, and in a minute she dropped against him as +helplessly as if she had been broken.</p> + +<p>He turned her over on his arm. "You little devil!" he said, and kissed +her lips again.</p> + +<p>Her face was white and still: she did not move and he could not guess +that behind the brows gathered as if she were in pain, her mind +ransacked her home for a weapon that might kill him, and saw the +carving-knife worn to a slip of steel that would glide into a man's body +without a sound. She meant to use it: she was kept quiet by that +determination, by the intensity of her horror for caresses that, unlike +those first ones in the larch-wood, marked her as a thing to be used and +thrown away.</p> + +<p>She knew his thoughts of her, but she had her own amid a delirium of +hate, and when he released her, she was shaking from the effort of her +control.</p> + +<p>"Now I've done with you," he said, and she heard him laugh as he went +away.</p> + +<p>She longed to scream until the sky cracked with the noise, and she had +no knowledge of her journey home. She found herself sitting at the +dinner-table with Helen, and heard her ask, "Don't you feel well?"</p> + +<p>"No. I'm—rather giddy."</p> + +<p>She watched the knife as Helen carved, and the beauty of its slimness +gave her joy; but suddenly the blade slipped, and she saw blood on +Helen's hand and, rushing from the table to the garden, she stood there +panting.</p> + +<p>"It's nothing," Helen shouted through the window. "Just a scratch."</p> + +<p>"Oh, blood! It's awful!" She leaned on the gate and sobbed feebly, +expecting to be sick. She could not make anybody bleed: it was terrible +to see red blood.</p> + +<p>Trembling and holding to the banisters, she went upstairs and lay down +on her bed, and presently, through her subsiding sobs, there came a +trickle of laughter born of the elfish humour which would not be +suppressed. She could not kill George, but she must pay him out, and she +was laughing at herself because she had discovered his real offence. It +was not his kisses, not even his disdain of what he took, though that +enraged her: it was his words as he cast her off and left her. She sat +up on the bed, clenching her small hands. How dared he? How dared he? +She could not ignore those words and she would let him know that he had +been her plaything all the time.</p> + +<p>"All the time, George, my dear," she muttered, nodding her black head. +"I'll just write you a little letter, telling you!"</p> + +<p>Kneeling before the table by her window, she wrote her foolish message +and slipped it inside her dress: then, with a satisfaction which brought +peace, she lay down again and slept.</p> + +<p>She waked to find Helen at her bedside, a cup of tea in her hand.</p> + +<p>"Oh—I've been to sleep?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. It's four o'clock. Are you better?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Lily is here. John's gone to town. It's market-day."</p> + +<p>"Market-day!" She laughed. "George will get drunk. Perhaps he'll fall +off his horse and be killed. But I'd rather he was killed tomorrow. +Perhaps a wild bull will gore him—right horn, left horn, right +horn—Oh, my head aches!"</p> + +<p>"Don't waggle it about."</p> + +<p>"I was just showing you what the bull would do to George."</p> + +<p>"Leave the poor man alone."</p> + +<p>But that was what Miriam could not do, and she waited eagerly for the +dark.</p> + +<p>The new green of the larches was absorbed into the blackness of night +when she went through them silently. She had no fear of meeting George, +but she must wait an opportunity of stealing across the courtyard and +throwing the letter through the open door, so she paused cautiously at +the edge of the wood and saw the parlour lights turning the cobbles of +the yard to lumps of gold. There was no sign of Mrs. Biggs, but about +the place there was a vague stir made up of the small movements and +breathings of the horses in the stable, the hens shut up for the night, +the cows in their distant byres. Branches of trees fretted against each +other and the stream sang, out of sight.</p> + +<p>The parlour light burned steadily, no figure came into view, and, +lifting her feet from her slippers, Miriam went silently towards the +door. She had thrown in the letter and was turning back, when she heard +nailed boots on the stones, a voice singing, a little thickly, in an +undertone. She caught her breath and ran, but as she fumbled for her +slippers in the dark, she knew she was discovered. He had uttered a +loud, "Ha!" of triumph, his feet were after her, and she squealed like a +hunted rabbit when he pounced on her.</p> + +<p>It was very dark within the wood. His face was no more than a blur, and +her unseen beauty was powerless to help her. She was desperate, and she +laughed.</p> + +<p>"George, you'll spoil my little joke. I've left a letter for you. It's a +shame to spoil it, Georgie, Porgie."</p> + +<p>His grasp was hurting her. "Where is the letter?" he asked in a curious, +restrained voice.</p> + +<p>"In the doorway. Let me go, George. I'll see you tomorrow. +George—please!"</p> + +<p>"No," he said thoughtfully, carefully, "I don't think I shall let you +go. Come with me—come with me, pretty one, and we'll read your +love-letter together."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + + +<p>While these things happened at Halkett's Farm, Helen sat sewing in the +schoolroom. Mildred Caniper had been in bed all day, as often happened +now, and there Miriam was supposed to be, on account of that strange +giddiness of hers.</p> + +<p>Helen worked at the fashioning of a dress in which Zebedee should think +her fair and the lamplight shone on the pale grey stuff strewing the +table and brought sparks from the diamonds on her hand: the clipping of +the scissors made a cheerful sound, and Jim, as he sat before the fire, +looked up at her sometimes with wise and friendly eyes.</p> + +<p>It was late when she began to be oppressed by the quiet of the house. It +was as though some one had just stopped whispering and would begin +again. She felt that she was watched by the unseen, and the loudness of +her own movements shocked her, but she worked on, using the scissors +stealthily and starting if a coal fell in the grate.</p> + +<p>Surely there was some one standing outside the door? She changed her +seat to face it. Surely eyes were peering through the window? She rose +and drew the curtains with a suddenness that made Jim growl.</p> + +<p>"Be quiet, dog!" She stood and listened. The night held its breath, the +stored impressions of the old house took shape and drew close and, +though they did not speak, their silent pressure was full of urging, +ominous and discreet.</p> + +<p>She folded her work and put out the light, told Jim to follow her up the +stairs, and trod them quietly. It was comforting to see the Pinderwells +on the landing, but she had no time for speech with them. She was +wondering if death had come and filled the house with this sense of +presences, but when she bent over Mildred Caniper's bed she found her +sleeping steadily.</p> + +<p>On the landing, she let out a long breath. "Oh, Jane, I'm thankful."</p> + +<p>She went into Miriam's room and saw that the bed was empty and the +window wide. She looked out, and there was a chair on the scullery roof +and, as she leant, trembling, against the sill, she heard the note of +the hall clock striking eleven. That was a late hour for the people of +the moor, and she must hasten. She was sure that the house had warned +her, and, gathering her wits, she posted Jim at the bottom of the stairs +and ran out, calling as she ran. She had no answer. The lights of Brent +Farm were all out and she went in a dark, immobile world. There was no +wind to stir the branches of the thorn-bushes, the heather did not move +unless she pressed it, and her voice floated to the sky where there were +no stars. Then the heavier shade of the larches closed on her, and when +she left them and fronted Halkett's Farm, there was one square of light, +high up, at the further end, to splash a drop of gold into the hollow.</p> + +<p>Towards that light Helen moved as through thick black water. She carried +her slippers in her hand and felt her feet moulded to the cobbles as she +crossed the yard and stood below the open window. She listened there, +and for a little while she thought her fears were foolish: she heard no +more than slight human stirrings and the sound of liquid falling into a +glass. Then there came Miriam's voice, loud and high, cutting the +stillness.</p> + +<p>"I'll never promise!"</p> + +<p>There was another silence that held hours in its black hands.</p> + +<p>"No? Well, I don't know that I care. But you're not going home. When the +morning comes perhaps it'll be you begging me for a promise! Think it +over. No hurry. There's all night." George was speaking slowly, saying +each word as if he loved it. "And you're going to sit on my knee, now, +and read this letter to me. Come."</p> + +<p>Helen heard no more. She rushed to the front door and found it locked, +and wasted precious seconds in shaking it before she abandoned caution +and rushed noisily round the house where the kitchen door luckily +yielded to her hand. Through a narrow passage and up narrow stairs she +blundered, involved in ignorance and darkness, until a streak of light +ran across her path and she almost fell into a room where Miriam stood +with her back against the wall. She had the look of one who has been +tortured without uttering a sound and, in the strain of her dark head +against the flowered wall, there was a determination not to plead.</p> + +<p>Her face crumpled like paper at the sight of Helen.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said, smiling foolishly, "what—a good thing—you came."</p> + +<p>She slipped as a picture falls, close to the wall, and there was hardly +a thud as her body met the floor.</p> + +<p>Helen did not stir: she looked at Miriam and at Halkett, who was sitting +on the bed, and on him her gaze rested. His answered it, and while, for +a moment, she saw the man beyond the beast, his life was enlightened by +what was rare in her, and his mind, softened by passion to the +consistency of clay, was stamped with the picture of her as she stood +and looked at him. Vaguely, with uneasiness and dislike, he understood +her value; it was something remote as heaven and less desired, yet it +strengthened his sensual scorn of Miriam, and rising, he went and made a +hateful gesture over her. Some exclamation came from him, and he stooped +to pick her up and slake his thirst for kisses. He wanted to beat her +about the face before he cast her out.</p> + +<p>"Don't touch her!" Helen said in tones so quiet that he hesitated. "She +has only fainted."</p> + +<p>He laughed at that. "Don't think I'm worrying, but she's mine, and I'll +do what I like with her."</p> + +<p>He drew up her limp body and held it until it seemed to be merged into +his own, and though his mouth was close on hers, he did not kiss it. His +lips moved fast, but no words came, and he lowered her slowly and +shakily to the floor. He turned to Helen, and she saw that all the +colour had left his face.</p> + +<p>"Go out!" he said, and pointed.</p> + +<p>The clasp of her hands tightened, and while she looked up at him, she +prayed vehemently. "O God, God," she thought, "let me save her. O God, +what shall I do? O God, God, God!"</p> + +<p>"Go out," he said. "I'm going to keep her here till she'll be glad to be +my wife, and then it'll be my turn to laugh. She can go home in the +morning."</p> + +<p>"I want to sit down," Helen said.</p> + +<p>She looked for a chair and sat on it, and he dropped to the bed, which +gave out a loud groaning sound. He hid his face in his hands and rocked +himself to and fro.</p> + +<p>"She's tortured me," he muttered, and glared angrily at Helen.</p> + +<p>She rose and went to him, saying, "Yes, but she's only a little girl. +You must remember that. And you're a man."</p> + +<p>"Yes, by God!" he swore.</p> + +<p>He raised both hands. "Get out of this!" he shouted. "She shall stay +here tonight." The hands went to Helen's shoulders and forced her to her +knees. "D'ye hear? I tell you she's made me mad!"</p> + +<p>Helen was more pitiful than afraid. She hardly knew what she did, but +she thought God was in the room.</p> + +<p>"George, I'll do anything in the world for you if you'll give her up. +Anything. You couldn't be so wicked. George, be quick. Before she wakes. +Shan't we carry her out now? Shan't we?" She forgot his manhood, and saw +him only as a big animal that might spring and must be soothed. "Let us +do that before she knows. George—"</p> + +<p>He looked half stupefied as he said childishly, "But I swore I'd have +her, and I want her."</p> + +<p>"But you don't love her. No, no, you don't." She laid a hand on his +knee. "Why, you've known us all our lives."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" He sprang up and past her and the spell of the soft hands and +voice was broken. He sneered at her. "You thought you'd done it that +time!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said sadly, and put herself between him and Miriam. With her +chin on her clasped hands, and her steady eyes, she seemed to be the +thing he had always wanted, for the lack of which he had suffered, been +tormented.</p> + +<p>"George," she said, "I'll give you everything I have—"</p> + +<p>He caught his breath. "Yourself?" he asked on an inspiration that held +him astonished, eager and translated.</p> + +<p>She looked up as if she had been blinded, then stiffly she moved her +head. "What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Give me yourself. Oh, I've been mad tonight—for days—she made me." He +pointed to the limp and gracious figure on the floor and leaned against +the bed-rail. "Mad! And you, all the time, out there on the moor against +the sky. Helen, promise!"</p> + +<p>Her voice had no expression when she said, "I promised anything you +asked for. Bring some water."</p> + +<p>But he still stood, dazed and trembling.</p> + +<p>"Bring some water," she said again.</p> + +<p>He spilt it as he carried it. "Why didn't I see before? I did see +before. On the moor, I watched for you You're beautiful." His voice +sank. "You're good."</p> + +<p>She was not listening to him. She dabbled water on Miriam's brow and +lips and chafed her hands, but still she lay as if she were glad to +sleep.</p> + +<p>"Poor little thing!" Helen said deeply and half turned her head. "Some +of your brandy," she commanded. "She is so cold."</p> + +<p>"I'll take her to the kitchen."</p> + +<p>"Is that woman in the house?" she asked sharply.</p> + +<p>"She's in bed, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"She must have heard—she must have known—and she didn't help!"</p> + +<p>He put a hand to his forehead. "No, she didn't help. I'd meant to give +her up, and then—I found her here, and I'd been drinking."</p> + +<p>"Don't tell me! Don't tell me!" She twisted her hands together. "George, +don't make me hate you."</p> + +<p>"No," he said with a strange meekness. "Shall I take her to the kitchen? +It'll be warm there, and the fire won't be out. I'll carry her."</p> + +<p>"But I don't like you to touch her," Helen stated with a simplicity that +had its fierceness.</p> + +<p>"It's just as if she's dead," he said in a low voice, and at Helen's +frightened gasp, he added—"I mean for me."</p> + +<p>"Take her," she said, and when he had obeyed she sat on her heels and +stared at nothing. For her, a mist was in the room, but through it there +loomed the horrid familiarity of Halkett's bed, his washstand and a row +of boots. Why was she here? What had she done? She heard him asking +gently, "Aren't you coming?" and she remembered. She had promised to +marry George because Miriam had been lying on the floor, because, years +ago, the woman lying alone in Pinderwell House had brought the Canipers +to the moor where George lived and was brutal and was going to marry +her. But it could not be true, for, in some golden past, before this +ugliness fell between her and beauty, she had promised to marry Zebedee. +She held her head to think. No, of course she had given him no promise. +They had come together like birds, like bees to flowers—</p> + +<p>"Aren't you coming?" Halkett asked again.</p> + +<p>She rose. Yes, here was her promised man. She had bought Miriam with a +price. She stumbled after him down the stairs.</p> + +<p>In the warmth of the kitchen, by the light of a glowing fire and a +single candle, Miriam's eyelids fluttered and lay back.</p> + +<p>"It's all right, darling," Helen said. "You're quite safe. You're with +Helen, with Helen, dear."</p> + +<p>Behind Miriam's eyes, thoughts like butterflies with wet wings were +struggling to be free.</p> + +<p>"Something happened. It was George. Has he gone away?"</p> + +<p>"He isn't going to hurt you. He wants to take you home."</p> + +<p>"Don't let him. We'll go together, Helen. Soon. Not yet. Take care of +me. Don't leave me." She started up. "Helen! I didn't say I'd marry him. +I wouldn't. Helen, I know I didn't!"</p> + +<p>"You didn't, you didn't. He knows. He frightened you because you teased +him so. He just frightened you. He's here—not angry. Look!"</p> + +<p>He nodded at her clumsily.</p> + +<p>"You see?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'm glad. I'm sorry, George."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter," he said.</p> + +<p>He looked at Helen and she looked full at him and she knew, when he +turned to Miriam, that he still watched over herself. She could +recognize the tenderness and wonder in his eyes, but she could not +understand how they had found a place there, ousting greed and anger +for her sake, how his molten senses had taken an imprint of her to +instruct his mind.</p> + +<p>"Can you come now?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes." Miriam stood up and laughed unsteadily. "How queer I feel! +George—"</p> + +<p>"It's all right," he said. "I'll take you home."</p> + +<p>"But we're not afraid," Helen said. "There's nothing to be afraid of on +the moor." All possibility of fear had gone: her dread had been for some +uncertain thing that was to come, and now she knew the evil and found in +it something almost as still as rest.</p> + +<p>In the passage, he separated her from Miriam. "I want to speak to you."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Be careful."</p> + +<p>"Tonight. In your garden. I'll wait there. Come to me. Promise that, +too."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, yes," she said. "That, too."</p> + +<p>He watched them go across the yard, their heads bent towards each other, +and Helen's pale arm like a streak on Miriam's dress. He heard their +footsteps and the shifting of a horse in the stables, and a mingled +smell of manure and early flowers crept up to him. The slim figures were +now hardly separable from the wood, and they were frail and young and +touching. He looked at them, and he was sorry for all the unworthy +things he had ever done. It was Helen who made him feel like that, Helen +who shone like a star, very far off, but not quite out of reach. She was +the only star that night. Not one showed its face among the clouds, and +there was no moon to wrinkle her droll features at the little men on +earth. Helen was the star, shining in the larch-wood. He called her +name, but she did not hear, and he seemed to be caught up by the sound +and to float among the clouds.</p> + +<p>"It's like being converted," he told himself, and he followed slowly +across the moor.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + + +<p>As the girls passed under the trees, Miriam began to cry.</p> + +<p>"Helen, if you hadn't come!"</p> + +<p>"But I did."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes. To see you there! It was—oh! And then I fainted. What did +you do to him?"</p> + +<p>"We needn't talk about it. And don't cry." She was afraid of having to +hate this daring, helpless being who clung to her; yet she could hate no +one who needed her, and she said tenderly, "Don't cry. It's over now."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I've lost my handkerchief."</p> + +<p>"Here's mine."</p> + +<p>"You're not angry with me, are you? How did you know I'd gone?"</p> + +<p>"I think the house told me. Oh, here's the moor. How good to get to it +out of that pit. Come quickly. Notya—"</p> + +<p>"I can't come faster. Tell me what you said to him. Nothing I said was +any good."</p> + +<p>"I managed him."</p> + +<p>"And I couldn't. Suppose he catches me again."</p> + +<p>"He won't. Can't you understand that he may not want you any more? Let +us get home."</p> + +<p>"I'm doing my best. I wish I were a man. A woman can't have fun."</p> + +<p>"Fun!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you're so good! I meant it for fun, and now he'll come after me +again. Of course he wants me. He's in love with me."</p> + +<p>"There's love and love," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"And if you subtract one from the other—I don't know what I'm +saying—there may be nothing left. If George does that little sum in the +morning—"</p> + +<p>"I think it's done already."</p> + +<p>"I hope so. I'm miserable. I wish the sea would come up and wash me and +make me forget. You're not holding me so lovingly as you did. In the +kitchen you were sweet."</p> + +<p>"Is that better? I think the moor is like the sea. It's a great, clean +bath to plunge into. And here's the garden. That's another bath, a +little one, so dark and cold and peaceful. And the poplars. Soon there +will be leaves on them." She stopped with a thin cry. "What has +happened? I left the house in darkness, and look now!" Every window gave +out light that fell in differing patterns on the grass. "Oh! what is +it?" For an instant she thought the whole night's work must be some evil +fancy, this brilliance as well as the sordid horror at the farm, and +then, as Miriam cried, "Is it the house on fire?" the other rushed +across the lawn, leaping the golden patches as though, indeed, they +might have burned her.</p> + +<p>Miriam tried to follow, but, weakness overcoming her, she sat down on +the lawn. Half drowsily, she was interested in the windows, for their +brightness promised gaiety within the house and she bent her ear +expectantly for music. There ought to have been music, sweet and +tinkling, and people dancing delicately, but the lights were not +darkened by moving figures, and the only sound was Helen's voice +anxiously calling her in.</p> + +<p>Miriam was indifferent to the anxiety, and she did not want to rise: she +was comfortable on the soft, damp earth, and the night had been so long +that the morning must be near. If she stayed there, she would be spared +the trouble of going to bed and getting up again, and when Helen called +once more, she heard the voice as from a great way off, and answered +sleepily, "Yes, I'm coming," but the next minute she was annoyed to find +Helen standing over her.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you come in? It's Notya. She has put lights in every room. +She was afraid of the dark, she says. She couldn't find us. She has been +talking—oh, talking. Come and let her see you."</p> + +<p>"I wish things wouldn't go round and round."</p> + +<p>"You must go to bed, but first you must let her see you. She thinks you +are not coming back."</p> + +<p>"And I nearly didn't. I won't see her if she's ill."</p> + +<p>"You must. She isn't—green, or anything."</p> + +<p>"I'm ill, too. I'm giddy."</p> + +<p>"Oh, can't you do this to help me? Haven't I helped you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, you have! I'll come, but help me up." Her laughter bubbled +out. "I'm afraid you're having rather a busy night!"</p> + +<p>Mildred Caniper was sitting on the edge of the bed. Swinging a foot, and +with her curly hair hanging to her shoulders, she had a very youthful +look.</p> + +<p>"So she has come back," she said. Her voice was small and secret. "I +thought she wouldn't. She is like Edith. Edith went. And I was glad. +Yes, for a little while." Her tones grew mournful and she looked at the +floor. "But it hasn't been a happy thing for me. No. I have been very +unhappy."</p> + +<p>Miriam stood at the door and, holding on to it, she stared with fear and +fascination at the strange woman on the bed, and from her throat there +came a tiny sound, like the beating of a little animal's heart. "Oh, oh, +oh! Oh, oh, oh!"</p> + +<p>Helen was murmuring to her stepmother: "Yes, dear, yes. Get into bed. +It's late, and we are all going to bed. You are getting cold, you know. +Let me lift your feet up. There! That's better."</p> + +<p>"Yes." Mildred lay passive. She seemed to think and, in the pause, +Miriam's ejaculations changed to sighs that ceased as Mildred said in +the sharp tones they welcomed now, "What are you both doing here? Go to +bed. Helen, don't fuss. And let us have no more of this wandering about +at night."</p> + +<p>They left the room like threatened children, and on the landing they +took each other's hands.</p> + +<p>"Is she mad?" Miriam whispered. "Are we all mad? What's happening to us +all?"</p> + +<p>"I think she was just—dazed. Come to bed. I'll help you to undress."</p> + +<p>"Once before you did. That night it rained—"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Don't talk."</p> + +<p>"But if she goes out of her mind, will it be my fault? Because of not +finding us, and the house all dark? Will that be my fault, too?"</p> + +<p>Helen was busy with strings and buttons. "How can we tell who does +things?"</p> + +<p>"She was talking about Mother. I wish I had a real, comfortable mother +now. It was horrible, but I wanted to hear more. I did, Helen. Didn't +you?"</p> + +<p>"No. I don't like seeing souls if there are spots on them. Shall I put +out the light?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Now the darkness is going round. It will whirl me to sleep. I want +to go away. Do you think Uncle Alfred—? I'm frightened of this house. +And there's George. I think I'd better go away in case he comes after me +again."</p> + +<p>A whistle like the awakening chirrup of a bird sounded from the garden, +and Helen's voice quavered as she said, "We'll talk about it in the +morning."</p> + +<p>Quietly she shut the door and went downstairs. She had a lighted candle +in one hand, and a great shadow moved beside her—went with her to the +drawing-room, and stayed there while she wrote a letter to the +accompaniment of George's persistent whistling. She hardly needed it, +and it stopped abruptly as she passed through the long window to the +garden.</p> + +<p>Among the poplars she found him waiting and at once she was aware of +some change in him. His head was thrust forward from his shoulders, and +he searched greedily for her face.</p> + +<p>"I thought you'd given me the slip," he muttered.</p> + +<p>She frowned a little at his use of words, yet what had he to do with +her? She looked up at the bare branches and thought of Zebedee and the +masts of ships.</p> + +<p>"This must be a secret," she said through stiffening lips. "Come further +from the house." She led him to the garden door and opened it. "Out +here," she whispered.</p> + +<p>The moor was like a tired, simple man asleep, yet it still kept its +quality of water, buoyant, moving and impetuous, and she felt that it +had swung her here and there amid its waves for many hours, and now had +left her on a little shore, battered and bereft, but safe.</p> + +<p>"I can't stay," she said softly.</p> + +<p>"I thought you wouldn't come," he answered. He did not understand her: +she gave no sign of pleading or withdrawal: he was sure she had no fear, +and another certainty was born in him.</p> + +<p>"I can trust you," he said with a sigh of peace.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I thought you wouldn't come," he said again.</p> + +<p>"But I'm here, you see."</p> + +<p>His voice rose. "I'd have got in."</p> + +<p>"It would have been quite easy."</p> + +<p>"Weren't you afraid?" he asked, and he found a memory of Miriam in her +laughter. "No, I wasn't afraid."</p> + +<p>"But you're going to marry me."</p> + +<p>"That was the bargain."</p> + +<p>Her passivity angered him. This dignity of submission put him in the +wrong. She seemed to be waiting patiently and without anxiety for her +release. Why should he give it? How could he give it? Would he deny God +in God's own presence?</p> + +<p>He turned to look at her, and as they stood side by side, a foot of +earth between them, he could almost hear her breathing. Her +smoothly-banded hair and the clear line of brow and nose and chin mocked +him with their calm. He spoke loudly, but his voice dropped as the star +to which he likened her might shoot across the heavens and disappear.</p> + +<p>"You make me think—of stars," he said.</p> + +<p>Again she looked upward, and her tilted face was like a waning moon. +"There are no stars tonight. I must go in."</p> + +<p>"But—tomorrow?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Tomorrow?"</p> + +<p>"I shall see you tomorrow?"</p> + +<p>The repetition of the word gave her its meaning. She took the letter +from her belt and held it out to him.</p> + +<p>"No, no," he said.</p> + +<p>"Won't you have it posted for me?"</p> + +<p>"I—I thought it was for me," he stammered. "Yes, I'll have it posted."</p> + +<p>"Will it go early?" she asked earnestly.</p> + +<p>"I'll take it down tonight."</p> + +<p>"Oh, there's no need of that."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to do it," and touching his forehead with a childish gesture, +he added, "I couldn't sleep."</p> + +<p>"It's morning already," Helen said.</p> + +<p>He looked eastward. "Hours of darkness yet."</p> + +<p>"And you'll go down the road and back, before it's light. You needn't, +George."</p> + +<p>"I want to think of you," he answered simply, turning the letter in his +hands.</p> + +<p>She moved to the door and stood against it. "George—" she said. She had +an impulse to tell him that his bargain was useless to him because she +was a woman no longer. She had been changed from living flesh and blood +to something more impalpable than air. She had promised to marry him, +and she remained indifferent because, being no woman, she could not +suffer a woman's pain; because, by her metamorphosis, there was no fear +of that promise's fulfilment. It seemed only fair to tell him, but when +he came to her, she shook her head.</p> + +<p>"It was nothing," she murmured. Bulky of body, virile of sense, he was +immature in mind, and she knew he would not understand.</p> + +<p>"I must go now. Good-night."</p> + +<p>"Don't go," he muttered.</p> + +<p>She stood still, waiting for the words that laboured in him.</p> + +<p>"I was mad," he said at last. "She makes me feel like that. You—you're +different."</p> + +<p>He wanted help from her, but she gave him none, and again there was a +silence in which Jim came through the door and put his head into Helen's +hand.</p> + +<p>"Jim!" she said, "Jim!" Her thoughts went across a continent to blue +water.</p> + +<p>"I'd begun to love her," he explained, and moved from one foot to the +other.</p> + +<p>"George, I must go in."</p> + +<p>"But I don't love her now," he added fiercely, with pride, almost with +reassurance.</p> + +<p>She would have laughed if she had heard him, but her numbness had passed +by and all her powers were given to resisting the conviction that she +was indeed Helen Caniper, born, to die, a woman; that Zebedee was on the +sea, and had not ceased to love her, that she would have a tale to tell +him on his return, and a dishonoured body to elude his arms, but she +could not resist the knowledge, and under its gathering strength she +cried out in a fury of pain that drove Halkett back a step.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She did not answer. Her rage and misery left her weak and hopeless and +though for a bright, flaming instant she had loathed him, she was now +careless of him and of herself because nothing mattered any more.</p> + +<p>She drooped against the door, and he approached her nervously, saying as +he went, "You're tired. You ought to go to bed. I'll take you to the +house."</p> + +<p>That roused her and she looked at him. "No. Some one might hear."</p> + +<p>"I can tread softly."</p> + +<p>"Very well." She halted him among the poplars. "No further."</p> + +<p>"I'll come tomorrow," he whispered.</p> + +<p>"No, not tomorrow. Not until I tell you. I don't want any one to know. +Don't come tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"Then come to me," he said. "I wish you'd come to me. I'd like to see +you coming through our wood and across the cobbles. And in the morning, +the sun's on that side of the house. Helen," he pleaded, "will you +come?" It was Miriam who had come before, a dark sprite, making and +loving mischief, lowering him in his own regard until he had a longing +to touch bottom and make her touch it, too; but if Helen came in her +grey frock, slipping among the trees like silver light, he knew she +would bring healing to his home and to his heart.</p> + +<p>"Will you?" he begged. "Will you, Miss Helen? D'you remember how I used +to call you that? Will you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"But I want you so," he said; and when he would have touched her he +found her gone.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + + +<p>Her bargain had been made and must be kept and Zebedee would understand. +He would not be angry with her: he had only been angry with her once, +and he had always understood. He would feel her agony in that room at +Halkett's Farm, with Miriam, white and stricken, on the floor, and +George Halkett, hot and maddened, on the bed, and he would know that +hers had been the only way.</p> + +<p>These were her thoughts as she went about the house, hasping windows and +bolting doors, with a dreary sense of the futility of caution.</p> + +<p>"For you see, Jim, the horse is stolen already," she said.</p> + +<p>She did not forget to bid Jane good-night; she undressed and laid her +clothes neatly in their place, and without difficulty she dropped into a +sleep as deep as her own trouble.</p> + +<p>She had the virtues of her defects, a stoicism to match her resolutions, +and she was angered when she rose and saw the reflection of eyes that +had looked on sorrow. She shook her head at the person in the glass and, +leaning from the window and finding the garden no less lovely for the +traffic of the night, she was enspirited by that example, and ran +downstairs to open the front door and let in the morning. Then she +turned to face the business of another day.</p> + +<p>She was amazed to find her stepmother in the kitchen, making pastry by +the window, to see the fire burning heartily and the breakfast-things +ready on a tray.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing?" she demanded from the doorway.</p> + +<p>Mildred Caniper looked round. Her eyes were very bright and Helen waited +in dread of the garrulousness of last night, but Mildred spoke with the +old incisive tongue, though it moved slowly.</p> + +<p>"You can see what I am doing."</p> + +<p>"But you ought not to do it."</p> + +<p>"I refuse to be an invalid any longer."</p> + +<p>"And all yesterday you were in bed."</p> + +<p>"Yesterday is not today, and you may consider yourself second in command +again. It is time I was about the house when you and Miriam choose to +spend half the night on the moor. I was left in bed with a house +unlocked."</p> + +<p>"But Jim was there."</p> + +<p>"Jim! Although Dr. Mackenzie gave you the dog, Helen, I have not all +that faith in his invincibility."</p> + +<p>Helen smiled her appreciation of that sentence, though she did not like +her stepmother's looks.</p> + +<p>"I would rather trust Jim's teeth than our bolts and locks, and I told +him to take care of you."</p> + +<p>"That was thoughtful of you!" Mildred said. She rolled her pastry, but +it did not please her, and she squeezed the dough into a ball as she +turned with unusual haste to Helen.</p> + +<p>"You must not wander about at night alone."</p> + +<p>"But on the moor—!" Helen protested.</p> + +<p>"It's Miriam—Miriam—" the word came vaguely. "You must look after +her."</p> + +<p>"I do try," Helen said, and hearing the strangeness of her own voice she +coughed and choked to cover it.</p> + +<p>"What does that mean?"</p> + +<p>"What?" Helen's hand was at her throat.</p> + +<p>"You are trying to deceive me. Something has happened. Tell me at once!"</p> + +<p>"I swallowed the wrong way," Helen said. "It's hurting still."</p> + +<p>"I do not believe you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but, Notya, you must. You know I don't tell lies. Why should you +be so much afraid for Miriam?"</p> + +<p>"Because—Did I say anything? My head aches a little. In fact, I don't +feel well." The rolling-pin fell noisily to the floor. "Tiresome!" she +said, and sank into a chair.</p> + +<p>When Helen returned with the medicine which Zebedee had left for such +emergencies, she found her stepmother beside the rolling-pin. Her mouth +was open and a little twisted, and she was heavy and unwieldy when Helen +raised her body and made it lean against the wall.</p> + +<p>"But she won't stay there," Helen murmured, looking at her. She was like +a great doll with a distorted face, and while Helen watched her she +slipped to the floor with the obstinacy of the inanimate.</p> + +<p>Some one would have to go to Halkett's Farm. Helen stared at the +rolling-pin and she thought her whole life had passed in tending Mildred +Caniper and sending some one to Halkett's Farm. Yesterday she had done +it, and the day before; today and tomorrow and all the days to come she +would find her stepmother with this open, twisted mouth.</p> + +<p>She forced her way out of this maze of thought and rushed out to see if +George, by chance, were already on the moor, but he was not in sight, +and she ran back again, through the kitchen, with a shirked glance for +Mildred Caniper, and up the stairs to Miriam.</p> + +<p>"I can't go!" Miriam cried. "I'll go for John, but I daren't go to +Halkett's."</p> + +<p>"John and Lily went with the milk this morning. You'll have to go for +George. Be quick! She's lying there—"</p> + +<p>"Nothing will make me go! How can you ask it?"</p> + +<p>Helen longed to strike her. "Then I shall go, and you must stay with +Notya," she said and, half-dressed, Miriam was hurried down the stairs. +"And if you dare to leave her—!"</p> + +<p>"I won't leave her," Miriam moaned, and sat with averted face.</p> + +<p>Thus it was that George Halkett had his wish as the sun cleared blue +mist from the larches, but Helen did not come stealing, shy and +virginal, as he had pictured her; she bounded towards him like a hunted +thing and stood and panted, struggling for her words.</p> + +<p>He steadied himself against attack. No persuasion and no abuse would +make him let her go. The road he had trodden in the night knew his great +need of her and now she caught his senses, for her eyes had darkened, +colour was in her cheeks, and she glowed as woman where she had shone as +saint.</p> + +<p>She did not see his offered hands. "It's Notya, again, George, please." +She had a glimpse of Mrs. Biggs peering between window curtains, and her +tongue tripped over the next words. "S-so will you—can you be very +quick?"</p> + +<p>"The doctor?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Dr. Mackenzie is away, but there's another there, and he must +come."</p> + +<p>He nodded, and he did not see her go, for he was in the stable +harnessing the horse and shouting to a man to get the cart.</p> + +<p>"You've got to drive to town like hell, William, and the sooner you +bring the doctor the better for you."</p> + +<p>"I'll have to change my clothes."</p> + +<p>"You'll go as you are, God damn you, and you'll go now."</p> + +<p>He waited until the cart was bowling towards the road before he followed +Helen so swiftly that he saw her dress whisk through the garden door. He +used no ceremony and he found her in the kitchen, where Miriam was +sitting stiffly on a chair, her feet on one of its rungs, her neck and +shoulders cream-coloured above the whiteness of her under-linen. He +hardly looked at her and he did not know whether she went or stayed. He +spoke to Helen:</p> + +<p>"Do you want me to carry her upstairs? William's gone to town. I've come +to help you."</p> + +<p>"Then you've spoilt the game, George. It's always you who go to town and +bring the doctor. Never mind. Yes. Carry her up. Don't step on the +rolling-pin." She looked at it again. "She's not dead, is she?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"What is it, then?"</p> + +<p>He stooped to lift the heavy burden, and she heard him say a word +mumblingly, as though ashamed of it.</p> + +<p>She moved about the room, crying, "A stroke! It's ugly. It's horrid. A +stroke! Why can't they say a blow?"</p> + +<p>He could not bear the bitterness of her distress. "Don't, don't, my +dear," he said, and startled her into quiet.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The doctor came and went, promising to return, and a nurse with large +crowded teeth assumed control over the sick-room. There was little to be +done; she sat on a chair by the window and, because of those excessive +teeth, she seemed to smile continually at Mildred Caniper's mockery of +death.</p> + +<p>Outside, a cold rain was falling: it splashed on the laurel leaves by +the gate and threw a shifting curtain across the moor. The fire in the +room made small noises, as though it tried to talk; the nurse bent over +her patient now and then, but Mildred Caniper did not move.</p> + +<p>Downstairs, in the kitchen, Miriam sat on her feet in the big armchair: +she was almost motionless, like one who has been startled into a posture +and dare not move lest her fear should take shape. The rain darkened +the room and filled it with a sound of hissing; a kettle whistled on the +fire, and there was a smell of airing linen.</p> + +<p>Helen turned a sheet. "The nurse must have Christopher's bed," she said +at last. "We must carry it in."</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"You and I."</p> + +<p>"I can't! I can't go in. I should—I should be sick! I can't. Helen, +after last night—"</p> + +<p>"Very well. Can you manage to go to Brent Farm and tell John? They ought +to be at home now."</p> + +<p>"But there's George."</p> + +<p>"He won't hurt you."</p> + +<p>"He'd speak to me if he saw me."</p> + +<p>"No. He took no notice of you this morning."</p> + +<p>"That was because I wasn't dressed."</p> + +<p>Helen laughed rather weakly and for a long time.</p> + +<p>"You're not really laughing!" Miriam cried. "This house is horrible. You +making that noise, and Notya upstairs, and that hideous nurse grinning, +and George prowling about outside. I can't stay here."</p> + +<p>"Go to Brent Farm, then. You can tell John and stay there. Lily won't +mind."</p> + +<p>"Shall I? John would be angry."</p> + +<p>Helen made no reply as she moved quietly and efficiently about the +kitchen, preparing food, setting things on a tray, turning the linen, +working quickly but with no sign of haste. The rain splattered on the +gravel path outside and clicked sharply into some vessel which stood by +the scullery door.</p> + +<p>A voice came unhappily from the pale face blotted against the chair.</p> + +<p>"Helen, what are you going to do about me?"</p> + +<p>She turned in astonishment and stared at Miriam.</p> + +<p>"You said we were to talk about it."</p> + +<p>"I know." What held her silent was the realization that while she felt +herself helpless, under the control of some omnipotent will, here was +one who cried out to her as arbiter. It was strange and she wanted to +laugh again but, refusing that easy comment, she came upon a thought +which terrified and comforted her together. She was responsible for what +she had done; Zebedee would know that, and he would have the right, if +he had the heart, to blame her. A faint sound was caught in her throat +and driven back. She had to be prepared for blame and for the anger +which so endeared him, but the belief that she was not the plaything of +malevolence gave her the dignity of courage.</p> + +<p>"Helen," said the voice again.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I wrote to Uncle Alfred yesterday—this morning. I shouldn't think +he could be here tomorrow, but the next day, if he comes—"</p> + +<p>But blame or anger, how small they were in the face of this common +gash—this hurt! She shut a door in her brain, the one which led into +that chamber where all lovely things bloomed among the horrors. And +Zebedee, as she had always told him, was just herself: they shared.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you've done that? How wonderful! But—it's like running away."</p> + +<p>"I don't want you here."</p> + +<p>There was an exclamation and a protest.</p> + +<p>"Only because I couldn't be happy about you."</p> + +<p>"Because of George? No, I don't see how I can stay here, but there's +Notya."</p> + +<p>"You're no use, you see."</p> + +<p>"Oh—"</p> + +<p>"If you can't even carry in that bed."</p> + +<p>"I'll try to go in," she said, in a muffled voice.</p> + +<p>"I can ask the nurse. I don't want you to stay, but try," she went on +dispassionately, "try not to be silly any more. I shan't always be there +to—save you."</p> + +<p>"It was very dramatic."</p> + +<p>"Yes; just like a story, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Don't be so unpleasant. I still feel ill. It was horrid to faint. I +can't make out why Mrs. Biggs didn't stop you."</p> + +<p>"Do you want to talk about it?"</p> + +<p>"N-no—"</p> + +<p>"Neither do I."</p> + +<p>"But I can't make out—"</p> + +<p>"Never mind. What does it matter? It's over. For you it's over. But +don't play with people's lives any more, and ruin them."</p> + +<p>There was a pause, in which the room grew darker.</p> + +<p>"Do you think," Miriam asked in an awed voice, "he minds so much?"</p> + +<p>Helen moved the little clothes-horse and knelt before the fire and its +heat burnt her face while her body shivered under a sudden cold. She +thought of George, but not as an actor in last night's scenes; her +memory swung back, as his had often done, to the autumn night when they +sat together in the heather, and his figure and hers became huge with +portent. She had thought he was the tinker, and so, indeed, he was, and +he no doubt had mistaken her for Miriam, as latterly he had mistaken his +own needs. No, she was not altogether responsible. And why had Rupert +told her that tale? And why, if she must have a tinker, could she not +desire him as Eliza had desired hers?</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no!" she said aloud and very quickly, and she folded her arms +across her breast and held her shoulders, shrinking.</p> + +<p>"I don't think so either," Miriam said.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + + +<p>Uncle Alfred in a trap and Rupert on foot arrived at the same moment on +Saturday, and while Rupert asked quick questions about Mildred Caniper, +the other listened in alarm.</p> + +<p>He was astonished to feel Helen's light touch leading him to the corner +where the hats were hanging, to hear her low voice in his ear.</p> + +<p>"Pretend that's why you've come!"</p> + +<p>He whispered back, "Where is she?"</p> + +<p>"In bed."</p> + +<p>"Miriam?"</p> + +<p>"No, no. Dressing up for you!"</p> + +<p>"Ah," he said, relieved, but he felt he was plunged into melodrama. +Nothing else could be expected of a family which had exiled itself +mysteriously in such a wilderness, but he felt himself uncomfortably out +of place and he straightened his tie and gave his coat a correcting pull +before he went into the schoolroom, where John and Lily were sitting by +the fire.</p> + +<p>"We're all waiting for the doctor," Helen explained.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" Uncle Alfred said again, on a different note. He clasped his hands +behind his back and nodded, and in spite of this inadequate contribution +he conveyed an impression of stiff sympathy, and gave the youthful +gathering the reassurance of his age as they made a place for him by the +fire.</p> + +<p>"I'm jolly glad you're here," Rupert said cordially, and Uncle Alfred, +not used to a conspirator's part, stole a glance at Helen. She was +standing near him; her stillness was broken by constant tiny movements, +like ripples on a lake; she looked from one face to another as though +she anticipated and watched the thoughts behind, and was prepared to +combat them.</p> + +<p>"I wish you'd sit down," Lily said, as Helen went to the window and +looked out.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sit down, sit down," said Uncle Alfred, and he stood up, pointing +to his chair.</p> + +<p>"No; I'm listening, thank you," Helen said.</p> + +<p>The nurse's heavy tramp thudded across the room above, and her steps had +something in them of finality, of the closing of doors, the shutting +down of lids, the impenetrability of earth.</p> + +<p>Sitting next to John, with her arm in his, Lily moved a little. Her eyes +were full of pity, not so much for the woman upstairs, or for the +Canipers, as because the emotions of these people were not the heartily +unmixed ones which she had suffered when her own mother died.</p> + +<p>"He's a long time," Helen said. She went into the hall and passed +Miriam, in a black dress, with her hair piled high and a flush of colour +on her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"He's in there," Helen said with a wave of her hand, and speaking this +time of Uncle Alfred.</p> + +<p>The front door stood open, and she passed through it, but she did not go +beyond the gate. The moor was changelessly her friend, yet George was on +it, and perhaps he, too, called it by that name. She was jealous that he +should, and she did not like to think that the earth under her feet +stretched to the earth under his, that the same sky covered them, that +they were fed by the same air; yet this was not on account of any +enmity, but because the immaterial distance between them was so great +that a material union mocked it.</p> + +<p>Evening was slipping into night: there was no more rain, but the ground +smelt richly damp, and seemed to heave a little with life eager to be +free; a cloud, paler than the night, dipped upon the moor above Brent +Farm and rose again, like the sail of a ship seen on a dark sea. Then a +light moving on the road caught back Helen's thoughts and she went into +the house.</p> + +<p>"He's coming," she said listlessly, careless of the use of pronouns. +There was a pronoun on a ship, one on the moor, another driving up the +road, and each had an importance and a supremacy that derided a mere +name.</p> + +<p>She shut the schoolroom door and waited in the hall, but half an hour +later, she opened the door again.</p> + +<p>"It's good news," she said breathlessly. "Do you want to speak to him, +Rupert? She's going to live!"</p> + +<p>She could not see her own happiness reflected.</p> + +<p>"Like that?" John asked roughly.</p> + +<p>"No, better, better. Always in bed, perhaps, but able to speak and +understand."</p> + +<p>He lifted his big shoulders; Uncle Alfred flicked something from his +knee and, in the silence, Helen felt forlorn; her brightness faded.</p> + +<p>"And you'll be left here with her, alone!" Miriam wailed, at last.</p> + +<p>"Alone?" asked John.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Alfred's going to take me away," Miriam said, yet she was not +sure of that, and she looked curiously at him.</p> + +<p>"I want her to go," Helen said quickly.</p> + +<p>John was still glowering at Miriam. "Take you away! You talk as if you +were a parcel!"</p> + +<p>"I knew you would be angry," she said. "You've always been hard on me, +and you don't understand."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's Helen's affair."</p> + +<p>"You don't understand," Miriam said again. She sat close to Uncle +Alfred, and he patted her.</p> + +<p>"Helen knows best," Lily said cheerfully, for she suspected what she did +not know. "And we'll look after her. Come along, John. It's time we all +went to bed."</p> + +<p>"He'll grumble all the way home," Miriam said with a pout.</p> + +<p>Rupert was still talking to the doctor: they had found some subject to +their taste, and their voices sounded loudly in the quiet house. Helen +had gone out to speak to Zebedee's old horse.</p> + +<p>"Now, tell me what's the matter," Uncle Alfred said.</p> + +<p>"Didn't Helen tell you?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Well," she swayed towards him, "the fact is, I'm too fascinating, Uncle +Alfred. It's only fair to warn you."</p> + +<p>All the strain had left her face, and she was more beautiful than he had +remembered, but he now looked at her with the practical as well as the +romantic eye, for his middle-aged happiness was to depend largely on +this capricious creature, and for an instant he wondered if he had not +endangered it.</p> + +<p>"Probably," he said aloud.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you sure of it?"</p> + +<p>"Er—I was thinking of something else."</p> + +<p>"That," she said emphatically, "is what I don't allow."</p> + +<p>He looked at her rather sternly, bending his head so that the eye behind +the monocle was full on her. She would never be as charming as her +mother, he reflected, and with a start, he straightened himself on the +thought, for he seemed to hear that remark being uttered by dull old +gentlemen at their clubs. It was a thing not to be said: it dated one +unmistakably, though in this case it was true.</p> + +<p>"We must have a talk."</p> + +<p>"A serious one?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>She looked at him nervously, regardless of her effect. "Will you mind +taking care of me?" she asked in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"My dear child—no."</p> + +<p>"What is it, then?"</p> + +<p>"I am trying to frame a piece of good advice. Well—er—this is the kind +of thing." He was swinging the eyeglass by its string. "Don't go out +into the world thinking you can conquer it: go out meaning to learn."</p> + +<p>"Oh," Miriam said drearily. This meant that he was not entirely pleased +with her. She wondered which of them had changed during these months, +and characteristically she decided that it was he.</p> + +<p>"Are you certain you want me?" she asked sadly.</p> + +<p>"Quite certain, but you're not going to object to criticism, are you?" +he asked.</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Well then—" he began and they both smiled, simultaneously reassured +about each other.</p> + +<p>"And will you take me with you when you go back? Perhaps on Monday?"</p> + +<p>"If the mistress of the house approves." This was addressed to Helen, +who had entered.</p> + +<p>"On Monday, Helen, may I go?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. But then we ought to have told the trap to come for you."</p> + +<p>"There's always George," Miriam said with innocence.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's always there. That's quite true," Helen said, and she spoke +hollowly, as though she were indeed the shell she felt herself to be.</p> + +<p>"But," Miriam went on, "it would be unkind to ask him."</p> + +<p>To Uncle Alfred's concern, Helen leaned towards her sister, and spoke +rapidly, in a hard, angry voice.</p> + +<p>"Stop saying things like that! They're not funny. They make you +ridiculous. And they're cruel. You've no respect—no respect for people. +And George is better than you. He's sorry. That's something—a great +deal. I'm not going to have him laughed at."</p> + +<p>"Now, now," Uncle Alfred said feebly, but Helen had stopped, amazed at +herself and at the loyalty which George evoked already. She knew, +unwillingly, that it was a loyalty of more than words, for in her heart +she felt that, in truth, she could not have him mocked. She stared +before her, realizing herself and looking into a future blocked by +George's bulk. She could not remember what she had been saying to +Miriam; she looked at her, huddled in her chair against the storm, and +at Uncle Alfred, standing with his back to the fire, jauntily swinging +his eyeglass to seem at ease.</p> + +<p>"Was I rude?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"No, just horrid."</p> + +<p>She went from the room slowly, through the passage and the kitchen into +the garden, and George's figure went before her. She looked up at the +poplars and saw that they would soon have their leaves to peep into the +windows and whisper secrets of the Canipers.</p> + +<p>"They knew," she said solemnly, "they always knew what was to happen."</p> + +<p>Beyond the garden door she walked into a dark, damp world: mist was +settling on the moor; drops spangled her dress and rested softly on her +face and hands. She shut her eyes and seemed to be walking through +emptiness, a place unencumbered by thoughts and people; yet she was not +surprised when she was caught and held.</p> + +<p>"Let go!" she said, without opening her eyes, and she was obeyed.</p> + +<p>"I've been waiting for you," George said in a husky whisper.</p> + +<p>"But I didn't say I would come."</p> + +<p>She could hear him breathing close to her. "I can't see your eyes. +You've got them shut. What's the matter? You're not crying?"</p> + +<p>She opened them, and they were the colour of the night, grey and yet +black, but they were not wet.</p> + +<p>"I've been waiting for you," he said again, and once more she answered, +"I didn't say I would come."</p> + +<p>"I was coming to the door to ask about Mrs. Caniper," he went on, still +speaking huskily and very low.</p> + +<p>"Were you?"</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't have liked that!"</p> + +<p>"She is better." Emptiness was becoming peopled, and she remembered +Mildred Caniper in bed, and the nurse smiling when she meant to be +sympathetically sad, and Miriam, pitiful under scolding, but George was +only the large figure that blocked the future: he was not real, though +he talked and must be answered.</p> + +<p>"I was coming to ask: do you hear?"</p> + +<p>"You know now."</p> + +<p>"But there's more. Who's the old chap who drove up tonight? Your uncle, +isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Her mind, which had lain securely in her body out of reach of hurt, was +slowly being drawn into full consciousness; but he had to repeat his +words before she answered them, and then she spoke with a haughtiness to +which Miriam had accustomed him.</p> + +<p>"So you have been watching?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he asked defiantly. "I've got to watch. Besides," he became +clumsy, shy, and humble, "I was waiting to see you."</p> + +<p>"I'm here."</p> + +<p>"But you're—you're like a dead thing. That night, in my room, you were +alive enough. You sat there, with your mouth open, a little—I could see +your teeth, and your eyes—they shone."</p> + +<p>His words were like touches, and they distressed her into movement, into +a desire to run from him.</p> + +<p>"I'm going in," she said.</p> + +<p>"Not yet."</p> + +<p>"I must."</p> + +<p>He was hovering on the edge of sentences which had their risk: she could +feel that he wished to claim her but dared not, lest she should refuse +his claim. He found a miserable kind of safety in staying on the brink, +yet he made one venture.</p> + +<p>"There are things we've got to talk about."</p> + +<p>"But not tonight."</p> + +<p>"You'll say that every night."</p> + +<p>"There's never really any need to talk about anything," she said.</p> + +<p>He stammered, "But—you're going to marry me. I must make—make +arrangements."</p> + +<p>She had her first real scorn of him. He was afraid of her, and she +despised him for it, yet she saw that she must keep him so. She could +hardly bring herself to say, "Do what you like," but having said it, she +could add, with vehemence, "Don't bother me! I'm busy."</p> + +<p>"But—" he said, and looked down: and now she seemed to be caught in his +shame, a partner, and she had to wait for what he tried to say.</p> + +<p>He looked up, saying, "You promised."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know."</p> + +<p>She did not go. Perhaps people lying side by side in their graves would +talk to each other like this, in voices muffled by their coffins and +inarticulate because of fleshless lips, with words that had no meaning +now that life, which made them, was done. And again she felt that she +and George were moles, burrowing in the earth, scratching, groping for +something blindly.</p> + +<p>She brought her hands together and shook them.</p> + +<p>"If only one could see!" she said aloud.</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>"I feel as if I'm in a dark room."</p> + +<p>"It's a dark night," he said, and touched her wrist. "When shall I see +you again? Tomorrow?"</p> + +<p>"You can't see me now."</p> + +<p>"I can. Your hair has drops on it, and your face—"</p> + +<p>"No!" she cried. "Don't tell me. Don't come with me."</p> + +<p>She ran from him at last, and he did not follow her. Like her, he was +bewildered, but for him she was a light he could not put out: for her he +was the symbol of that darkness which had fallen on life.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + + +<p>The next day had its own bewilderment and confusion, and Helen learnt +that high tragedy is not blackest gloom but a thing patched and streaked +with painful brightness, and she found herself capable of a gaiety which +made Miriam doubly reproachful.</p> + +<p>"You've never been like this before," she said, "and we might have had +such fun. And you shouldn't be like it now, when I'm going away +tomorrow." She sat in her empty box, with her legs dangling over the +side. "I'm not sure that I shall go."</p> + +<p>"You've only two pairs of stockings without holes in them," Helen said. +She was kneeling before Miriam's chest of drawers.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't matter. I shall have to buy heaps of things. D'you know, I'm +afraid he's going to be strict."</p> + +<p>"Poor little man!"</p> + +<p>"And when one begins to think about it seriously, Helen, will one like +it very much? Who's going to play with me? There'll be Uncle Alfred and +a housekeeper woman. And do you know what he said?" She struggled from +the box, shut down the lid and sat on it. "He said I must think I'm +going into the world to learn. Learn!"</p> + +<p>"I expect you'll want to. You won't like yourself so much when you meet +other people."</p> + +<p>"And shan't I hate my clothes! And I have visions, sister Helen, of four +elderly gentlemen sitting round a whist-table, and me reading a book in +a corner. So you see—no, I don't want to take that: give it to +Samson—so you see, I'm a little damped. Well, if I don't like it, I +shall come back. After all, there's Daniel."</p> + +<p>"He's tired of you."</p> + +<p>She showed her bright, sharp teeth, and said, "He'll recover after a +rest. Oh, dear! I find I'm not so young and trustful as I was, and I'm +expecting to be disappointed."</p> + +<p>"The best thing," Helen said slowly, sitting down with a lapful of +clothes, "is for the worst to happen. Then you needn't be troubled any +more." She took a breath. "It's almost a relief."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't feel so bad as that," Miriam explained, and Helen fell back +laughing loudly.</p> + +<p>"You've spilt all my clothes," Miriam said, and began to pick them up. +"And don't make such a noise. Remember Notya!"</p> + +<p>Helen was on her side, her head rested on her outstretched arm, and her +face was puckered, her mouth widened with the noise she made.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said, "you always think of Notya at such funny times."</p> + +<p>"Somebody has to," Miriam replied severely, and Helen laughed again, and +beat her toes against the ground. Over her, Miriam stood, stern and +disgusted, clasping linen to her breast.</p> + +<p>"You're hysterical. Nurse will come in. In fact, I'll go and fetch her. +She'll grin at you!"</p> + +<p>"Is this hysterical? It's rather nice," Helen giggled. "Let me laugh +while I can. There'll be no one to say such things when you are gone." +She sat up with a start, and seemed to instruct herself. "You're going," +she said, and faced the fact.</p> + +<p>Miriam threw her bundle on the bed and stood irresolute. For once, the +thoughts of the two had kinship, and they saw the days before them +deprived of the companionship which had been, as it were, abortive, yet +dear to both; necessary, it seemed now; but the future had new things in +it for Miriam, and for Helen it had fear. Nevertheless, it was Miriam +who cried through quivering lips, "Helen, I won't go!"</p> + +<p>"You must," she said practically.</p> + +<p>"Because of George?"</p> + +<p>She nodded: it was indeed because of George, for how could she keep her +promise with Miriam in the house?</p> + +<p>"And, after all," Miriam said brightly, "there's Zebedee. I'm not +leaving you quite alone. He'll be back soon. But—it's that I don't want +to do without you. I can't think how to do it."</p> + +<p>"I know," Helen said, and added, "but you'll find out."</p> + +<p>"And John—"</p> + +<p>"Never mind. John doesn't know about—things. Let's pack."</p> + +<p>And while Mildred Caniper lay on one side of the landing where the +Pinderwells were playing quietly, Helen and Miriam, on the other, +laughed at the prospect before them and made foolish jokes as they +filled the trunk.</p> + +<p>It was harder, next day, than Helen had guessed to hold Miriam's hand in +good-bye, to kiss her with a fragile, short-lived kiss, to watch her +climb into the trap and to hear her box banged into its place by the +driver's seat, with an emphatic noise that settled the question of her +going.</p> + +<p>It was a cold morning and the wind bustled as though it had an interest +in this affair; it caught Miriam's skirt as she stood on the trap step, +and lifted the veil floating from her hat, fluttered the horse's mane +and disordered Helen's hair. It was like a great cold broom trying to +sweep these aliens off the moor, and, for a moment, Helen had more pity +for Miriam than for herself. Miriam was exiled, while she stayed at +home.</p> + +<p>She looked up at the house front and heard the laurels rattling, and +round her she saw the moor spread clear-coloured under the east wind. +Halkett's high wood stood up like ranks of giants set to guard her and, +though she saw them now as George's men, she had no fear of them.</p> + +<p>"Helen!" Miriam called to her.</p> + +<p>She went forward and stood at the carriage door. "Yes?"</p> + +<p>"Helen—we're going. Do you remember the first time we bathed in the +sea? The wind was so cold, like this, before we went into the water. We +nearly ran back. That's how I feel now."</p> + +<p>"But we didn't go back."</p> + +<p>"Oh! here's Uncle Alfred."</p> + +<p>"And we learnt to swim."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Good-bye. Kiss me again."</p> + +<p>Helen stood quite still with her hands by her sides, while the carriage +bumped over the track, stopped on the road that John and Lily might say +their farewells, and slowly went on again until it was out of sight and +she saw the road left empty. It looked callous, too, as though it did +not care what came or went on it, and as she looked about her, Helen +discovered that she was in a desert world, a wilderness of wind and +dead, rustling heather and angry laurel leaves, of empty houses and +women whose breath whistled through their distorted mouths. And the +giants, standing so great and black against the sky, were less to guard +her than to keep a friend from attempted rescue.</p> + +<p>She raised her arms and opened her hands in a gesture of avowal. No one +would ever rescue her, for, by her own act, she would be chained more +firmly than Andromeda when Zebedee next came up the road.</p> + +<p>"I must get it over," she whispered quickly, and she sat down where she +had stood. She had to keep her promise, and now that there was no one in +the way, the thing must be done before Zebedee could come and fight for +her, lest people should be hurt and precious things broken: her word, +and peace, and the beauty of the moor. Yet things were broken already: +life limped; it would never go quite smoothly again.</p> + +<p>She wondered what God was doing in His own place; it seemed that He had +too much to do, or had He been careless at the beginning of things and +let them get out of hand? She was sorry for Him. It must be dreary to +look down on His work and see it going wrong. He was probably looking at +her now and clicking His tongue in vexation. "There's Helen Caniper. She +ought to have married the doctor. That's what I meant her to do. What's +gone wrong? Miriam? I ought to have watched her. Dear, dear, dear! I +oughtn't to have set them going at all if I couldn't keep them +straight." So her thoughts ran as she sat with her head bowed to her +knees, but she remembered how, in George's room that night, with Miriam +on the floor, she had called to God without premeditation, with the +naturalness of any cry for help, and in a fashion, He had heard her. No +one had taught her to pray and until then she had called on no god but +the one behind the smoke. Perhaps this other one had a power which she +could not understand.</p> + +<p>She looked up, and saw a sky miraculously arched and stretching beyond +sight and imagination, and she thought, simply enough, that, having made +the sky, God might be tired. And surely He had proved Himself: a being +who had created this did not make small mistakes with men. It was some +human creature who had failed, and though it seemed like Miriam, might +it not be herself? Or Mildred Caniper, or some cause beyond Mildred +Caniper, going back and back, like the waves of the sea? It was +impossible to fix the blame, foolish to try, unnecessary to know it. The +thing had happened: it might be good, yet when she heard Halkett's voice +behind her, she was only conscious of bitter evil.</p> + +<p>"I want to talk to you," he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>He came into her view and looked down scowlingly. "I don't know what +you've been up to, but I'd better tell you to begin with that I'm not a +fool."</p> + +<p>She frowned at his manner, but she said patiently, "I don't know what +you mean."</p> + +<p>"You're clever."</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Then why have you got rid of her like that?"</p> + +<p>"Are you speaking of my sister?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am. I want to know why you've sent her off."</p> + +<p>"I don't think it's your affair, but I will tell you. She was not happy +here. If she had been happy, she would not have behaved foolishly with +you."</p> + +<p>"Ah! I thought you'd come to that. I see."</p> + +<p>"What do you see?"</p> + +<p>"Why you've got rid of her."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you are hinting something," she said wearily. "Please don't +do it. I cannot—I cannot possibly be polite, if you are not +straightforward. And please be quick, because I have a lot to do."</p> + +<p>He flushed at this gentle hectoring, but he could not still his +curiosity.</p> + +<p>"I want to know," he said slowly, "what your little idea is about +me—about me—and you. Are you going to try backing out of it, now that +you have her safe?"</p> + +<p>She had not thought of it; her face showed that, and he did not need the +assurance of her quiet words.</p> + +<p>"I was afraid," he muttered, half abashed. "I thought you'd take a +chance."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't take one unless you offered it," she said.</p> + +<p>There were thoughts behind his eyes; he seemed to waver, and she +steadied her own face for fear of doing the one thing that would not +move him. Now she did not pray: she had a dread of asking for herself, +lest God, in punishment, should grant the prayer and let worse follow. +Escape was only to be made through a door of George's opening, and she +knew he would never let her through, but she looked at the clouds and +waited for him to speak.</p> + +<p>His words were heralded by guttural noises in his throat.</p> + +<p>"I want you," he said at last, with the simplicity of a desire for +bread. "And there isn't any need to wait. I'm going to town today. I'll +see about it. In three weeks—"</p> + +<p>She said nothing; she was still watching the clouds; they were like +baskets overbrimming with heaped snow.</p> + +<p>He came nearer. "I'm going to get a ring. And, after all, we needn't +wait three weeks. I'll get a licence. What kind of ring?"</p> + +<p>Zebedee's ring was hanging on a ribbon round her neck, and she put a +hand to her throat and pressed the hard stones against her skin.</p> + +<p>"I suppose one has to have a wedding ring."</p> + +<p>"I meant—another kind," he said.</p> + +<p>"Is it worth while for such a little time?" she asked and did not look +at him.</p> + +<p>"There's afterwards."</p> + +<p>"Yes. There's afterwards." She might have been lingering on the words +with love, but suddenly she rose and stamped a foot as though to crush +them, and cried out, "I will have no ring at all! Neither one nor the +other!"</p> + +<p>"You can't get married without a ring," he said stupidly. It pleased him +to see her thus: she was less distant from him.</p> + +<p>"Very well. Marry me with one. I will not wear it afterwards."</p> + +<p>"I don't care about that," he muttered. He was looking at her, peering +in the half-blind fashion he used towards her. "Helen—I was awake half +the night."</p> + +<p>She stared at him. It would not have troubled her if he had never slept +again. It was absurd of him to think she cared whether he slept or +waked.</p> + +<p>"Thinking of you—" he added, and seemed to wait for some reward.</p> + +<p>"I am going in," was all she said.</p> + +<p>"Not yet. That's all you ever say to me. I wish you'd have a ring."</p> + +<p>"But I will not!"</p> + +<p>"Something, then," he begged.</p> + +<p>"What do such things matter?" she cried, and hated her ungraciousness as +she heard it. "If it will make you happy," she conceded. "Good-bye, +George. The doctor will soon be here, and there is everything to do."</p> + +<p>"Aren't you going to let me in?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes." She passed into the house and up the stairs, and she did not +look back to see if he had followed.</p> + +<p>He found himself at a loss in the big house which seemed very empty. +There was not a sound in it but the ticking of the clock and, upstairs, +Helen's movements, which were few and quiet. He realized that he was +practically alone with her, and though he listened earnestly, he could +not tell exactly where she was, and at any moment she might come +slipping down the stairs before he knew she was at the head of them. The +fancy pleased him; it kept him poised for her; it would be fine, he +thought, to play at hide-and-seek with her, to search the old house +while she ran from him, to hear the clicking of a door or an unwary +step, and at last to catch her in his arms, in the dark of a winter +night.</p> + +<p>He waited, but she did not come, and, understanding that his presence in +the hall might well keep her upstairs, he wandered into the kitchen.</p> + +<p>The room was neat, but a pile of dirty plates and dishes awaited +washing, and having looked at them thoughtfully, he took off his coat, +and he was working in the scullery when Helen appeared. Already he had +filled the scuttles and the kettles.</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much," she said, in a kind of wonder. He was a different +person now, and she was touched by the sight of this careful dealing +with mop and plates, by his puckered brow and lips. He was like a child, +and she did not wish to see him so. If he continued simple, she might +grow fond of him, and that, she thought, would be disloyalty to Zebedee. +To marry George without love, affection, friendship or respect was only +to pay the price he had demanded; but to feel kindness for him, even +that human kindness she could seldom refuse to any one, was to make the +sacrifice less complete, to cloud, in some way, the honesty of the eyes +which would have to look at Zebedee when he learnt what she had done.</p> + +<p>"It's kind, George, but don't do it."</p> + +<p>"I'm slow, but I can manage."</p> + +<p>"Splendidly, but I can do it."</p> + +<p>"You can't do everything."</p> + +<p>Her face was pinched as she said, "I'm glad to do it."</p> + +<p>He straightened the big back he was bending in her service. "Let me +help. I'll be here to light the kitchen fire tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"There's no need: Mrs. Samson is coming, I've promised to have her every +day."</p> + +<p>"Samson is my man."</p> + +<p>"I know." Lines were beginning to show between her brows. "George, +nobody need be told."</p> + +<p>Again he straightened himself, but now he seemed to threaten with his +bulk. "I'd feel safer if you weren't so secret."</p> + +<p>"Can't you trust me?" she said. "How often must I ask you that?"</p> + +<p>He had a slow way of flushing to the eyes. "I'm sorry," he said humbly, +as he used his thumb nail on a plate.</p> + +<p>She was irritated by his meekness, for now he was not childlike. She +felt his thoughts circling round her in a stubborn determination to +possess, even, if it must be, through his own submission, but she hated +him less for that than for his looks, which, at that moment, were +without definite sex. He looked neither man nor woman: his knees were +slightly bent; his face was red, and his nail still scraped patiently on +the plate. Since she must marry him, she would have him as masculine as +he could be, so that therein she might find shelter from the shame of +being yoked to him.</p> + +<p>Her cheeks grew cold in amazement at her own thought, and her mind +shrank from it. She felt that all the blood in her body was dropping to +her feet, and they were heavy as she moved towards the door.</p> + +<p>"Are you going?" he asked her.</p> + +<p>"I must watch for the doctor."</p> + +<p>She had the mind of a slave, she told herself, the mind of a slave, and +she deserved no better than to be one.</p> + +<p>She wrapped a grey cape about her and sat outside the garden gate. The +wind was strong enough to lean against, stronger than man or anything he +had made. Its freshness seemed to get beneath her skin, into her mind, +to clean every part of her. Its action had a swiftness that prevented +thought, and she was content to sit there till the doctor came, though +the nurse had gone to bed in Christopher, and Mildred Caniper was +alone. If she could see through those closed lids, she would not mind: +she must know how terrible it was to sit and watch her immobility.</p> + +<p>The postman came before the doctor and brought a letter with a foreign +stamp, and for a long time she held the envelope unopened between her +palms. Her body felt like a great heart beating, and she was afraid to +read what Zebedee had written, but at last she split the envelope and +spread the sheets, and forgot George Halkett in the scullery and Mildred +Caniper in bed: she did not hear the calling of the peewits or the +melancholy of the sheep; she heard Zebedee's voice, clear-cut and quick, +saying perfect things in ordinary tones. He told her of the sea that +sometimes seemed to change into the moor, and of the sails that swelled +into the big clouds they knew; he told her that though there was never +any one who could claim likeness to her, it did not matter because she +never left him, and that, in spite of her continuing presence, and +because he was well again, he thought he would come home by land to +reach her sooner.</p> + +<p>She spoke aloud, but her forehead was on the letter on her knee.</p> + +<p>"No, don't, Zebedee—darling—dearest—lover. Don't come any sooner. I +don't want you to have more days of knowing than you need."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + + +<p>The days of that week were marked by little changes for the better in +Mildred Caniper's condition, by little scenes with George. Helen never +went on to the moor without finding him in wait for her, and always she +went as to some unworthy tryst, despising herself for the appeasement +she meted out to him, daring to do nothing else. Once more, she saw him +as some animal that might be soothed with petting, but, thwarted, would +turn fierce and do as he would with her. Her dignity and friendship kept +him off; he did not know how to pass the barrier, and to lock material +doors against him would have been to tempt him to force the house. She +knew that in this matter cowardice was safety, but as the days crept +forward, she wondered how long the weapon would serve her.</p> + +<p>Rupert came on Saturday and brought sanity into a disordered world, and +when he entered the house she caught his arm and held to it.</p> + +<p>"Have you been as lonely as all that?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Not a bit lonely, but you're so nice-looking," she explained, "and so +alive. And Notya is only coming alive slowly. It's like watching +something being born. You're whole."</p> + +<p>"And you're rather embarrassing."</p> + +<p>"I want you to talk to me all the time you're here. Tell me things that +have nothing to do with us. Rupert, I'm sick of us." She dropped on to a +chair and whispered, "It's an enchanted house!"</p> + +<p>"Are you the princess?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Be careful! I don't want Jane to know."</p> + +<p>He glanced up the stairs. "The prince is coming soon."</p> + +<p>She ignored that and went on: "Nurse is an ogress."</p> + +<p>"By Jove, yes! Why couldn't they send some one who looks like a +Christian?"</p> + +<p>"I believe she'll eat me. But I shouldn't see that, and I can't bear to +see her eating anything else. D'you know?"</p> + +<p>"Rather. That kind of thing oughtn't to be allowed."</p> + +<p>"She's very kind. She calls me 'dear' all the time, but Notya will hate +her when she notices the teeth. Will you go up to her now? I have to—I +want to go out for a little while. Then we can have the rest of the day +to ourselves."</p> + +<p>He lifted his eyebrows oddly. "Why not?"</p> + +<p>"I mean I needn't go out again."</p> + +<p>"Where are you going now?"</p> + +<p>"Just for a walk. I must have a walk."</p> + +<p>"Good girl. I'll look after the family."</p> + +<p>She took her cloak from its peg and slipped through the garden. "I don't +tell the truth. I'm deceitful," she said to herself, and when she saw +George, she hated him.</p> + +<p>"I've been here for hours," he said as she approached.</p> + +<p>"There was no need to wait."</p> + +<p>"I'm not grudging the time."</p> + +<p>"Why speak of it then?"</p> + +<p>"I was afraid you wouldn't come. I brought a coat for you to sit on. The +ground's wet."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to sit. I want to walk and walk into something soft—soft +and oblivious."</p> + +<p>"But sit down, just a minute. I want to show you something." His hand +shook as he put something into hers and, clearing his throat, said +shyly, "It's a swallow."</p> + +<p>"A swallow?"</p> + +<p>"A brooch."</p> + +<p>"It's pretty."</p> + +<p>"Let me pin it on for you."</p> + +<p>"No, no, I can't—it's much too good for this plain frock, and I might +lose it. Haven't you a case for it? There. Put it in your pocket, +please. Thank you very much."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you like it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do."</p> + +<p>"Then let me put it on. I'd like to see you wearing it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, if you must," she said.</p> + +<p>He took it from its place; his fingers were slow and clumsy, his face +close to hers, and with the brooch pinned to her, she hated him more +than she had done when he held Miriam in his mad arms.</p> + +<p>"I've the ring in my pocket, too," he said. "Next week—Did you hear me? +Sometimes—sometimes you look deaf."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I did hear."</p> + +<p>She shook herself and rose, but he caught a hand. "I want to take you +right away. You look so tired."</p> + +<p>"I am not tired."</p> + +<p>"I shall take care of you."</p> + +<p>The limp hand stiffened. "You know, don't you, that I'm not going to +leave my stepmother? You are not thinking—?"</p> + +<p>"No, no," he said gently, but the mildness in his voice promised himself +possession of her, and she snatched away her hand.</p> + +<p>"I must have exercise. I'm going to run."</p> + +<p>"Give me your hand again."</p> + +<p>"There is no need."</p> + +<p>"You'll stumble." He did not wait for her assent, and for that and for +the strength of his hold she liked him, and, as she ran, and her blood +quickened, she liked him better. She did not understand herself, for she +had imagined horror at his nearness, but not horror pierced through with +a delight that shrank. She thought there must be something vile in her, +and while she ran she felt, in her desperate youth, that she was +altogether worthless since she could not control her pleasure to this +swift movement supported by his hand. She ran, leaping over stones and +heather and, for a short time that seemed endless, her senses had their +way. She was a woman, young and full of life, and the moor was wide and +dark, great-bosomed, and beside her there ran a man who held her firmly +and tightened, ever and again, his grasp of her slipping fingers. Soon +it was no effort not to think and to feel recklessly was to escape. +Their going made a wind to fan their faces; there was a smell of damp +earth and dusty heather, of Halkett's tweeds and his tobacco; the wind +had a faint smell of frost; there was one star in a greenish sky.</p> + +<p>She stopped when she could go no further, and she heard his hurried +breathing and her own.</p> + +<p>"How you can run!" he said. "Like a hare! And jump!"</p> + +<p>"No! Don't!" She could not bear his personalities: she wished she were +still running, free and careless, running from the shame that now came +creeping on her. "No, no!" she cried again, but this time it was to her +own thoughts.</p> + +<p>"What have I done?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Nothing. I was speaking to myself."</p> + +<p>He never could be sure of her, and he searched for words while he +watched the face she had turned skywards.</p> + +<p>"Helen, you're different now."</p> + +<p>"And you like me less."</p> + +<p>"I always love you."</p> + +<p>She looked at him and smiled, and very slowly shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," she said pleasantly. "Oh, no, George."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by that?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it's a riddle. You can think about it."</p> + +<p>"Ah—you—you make me want to shake you!" He gripped her shoulders and +saw her firm lips loosened, a pale colour in her cheeks, but something +in her look forced him to let her go.</p> + +<p>"I can't hurt you," he said.</p> + +<p>She smiled again, in a queer way, he thought, but she was always queer: +she looked as if she knew a joke she would not tell him, and, in +revenge, he had a quick impulse to remind her of his rights.</p> + +<p>"Next week," he said, and saw the pretty colour fading.</p> + +<p>No one could save the captive princess now. Sunday came and Rupert went; +Monday came and Mildred Caniper spoke to Helen; Tuesday was Helen's +birthday: she was twenty-one. No one could save her now. On Wednesday +she was to meet George in the town.</p> + +<p>She had asked Lily to stay with Mildred Caniper.</p> + +<p>"I have some shopping to do," she said, and though her words were true, +she frowned at them.</p> + +<p>Lily came, and her skirts were blown about as she ran up the track.</p> + +<p>"It's a bitter wind," she said. "We've had a bad winter, and we're going +to have a wicked spring."</p> + +<p>"I think we are," Helen said as she fastened on her hat.</p> + +<p>"You'll be fighting the wind all the way into town. Need you go today?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I must," Helen said gravely.</p> + +<p>"Well, perhaps the change will do you good," Lily said, and Helen smiled +at her reflection in the mirror. "Don't hurry back."</p> + +<p>The smile stayed on Helen's lips, and it was frozen there when, having +forced her way against a wind that had no pity and no scorn, she did her +shopping methodically and met George Halkett at the appointed place.</p> + +<p>"You've come!" he said, and seized her hand. "You're late."</p> + +<p>"I had to do some shopping," she said, putting back a blown strand of +hair.</p> + +<p>"You're tired. You should have let me drive you down." In the shadows of +the doorway, his eyes were quick on every part of her. "I wish I'd made +you. And you're late. Shall we—hadn't we better go upstairs?"</p> + +<p>"There's nothing to wait for, is there?"</p> + +<p>Their footsteps made a loud noise on the stairs, and in a few minutes +Helen found herself on them again. George had her by the arm, but he +loosed her when she put the ring into his hand.</p> + +<p>"Helen—" He checked himself, accepting her decree with a patience that +made her sorry for him.</p> + +<p>"You're going to drive back with me?" His anxiety to please her +controlled his eagerness: his wish to tend her was like a warm but +stifling cloak, and she could not refuse him.</p> + +<p>"They'll think we've met by chance," he said.</p> + +<p>"Who will?"</p> + +<p>"Any one that sees us."</p> + +<p>"I'm not concerned with what people think."</p> + +<p>"That's all right then. Nor am I. Will you wait here or come with me to +the stable?"</p> + +<p>"I'll wait," she said.</p> + +<p>People with blue faces and red-rimmed eyes went past her, and there was +not one of them she did not envy, for of all the people in that town, +she alone was waiting for George Halkett. He came too soon, and held out +a helping hand which she disdained.</p> + +<p>"My word!" he said, "the wind is cold. Keep the rug round you."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't like it." She pushed it off. "I can't bear the smell of +it."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," he said. "It's clean enough."</p> + +<p>"I didn't think it was dirty," she explained, and a few minutes +afterwards, she added, "I'm sorry I was rude, George."</p> + +<p>"You're tired," he said again.</p> + +<p>"Drive quickly, won't you?"</p> + +<p>He whipped up the horse, and the wind roared behind them; they passed +men and women staggering against it.</p> + +<p>"Will there be snow?" she asked him.</p> + +<p>He bent his ear to her, and again she shouted, "Will there be snow?"</p> + +<p>"Feels—rather like it," he boomed back. "I never knew such a year. And +they'd begun burning the heather!"</p> + +<p>"Had they? Did you say burning heather? Then the fires will be put out. +George, they'll be put out!"</p> + +<p>He nodded, thinking this a small thing to shout about, in such a wind.</p> + +<p>She had forgotten about the fires, but now she looked at the grey sky +and hoped the snow would come. She imagined the first flake hissing on +the fire, and more flakes, and more and more, until there was no smoke +to veil the god, only a thick wet blanket for his burial. She had loved +his moor, yet he had forsaken her; she had been afraid to hope, she had +gone humbly and she had prayed, but now she need pay him no more homage, +for she had nothing more to fear, and she whispered to the snow to hurry +and avenge her.</p> + +<p>When they were nearly home, George spoke again. "Are you very cold?"</p> + +<p>"I'm warmer now."</p> + +<p>"I'll drive you up the track."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather get out here. Stop, George, please."</p> + +<p>"Wait till I help you down," he said, and jumped off on the other side.</p> + +<p>"My feet are numb," she said, looking at the arms he held for her.</p> + +<p>"I'll catch you."</p> + +<p>"I'm not so bad as that." She climbed down stiffly while he watched her, +and in some way she felt herself more injured by the quality of his gaze +than she would have been by his clasp. Without looking at him, she said +good-bye and made a step or two.</p> + +<p>"But I shall see you again."</p> + +<p>"One—one supposes so!"</p> + +<p>"I mean tonight."</p> + +<p>"I—don't know."</p> + +<p>"Leave the blind up so that I can see if you're alone."</p> + +<p>She made no answer, and when she had run lamely up the track, she turned +at the door to see her husband still standing in the road.</p> + +<p>Lily met her in the hall and said, "Mrs. Caniper's asleep, and she's +better, my dear. She seems happier, somehow. So George Halkett brought +you home. A good thing, too. Come into the kitchen and get warm. I'll +make some tea and toast for you. You're frozen. Here, let me take off +your boots. Sit down."</p> + +<p>"I can do it, thank you."</p> + +<p>"But you're going to let me, just to please me."</p> + +<p>Helen submitted and lay back. "You look nice with the firelight on you."</p> + +<p>"Hadn't that man a rug?"</p> + +<p>"What? Oh, yes, yes." The warmth and peace of the kitchen were almost +stupefying. She shut her eyes and felt soft slippers being pushed on to +her feet; the singing of the kettle became one sound with the howling of +the wind, and Lily's voice dragged her from the very brim of sleep.</p> + +<p>"Here's a slice, and the kettle's boiling. A good thing John isn't here! +He says it's the water, not the kettle."</p> + +<p>"How fussy of him!"</p> + +<p>"But he's right."</p> + +<p>"Always?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad of that. Would it have made much difference to you if you +hadn't married him?"</p> + +<p>"D'you think I don't care enough for him?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I don't."</p> + +<p>"Now look, you've made me burn the toast."</p> + +<p>"Scrape it. I wanted to know—how much he filled of you."</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I never thought about it. I wouldn't have been lovesick, +anyway. I had my work to do."</p> + +<p>"I expect that's how men feel. I sometimes think nothing's worth +struggling for."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but it is. I'm always fighting. I saved two lambs last week."</p> + +<p>"That's different. I meant—for happiness. People struggle and get +nothing. It's such a little life. Seventy years, perhaps. They +pass—somehow."</p> + +<p>"But if you've ever had the toothache, you know how long an hour can be. +What's the matter with you?"</p> + +<p>"I'm just thinking."</p> + +<p>"Unhappy?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"When will Zebedee be back?"</p> + +<p>"In about ten days."</p> + +<p>"Are you feeling he'll never come?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sure he'll come."</p> + +<p>"Well then—"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it's the wind," Helen said. "You're very good to me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm fond of you," Lily said.</p> + +<p>"Are you fond enough to kiss me?" Helen asked. She wanted a touch at +which she need not shudder, and surely it was fitting that some one +should kiss her on her wedding-day.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + + +<p>Soon after nine o'clock, Helen bade Mildred Caniper and the nurse +good-night and went downstairs with Jim close at her heels.</p> + +<p>"We're going to sit in the kitchen, James. I'll get my sewing."</p> + +<p>She hesitated at the window: the night was very dark, but she could see +the violent swaying of the poplars, and she thought the thickening of +their twigs was plain and, though it was April already, it was going to +snow. She touched the tassel of the blind, but she did not pull on it, +for she would not anger George with little things, and she left the +window bare for his eyes and the night's.</p> + +<p>"Keep close to me, Jim," she said as she sat and sewed, and she stroked +him with a foot. She could hear no sound but the raging wind, and when +the back door was opened she was startled.</p> + +<p>"It's me," George said as he entered.</p> + +<p>"I didn't hear you coming."</p> + +<p>"I've been looking through the window for a long time." He went to the +fireside. "Didn't you know? I hoped you'd be looking out for me, but you +weren't anxious enough for that."</p> + +<p>"Anxious?"</p> + +<p>"Well—eager."</p> + +<p>"Of course I wasn't. Why should I be?"</p> + +<p>"You're my wife—and wives—"</p> + +<p>"You know why I married you, George."</p> + +<p>"You're married, none the less."</p> + +<p>"I'm not disputing that."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you despise me for—getting what I wanted."</p> + +<p>"I only wonder if it was worth while."</p> + +<p>"I'll make it that."</p> + +<p>"But you won't know until your life is over, until lots of lives are +over."</p> + +<p>"I'll get what I can now."</p> + +<p>She nodded lightly, and her coolness warmed him.</p> + +<p>"Helen—"</p> + +<p>"Why don't you sit down?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I wish you wouldn't sew."</p> + +<p>Without a word, she folded her work and gave it to him, and when he had +put it down he knelt beside her, holding the arms of the chair so that +he fenced her in.</p> + +<p>"You don't understand, you can't understand that night's work," he said. +"I want to tell you. You—you were like an angel coming down into the +racket. You took away my strength. I wanted you. I forgot about Miriam. +If I'd only known it, I'd been forgetting her every day when I saw you +walking with the dog. You think I was just a beast, but I tell you—"</p> + +<p>"I don't think that. I can't explain unless you give me room. Thank you. +You were a beast with Miriam, not with me."</p> + +<p>He sat stiffly on his chair and murmured, "That's just it. And now, you +see—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do."</p> + +<p>"But you don't like me."</p> + +<p>"I might."</p> + +<p>"You shall, by God!" He seemed to smoulder.</p> + +<p>"I hope so," she said quietly, and damped the glow.</p> + +<p>"You'll let me come here every night and sit with you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And Mrs. Caniper, can she hear?"</p> + +<p>"No, she is in the front of the house."</p> + +<p>"And Jim won't mind?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, Jim won't."</p> + +<p>"Nor you?"</p> + +<p>"You can get the big old chair from the schoolroom and bring it here. +That shall be yours."</p> + +<p>He sat there for an hour, and while he smoked she was idle. His eyes +hardly left her face, but hers were for the fire, though sometimes she +looked at him, and then she saw him behind tobacco smoke, and once she +smiled.</p> + +<p>"What's that for?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I was thinking of the fires on the moor—the heather burning."</p> + +<p>"What made you think of that?"</p> + +<p>"You—behind the smoke. If the snow comes, the fires will be put out, +but there will still be your smoke."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.</p> + +<p>"I like to see you—behind the smoke."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you're pleased with something."</p> + +<p>"I like a fair exchange," she said, and laughed at him, "but I shall +offer up no more prayers."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand this joke, but I like to see you laugh." Possession +had emboldened him. "Helen, you're pretty."</p> + +<p>"I'm sleepy. It's after ten. Good-night."</p> + +<p>"I'll come tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"But not on Saturday. Rupert comes home then."</p> + +<p>"He goes on Sunday night?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." She locked the door on him, blew out the light, and ran upstairs. +She thought Mr. Pinderwell passed her with no new sorrow on his face. +"It's worse for me," she said to him. "Jane, it's worse for me."</p> + +<p>She went cautiously to her window and peeped through. She saw George +standing on the lawn, and tremblingly she undressed in darkness.</p> + +<p>The next day, Mildred Caniper called Helen to her side.</p> + +<p>"I feel—rested," she said. Her voice had for ever lost its crispness, +and she spoke with a slovenly tongue. "I don't like strangers—looking +at me. And she—she—"</p> + +<p>"I know. She shall go. Tomorrow I'll sleep with you."</p> + +<p>Her heart lightened a little, and through the day she thought of Mildred +Caniper's room as of a hermitage, but without the nurse the house was so +much emptier of human life that it became peopled with the thoughts of +all who had lived in it; and while Helen waited for George's coming, she +felt them moving round her.</p> + +<p>There were the thoughts of the people who had lived in the house before +Mr. Pinderwell, and these were massed and indistinct, yet the more +troubled; they were too old for form, too young for indifference, and +they thronged about her, asking for deliverance. She could not give it, +and she was jostled by a crowd that came closer than any one of flesh +and blood: it got inside her brain and frightened her. The thoughts of +Mr. Pinderwell were familiar, but now she could better understand his +wild young despair, the pain of his lonely manhood, the madness of his +old age. Yet, when she thought of him, she said again, "It's worse for +me." Mr. Pinderwell had not been obliged to marry some one else, and, +though he did not know it, his children lived. Nearer than his thoughts, +but less insistent than the formless ones that pressed about her, +begging shamelessly, were those of Mildred Caniper. Helen saw them in +the dining-room where they had been made, and they were rigid under +suffering, dignified, but not quite lost to humour, and because she did +not know their cause, because their creator lay upstairs, dead to such +activities, Helen had a horror of them that made her watch the clock for +George's hour. She was less afraid of George than of these shapeless, +powerful things, this accumulated evidence of what life did with its +own; and until he came she talked to Jim, quickly and incessantly, +careless of what she said, if words could calm her.</p> + +<p>"Jim, Jim, Jim! I must say something, so I'll say your name, and then +other things will come. I do not intend to be silly. I won't let you be +silly, Helen. You mustn't spoil things. It's absurd—and wicked! And +there's snow outside. It's so deep that I shan't hear him come. And I +wish he'd come, Jim. Funny to wish that. Jim, I'm afraid to turn my +head. It feels stiff. And I ought to go upstairs and look at Notya's +fire, but I don't like the hall. That's where they all meet. And I don't +know how I dare say these things aloud. I'll talk about something else. +Suppose I hadn't you? What shall we have for dinner tomorrow? There's a +bone for you, and the jelly for Notya, and for me—an egg, perhaps. +Boiled, baked, fried, poached, scrambled, omeletted? Somehow, somehow. +What shall I say next? Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, and +all that kind of thing. That will take a long time. I know I sound mad, +but I'm not. And this isn't me: not our me, James. Dickory, dickory, +dock—But this is worse than before. I wonder why God thought of men and +women—and snow—and sheep—and dogs. Dogs—" Her words stopped; she +heard the little noises of the fire. She found that this was not the way +in which to combat terrors. She knew how Zebedee would look if he saw +her now, and she stood up slowly. The muscles in his cheek would twitch, +and the queer flecks in his eyes would chase each other as he watched +her anxiously and sadly. She could not let him look like that.</p> + +<p>She walked into the middle of the room and looked about her. She opened +the door and stood in the dark hall and refused the company of the +thronging thoughts. Up the stairs she went, seeing nothing more alarming +than poor Mr. Pinderwell, and on the landing she found the friendly +children whom she loved. Jim followed her, and he seemed to share her +views; he paused when she did and stood, sturdily defying the unknown; +and so they went together into every room, and mended Mildred Caniper's +fire, and returned freely to the kitchen.</p> + +<p>"We've conquered that," Helen said. "We'll conquer everything. Fear +is—terrible. It's ugly. I think only the beautiful can be good."</p> + +<p>She held to the high mantelshelf and looked at the fire from between her +arms. A few minutes ago, life had been some mighty and incalculable +force which flung its victims where it chose, and now she found it could +be tamed by so slight a thing as a human girl. She had been blinded, +deafened, half stupefied, tossed in the whirlpool, and behold, with the +remembrance that Zebedee believed in her, she was able to steer her +course and guide her craft through shallows and over rapids with a +steady hand.</p> + +<p>"There now!" she exclaimed aloud, and turned a radiant face as Halkett +entered.</p> + +<p>For an instant, he thought it was his welcome, and his glow answered +hers before both faded.</p> + +<p>"Good-evening, George."</p> + +<p>"Good-evening, Helen," he answered, and there was a little mockery in +his tone.</p> + +<p>He stood close to her, and the frosty air was still about him. A fine +mist and a smell of peat came from his clothes as the fire warmed them. +She did not look at him, and when she would have done so, his gaze +weighted her eyelids so that she could not lift them; and again, as on +that first occasion in the hollow, but ten times more strongly, she was +conscious of his appreciation and her sex. There was peril here, and +with shame she liked it, while, mentally at first, and then physically, +she shrank from it. She dropped into the chair beside her, and with an +artifice of which she was no mistress, she yawned, laughed in apology, +and looked at him.</p> + +<p>"I believe you were awake half the night," he grumbled. "I won't have +you tired. You shouldn't have sent the nurse away." He sat down and +pulled out his pipe, and filled it while he watched her. "But I'm glad +she's gone," he said softly.</p> + +<p>She did not answer. She had a gripping hand on each arm of the chair: +she wanted to run away, and she hated George; she wanted to stay, and +then she hated herself.</p> + +<p>"I shan't get tired," she said weakly. "Mrs. Samson stays till six +o'clock. I only look after Notya."</p> + +<p>"And you sleep with her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said and, picking a spill of paper from the hearth, she +lighted it and held it out to him. He put his hand round hers and did +not let it go until his pipe was lit, and then he puffed thoughtfully +for a time.</p> + +<p>"I've never been up your stairs except when I carried her to bed," he +said, and every muscle in her body contracted sharply. She flogged her +mind to start her tongue on a light word.</p> + +<p>"Not—not when you were little? Before we came here?"</p> + +<p>He laughed. "I wouldn't go near the place. We were all scared of old +Pinderwell. They used to say he walked. I was on the moor the night you +came, I remember, and saw the house all lighted up, and I ran home, +saying he'd set the place on fire. I was supposed to be in my bed, and I +had my ears well boxed."</p> + +<p>"Who boxed them?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Biggs, of course. She has hands like flails. I—What's the +matter?"</p> + +<p>"Is she at the farm still?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Biggs?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"D'you want her to go?"</p> + +<p>"I should have thought you did."</p> + +<p>"Well—" He spoke awkwardly. "She's been there nearly all my life. You +can't turn people off like that, but if you want it, she shall go."</p> + +<p>"No, it's not my affair," she told him.</p> + +<p>"It will be," he said sharply.</p> + +<p>"Of course," she said in a high voice, "I should never dream of living +in the same house with her, but then," she went on, and her tones +loosened, there was an irritating kind of humour in them, "I don't +suppose I shall ever live there at all."</p> + +<p>She did not know why she spoke so; her wish to hurt him was hardly +recognizable by herself, but when she saw him stung, she was delighted.</p> + +<p>The colour rushed up to his eyes. "What d'you mean by that? What d'you +think you're going to do?"</p> + +<p>She raised her eyebrows, and answered lightly, "I'm sure I don't know."</p> + +<p>He put a heavy hand on her knee. "But I do," he said, and her mouth +drooped and quivered. She knew she had laid herself open to an attack +she could not repel.</p> + +<p>"He'll get me this way," she found herself almost whispering, and aloud +she said, "George, let's wait and see. Tell me some more about when you +were little."</p> + +<p>Things went smoothly after that, and when she went to bed, she talked to +Jane.</p> + +<p>"We mustn't have any pauses," she said. "We can feel each other then. We +must talk all the time, and, oh, Jane, I'm so fond of silence!"</p> + +<p>That night a voice waked her from a dreamless sleep.</p> + +<p>"Helen, are you there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Do you want something?"</p> + +<p>"I have been thinking." Her tongue seemed too thick for her mouth. "Is +the dog on the landing?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He's always there. You haven't been afraid?"</p> + +<p>"No. It's a big house for two women."</p> + +<p>Helen sat up and, putting her feet into her slippers, she opened the +door. Jim was sleeping in the darkness: he woke, looked up and slept +again. It was a quiet night and not a door or window shook.</p> + +<p>"I didn't say I heard anything. Go back to bed."</p> + +<p>Helen obeyed, and she was falling softly into sleep when the voice, like +a plucked wire, snatched her back.</p> + +<p>"Helen! I want to tell you something."</p> + +<p>"I'm listening." She stared at the corner whence the voice was +struggling, and gradually the bed and Mildred's body freed themselves +from the gloom.</p> + +<p>By a supreme effort, the next words were uttered without a blur and with +a loudness that chased itself about the room.</p> + +<p>"I am to blame."</p> + +<p>"To blame?" Helen questioned softly.</p> + +<p>"It was my fault, not Edith's—not your mother's."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you're talking about, Notya dear."</p> + +<p>"Your mother." The voice was querulous. "I was—unkind to your mother. +Oh—worse than that!" The bed creaked, and a long sigh gave place to the +halting speech in which the sibilants were thickened into lisping +sounds.</p> + +<p>"She was my friend. She was beautiful. You are all like her. Miriam and +Rupert—" The voice dropped like a stone falling into a well without a +bottom, and Helen, listening for the sound of it, seemed to hear only +the echoes of Mildred Caniper's memory, coming fainter and fainter from +the past where the other woman made a gleam.</p> + +<p>"Miriam—" she began again. "I haven't seen her."</p> + +<p>"No. Uncle Alfred has taken her away."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" Mildred said, and there was a silence.</p> + +<p>After a time, her voice came back, thin and vague, a ghostly voice, +speaking the thoughts of a mind that had lost its vigour.</p> + +<p>"Alfred was in love with Edith. They all were. She was so pretty and so +gay. But she was not unfaithful. No. I knew that. She told me and she +trusted me, but I said nothing. That's what has worried me—all the +time." Heavily she sighed again, and Helen drew herself to a sitting +posture in her bed. She dared not ask the questions which tramped over +each other in her mind; she hardly drew a breath lest the sound should +change the current of the other's thought.</p> + +<p>"She did silly things. They vexed me. I was jealous, I suppose. Take +care of Miriam. Oh—but she's gone. Edith—she made men love her, and +she couldn't help it, and then one night—but it's too long to tell. +Philip thought she wasn't faithful, but I knew. She wouldn't tell him. +She was angry, she wouldn't say a word, but she trusted me to tell him. +And you see, I—didn't. He wouldn't go and see her. If he had seen her +he would have found out. And soon she died—of measles." The woman in +the bed laughed softly.</p> + +<p>"That was so foolish! And then I married him. I got w-what I wanted. But +there's a verse about leanness in the soul, isn't there? That's what I +had. He wanted some one to look after the children, and I looked after +you—no more. The struggling hasn't been worth while."</p> + +<p>"No." The word came from Helen like a lost puff of wind.</p> + +<p>"And then Philip went away, and I came here. That's all. I wanted to +tell somebody. Now perhaps I can have peace. I meant to tell him, too, +but I was too late. That worried me. All these years—"</p> + +<p>Leaning on her elbow, Helen looked at the narrow bed. It had some aspect +of a coffin, and the strangely indifferent voice was still. She felt an +intolerable pity for the woman, and the pain overcame her bewilderment +and surprise, yet she knew she need not suffer, for Mildred Caniper had +slipped her burden of confession and lay at rest.</p> + +<p>Beyond the relief of tears, Helen slid into her place. The dead, distant +mother was not real to her: she was like the gay shadow of a butterfly +that must soon die, and Philip Caniper was no more than a name. Their +fate could hardly stir her, and their personal tragedy was done; but now +she thought she could interpret the thoughts which clustered in the +dining-room. This was Mildred Caniper's secret, and it had been told +without shame. The irony of that made her laugh silently to the shaking +of her bed. She had no words with which to clothe her feelings, the +sense of her own smallness, of unhappiness so much the common lot that +it could almost pass unheeded. There was some comfort in the mingling of +her own misery with all that had been and was to be, but she felt +herself in the very presence of disintegration: the room was stirring +with fragments of the life which Mildred Caniper could not hold +together: mind and matter, they floated from the tired body in the +corner and came between Helen and the sleep that would have kept her +from thinking of the morrow, from her nightly vision of Zebedee's face +changing from that of happy lover to poor, stricken man. Turning in the +bed, she left him for the past of which Mildred Caniper had told her, +yet that past, as parent of the present, looked anxiously and not +without malice towards its grandchildren. What further tragedy would the +present procreate?</p> + +<p>Answers to that question were still trooping past Helen when dawn came +through the windows, and some of them had the faces of children born to +an unwilling mother. Her mind cried out in protest: she could not be +held responsible; and because she felt the pull of future generations +that might blame her, she released the past from any responsibility +towards herself. No, she would not be held responsible: she had bought +Miriam, and the price must be paid: she and Miriam and all mankind were +bound by shackles forged unskilfully long ago, and the moor, +understanding them, had warned her. She could remember no day when the +moor had not foretold her suffering.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> + + +<p>A person less simple than Helen would have readjusted her conception of +herself, her character and circumstances, in the light of her new +knowledge; but with the passionate assertion that she could not be held +altogether responsible for what her own children might have to suffer, +Helen had made her final personal comment. For a day, her thoughts +hovered about the distant drama of which Mildred Caniper was the +memento, like a dusty programme found when the play itself is half +forgotten, and Helen's love grew with her added pity; but more urgent +matters were knocking at her mind, and every morning, when she woke, two +facts had forced an entrance. She was nearer to Zebedee by a night, and +only the daylight separated her from George and what he might demand +and, outside, the moor was covered with thick snow, as cold as her own +mind.</p> + +<p>A great fire burned in Mildred Caniper's room, another in the kitchen; +the only buds on the poplars were frozen white ones, and the whiteness +of the lawn was pitted with Halkett's footsteps. Since the first day of +snow he had climbed the garden wall close to the kitchen door so that he +should not make another trail, but the original one still gaped there, +and Helen wished more snow would fall and hide the tracks. She saw them +every morning when she went into her own room to dress, and they were +deep and black, like open mouths begging the clouds for food.</p> + +<p>One day, John, looking from the kitchen window, asked who had been +tramping about the garden.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't it look ugly?" Helen said. "I can't bear snow when it's +blotched with black. Is there going to be more of it?"</p> + +<p>"I think so."</p> + +<p>"Are your lambs all right?"</p> + +<p>"We haven't lost one. Lily's a wonder with them. We've a nursery in our +kitchen. Come and see it." He went out, and she heard him on the crisp +snow.</p> + +<p>"Now he'll mix the trail," she thought happily. "And I might have done +it myself. I think I'm growing stupid. But it will be John and George +when I get up in the morning: that's better than George and me."</p> + +<p>John came back and spoke gravely. "I find those footsteps go right +across the moor towards Halkett's Farm."</p> + +<p>"Of course! George made them."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you knew?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I couldn't imagine Jim had done it, could I?"</p> + +<p>"What did he come for?"</p> + +<p>"He sat by the fire and smoked."</p> + +<p>"You'd better not encourage him."</p> + +<p>"I don't."</p> + +<p>"Be careful!—What are you laughing at?"</p> + +<p>"That old story of the kiss!"</p> + +<p>"It makes me mad."</p> + +<p>"He doesn't try to kiss me, John. I shouldn't be horrified if he did. +You needn't be afraid for me."</p> + +<p>"All right. It's your affair. Want any wood chopped?"</p> + +<p>"Rupert did a stack for me."</p> + +<p>"This is pretty dull for you, isn't it? When does—"</p> + +<p>She interrupted. "At the end of next week, I think." She was somewhat +tired of answering the question.</p> + +<p>That night, as she sat with George, he said, "When we're like this, I +wish you'd wear your wedding-ring."</p> + +<p>"I said I wouldn't."</p> + +<p>"It couldn't do any harm."</p> + +<p>"It could—to me."</p> + +<p>"You talk as if it's dirt," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I know it's gold! Let's keep our bargains and talk of +something else. Tell me what you have been doing today."</p> + +<p>His face reddened to a colour that obscured his comeliness. "You can't +get round me like that."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" She lifted her head so that he saw her round white +throat. "Why should I condescend to get round you, as you call it?"</p> + +<p>"That's it!" he shouted angrily. "That's the word!" He rose and knocked +his pipe against the stove. "You're too damned free with your +condescension, and I'm sick of it." He left the kitchen angrily, and two +minutes later she heard the distant banging of the garden door.</p> + +<p>She wanted to run after him, for she was afraid of the impulses of his +anger. She felt a dreadful need to conciliate, for no other reason than +his body's greater strength, but she let him go, and though for several +days she did not see him, she had no sense of liberty. He would come +back, she knew, and she found herself planning unworthy little shifts, +arranging how she would manage him if he did this or that, losing her +birthright of belief that man and woman could meet and traffic honestly +together. They could not do it, she found, when either used base +weapons: she, her guile, or he, his strength; but if he used his +strength, how could she save herself from using guile? She had to use +it, and she clung fiercely to it, though she knew that, at last, it +would be wrested from her.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In these days of his absence, there were hours when she wandered +ceaselessly through the house, urged by the pride which refused +allegiance to this man, tortured by her love for Zebedee and the pain +she had to give him, hunted by the thought that George was making for +himself a place in the circle where she kept her pensioners. Each time +that he looked at her with longing, though she shrank, she gave her +ready pity, and when he walked away into the night, her heart went after +him unwillingly. Worse than all, she knew she would not always see him +as a pensioner. Far off and indistinct, like a gallows seen on a distant +hill, she spied the day when she might own a kind of need of him; she +had to love those who loved her enough, and his strength, the very +limits of his mind, would some day hold her. But she would not let these +thoughts properly take shape: they were vague menaces, and they chased +her through Mr. Pinderwell's sparsely-furnished rooms. She was glad that +Zebedee had never been a pensioner; he had always given more than he had +asked. His had not been an attitude of pleading, and she could not +remember once seeing an appeal in his eyes. They had always been quick +on her face and busy with herself, and her pride in him was mixed with +anger that he had not bound her to him by his need. He would manage +without her very well, she thought, and hardened herself a little; but +hard or soft, the result of her fierce thinking was the same. She had +the picture of Miriam like a broken flower, lying limp and crumpled on +the floor, and she believed she had done well in selling herself to save +that beauty. It was the only thing to do, and Zebedee would know. These +words she repeated many times.</p> + +<p>But she went beyond that conclusion on her own path. She had married +George, and that was ugly, but life had to be lived and it must be +beautiful; it could not be so long that she should fail to make it +beautiful: fifty years, perhaps. She beat her hands together. She could +surely make it beautiful for fifty years.</p> + +<p>But at night, when she waited for George, she trembled, for she knew +that her determination meant ultimate surrender.</p> + +<p>He came on the fourth night. She gave him half a smile, and with a thin +foot she pushed his chair into its place, but he did not sit down. He +stood with his hands clasped behind him, his head thrust forward, and +having glanced at him in that somewhat sulky pose, she was shaken by +inward laughter. Men and women, she reflected, were such foolish things: +they troubled over the little matters of a day, a year, or a decade, and +could not see how small a mark their happiness or sorrow made in the +history of a world that went on marching.</p> + +<p>She bent over her sewing while she thought, and she might have forgotten +his presence if a movement had not blocked the light.</p> + +<p>"George, please, I can't see."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon."</p> + +<p>"I wish you would sit down. It isn't comfortable like this."</p> + +<p>"All right." He sank down heavily and sighed.</p> + +<p>She lifted her head quickly and showed him her puckered face. "Are you +still so cross?"</p> + +<p>"I—don't know. I've been miserable enough," he said, but he had to +smile on her.</p> + +<p>She was astonished that he should have no difficulty in speaking of +himself, and she looked at him in this surprised consideration before +she tempted him to say more.</p> + +<p>"Why?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't understand."</p> + +<p>"I might."</p> + +<p>"How much I wanted you."</p> + +<p>She tapped her thimble against her teeth. "It's so absurd," she said +softly.</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>She hated him to say that, and she frowned a little as he asked, "Why is +it absurd?"</p> + +<p>"Because you don't know me at all."</p> + +<p>"That's nothing to do with it." He stood up and kicked a protruding +coal. "Nothing to do with it. I know I—want you." He turned sharply +towards her. "I was half drunk that night."</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't talk about it."</p> + +<p>He added abruptly, "I've had nothing since."</p> + +<p>Her silence implied that this was only what she had expected and, +feeling baulked of his effect, he sighed again.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you are so pathetic! Why don't you smile?" He did it, and she +nodded her applause, while he, appeased and daring, asked her, "Well, +did you miss me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. A little."</p> + +<p>"Are you glad I'm here?"</p> + +<p>"I think so."</p> + +<p>"When will you be sure?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, that depends on you. I hate you to be rough."</p> + +<p>"God knows I've had enough to make me. You wear me out, you're so damned +superior."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid that's not my fault!"</p> + +<p>He swore under his breath. "At it again!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear!" she cried, "that was meant to be a joke! I thought it rather +good! Shall I make some coffee? They say a wise woman always has good +things for her—for a man to eat and drink. I'm going to try it."</p> + +<p>They drank in silence, but as he put down his cup, she said, twinkling +over hers, "Was I a wise woman?" and suddenly she felt the great +loneliness of the house, and remembered that she was a woman, and this +man's wife. She looked down that he might see no change. He did not +answer, and the coals, dropping in the grate, were like little tongues +clicking in distress. She wondered if he were ever going to speak.</p> + +<p>"Give me your cup," she heard him say, and his voice was confident. She +felt a hand put firmly on her shoulder, and she saw him bending over +her.</p> + +<p>"Good-night," he said, "I'm going," and still with that hand on her, he +kissed her mouth.</p> + +<p>She did not move when the door was shut behind him: she leaned back in +the chair, pressed there by his kiss, her hands limp in her lap. She +respected him at last. There had been dignity in that kiss, and she +thought it better that he should take what he desired than sit too +humble under her gaze, but she knew she was no longer what she had been. +He had, in some manner, made her partly his: not by the spirit, not by +her will, but by taking something from her: there was more to take, and +she was sure now that he would take it. She was not angry, but for a +long time she cried quietly in her chair.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> + + +<p>Snow was falling when Zebedee at last drove up the road, and from the +window of Mildred Caniper's bedroom Helen watched his huddled figure and +the striving horse. She saw him look for the obliterated track and then +turn towards the shelter of Brent Farm.</p> + +<p>"Is he coming?" Mildred asked. She was childishly interested in his +return.</p> + +<p>"Yes. He has gone to put the horse up at the farm."</p> + +<p>"He will be cold."</p> + +<p>"Yes." Helen was cold, too.</p> + +<p>"It is a dreadful day for driving."</p> + +<p>"I don't think he minds that," she said in a dead voice.</p> + +<p>"No. You had better go downstairs."</p> + +<p>"When I see him starting back. He'll have to talk to Lily. No, he's +coming now."</p> + +<p>She stood at the window while she slowly counted twenty, and then she +warmed her hands before she went.</p> + +<p>She was irritated by the memory of him running across the road with his +hands in his pockets, his head butting against the storm, his eager feet +sinking into the snow and dragging themselves out again. She had a crazy +wish that he would fall. Why could he not walk? she asked herself. It +was absurd to be in such a hurry. There was plenty of time, more than +enough, if he but knew it! She laughed, and hated the false, cruel +sound, and looked round the hall to see if there were any one to hear; +but in the snow, as she opened the gate to him, there was a moment in +which she knew nothing but joy. He had come back, he was close to her, +and evil had passed away.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my darling—" he said. "Let me get off my coat!"</p> + +<p>He took her hands, and unsmilingly he scanned her, from her smooth hair +to her mouth, from her hands to her feet.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She gave him her clear regard. "All the things that have mattered most +to me have been comings and goings through this gate and the garden +door."</p> + +<p>"Well, dearest one—"</p> + +<p>"You've come again."</p> + +<p>"And I shall come tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"Will you?" She closed her eyelids on what he might see, and he kissed +her between the eyes. "I have stayed away too long," he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I want to talk to you. Come and see Notya first."</p> + +<p>"Things have been happening, Daniel tells me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, they have."</p> + +<p>"And if your letters had shown me your face, I shouldn't have stayed +away another day."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it so nice, Zebedee?"</p> + +<p>"It's lovelier than it ever was, but there's a line here, and here, and +here. And your eyes—"</p> + +<p>Again she shut them, but she held up her face. "I want you to kiss my +mouth."</p> + +<p>"Helen," he said, when he had slowly done her bidding, "let us sit on +the stairs and think about each other. Yes, there's room for Jim, but, +oh, my blessed one, he ought to have a bath. No, you can stay down +there, my boy. Are you comfortable, little heart? Let me look at you +again. You are just like a pale flower in a wood. Here, in the darkness, +there might be trees and you gleaming up, a flower—"</p> + +<p>She dropped her forehead to his knees. "I wish—I were—that flower."</p> + +<p>She felt his body tighten. "What has happened?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you soon."</p> + +<p>"No, now."</p> + +<p>"When you have seen Notya. She might notice if we looked—queer."</p> + +<p>"Then let us go to her at once."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Mildred Caniper cut short the interview, saying, "Take him away, Helen. +I'm tired. I'm always tired now."</p> + +<p>"Come into Jane," Helen said when they were on the landing. "No one will +disturb us there. Let Jim come, too."</p> + +<p>"He isn't fit to be in your bedroom, dear. Neither am I. And how like +you it is!"</p> + +<p>"It's cold," she said. Through the window she saw that the new snow had +covered George's tracks. "Cold—cold."</p> + +<p>He put his arms round her. "I'm back again, and I can only believe it +when I'm holding you. Now tell me what's the matter."</p> + +<p>"Shall I? Shall I? Don't hold me, or I can't. It's—oh, you have to +know. I'm married, Zebedee."</p> + +<p>Plainly he did not think her sane. "This can't be true," he said in a +voice that seemed to drop from a great height.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's true. I can show you the thing—the paper. Here it is. Do you +want to read it? Oh, yes, it's true."</p> + +<p>"But it can't be! I don't understand! I don't understand it. Who—For +God's sake, tell me the whole tale."</p> + +<p>She told it quickly, in dull tones, and as she watched his face she saw +a sickly grey colour invade his tan.</p> + +<p>"Don't, don't look like that!" she cried.</p> + +<p>"Are you quite sure you're married?" he asked in his new voice. "Let me +look at this thing."</p> + +<p>Outside, the snow fell thicker, darkening the room, and as she took a +step nearer, she saw the muscles twitching in his cheeks. He laid the +paper on her dressing-table.</p> + +<p>"May his soul rot!" he whispered. He did not look at her. Darkness and +distance lay between them, but fearfully she crept up to him and touched +his arm.</p> + +<p>"Zebedee—"</p> + +<p>He turned swiftly, and his face made her shrink back.</p> + +<p>"You—you dare to tell me this! And you said you loved me. I thought you +loved me."</p> + +<p>"I did. I do," she moaned, and her hands fluttered. "Zebedee," she +begged.</p> + +<p>"Oh—did you think I was going to wish you happiness? I'd rather see you +dead. I could have gone on loving you if you were dead, believing you +had loved me."</p> + +<p>"And do you think I want to be alive?" she asked him, and slipped to her +knees beside the bed. "I didn't want to die until just now. All the +time, I said, Zebedee will understand. He'll know I did my best. He'll +be so sorry for me—"</p> + +<p>"So sorry for you that he couldn't think about himself! Sorry for +you—yes! But can't you see what you have done for me? You never thought +of that! It's like a woman. If you'd killed me—but you have killed me. +And you did it lightly. You let me come here, you gave me your mouth to +kiss, and then you tell me this! This! Oh, it's nothing! You've married +some one else! You couldn't help it! Ah—!" He shook with a rage that +terrified her, and having held out disregarded arms to him, she let her +trembling mouth droop shapelessly, and made no effort to control her +heavy tears, the sobs rushing up and out with ugly, tortured sounds. She +spoke between them.</p> + +<p>"I never thought you would be angry. But I dreamt about you angry. +Oh"—she spoke now only to herself—"he doesn't understand. If I hadn't +loved him truly, I needn't have kept my word, but I had to be honest, or +I wouldn't have been worthy." She dropped her face against the bed and +mumbled there. "Nothing matters, then. Not even being honest. I—I—Oh! +Angry—Zebedee darling, I can't bear it. Tell me you won't be angry any +more."</p> + +<p>"Dearest—" He sat on the bed and pulled her wet face to his knee. +"Dearest—"</p> + +<p>She took his hands and pressed them against her eyes. "Forgive me, +Zebedee."</p> + +<p>"I can't forgive you. I can only love you. For ever and ever—I want to +think, Helen."</p> + +<p>"You're shaking so."</p> + +<p>"And you are shivering. Come downstairs beside a fire."</p> + +<p>"No; we are safer here." Her arms went round him, beneath his coat, and +she leaned her head against his breast. "I wish we could go to sleep and +never wake."</p> + +<p>"I ought never to have left you."</p> + +<p>She looked up. "Zebedee, he hasn't worried me. He kissed me once. That's +all. That's why I made you kiss my mouth."</p> + +<p>"He shall never worry you. I'm going to see him now, and I shall come +back soon. Let me go, sweetheart."</p> + +<p>"No, I can't let you go. It isn't that I'm afraid for you. I—I don't +mind if you hurt each other, but if you killed him—if he killed you—! +But you won't do that. You'll just say dreadful things, and then he'll +come to me and take me all. Don't you see? He could. He would. In my own +way, I can—I can keep him off, but if you went to him and claimed +me—No, Zebedee, there would be no hope for me."</p> + +<p>"I'll shoot him, if you like, without giving him a chance. The man +ought to be shot. He takes advantage of his own beastliness—" He broke +off. "If I talk about it I shall choke."</p> + +<p>"But he doesn't know about you."</p> + +<p>"You didn't tell him that?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't. I couldn't beg. I didn't want to say your name to him, to +bring you into it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I was left out of your calculations pretty thoroughly."</p> + +<p>"Zebedee—!"</p> + +<p>"Ah, but you expect me to take this very calmly. You keep your promise +to a drunken brute, but what of one to me?"</p> + +<p>"There wasn't one between us two. We just belonged, as we do now and +always shall. You're me and I am you. When I was thinking of myself, I +was thinking of you, too. And all the time I thought you'd understand."</p> + +<p>"I do—begin to understand. But what about Miriam? Little fool, little +fool! Does she know what she's done?"</p> + +<p>"No one knows but you. You see, she fainted. I always thought she'd come +between us, but what queer things God does!"</p> + +<p>His voice rose suddenly, saying, "Helen, it's unbearable. But you shall +not stay here. I shall take you away."</p> + +<p>"There's Notya."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean—Is she going to die?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. She may not live for long. And if she dies, you shall +come away with me. We can go together anywhere in the world. There's no +morality and no sense and no justice in such a sacrifice."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she sighed, "what peace, if I could go with you!"</p> + +<p>"You shall go with me."</p> + +<p>She felt his heart ticking away the seconds. "But I can't," she said +softly. "You see, I've married him."</p> + +<p>"Great God—!"</p> + +<p>"I know. But I can't help it. I knew what I was doing. And he needs me."</p> + +<p>"Ah! If he's going to need you—And again, what of my need of you?"</p> + +<p>"You're a better man than he is."</p> + +<p>He pushed her from him and went to the window, and she dared not ask him +for his thoughts. Perhaps he had none: perhaps, in the waste of snow +from which the black trunks of trees stood up, he saw a likeness to his +life.</p> + +<p>He turned to ask, "How often does that beast get washed?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him vaguely. "Who?"</p> + +<p>"That dog."</p> + +<p>"Oh—once a fortnight."</p> + +<p>"Who does it?"</p> + +<p>"John or I."</p> + +<p>"You let him sleep with you?"</p> + +<p>"Outside my door."</p> + +<p>"I think he ought to be inside. I'm going over to see John. You can't +live here alone. And, Helen, I've not given up my right to you. You +shall come to me when Mrs. Caniper sets you free."</p> + +<p>She was standing now, and she answered through stiff lips, "You mustn't +hope for that. You know I told you long ago the kind of woman I am."</p> + +<p>"And you can't change yourself for my sake?"</p> + +<p>She moved uneasily. "I would, so gladly, if I could," she said, and he +shook his head as though he did not believe her.</p> + +<p>"But I will not have you and John trying to arrange my life. I choose to +be alone. If you interfere—" His look reproached her. "I'm sorry, +Zebedee, but I'm suffering, too, and I know best about George, about +myself. After all"—her voice rose and broke—"after all, I've married +him! Oh, what a fuss, what a fuss! We make too much of it. We have to +bear it. We are not willing to bear anything. Other women, other men, +have lost what they loved best. We want too much. We were not meant for +happiness."</p> + +<p>His hand was on the door, but he came back and stood close to her. "Do +you think you have been talking to a stone? What do you expect of me? +I"—he held his head—"I am trying to keep sane. To you, this may be a +small thing among greater ones, but to me—it's the only one."</p> + +<p>"To me, too. But if I made a mistake in promising, I should make another +in running away now. One has to do one's best."</p> + +<p>"And this is a woman's best!" he said in a voice she did not know.</p> + +<p>"Is that so bad?" She was looking at a stranger: she was in an empty +world, a black, wild place, and in it she could not find Zebedee.</p> + +<p>"There is no logic in it," she heard him say, and she was in her room +once more, holding to the bed-rail, standing near this haggard travesty +of her man.</p> + +<p>"Oh! What have I done to you?" she cried out.</p> + +<p>He followed his own thought. "If your sense of duty is greater towards +him than towards me, why don't you go to him and give him all he wants?"</p> + +<p>"He has not asked for it."</p> + +<p>"And I do. If he has no rights, remember mine; but if he has them—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it may come to that," she said, and he saw her lined, white face.</p> + +<p>"No, no, Helen! Not for my sake this time, but for yours! No! I didn't +mean it. Believe me, I could be glad if you were happy."</p> + +<p>"I shan't be happy without you, but if I can't have you, why shouldn't I +do my best for him?"</p> + +<p>He looked at the floor and said, "Helen, I can't let him touch you." He +looked up. "Have you thought of everything?"</p> + +<p>"There have been days and days to think in."</p> + +<p>"My dear, it isn't possible! To give you into his hands!"</p> + +<p>"I shall keep out of them if I can, and no one else can do it for me. +Remember that, or you will push me into them. But I'm trying to make my +body a little thing. It's only a body, after all. Zebedee, will you let +me sit on your knee? Just this once more. Oh, how your arms know how to +hold me! I hope—I hope you'll never have to marry any one for Daniel's +sake."</p> + +<p>He rested his cheek on hers. "Daniel will have to look after himself. +Men don't hurt the people they love best for the sake of some one else. +That's a woman's trick."</p> + +<p>"You never talked like this before."</p> + +<p>"Because, you see, no woman had ever hurt me so much."</p> + +<p>"And now she has."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, she has."</p> + +<p>"And you love me less?"</p> + +<p>"Come with me and see! Helen, Helen, darling, come with me. I want you +so. We'll make life beautiful together. Sweetheart, if you needn't +suffer, I could bear it for myself, I could manage to bear it for +myself."</p> + +<p>"I should suffer if I came with you. I should always feel George wanting +me."</p> + +<p>"And you won't feel me?"</p> + +<p>"You are just like myself. You will always be there. No one can come +between. George can't."</p> + +<p>"But his children will." He set her on her feet and began to walk up and +down the room. "Had you thought of that?"</p> + +<p>She covered her face and whispered, "I can't talk about it yet. And, +oh!" she went on, "I wanted ours. Did you?"</p> + +<p>"You know I did."</p> + +<p>"And even if I went with you, we couldn't have them. That's gone—just +slipped away. They were so clear to me, so beautiful."</p> + +<p>"In that house of ours," he said. "Helen, I bought that house before I +went away."</p> + +<p>"Our house?"</p> + +<p>"Our square house—with the trees."</p> + +<p>She broke into another storm of sobbing, and he took her on his knee +again. He knew that Halkett's children would come and stifle pain and, +as he tried to think he would not hate them, her voice came softly +through those thoughts.</p> + +<p>"Zebedee, I want to tell you something."</p> + +<p>"Go on, dear."</p> + +<p>"I want to tell you—I—He's not repellent. Don't think that. I didn't +want you to think that. I suppose one can forget. And I shall always +think, 'It's Zebedee who has the rest, who has all the best of me.'"</p> + +<p>"I know you, dear. You'll be giving him all you have."</p> + +<p>"Oughtn't I to?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my darling, God only knows. Don't ask me. To me there seems only +one thing to do—to smite him in the mouth—and you whom I worship have +tied my hands. And I sit here! What do you think is happening to me +inside? I'm mad! I can promise nothing. I need time to think. Helen, if +you would hate him always, I could bear it better. But you won't, +you'll grow fond of him—and I suppose I should be glad; but I can't +stand that." He put her down roughly and stood over her. "I can't endure +this any longer," he said under his breath, and went.</p> + +<p>Then she realized what she had done to him, and with how much gentleness +he had used her. She ran after him and called from the stairhead:</p> + +<p>"Zebedee! Wait for me. Kiss me once more. I'll never ask again. It isn't +easy for me, either, Zebedee."</p> + +<p>He stood, helpless, enraged at destiny, aware that any weapon he might +lift in her defence would fall on her and wound her. He could do nothing +but swear his lasting love, his ready service.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2> + + +<p>She thought Zebedee would come to her on the next day, or the next, but +she watched in vain for him. Though she had sent him from her, she +longed for him to be back, and at night, when George entered the +kitchen, she hardly looked up to welcome him. Her mind was more +concerned with Zebedee's absence than with George's presence, but in her +white face and tired eyes he fancied resentment for the kiss that still +burned on his own mouth.</p> + +<p>"You haven't much to say," he told her, after an hour of silence. He did +not know if he most hated or adored the smooth head turned sideways, the +small ear and the fine eyebrow, the aloofness that kept him off and drew +him on; but he knew he was the victim of a glorious kind of torment of +which she was the pain and the delight.</p> + +<p>"I have been thinking," she explained.</p> + +<p>"Then why don't you tell me what you think about?"</p> + +<p>"Would you be interested?" She smiled at the thought of telling him with +what anxiety she looked for Zebedee, with what anger she blamed him for +neglect, with what increase she loved him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I would. Now you're laughing. D'you think it funny? D'you think I +can't read or write, or understand the way you speak?"</p> + +<p>"George," she said, "I wish you wouldn't get so cross. I don't think any +of those things."</p> + +<p>"Never think about me at all, I suppose. Not worth it."</p> + +<p>She answered slowly, "Yes, you are," and he grunted a mockery of thanks.</p> + +<p>It was some time before he threw out two words of accusation. "You're +different."</p> + +<p>"Different?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I said. You never answer straight."</p> + +<p>"Don't I?"</p> + +<p>"There you are again!"</p> + +<p>"What do you want me to say? Shall I ask you how I'm different? Well, +I've asked, George. Won't you answer?"</p> + +<p>"I can't. I can't explain. But a few nights back—well—all tonight +you've been sitting as if I wasn't here. I don't know why I stand it. +Look here! You married me."</p> + +<p>"So you are always telling me; but no one can buy the things you want."</p> + +<p>"I'll get them somehow." He used the tones that made her shrink, but +tonight she was unmoved, and he saw that her womanhood was crushed by +the heaviness of her fatigue, and she was no more than a human being who +needed rest.</p> + +<p>"I think you ought to go to bed," he said. "I'm going. Good-night." He +kissed her hand, but he did not let it fall. "You're not to look so +white tomorrow night," he said.</p> + +<p>She did not know why she went to the kitchen door and stood by it while +he climbed the wall and dropped to the crisp snow on the further side. +He called out another low good-night and had her answer before she heard +his boots crunching the frozen crust. No stars and no moon shone on the +white garden, and to her it was like a place of death. The deep black of +the trees against the wall made a mourning border, and the poplars +lifted their heads in questioning of fate, but they had no leaves to +make the question audible, and no wind stirred their branches. +Everything was silent; it seemed as if everything had died, and Helen +was envious of the dead. She wished she might curl herself up at a +poplar's foot and sleep there until the frost tightened on her heart and +stopped its beating.</p> + +<p>"It is so hard," she said aloud, and shut the door and locked it with +limp hands.</p> + +<p>The kitchen's warmth gave back her sanity and humour, and she laughed as +she sat before the fire again, but when she spoke to Jim, it was in +whispers, because of the emptiness of the old house.</p> + +<p>"We shall manage if only we can see Zebedee sometimes. Other women have +worse things to bear. And George likes me. I can't help liking people +when they like me. And there'll be Zebedee sometimes. We'll try to keep +things beautiful, and we'll be strong and very courageous, and now we'll +go to bed."</p> + +<p>The next morning Zebedee appeared, and in the hall of their many +greetings, she slipped her hand into his.</p> + +<p>"What have you been doing, Zebedee?"</p> + +<p>"Working."</p> + +<p>"Is that all?"</p> + +<p>He laughed, and asked, "Isn't that enough?"</p> + +<p>"No; not enough to keep you from me. I thought you would come yesterday +and the day before."</p> + +<p>He looked at her with an astonishment that was near scorn, for she had +driven him from her and now reproached him when he did not run back. She +put her hand on his and looked at him with shadowless grey eyes, and +showed him a mouth that tempted, as she had done before she married this +other man to whom she was determined to be faithful. His thoughts were +momentarily bitter, but his words were gentle.</p> + +<p>"I told you I wanted time to think." He pressed her hand and gave it +back to her. "And I have thought, and, since you are what you are, I +see, at present, no other way but yours."</p> + +<p>"Oh." She was daunted by his formality.</p> + +<p>"Shall I go up to Mrs. Caniper?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, puzzled. "But aren't you cold? Come into the kitchen +and you shall have some coffee. I had it ready in case you came. Your +hands—your cheeks—" She touched him lightly and led him to the kitchen +fire.</p> + +<p>"I think we shall have more snow," he said, and his manner was snow +against her heart.</p> + +<p>"Do you?" she said politely, but her anger dropped away as she saw his +face more clearly and knew he had not slept. She knew, too, that his +mind was as firmly fixed as hers, and she felt as if the whole world +were sliding from her, for this was not her lover: this was some ascetic +who had not yet forgotten his desires. He looked haggard, fierce with +renunciation and restraint, and she cried out, "Zebedee, darling, don't +look like that!"</p> + +<p>He laughed a little, moved, and passed his hands over his face. "No," he +said sensibly.</p> + +<p>He killed the words she had ready for him: she felt them fall, dead +things, into her throat, and hang helplessly in her breast. She handed +him the cup, and while he drank she stood beside the table and watched +him with despair and indignation. She had not imagined him thus changed: +she had expected the old adoring looks, the loving words, everything but +his caresses and his claims, and he treated her as though she were no +more to him than any other woman. She knew him to be just and honest, +but she thought him cruel and, aghast at the prospect of endless days +wherein he would not smile at her nor praise her, she doubted her +ability to live without him. She caught her breath in fear that his +habit of indifference would change to indifference indeed; and without +shame, she confessed that she would rather have him suffering through +love of her than living happily through lack of it.</p> + +<p>Mechanically, she moved after him up the stairs, played her part, and +followed him down again; but when next he came, she had stiffened in +emulation of him, and they talked together like people who had known +each other for many years, but never known each other well.</p> + +<p>Once he trespassed, but that was not to please himself.</p> + +<p>"If you need me, you'll still use me?" he said hurriedly, and she +answered, "Yes, of course."</p> + +<p>He added, "I can't keep it from Daniel for ever."</p> + +<p>"No. It need not be a secret now, except from Notya. And if she lives—"</p> + +<p>"She may live for a long time if she has no shock."</p> + +<p>"Ah, then," Helen said calmly, "she must not know."</p> + +<p>He found her more beautiful than she had been, for now her serenity was +by conquest, not by nature, and her head was carried with a freer grace. +It might have been the freedom of one who had gained through loss and +had the less weight to carry, but he tortured himself with wondering +what fuller knowledge had given her maturer grace. Of this he gave no +sign, and the attitude he maintained had its merciful result on Helen, +for if he pretended not to need her, she had a nightly visitor who told +her dumbly of his longing. Love bred liking, as she had prophesied, and, +because life was lonely, she came to listen for his step. She was born +to minister to people, and the more securely Zebedee shut her out, the +more she was inclined to slip into the place that George had ready for +her. And with George the spring was in conspiracy. The thaw came in a +night, and the next morning's sun began its work of changing a white +country into one of wet and glistening green. Snow lingered and grew +dirty in the hollows, and became marked with the tiny feet of sheep, but +elsewhere the brilliance of the moor was like a cry. It was spring +shouting its release from bonds. Buds leapt on the trees, the melted +snow flooded the streams, tributary ones bubbled and tinkled in +unexpected places.</p> + +<p>"Now," Helen said, leaning from the window of Mildred Caniper's room, +"you can't help getting well. Oh, how it smells and looks and feels! +When the ground is drier, you shall go for a walk, but you must practise +up here first. Then John shall carry you downstairs."</p> + +<p>But Mildred Caniper did not want to be energetic: she sat by the fire in +a cushioned wicker chair, and when Helen looked at the lax figure and +the loosened lines of the face she recognized the woman who had made +confession to relieve a mind that had finished with all struggling. It +was not the real Mildred Caniper who had told that story in the night; +it was the one who, weakened by illness, was content to sit with folded +hands by the fireside.</p> + +<p>She dimmed the sun for Helen and robbed the spring of hope. This glory +would not last: colours would fade and flowers die, and so human life +itself would slip into a mingling of light and shadow, a pale confluence +of the two by which a man could see to dig a grave.</p> + +<p>Helen leaned out again, trying to recover the sense of youth, of +boundless possibilities of happiness that should have been her sure +possession.</p> + +<p>"Are you looking for Zebedee?" Mildred asked. "He doesn't come so +often."</p> + +<p>"You don't need him. And he is busy. He isn't likely to come today."</p> + +<p>Yet she wished ardently that he might, for though he would have no +tenderness to give her, he would revivify her by the vigour of his +being: she would see a man who had refused to let one misfortune cripple +him, and as though he had divined her need, he came.</p> + +<p>"I had to go to Halkett's Farm," he explained.</p> + +<p>"Who's ill there?" she asked sharply.</p> + +<p>"The housekeeper."</p> + +<p>"I hadn't heard. Is she very ill?"</p> + +<p>"She may be."</p> + +<p>"Then I hope she'll die," she said in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"My dear!" He was startled into the words, and they made her laugh +openly for joy of knowing they were ready on his tongue. Lightly she +swayed towards him, but he held her off.</p> + +<p>"No, no, my heart." He turned deliberately from her. "Why do you wish +that?"</p> + +<p>"Because of Miriam. She ought to die."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid she won't. She's pretty tough."</p> + +<p>"Is there anybody to look after her? I could go sometimes, if you like."</p> + +<p>He smiled at this confusion of ministering and avenging angel.</p> + +<p>"There's a servant there who seems capable enough."</p> + +<p>"I wonder why George didn't tell me."</p> + +<p>"She was all right yesterday."</p> + +<p>"You'll have to see her tomorrow. Then you'll come here, too."</p> + +<p>"There isn't any need."</p> + +<p>"But Notya likes to see you. Come and see her now."</p> + +<p>She sighed when they walked downstairs together as though things had +never changed. "Oh, Zebedee, I wanted you to come today. You have made +me feel clean again. Notya—oh—!" She shuddered. "She looks like some +fruit just hanging to a tree. Soon she will slip, and she doesn't care. +She doesn't think. And once she was like a blade, so bright and edged. +And when I looked at her this morning, I felt as if I were fattening +and rotting, too, and it wasn't spring any longer. It was autumn, and +everything was over-ripe."</p> + +<p>"You don't take enough exercise," he said briskly. "Walk on the moor +every day. It's only fair to Jim. Read something stiff—philosophy, for +instance. It doesn't matter whether you understand it or not, so long as +you try. Promise you'll do that. I'll bring some books tomorrow. Take +them as medicine and you'll find they're food. And, Helen"—he was at +the gate and he looked back at her—"you are rather like a blade +yourself."</p> + +<p>He knew the curing properties of praise.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2> + + +<p>When evening came, the blue colour of the sky had changed to one that +was a memory of the earth's new green. Helen went through the garden to +the moor and sat there on a grey rock out of which her own grey figure +might have been carved. She watched the stars blink forth and stare; she +saw the gradual darkening of the world, and then Halkett's moving shape +came towards her. Out here, he was in his proper place: the kitchen made +him clumsy, but wide places set him off, and she felt a kind of pride in +his quickness and his strength.</p> + +<p>"George," she said softly as he would have passed her, and he swung +round and bent and took her in his arms, without hesitation or mistake.</p> + +<p>"Were you waiting for me?" he whispered, and felt her nod against his +coat. She freed herself very gently. "Shall we stay out here?" he said.</p> + +<p>"No. I have left Notya long enough."</p> + +<p>"What made you wait for me?"</p> + +<p>"I—don't know," she said. She had not asked herself the question, and +now the unspoken answer shocked her with its significance. She had gone +to wait for him without any thought. It might have been the night that +drew her out, but she knew it was not that. Once before, she had called +herself a slave, and so she labelled herself again, but now she did it +tremulously, without fierceness, aware that it was her own nature to +which she was chiefly bound.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to wait for me every night?" she heard him say. "Give me +your hand, Helen. It is so small. Will you go over the wall or through +the door? I'd like to lift you over."</p> + +<p>"No. I want to go through the garden. There are primroses there. Big +ones, like stars."</p> + +<p>"It's you that are a star."</p> + +<p>"I think they liked the snow. And the poplars are all buds. I wish I +could sit in the tree-tops and look right across the moor."</p> + +<p>"And wait for me. And when I came I'd hold my arms out and you'd jump +into them."</p> + +<p>"If I didn't fly away."</p> + +<p>"Ay, I expect you would do that."</p> + +<p>They did not speak again until they reached the house, and when she had +lighted the kitchen lamp she saw him looking moodily into the fire.</p> + +<p>"Is Mrs. Biggs better?" she asked smoothly.</p> + +<p>"What do you know about her?"</p> + +<p>"I heard she was ill."</p> + +<p>"Who told you?"</p> + +<p>"Dr. Mackenzie."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he's been again, has he?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." Her voice had a ring in it. "And he will come tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"And the next day, I suppose, and the next. I should have thought he'd +spare that old nag of his; but no, up he comes, and I want to know why."</p> + +<p>She did not answer immediately because she feared to betray the +indignation that moved in her like a living thing. She found her sewing +and signed to him to put her chair into its place, and when she had +stitched steadily for a time she said in pleasant tones, "George, you +are like a bad person in a book."</p> + +<p>"I'm not up to this kind of talk. You told me yourself that Mrs. Caniper +hardly needs a doctor. What does he come for, then? Is it for you?"</p> + +<p>"No, it is not."</p> + +<p>"Do you like the man?"</p> + +<p>She opened her lips and shut them several times before she spoke. "I'm +very fond of him—and of Daniel."</p> + +<p>"Oh, leave Daniel alone. No woman would look at him."</p> + +<p>She gave him a considering gaze for which he could have struck her, +because it put him further from her than he had ever been.</p> + +<p>"It's no good staring at me like that. I've seen you with him before +now."</p> + +<p>"Everybody on the moor must have seen me with him."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and walking pretty close. I remember that."</p> + +<p>"Very likely you will see me walking with him again."</p> + +<p>"No, by God!"</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said, wearily, "how often you call on God's name."</p> + +<p>"No wife of mine—"</p> + +<p>She laughed. "You talk like Bluebeard. How many wives have you?"</p> + +<p>"I've none," he cried in an extremity of bitterness. "But I'll have one +yet, and I'll keep her fast!"</p> + +<p>She lifted her head in the haughty way he dreaded. "I will not endure +suspicions," she said clearly, but she flushed at her own words, for she +remembered that she had been willing to give Zebedee the lesser tokens +of her love, and it was only by his sternness that she could look George +in the eyes. Zebedee would have taken her boldly and completely, +believing his action justified, but he would have no little secret +dealings, and she was abashed by the realization of her willingness to +deceive. She was the nearer to George by that discovery, and the one +shame made her readier to suffer more.</p> + +<p>"It's because I want you," he said, shading his eyes; and for the first +time she had no resentment for his desires.</p> + +<p>"Oh, George, don't you think you had better go home?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Why?" he asked her.</p> + +<p>"Because—because I want to read."</p> + +<p>"Well, I can watch you."</p> + +<p>"And you won't think it rude?"</p> + +<p>He shook his head. There was a rare joy in sitting within reach of her +and honouring her with his restraint.</p> + +<p>Her slim feet were crossed on the dog's back, and she hardly stirred +except to turn a page: the firelight threw colours on her dress, behind +her there was a dark dresser where china gleamed, and sitting there, she +made a little picture of home for a man who could remember none but +hired women in his house.</p> + +<p>"I wish you'd talk to me," he said, and at once she shut her book with a +charming air of willingness.</p> + +<p>"Do you know what you've been reading about?" he dared to ask her slyly, +for surely she had been conscious of his thoughts of her.</p> + +<p>She would not be fluttered. "Yes. Shall I tell you?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said.</p> + +<p>Her voice was influenced by the quick beating of her heart.</p> + +<p>"Do you never read anything?"</p> + +<p>"I gave it up long ago."</p> + +<p>"Why? What did you do at night before you—"</p> + +<p>"Before I married you? I used to smoke and wish it was time to go to +bed, and look at the newspaper sometimes."</p> + +<p>"That must have been very dull."</p> + +<p>"I used to watch the clock," he said. He leaned towards her and spoke +quickly, softly. "And I watch it still! From waking till dusk I watch it +and think of you, sitting and waiting for me. Oh, what's the good of +talking to me of books? You're here—and you're my wife, and I'll talk +to you of nothing but yourself." He knelt, and his hands were on her +waist. "Yourself—my beauty—my little saint—your little hands and +feet—your cheeks I want to kiss—your hair—" He drew her to his breast +and whispered, "How long is it—your hair?"</p> + +<p>There was no resistance in her, and her neck could not hold up the head +that drooped over his shoulder when he kissed her ear and spoke in it.</p> + +<p>"Helen—Helen—I love you. Tell me you love me. You've got to kiss +me—Yes—"</p> + +<p>She answered in a quiet voice, but she stopped for breath between the +words. "I think—there's some one—in the hall. It must be John."</p> + +<p>Reluctantly he loosed her, and she left him quickly for the dark passage +which covered and yet cooled her as she called out, "John! Is that you?"</p> + +<p>"Both of us," Rupert answered.</p> + +<p>"But it's Friday."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Won't you let me have a whole holiday tomorrow?"</p> + +<p>She looked back into the kitchen and saw George prepared to meet her +brothers. Never before had she seen him with so fine a manner, and, +smiling at him, she felt like a conspirator, leagued with this man who +was liberated by possession of her, against the two who would feel +horror when they learnt she was possessed.</p> + +<p>John's jaw tightened as he saw George and nodded to him, but Rupert's +greeting had its usual friendliness.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, here's George!" They shook hands. "I've not seen you for months. +What's the weather going to be tomorrow? It's starlight tonight."</p> + +<p>"It'll be fine, I think."</p> + +<p>"That's good. Helen, you've hidden my slippers again, and I told you +not to. What a fiend for tidiness you are!"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't leave them in the dust." She was half enjoying her +self-consciousness. "They're in the cupboard."</p> + +<p>"Find them, there's a dear."</p> + +<p>She brought the slippers and went back to her chair. The three men +seemed to fill the kitchen. John was silent and, leaning against the +table, he filled his pipe and looked up sometimes as the others talked. +Rupert, slim against Halkett's bulk, alert and straight, was thinking +faster than he spoke, and while he reminded George of this and that, how +they had gone ratting once together, how George had let him try a colt +that he was breaking, Helen knew there were subtle questions in his +brain, but if George suspected them, he gave no sign. He was at his +ease, for with men he had neither diffidence nor surliness, and Helen +remembered that she had hardly seen him except in the presence of Miriam +or herself, two women who, in different ways, had teased him into +sulkiness.</p> + +<p>Her heart lightened and, when he chanced to look at her, she smiled +again. A few seconds later, Rupert followed Helen's glance and learnt +what had caused the slight confusion of George's speech. She was looking +at him with an absorbed and hopeful interest. She was like a child +attracted by some new and changeful thing, and her beauty had an +animation it often lacked.</p> + +<p>"Can't we all sit down?" Rupert said. He promised himself a pleasant +evening of speculation.</p> + +<p>John handed his tobacco pouch to George and, having exchanged a few +remarks about the frost, the snow, the lambing season, they seemed to +consider that courtesy's demands had been fulfilled; but Rupert talked +to hide the curiosity which could have little satisfaction until Halkett +took his leave.</p> + +<p>When he rose to go, he stood before Helen's chair and looked down at +her. He was so near that she had to throw back her head before she could +see his face.</p> + +<p>"Good-night, George."</p> + +<p>"Good-night." He took her hand and kissed it, nodded to the others, and +went out.</p> + +<p>Imperceptibly, Helen straightened herself and took a breath. There was a +vague stir in the room.</p> + +<p>"Well! I've never been more damned," John said.</p> + +<p>"Why?" Helen asked.</p> + +<p>"That salute. Is it his usual manner?"</p> + +<p>"He has done it before. I liked it."</p> + +<p>"He did it very well," said Rupert. "Inspired, I should think. Will you +have a cigarette?"</p> + +<p>"Will it make me sick?"</p> + +<p>"Try it. But why do we find you entertaining the moorland rake?"</p> + +<p>She was absurd with the cigarette between her lips, and she asked +mumblingly as Rupert held the match, "Why do you call him that?"</p> + +<p>Rupert spread his hands. "He has a reputation."</p> + +<p>"And he deserves it," said John.</p> + +<p>She took the cigarette and many little pieces of tobacco from her mouth. +"Before you go any further, I think I had better tell you that I am +married to him."</p> + +<p>"Good God!" John said, in a conversational tone.</p> + +<p>There was a pause that threatened to be everlasting.</p> + +<p>"Helen, dear, did you say 'married to him'?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I did."</p> + +<p>Rupert lighted one cigarette from another and carefully threw the old +one into the fire.</p> + +<p>"When?" John asked. He was still staring at her.</p> + +<p>"I forget the date."</p> + +<p>"Won't you tell us about it?" Rupert said. He leaned against the +mantelpiece and puffed quickly.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing more to tell."</p> + +<p>"But when was it?" John persisted.</p> + +<p>"Oh—about a month, six weeks, ago. The paper is upstairs, but one +forgets."</p> + +<p>"Wants to?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't say so, did I? Notya is not to know."</p> + +<p>"And Zebedee?"</p> + +<p>"Of course he knows."</p> + +<p>Rupert was frowning on her with a troubled look, and she knew he was +trying to understand, that he was anxious not to hurt her.</p> + +<p>"I'm damned if I understand it," John muttered.</p> + +<p>Her lips had a set smile. "I'm sure," she said lightly, "you'll never be +damned for that. I'm afraid I can't explain, but Zebedee knows +everything."</p> + +<p>They found nothing else to say: John turned away, at last, and busied +himself uneasily with his pipe: Rupert's cigarette became distasteful, +and, throwing it after the other, he drove his hands into his pockets +and watched it burn.</p> + +<p>"I suppose we ought to have congratulated George," he said, and looked +grieved at the omission.</p> + +<p>Helen laughed on a high note, and though she knew she was disclosing her +own trouble by that laughter, she could not stay it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Rupert, don't!"</p> + +<p>"My dear, I know it's funny, but I meant it. I wish I could marry you +myself."</p> + +<p>She laughed again and waved them both away. "Go and see Notya. She may +not be asleep."</p> + +<p>When John came downstairs, he looked through the kitchen door and said +good-night; then he advanced and kissed her. She could not remember when +he had last done that, and it was, she thought, as though he kissed the +dead. He patted her arm awkwardly.</p> + +<p>"Good-night, child."</p> + +<p>"Don't worry," she said, steadying her lips.</p> + +<p>"Is there anything we can do?"</p> + +<p>"Be nice to George."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I've got to be."</p> + +<p>"John, I wish you wouldn't talk as if he's—bad."</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean to set myself up as judge, but I never liked him."</p> + +<p>"But I like him," she said. "Go home and tell Lily. I'm afraid she'll +lie awake all night!"</p> + +<p>"What a family this is!"</p> + +<p>"Once, I might have said that to you. I didn't, John."</p> + +<p>"But we are a success."</p> + +<p>"And why should we not be? We shall be! We—we are. Go home. +Good-night."</p> + +<p>She waited for Rupert, dreading his quick eyes.</p> + +<p>"Notya seems better," he said easily. "Well, did you finish the +cigarette?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't like it."</p> + +<p>"And it looked wrong. A piece of fine sewing suits you better."</p> + +<p>She smiled. "Does it? Have you had supper?"</p> + +<p>"Lily fed me. I like that girl. The only people I ever want to marry are +the ones that some one else has chosen. It's contrariness, I suppose." +He looked round. "Two arm-chairs? Do you always sit here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Notya can't hear us."</p> + +<p>"I see."</p> + +<p>"And you want to see the rest?"</p> + +<p>"I do."</p> + +<p>"I shall show you nothing."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather find it out."</p> + +<p>"Tomorrow," she said, "you will see Daniel and Zebedee. I know you'll be +curious about him. I don't mind, but don't let him notice it, please, +Rupert."</p> + +<p>He marked her little tremor. "Trust me. I'm wasted on the bank."</p> + +<p>"You and Daniel will have a fine talk, I suppose. The walls of that +house are very thin. Be careful."</p> + +<p>"Yes, my dear. I can't help wishing I had not left home."</p> + +<p>She stood up. "I don't wish anything undone. If you begin undoing, you +find yourself in a worse tangle."</p> + +<p>"You're not unhappy?"</p> + +<p>"Do I look it?"</p> + +<p>"You always answer one question with another. You didn't look it. You do +now."</p> + +<p>She sighed. "I almost wish you hadn't come, Rupert. You made beauty seem +so near."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV</h2> + + +<p>She had another reason for her wish. She knew that Rupert had but +delayed what was inevitable, and when it came one night, a few weeks +later, she had no feeling beyond relief that the fight was over, that +she need no longer scheme to outwit George with her advances and +retreats. Afterwards, she suffered from a black anger that she must +serve the man she did not love, a dull despair from the knowledge that, +while both lived, the tie would hold. Her mind tried, and failed, to +make nothing of it; by nature she was bound to him who took most from +her, and when George had played the husband, he left her destitute. That +Zebedee would always have the best of her had been her boast, but for a +time, there was nothing he could have. She was George Halkett's woman. +The day was fogged with memories of the night, yet through that fog she +looked for his return. She was glad when she heard his step outside and, +going to the kitchen door, felt herself lifted off her feet. She did not +try to analyze the strange mingling of willingness and shrinking that +made up her feeling for him, but she found mental safety in abandoning +herself to what must be, a primitive pleasure in the fact of being +possessed, a shameful happiness in submission.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, it was only in his presence that she lost her red sense of +shame, and though she still walked nobly, looked with clear eyes, and +carried a high head, she fancied herself bent by broken pride, blinded +and dusty-haired. Zebedee's books helped her to blot out that vision of +herself and the other of Mildred Caniper still sitting by the fire and +refusing the fulness of the sun. What she read amazed her with its +profundity and amused her with its inconclusiveness. She had an awed +pity for men whose lives were occupied in these endless questionings, +and while Mildred idly turned the pages of periodicals she once had +scorned, Helen frowned and bit her lips over the problems of the ages.</p> + +<p>They gave her and Zebedee something impersonal to talk of when he came +on his weekly visit.</p> + +<p>"It's no good telling me," she warned him firmly, "that my poplars are +not really there. I can feel them and see them and hear them—always +hear them. If they weren't there, they would be! If I exist, so do +they."</p> + +<p>"Quite so. You're doing very well. I told you the medicine would turn to +food."</p> + +<p>"It's not food. What is it that nasty people chew? Gum? Yes, +chewing-gum. It keeps me going. I mean—"</p> + +<p>He helped her over that abyss. "It's a most improper name for wisdom."</p> + +<p>"This isn't wisdom. Wisdom is just going on—and—keeping the world +clean."</p> + +<p>"Then," he said slowly, "you may count among the sages."</p> + +<p>They stood together by the schoolroom window and watched the windy +sunshine darting among the laurel bushes and brightening the brass on +the harness of the patient horse outside the gate.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," Helen said, speaking as if she were not quite awake, +"whether Mr. Pinderwell ever read philosophy."</p> + +<p>"No," Zebedee answered in the same tones; "he took to wood-carving."</p> + +<p>This time she leapt the abyss unaided and with a laugh.</p> + +<p>"But then, he never had a stepmother nodding beside the fire. What is +going to happen to her?"</p> + +<p>"She has very little strength."</p> + +<p>"But she isn't going to die?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet, I think, dear." The word slipped from him, and they both +listened to its echoes.</p> + +<p>"I wish you'd go," she whispered.</p> + +<p>"I'm going." He did not hesitate at the door or he would have seen her +drop into a chair and let her limp arms slide across the table as she +let out a noisy sob of happiness because his friendliness was still only +a cloak that could sometimes be lifted to show the man beneath.</p> + +<p>Almost gaily, she went to Mildred Caniper's room.</p> + +<p>"Zebedee stayed a long time today. I could hear you talking."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Isn't he busy now?"</p> + +<p>"He works all day and half the night."</p> + +<p>"Oh." Mildred's twisted face regained a semblance of its old expression +and her voice some of its precision. "Then you ought to be looking after +him."</p> + +<p>"I can't manage both of you."</p> + +<p>"No, but Mrs. Samson could look after me." The words were slovenly +again; the face changed subtly as sand changes under water. It became +soft and indefinite and yielding, betraying the slackening of the mind.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Samson is a nice woman—very kind. She knows what I want. I must +have a good fire. I don't need very much. She doesn't bother me—or +talk. I don't want to be bothered—about anything. I'm still—rather +tired. I like to sit here and be warm. Give me that magazine, Helen. +There's a story—" She found the place and seemed to forget all she had +said.</p> + +<p>Helen left the room and, as she sat on the topmost stair, she wished Mr. +Pinderwell would stop and speak to her, but he hurried up and down as he +had always done, intent on his own sad business of seeking what he had +lost. It was strange that he could not see the children who were so +plain to Helen. She turned to speak to them, but she had outgrown them +in these days, and even Jane was puzzled by her grief that Mildred +Caniper wanted to be kept warm, and, with some lingering faculty, wished +Helen to be happy, but needed her no longer.</p> + +<p>Helen whispered into the dimness because her thoughts were unwholesome +and must be cast forth.</p> + +<p>"She only wants to be kept warm! It was sweet of her to try to think of +me, but she couldn't go on thinking. Oh, Jane, Mrs. Samson and I are +just the same. She doesn't mind who puts coals on the fire. I wish she'd +die. I always loved her very much, and she loved me, but now she +doesn't. She's just a—bundle. It's ugly. If I stay here and look at +her, I shall get like her. Oh—she wants me to go and live with Zebedee. +Zebedee! He wouldn't like me to go on like this. The philosophers—but +that old bishop can't make me think that Notya isn't dying. That's what +she's doing, Jane—dying. But no, dying is good and death is splendid. +This is decay." She stood up and shuddered. "I mustn't stay here," she +murmured sensibly.</p> + +<p>She called to Jim in a loud voice that attempted cheerfulness and +alarmed her with its noise in the silent house of sorrow and disease.</p> + +<p>"The moor, Jim!" she said, and when she had passed through the garden +with the dog leaping round her, she shook her skirts and held up her +palms to get the freshness of the wind on them.</p> + +<p>"We'll find water," she said, but she would not go to the stream that +ran into the larch-wood. Today, the taint of evil was about Halkett's +Farm, as that of decay was in Mildred Caniper's room.</p> + +<p>"We'll go to the pool where the rushes are, Jim, and wash our hands and +face."</p> + +<p>They ran fleetly, and as they went she saw George at a distance on his +horse. He waved his hat, and, before she knew what she was doing, she +answered with a grimace that mocked him viciously and horrified her with +its spontaneity. She cried aloud, and, sinking to the ground, she hid +her dishonoured face.</p> + +<p>"No, no," she moaned. She hated that action like an obscenity. Surely +she was tainted, too.</p> + +<p>Jim licked her covering hands, and whined when she paid no heed.</p> + +<p>"Hateful! hateful!" were the words he heard and tried to understand. He +sat, alert and troubled, while clouds rolled across the sky, and dark +reflections of them made stately progress on the moor. Sheep, absorbed +in feeding, drew near, looked up and darted off with foolish, warning +bleats, but still his mistress kept her face hidden, and did not move +until he barked loudly at the sight of Halkett riding towards them.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't keep away," the man said, bending from his saddle.</p> + +<p>She rose and leaned against his knee. "George, what do I look like?"</p> + +<p>His fervent answer was not the one she wanted.</p> + +<p>"But do I look the same?"</p> + +<p>He held her by the chin. "Have you been crying?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"What is it then?"</p> + +<p>She looked beyond him at the magnificence of the clouds and her troubles +dwindled. "I felt miserable. I was worried."</p> + +<p>"And you're happier now?"</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>"Then give me a kiss."</p> + +<p>She turned her cheek to him.</p> + +<p>"No. I said, give me one."</p> + +<p>"I can't reach you."</p> + +<p>"You don't want to."</p> + +<p>"I never want to kiss people."</p> + +<p>"People! Then do it to please me."</p> + +<p>His cheek hardly felt her pressure.</p> + +<p>"It's the way a ghost would kiss," he said.</p> + +<p>"That's how I shall haunt you when I'm dead."</p> + +<p>"Nay, we'll have to die together."</p> + +<p>She wrinkled her face. "But we can't do that without a lot of practice."</p> + +<p>"What? Oh!" Her jokes made him uneasy. "I must go on. Helen, I'll see +you tonight."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you'll see the ghost who gives the little kisses."</p> + +<p>"Don't say it!"</p> + +<p>"But it's nice to be a ghost, you feel so light and free. There isn't +any flesh to be corrupted. I'm glad I thought of that, George. +Good-bye."</p> + +<p>"No. Come here again. Stand on my foot." He clinched her waist and +kissed her on the mouth and let her drop. "You are no ghost," he said, +and rode away.</p> + +<p>She was indeed no ghost. Some instinct told him how to deal with her, +and when he insisted on her humanity, her body thrilled in answer and +agreement, and with each kiss and each insistence she became more his +own; yet she was thrall less to the impulses of her youth than to some +age-old willingness to serve him who possessed her. But her life had +mental complications, for she dreaded in Zebedee the disloyalty which +she reluctantly meted out to him when George had her in his arms. She +would not have Zebedee love another woman, and she longed for assurance +of his devotion, but she could not pass the barrier he had set up; she +could not try to pass it without another and crueller disloyalty to both +men. Her body was faithful to George and her mind to Zebedee, and the +two fought against each other and wearied her.</p> + +<p>The signs of strain were only in her eyes; her body had grown more +beautiful, and when Miriam arrived on a short visit to the moor, she +stopped in the doorway to exclaim, "But you're different! Why are you +different?"</p> + +<p>"It is a long time since you went away," Helen said slowly. "Centuries."</p> + +<p>"Not to me! The time has flown." She laughed at her recollections. "And, +anyhow, it's only a few months, and you have changed."</p> + +<p>"I expect it is my clothes," Helen said calmly. "They must look queer to +you."</p> + +<p>"They do. But nice. I've brought some new ones for you. I think you'll +soon be prettier than I am. Think of that!"</p> + +<p>They had each other by the hand and looked admiringly in each other's +face, remembering small peculiarities they had half forgotten: there was +the soft hair on Helen's temples, trying, as Zebedee said, to curl; +there was the little tilt to Miriam's eyebrows, giving her that look of +some one not quite human, more readily moved to mischief than to +kindness, and never to be held at fault.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's centuries," Helen said.</p> + +<p>"It's only a day!"</p> + +<p>"Then you have been happy," Helen said, letting out a light sigh of +content.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I'm glad to be here again, so long as I needn't stay. I've +heaps to tell you." She stretched herself, like a cat. "I knew there was +fun in the world. I had faith, my dear, and I found it."</p> + +<p>Helen was looking at her with her usual confusion of feelings: she +wanted to shake off Miriam's complacence roughly, while she was fondly +glad that she should have it, but this remark would not pass without a +word, and Helen shook her head.</p> + +<p>"No; you didn't find it. Uncle Alfred gave it to you—he and I."</p> + +<p>"You? Oh—yes, I suppose you did. Well—thank you very much, and don't +let us talk about it any more. You're like a drag-net, bringing up the +unpleasant. Don't let us quarrel."</p> + +<p>"Quarrel! I couldn't," Helen said simply.</p> + +<p>"Are you so pleased to see me?"</p> + +<p>Helen's reluctant smile expanded. "I suppose it's that."</p> + +<p>"Aha! It's lovely to be me! People go down like ninepins! Why?" Piously, +she appealed to Heaven. "Why?"</p> + +<p>"They get up again, though," Helen said with a chuckle.</p> + +<p>"For instance?" Miriam demanded truculently.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm not going to be hard on you," Helen said, and though she spoke +with genuine amusement, she felt a little seed of anger germinating in +her breast. That was what George had done to her: he had made her heart +a fertile place for passions which her mind disdained.</p> + +<p>"And I'm so glad to have you here," she added, defying harsh emotions.</p> + +<p>"Ah! You're rather nice—and, yes, you are much prettier. How have you +done it? I should like to kiss you."</p> + +<p>"Well, you may." She put her face close to Miriam's, and enjoyed the +coolness of that sisterly salute.</p> + +<p>"But," Miriam said, startled by a thought, "need I kiss—her?"</p> + +<p>"No. You won't want to do that. She isn't very nice to look at."</p> + +<p>Miriam shrank against the wall. "Not ugly?"</p> + +<p>"You must come and see," Helen said. She was shaken again by a moment's +anger as she looked on Miriam's lovely elegance and remembered the price +that had been paid for it. "You must come and see her," she repeated. +"Do you think you are the only one who hates deformity?"</p> + +<p>"Deformity?" Miriam whispered.</p> + +<p>"Her face is twisted. Oh—I see it every day!"</p> + +<p>"Helen, don't! I'll go, but don't make me stay long. I'll go now," she +said, and went on timid feet.</p> + +<p>Helen stayed outside the door, for she could not bring herself to +witness Mildred Caniper's betrayal of her decay to one who had never +loved her: there was an indecency in allowing Miriam to see it. Helen +leaned against the door and heard faint sounds of voices, and in +imagination she saw the scene. Mildred Caniper sat in her comfortable +chair by a bright fire, though it was now late June of a triumphant +summer, and Miriam stood near, answering questions quickly, her feet +light on the ground and ready to bear her off.</p> + +<p>Very soon the door was opened and Miriam caught Helen's arm.</p> + +<p>"I didn't think she would be like that," she whispered. "Helen, +she's—she's—"</p> + +<p>"I know she is," Helen said deeply.</p> + +<p>"But I can't bear it!"</p> + +<p>"You don't have to."</p> + +<p>They went into Ph[oe]be's room and shut the door, and it was a comfort +to Miriam to have two solid blocks of wood between her and the +deterioration in the chair.</p> + +<p>"I know I ought to stay with you—all alone in this house—no one to +talk to—and at night—Are you afraid? Do you have to sleep with her?"</p> + +<p>"Sometimes," Helen said, and drew both hands down her face.</p> + +<p>"She might get up and walk about and say things. It isn't right for you, +or for me and you, to have to live here. Why doesn't Zebedee do +something? Why doesn't he take you away?"</p> + +<p>"And leave her? I wouldn't go. The moor has hold of me, and it will keep +me always. I'm rooted here, and I shall tell George to bury me on a dark +night in some marshy place that's always green. And I shall make it +greener. You're frightened of me! Don't be silly! I'm saner than most +people, I think, but living alone makes one different, perhaps. Don't +look like that. I'm the same Helen."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I won't be frightened. But why did you say 'George'?"</p> + +<p>Helen took a breath as though she lifted something heavy.</p> + +<p>"Because he is my husband," she said clearly. She had never used the +word before, and she enjoyed the pain it gave her.</p> + +<p>There were no merciful shadows in the room: daylight poured in at the +windows and revealed Helen standing with hands clasped before her and +gazing with wide eyes at Miriam's pale face, her parted lips, her +horrified amazement.</p> + +<p>"George?" she asked huskily.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"But why?"</p> + +<p>"Why does one marry?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, tell me, Helen! You can't have loved him."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he loved me."</p> + +<p>"But—that night! Have you forgotten it?"</p> + +<p>"No. I remember."</p> + +<p>"So do I! I dream about it! Helen, tell me. What was it? There's +Zebedee. And it was me that George loved."</p> + +<p>Helen spoke sharply. "He didn't love you. You bewitched him. He loves +me."</p> + +<p>"You haven't told me everything."</p> + +<p>"There is no reason why I should."</p> + +<p>Miriam spoke on a sob. "You needn't be unkind. And where's your ring? +You haven't said you love him. You're not really married, are you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am."</p> + +<p>Crying without stint, Miriam went blindly to the window.</p> + +<p>"I wish I hadn't come—!"</p> + +<p>"You mustn't be unhappy. I'm not. It isn't very polite to George—or +me."</p> + +<p>"But when—when you think of that night—Oh! You must be miserable."</p> + +<p>"Then you should be."</p> + +<p>"I?"</p> + +<p>"It was your doing. You tormented him. You played with him. You liked to +draw him on and push him back. You turned a man into a—into what we saw +that night. George isn't the only man who can be changed into a beast +when—when he meets Circe! With me—" Her voice broke with her quickened +breathing. Her indignation was no longer for her own maimed life: it was +for George, who had been used lightly as a plaything, broken, and given +to her for mending.</p> + +<p>For a long time Miriam cried, and did not speak, and when she turned to +ask a question Helen had almost forgotten her; for all her pity had gone +out to George and beautified him and made him dear.</p> + +<p>"Tell me one thing," Miriam said earnestly. "It hadn't anything to do +with me?"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Marrying him. You see, I fainted, didn't I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Something might have happened then."</p> + +<p>"It did."</p> + +<p>"What was it?"</p> + +<p>"He fell in love with me!" She laughed. "It's possible, because it +happened! Otherwise, of course, neither of us could believe it! Oh, +don't be silly. Don't look miserable."</p> + +<p>"I can't help it. It's my fault. It's my fault if Zebedee is unhappy and +if you are. Yes, it is, because if I hadn't—Still, I don't know why you +married him."</p> + +<p>"I think it was meant to be. If we look back it seems as if it must have +been." It was not Helen who looked through the window. "Yes," she said +softly, "it is all working to one end. It had to be. Don't talk about it +any more."</p> + +<p>Wide-eyed above her tear-stained cheeks, her throat working piteously, +Miriam stared at this strange sister. "But tell me if you are happy," +she said in a breaking voice.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am. I love him," she said softly. Now, she did not lie. The pity +that had taught her to love Mildred Caniper had the same lesson in +regard to George, and that night, when she looked into the garden and +saw him standing there, because he had been forbidden the house, she +leaned from her bedroom window and held out her hands and ran downstairs +to speak to him.</p> + +<p>"You looked so lonely," she told him.</p> + +<p>"Didn't you want me a little?" he asked. He looked down, big and gentle, +and she felt her heart flutter as with wings. She nodded, and leaned +against him. It was the truth: she did want him a little.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2> + + +<p>Miriam had the evidence of her own eyes to assure her that Helen was not +unhappy. The strangely united bride and bridegroom were seen on the moor +together, and they looked like lovers. Moreover, Helen stole out to meet +him at odd hours, and, on the day before Miriam went away, she surprised +them in a heathery dip of ground where Helen sewed and George read +monotonously from a book.</p> + +<p>"I—didn't know you were here," Miriam stammered.</p> + +<p>"Well, we're not conspirators," Helen said. "Come and sit down. George +is reading to me."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't think I will, thank you." Until now, she had succeeded in +avoiding George, but there was no escape from his courteous greeting and +outstretched hand. His manners had improved, she thought: he had no +trace of awkwardness; he was cool and friendly, and, with the folly of +the enamoured, he could no longer find her beautiful. She was at once +aware of that, and she knew the meaning of his glance at Helen, who bent +over her work and did not look at them.</p> + +<p>"How are you?" Halkett said.</p> + +<p>She found it difficult to answer him, and while she told herself she did +not want his admiration, she felt that some show of embarrassment was +her due.</p> + +<p>"I'm very well. No; I won't stay. Helen, may I take Jim?"</p> + +<p>"If he will go with you."</p> + +<p>Jim refused to stir, and with the burden of that added insult, Miriam +went on her way. It seemed to her that, in the end, Helen had +everything.</p> + +<p>Helen believed that the wisdom of her childhood had returned to her to +teach her the true cause of happiness. For her it was born of the act of +giving, and her knowledge of George's need was changed into a feeling +that, in its turn, transformed existence. Her mental confusion cleared +itself and, concentrating her powers on him, she tried not to think of +Zebedee. She would not dwell on the little, familiar things she loved in +him, nor would she speculate on his faithfulness or his pain, for his +exile was the one means of George's homecoming. And, though she did not +know it, Zebedee, loving her truly, understood the workings of her mind, +and his double misery lessened to a single one when he saw her growing +more content.</p> + +<p>He went to Pinderwell House one fine evening, for there were few days +when he could find time to drive up the long road, and though Mildred +Caniper did not need his care, she looked for his coming every week.</p> + +<p>It was a placid evening after a day of heat, and he could see the smoke +from the kitchen chimney going straight and delicately towards the sky. +The moor was one sheet of purple at this season, and it had a look of +fulfilment and of peace. It had brought forth life and had yet to see it +die, and it seemed to lie with its hands folded on its broad breast and +to wait tranquilly for what might come.</p> + +<p>Zebedee tried to imitate that tranquillity as the old horse jogged up +the road, but he had not yet arrived at such perfection of control that +his heart did not beat faster as he knocked at Helen's door.</p> + +<p>Tonight there was no answer, and having knocked three times he went into +the hall, looked into each room and found all empty. He called her name +and had silence for response. He went through the kitchen to seek her in +the garden, and there, under the poplars, he saw her sitting and looking +at the tree-tops, while George smoked beside her and Jim lay at her +feet.</p> + +<p>It was a scene to stamp itself on the mind of a discarded lover, and +while he took the impress he stood stonily in the doorway. He saw +Halkett say a word to Helen, and she sprang up and ran across the lawn.</p> + +<p>"I never thought you'd come," she said, breathing quickly.</p> + +<p>He moved aside so that her body should not hide him from Halkett's +careful eyes.</p> + +<p>"Has something happened?" she asked. "You look so white."</p> + +<p>"The day has been very hot."</p> + +<p>"Yes; up here, even, and in that dreadful little town—Are you working +hard?"</p> + +<p>"I think so."</p> + +<p>"And getting rich?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit."</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose you charge them half enough," she said, and made him +laugh. "Come and see Notya before she goes to sleep."</p> + +<p>"Mayn't I speak to Mr. Halkett?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She did not look at the two men as they stood together. Again she +watched the twinkling poplar leaves and listened to their voices +rustling between the human ones, and when she seemed to have been +listening for hours, she said, "Zebedee, you ought to come. It's time +Notya went to sleep."</p> + +<p>She led him through the house, and neither spoke as they went upstairs +and down again, but at the door, she said, "I'll see you drive away," +and followed him to the gate.</p> + +<p>She stood there until he was out of sight, and then she went slowly to +the kitchen where George was waiting for her.</p> + +<p>"You've been a long time."</p> + +<p>"Have I? I mean, yes, I have."</p> + +<p>"What have you been doing?"</p> + +<p>"Standing at the gate."</p> + +<p>"Talking?"</p> + +<p>"Thinking."</p> + +<p>"Was he thinking too?"</p> + +<p>"I expect so."</p> + +<p>"H'm. Do you like him to come marching through your house?"</p> + +<p>"Why not? He's an old friend of ours."</p> + +<p>"He seems to be! You were in a hurry to get away from me, I noticed, and +then you have to waste time mooning with him in the twilight."</p> + +<p>"He wasn't there, George." She laid the back of her hand against her +forehead. "I watched him out of sight."</p> + +<p>"What for?"</p> + +<p>"He looked so lonely, going home to—that. Are you always going to be +jealous of any one who speaks to me? It's rather tiring."</p> + +<p>"Are you tired?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said with a jerk, and pressed her lips together. He pulled +her to his knee, and she put her face against his strong, tanned neck.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "what's this for?"</p> + +<p>"Don't tease me."</p> + +<p>"I'm not so bad, then, am I?"</p> + +<p>"Not so bad," she answered. "You have been smoking one of those cigars."</p> + +<p>"Yes. D'you mind?"</p> + +<p>"I love the smell of them," she said, and he laid his cheek heavily on +hers.</p> + +<p>"George!"</p> + +<p>"U-um?" he said, drowsing over her.</p> + +<p>"I think the rest of the summer is going to be happy."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but how long's this to last? I want you in my house."</p> + +<p>"I wish it wasn't in a hollow."</p> + +<p>"What difference does that make? We're sheltered from the wind. We lie +snug on winter nights."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to. I like to hear the wind come howling across the moor +and beat against the walls as if it had great wings. It does one's +crying for one."</p> + +<p>"Do you want to cry?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Now?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"When, then?"</p> + +<p>"Don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not. I swear instead." He shook her gently. "Tell me when you +want to cry."</p> + +<p>"Oh, just when the wind does it for me," she said sleepily.</p> + +<p>"I'll never understand you."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you will. I'm very simple, and now I'm half asleep."</p> + +<p>"Shall I carry you upstairs?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Helen, come to my house. Bring Mrs. Caniper. I want you. And the whole +moor's talking about the way we live."</p> + +<p>"Oh, let the moor talk! Don't you love to hear it? It's the voice I love +best. I shan't like living in your house while this one stands."</p> + +<p>"But you'll have to."</p> + +<p>She put up a finger. "I didn't say I wouldn't. Will you never learn to +trust me?"</p> + +<p>"I am learning," he said.</p> + +<p>"And you must be patient. Most people are engaged before they marry. You +married me at once."</p> + +<p>"Hush!" he said. "I don't like thinking about that."</p> + +<p>After this confession, her mind crept a step forward, and she dared to +look towards a time when Mildred Caniper would be dead and she at +Halkett's Farm. The larch-lined hollow would half suffocate her, she +believed, but she would grow accustomed to its closeness as she would +grow used to George and George to her. Soon he would completely trust +her. He would learn to ask her counsel, and, at night, she would sit and +sew and listen to his talk of crops and cattle, and the doings and +misdoings of his men. He would have no more shyness of her, but +sometimes she would startle him into a memory of how he had wooed her in +the kitchen and seen her as a star. And she would have children: not +those shining ones who were to have lived in the beautiful bare house +with her and Zebedee, but sturdy creatures with George's mark on them. +She would become middle-aged and lose her slenderness, and half forget +she had ever been Helen Caniper; yet George and the children would +always be a little strange to her, and only when she was alone and on +the moor would she renew her sense of self and be afraid of it.</p> + +<p>The prospect did not daunt her, for she had faith in her capacity to +bear anything except the love of Zebedee for another woman. She ignored +her selfishness towards him because the need to keep him was as strong +as any other instinct: he was hers, and she had the right to make him +suffer, and, though she honestly tried to shut her thoughts against him, +when she did think of him it was to own him, to feel a dangerous joy in +the memory of his thin face and tightened lips.</p> + +<p>On the moor, harvests were always late, and George was gathering hay in +August when richer country was ready to deliver up its corn, and one +afternoon when he was carting hay from the fields beyond the farm, Helen +walked into the town, leaving Lily Brent in charge of Mildred Caniper.</p> + +<p>Helen had seldom been into the town since the day when she had married +George, and the wind, trying to force her back, had beaten the body +that was of no more value to her. Things were better now, and she had +avenged herself gaily on the god behind the smoke. He had heard few +sounds of weeping and he had not driven her from the moor: he had merely +lost a suppliant and changed a girl into a woman, and today, in her +independence of fate, she would walk down the long road and plant a +pleasant thought at every step, and she need not look at the square +house which Zebedee had bought for her.</p> + +<p>She had told George to meet her at the side road if he had any errands +for her in the town, and though he had none, he was there before her. +Watching her approach, he thought he had never seen her lovelier. She +wore a dress and hat of Miriam's choosing, the one of cream colour and +the other black, and the beauty of their simple lines added to the grace +that could still awe him.</p> + +<p>"You look—like a swan," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, George, a horrid bird!" She came close and looked up, for she liked +to see him puzzled and adoring.</p> + +<p>"It's the way you walk—and the white. And that little black hat for a +beak."</p> + +<p>"Well, swan or not," she said, and laughed, "you think I look nice, +don't you?"</p> + +<p>"I should think I do!" He stepped back to gaze at her. "You must always +have clothes like that. There's no need for you to make your own."</p> + +<p>"But I like my funny little dresses! Don't I generally please you? Have +you been thinking me ugly all this time?"</p> + +<p>He did not answer that. "I wish I was coming with you."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't. There are hay-seeds on you everywhere. Is the field nearly +finished? George, you are not answering questions!"</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking about you. Helen, you needn't go just yet. Sit down under +this tree. You're lovely. And I love you. Helen, you love me! You're +different now. Will you wear that ring?"</p> + +<p>Her mind could not refuse it; she was willing to wear the badge of her +submission and so make it complete, and she gave a shuddering sigh. "Oh, +George—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, you will. Look, here it is. I always have it with me. Give me +your little hand. Isn't it bright and heavy? Do you like it?" He held +her closely. "And my working clothes against your pretty frock! D'you +mind?"</p> + +<p>"No." She was looking at the gold band on her finger. "It's heavy, +George."</p> + +<p>"I chose a heavy one."</p> + +<p>"Have you had it in your pocket all the time?"</p> + +<p>"All the time."</p> + +<p>He and she had been alike in cherishing a ring, but when she reached +home she would take Zebedee's from its place and hide it safely. She +could not give it back to him: she could not wear it now.</p> + +<p>"I must go," she said, and freed herself.</p> + +<p>He kissed the banded finger. "Be quick and come back and let me see you +wearing it again."</p> + +<p>It weighted her, and she went more slowly down the road, feeling that +the new weight was a symbol, and when she looked back and saw George +standing where she had left him, she uttered a small cry he could not +hear and ran to him.</p> + +<p>"George, you must always love me now. You—I—"</p> + +<p>"What is it, love?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing. Let me go. Good-bye," she said, and walked on at her slow +pace. Light winds brought summer smells to her, clouds made lakes of +shadow on the moor, and here, where few trees grew and little traffic +passed, there were no dusty leaves to tell of summer's age; yet, in the +air, there was a smell of flowers changing to fruit.</p> + +<p>She passed the gorse bushes in their second blossoming, and the moor, +stretched before her, was as her life promised to be: it was monotonous +in its bright colouring, quiet and serene, broad-bosomed for its +children. Old sheep looked up at her as she went by, and she saw herself +in some relationship to them. They were the sport of men, and so was +she, yet perhaps God had some care of them and her. It was she and the +great God of whose existence she was dimly sure who had to contrive +honourable life for her, and the one to whom she had yearly prayed must +remain in his own place, veiled by the smoke of the red fires, a +survival and a link like the remembrance of her virginity.</p> + +<p>So young in years, so wise in experience of the soul, she thought there +was little more for her to learn, but acquaintance with birth and death +awaited her: they were like beacons to be lighted on her path, and she +had no fear of them.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2> + + +<p>She did her shopping in her unhurried, careful way, and went on to the +outfitter who made John's corduroy trousers. Clothes that looked as if +they were made of cardboard hung outside the shop; unyielding coats, +waistcoats and trousers seemed to be glued against the door: stockings, +suspended by their gaudy tops, flaunted stiff toes in the breeze, and +piles of more manageable garments were massed on chairs inside, and +Helen was aghast at the presence of so many semblances of man.</p> + +<p>It was dark in the shop, and the smell of fustian absorbed the air. The +owner, who wore an intricately-patterned tie, stood on the pavement and +talked to a friend, while a youth, pale through living in obscurity, +lured Helen in.</p> + +<p>She gave her order: two pairs of corduroy trousers to be made for Mr. +Caniper of Brent Farm, to the same measurements as before: she wished to +see the stuff.</p> + +<p>"If you'll take a seat, miss—"</p> + +<p>She would rather stand outside the door, she said, and he agreed that +the day was warm.</p> + +<p>The narrow street was thronged with people who were neither of the town +nor of the country, and suffered the disabilities of the hybrid. There +were few keen or beautiful faces, and if there were fine bodies they +were hidden under clumsy clothes. Helen wanted to strip them all, and +straighten them, and force them into health and comeliness, and though +she would not have her moor peopled by them, she wished they might all +have moors of their own.</p> + +<p>The young man was very slow. She could hear him struggling with bales of +cloth and breathing heavily. It was much hotter here than on the moor, +and she supposed that human beings could grow accustomed to any smell, +but she stepped further towards the kerbstone and drew in what air the +street could spare to her.</p> + +<p>Quite unconscious of her fairness against the dingy background, she +watched the moving people and heard the talk of the two men near her. +They spoke of the hay crop, the price of bacon, the mismanagement of the +gas company, and the words fell among the footsteps of the passers-by, +and the noise of wheels, and became one dull confusion of sound to her; +but all sounds fainted and most sights grew misty when she saw Zebedee +walking on the other side of the street, looking down as he went, but +bending an ear to the girl beside him.</p> + +<p>Men and women flitted like shadows between him and Helen, but she saw +plainly enough. Zebedee was interested: he nodded twice, looked at the +girl and laughed, while she walked sideways in her eagerness. She was +young and pretty: no one, Helen thought, had ever married her.</p> + +<p>The noise of the street rushed on her again, and she heard the shopman +say, "That's a case, I think. I've seen that couple about before. Time +he was married, too."</p> + +<p>Slowly Helen turned a head, which felt stiff and swollen, to look at the +person who could say so. She restrained a desire to hold it, and, +stepping to the threshold of the shop, she called into the depths that +she would soon return.</p> + +<p>Without any attempt at secrecy she followed that pair absorbed in one +another. She went because there was no choice, she was impelled by her +necessity to know and unhindered by any scruples, and when she had seen +the two pass down the quiet road leading to his house, with his hand on +her elbow and her face turned to his, Helen went back to the young man +and the bales of cloth.</p> + +<p>She chose the corduroy and left the shop, and it was not long before she +found herself outside the town, but she could remember nothing of her +passage. She came to a standstill where the moor road stretched before +her, and there she suffered realization to fall on her with the weight +of many waters. She cried out under the shock, and, turning, she ran +without stopping until she came to Zebedee's door.</p> + +<p>An astonished maid tried not to stare at this flushed and elegant lady.</p> + +<p>"The doctor is engaged, miss," she said.</p> + +<p>"I shall wait. Please tell him that I must see him."</p> + +<p>"What name shall I say?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Caniper. Miss Helen Caniper." She had no memory of any other.</p> + +<p>She sat on one of the hard leather chairs and looked at a fern that died +reluctantly in the middle of the table. Her eyes burned and would not be +eased by tears, her heart leapt erratically in her breast, yet the one +grievance of which she was exactly conscious was that Zebedee had a new +servant and had not told her. If she had to have her tinker, surely +Zebedee might have kept Eliza. She was invaded by a cruel feeling of his +injustice; but her thoughts grew vague as she sat there, and her dry +lips parted and closed, as though they tried to frame words and could +not. For what seemed a long, long time, she could hear the sound of +voices through the wall: then the study door was opened, a girl laughed, +Zebedee spoke; another door was opened, there were steps on the path and +the gate clicked. She sat motionless, still staring at the fern, but +when Zebedee entered she looked up at him and spoke.</p> + +<p>"Zebedee," she said miserably.</p> + +<p>"Come into my room," he said.</p> + +<p>The door was shut on them, and she dropped against it.</p> + +<p>"Zebedee, I can't bear it."</p> + +<p>"My little life!"</p> + +<p>"I was so happy," she said piteously, "and, in the street, I saw you +with that girl. You held her arm, and I had to come to you. I had, +Zebedee."</p> + +<p>"Had you, dear?" he said. He was pulling off her gloves, gently and +quickly, holding each wrist in turn, and together they looked at the +broad band of gold. Their eyes met in a pain beyond the reach of words.</p> + +<p>She bowed her head, but not in shame.</p> + +<p>"My hat, too," she said, and he found the pins and took it from her.</p> + +<p>"Your ring is here," she said, and touched herself. Her lips trembled. +"I can't go back."</p> + +<p>"You need not, dearest one. Sit down. I must go and speak to Mary."</p> + +<p>"She is better than Eliza," Helen said when he returned.</p> + +<p>"Yes, better than Eliza." He spoke soothingly. "Are you comfortable +there? Tell me about it, dear." He folded his arms and leaned against +his desk, and as he watched her he saw the look of strain pass from her +face.</p> + +<p>She smiled at him. "Your cheeks are twitching."</p> + +<p>"Are they?"</p> + +<p>"They always do when you think hard."</p> + +<p>"You are sitting where you sat when you first came here."</p> + +<p>"And there were no cakes."</p> + +<p>"Only buns."</p> + +<p>"And they were stale."</p> + +<p>"You said you liked them."</p> + +<p>"I liked—everything—that day."</p> + +<p>"I think," he said, jerking his chin upwards, "we won't have any +reminiscences."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" she asked softly. She went to him and put her arms round his +neck. "It's no good, Zebedee. I've tried. I really loved him—but it's +you—I belong to you." He could hardly hear what she said. "Can you love +me any longer? I've been—his. I've liked it. I was ready to do +anything—like that—for him."</p> + +<p>"Speak a little louder, dear."</p> + +<p>"You see, one could forget. And I did think about children, Zebedee, I +couldn't help it."</p> + +<p>"Precious, of course you couldn't."</p> + +<p>"But you were always mine. And when I saw you this afternoon, there was +no one else. And no one else can have you. You don't love any one but +me. How could you? She can't have you. I want you. And you're mine. Your +hands—and eyes—and face—this cheek—You—you—I can't—I don't know +what I'm saying. I can't go back! He'll—he put this ring on me today. I +let him. I was glad—somehow. Glad!" She broke away from him and burst +into a fit of weeping.</p> + +<p>He knew the properties of her tears, and he had no hope of any gain but +what could come to him by way of her renewed serenity; he made shift to +be content with that, and though the sound of her crying hurt him +violently, he smiled at her insistence on possessing him. She had +married another man, but she would not resign her rights to the one she +had deserted, though he, poor soul, must claim none. It was one of the +inconsistencies he loved in her, and he was still smiling when she +raised her head from the arm of the chair where she had laid it.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Zebedee. I'm better now. I'm—all right."</p> + +<p>"Wipe your eyes, Best of all. We're going to have some tea. Can you look +like some one with a—with a nervous breakdown?"</p> + +<p>"Quite easily. Isn't that just what I have had?"</p> + +<p>Mary was defter than Eliza and apparently less curious, and while she +came and went they talked, like the outfitter and his friend, about the +crops; but when she had gone Zebedee moved the table to the side of +Helen's chair, so that, as long ago, no part of her should be concealed.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, looking down, "but I like you better in your grey +frocks."</p> + +<p>"Do you? Do you? I'm glad," she said, but she did not tell him why. Her +eyes were shining, and he found her no less beautiful for their reddened +rims. "You are the most wonderful person in the world," she said. "It +was unkind of me to come, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"No, dear. Nothing is unkind when you do it."</p> + +<p>"But it was, Zebedee. Because I'm going back, after all."</p> + +<p>"I knew you would."</p> + +<p>"Did you? I must, you know."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "I know. Helen, that girl—Daniel's in love with her."</p> + +<p>"Oh, poor Miriam! Another renegade! But I'm not jealous any more, so +don't explain."</p> + +<p>"But I want to tell you about her. He pursues and she wearies of him. +I'm afraid he's a dreadful bore."</p> + +<p>"But that's no reason why you should take her arm."</p> + +<p>"Did I take it? I like her. I wish she would marry Daniel, but he is +instructive in his love-making. He has no perceptions. I'm doing my best +for him, but he won't take my advice. Yes, I like her, but I shall never +love any one but you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, you couldn't really. But see what I have had to do!" Her eyes +were tired with crying. "And have to do," she added in a lower tone. "It +makes one think anything might happen. One loses faith. But now, here +with you, I could laugh at having doubted. Yes, I can laugh at that, and +more. That's the best of crying. It makes one laugh afterwards and see +clearly. I can be amused at my struggles now and see how small they +were."</p> + +<p>"But what of mine?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I meant yours, too. We are not separate. No. Even now that I—that I +have a little love for George. He's rather like a baby, Zebedee. And he +doesn't come between. Be sure of that; always, always!"</p> + +<p>"Dearest, Loveliest, if you will stay with me—Well, I'm here when you +need me, and you know that."</p> + +<p>"Yes." She looked beyond him. "Coming here, this afternoon, I saw the +way. I made it beautiful. And then I saw you, and the mists came down +and I saw nothing else. But now I see everything by the light of you." +There was a pause. "I've never loved you more," she said. "And I want to +tell you something." She spoke on a rising note. "To me you are +everything that is good and true—and kind and loving. There is no limit +to your goodness. You never scold me, you don't complain, you still wait +in case I need you. I ought not to allow you to do that, but some day, +some day, perhaps I'll be as good as you are. I want you to remember +that you have been perfect to me." She said the word again and lingered +on it. "Perfect. If I have a son, I hope he'll be like you. I'll try to +make him."</p> + +<p>"Helen—"</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute. I want to say some more. I'm not going back because I am +afraid of breaking rules. I don't know anything about them, but I know +about myself, and I'm going back because, for me, it's the only thing to +do; and you see," she looked imploringly at him, "George needs me now +more than he did before. He trusts to me."</p> + +<p>"It is for you to choose, Beloved."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said. "There's nothing splendid about me. I'm just—tame. I +wish I were different, Zebedee."</p> + +<p>"Then you are the only one who wishes it."</p> + +<p>She laughed a little and stood close to him.</p> + +<p>"Bless me before I go, for now I have to learn it all again."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2> + + +<p>Helen had a greeting ready for each turn of the road, but George did not +appear. She looked for him at the side road to the farm, and she waited +there for a while. She had thought he would be on the watch for her, and +she had hoped for him. Since they had to meet, let it be soon: let her +heart learn to beat submissively again, and the mouth kissed by Zebedee +to take kisses from another. But he did not come, and later, when she +had helped Mildred Caniper to bed, Helen sat on the moor to waylay and +welcome him, and make amends for her unfaithfulness.</p> + +<p>The night was beautiful; the light wind had dropped, the sky was set +with stars, and small, pale moths made clouds above the heather. When +she shook a tuft of it, there came forth a sweet, dry smell. She looked +in wonder on the beauty of the world. Here, on the moor, there were such +things to see and hear and smell that it would be strange if she could +not find peace. In the town, it would be harder: it would be harder for +Zebedee, though he had his work and loved it as she loved the moor, and +she caught her breath sharply as she remembered his white face. There +were matters of which it was not wise to think too much, and what need +was there when he wanted her to be content, when the stars and a slip of +a new moon shone in a tender sky, and birds made stealthy noises, not to +wake the world?</p> + +<p>Once more it seemed to her that men and women saw happiness and sorrow +in a view too personal, and each individual too much isolated from the +rest. Here she sat, a tiny creature on the greatness of the moor, a mere +heartbeat in a vast life. If the heart missed a beat, the life would +still go on, yet it was her part to make the beat a strong and steady +one.</p> + +<p>She wanted George to come, but she had a new fear of him. She might have +lived a thousand years since she had parted from him a few hours back, +and her instinct was to run away as from a stranger, but she would sit +there until he was quite close, and then she would call his name and put +out her hand, the one that wore his ring, and he would pull her up and +take her home. She bowed her head to her knees. Well, already she had +much that other people missed: that young man in the shop had not these +little moths and the springing heather with purple flowers and the star +that shone like a friend above her home.</p> + +<p>The night grew darker: colour was sucked from the moor, and it lay as +black as deep lake water, blacker than the sky. It was time that country +folks were in their beds, and the Brent Farm lights went out as at a +signal.</p> + +<p>Helen went slowly through the garden and up the stairs, and when she had +undressed she sat beside her window, wondering why George had not come. +Surely she would have heard if any accident had befallen him?</p> + +<p>The quiet of the night assured her that all was well: the poplars were +concerned with their enduring effort to reach the sky; a cat went like a +moving drop of ink across the lawn. She stretched out for her dressing +gown and put it round her shoulders, and she sat there, leaning on the +window ledge and looking into the garden until her eyelids dropped and +resisted when she tried to raise them.</p> + +<p>She had almost fallen asleep when she heard a familiar noise outside her +door. She stood up and met George as he entered.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you've come." She put out a timid hand to touch him and had it +brushed aside.</p> + +<p>"Out of my way!" he said, pushing past her.</p> + +<p>She saw he had been drinking though he was not drunk. His eyes were +red, and he looked at her as though he priced her, with such an +expression of disdaining a cheap thing that she learnt, in that moment, +the pain of all poor women dishonoured. Yet she followed him and made +him turn to her.</p> + +<p>"What have you been doing?" she said. "I have been waiting for so long."</p> + +<p>There came on his face the sneering look she had not lately seen, and in +his throat he made noises that for a little while did not come to words.</p> + +<p>"Ah! I've been into town, too; you little devil, pranking yourself out, +coming to me so soft and gentle—kissing—Here!" He took her by the +wrist and dragged the ring from her and made to throw it into the night. +"But no," he said slowly. "No. I think not. Come here again. You shall +wear it; you shall wear it to your dying day."</p> + +<p>"I'm willing to," she said. His arm was round her, hurting her. "Tell me +what's the matter, George."</p> + +<p>He gripped her fiercely and let her go so that she staggered.</p> + +<p>"Get back! I don't want to touch you!" Then he mimicked her. "'Won't you +ever learn to trust me?' I'd learnt. I'd have given you my soul to care +for. I—I'd done it—and you took it to the doctor!"</p> + +<p>"No," she said. "I took my own." She was shaking; her bare feet were ice +cold. "George—"</p> + +<p>"You lied about him! Yes, you did! You who are forever talking about +honesty!"</p> + +<p>"I didn't lie. I didn't tell you the whole truth, but now I will, though +I've never asked for any of your confessions. I shouldn't like to hear +them. I suppose you saw me this afternoon?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, I did. I saw you turn and run like a rabbit to that man's house. +I'd come to meet you, my God! I was happy. You'd my ring at last. I +followed you. I waited. I saw you come out, white, shaking, the way +you're shaking now." He dropped into a chair. "Dirt! Dirt!" he moaned.</p> + +<p>She made a sad little gesture at that word and began to walk up and down +the room. The grey dressing gown was slung about her shoulders like a +shawl, and he watched the moving feet.</p> + +<p>"And then you went and had a drink," she said. "Yes. I don't blame you. +That's what I was having, too. And my thirst is quenched. I'm not going +to be thirsty any more. I had a long drink of the freshest, loveliest +water, but I'll never taste it again. I'll never forget it either." For +a time there was no sound but that of her bare feet on the bare floor. +"What did you think I was doing there?" she whispered, and her pace grew +faster.</p> + +<p>His tone insulted her. "God knows!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes."</p> + +<p>"Kissing—I don't know. I don't know what you're equal to, with that +smooth face of yours."</p> + +<p>She halted in her march and stood before him. "I did kiss him. I'm glad. +There is no one so good in the whole world."</p> + +<p>She pressed her clasped hands against her throat. "I love him. I loved +him before I promised to marry you. I love him still. No one could help +doing that, I think. But it's different now. It has to be. I'm not his +wife. I went to say—I went there, and I said good-bye to all that. I +came back to you. You needn't be afraid—or jealous any more. I'm your +wife, George, and I'll do my share. I promise." She started on her walk +again, and still he watched the small, white feet.</p> + +<p>"And I'm not outraged by what you've said," she went on in a voice he +had not heard so coldly clear. "Men like you are so ready with abuse. +Have you always been virtuous? You ask what you would never allow me to +claim."</p> + +<p>He looked up. "Since I married you—since I loved you—And I never +will."</p> + +<p>She laughed a little. "And I won't either. That's another bargain, but I +know—I know too much about temptation, about love, to call lovers by +bad names. And if you don't, it's your misfortune, George. I think you'd +better go home and think about it."</p> + +<p>He made an uncertain movement. He was like a child, she thought; he had +to be commanded or cajoled, and her heart softened towards him because +he was dumb and helpless.</p> + +<p>"Let us be honest friends," she pleaded. "Yes, honest, George. I know +I've talked a lot of honesty, and I had no right; but now I think I +have, because I've told you everything and we can start afresh. I +thought I was better than you, but now I know I'm not, and I'm sorry, +George."</p> + +<p>He looked up. "Helen—"</p> + +<p>"Well?" She was on her knees before him, and her hands were persuading +his to hold them.</p> + +<p>He muttered something.</p> + +<p>"I didn't hear."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," he said again, and, as she heard the words, she +laughed and cried out, "No, no! I don't want you to say that! You've to +possess me. Honour me, too, but always possess me!" She leaned back to +look at him. "That's what you must do. You are that kind of man, so big +and strong and—and stupid, George! Love me enough, and it will be like +being buried in good earth. Can't you love me enough?" Her eyes were +luminous and tender. She was fighting for two lives, for more that might +be born.</p> + +<p>"Buried? I don't know what you mean," he said; "but come you here!"</p> + +<p>Her face was crushed against him, and it was indeed as though she were +covered by something dark and warm and heavy. She might hear beloved +footsteps, now and then, but they would not trouble her. Down there, she +knew too much to be disturbed, too much to be hurt for ever by her +lover's pain: he, too, would know a blessed burying.</p> + +<p>It was not she who heard the opening of the bedroom door, but she felt +herself being gently pushed from George's breast, and she had a strange +feeling that some one was shovelling away the earth which she had found +so merciful.</p> + +<p>"No," she said. "Don't. I like it."</p> + +<p>"Helen!" she heard George say, and she turned to see Mildred Caniper on +the threshold.</p> + +<p>"I heard voices," she said, looking a little dazed, but standing with +her old straightness. "Who is here? It's Helen! It's—Helen! Oh, +Helen—you!" Her face hardened, and her voice was the one of Helen's +childhood. "I am afraid I must ask for an explanation of this +extraordinary conduct."</p> + +<p>The words were hardly done before she fell heavily to the floor.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX</h2> + + +<p>Mildred Caniper died two days afterwards, without opening her eyes. Day +and night, Helen watched and wondered whether, behind that mask, the +mind was moving to acquaintance with the truth. Between life and death, +she imagined a grey land where things were naked, neither clothed in +disguising garments nor in glory. It might be that, for the first time, +Mildred saw herself, looked into her own life and all the lives she +knew, and gained a wider knowledge for the next. Nevertheless, it was +horrible to Helen that Mildred Caniper had finally shut her eyes on the +scene that killed her, and, for her last impression, had one of falsity +and licence. Helen prayed that it might be removed, and, as she kept +watch that first night, she told her all. There might be a little cranny +through which the words could go, and she longed for a look or touch of +forgiveness and farewell. She loved this woman whom she had served, but +there were to be no more messages between them, and Mildred Caniper died +with no other sound than the lessening of the sighing breaths she drew.</p> + +<p>Zebedee guessed the nature of the shock that killed her, but only George +and Helen knew, and for them it was another bond; they saw each other +now with the eyes of those who have looked together on something never +to be spoken of and never to be forgotten. She liked to have him with +her, and he was dumb with pity for her and with regrets. To Miriam, when +she arrived, it was an astonishment to find them sitting in the +schoolroom, hand in hand, so much absorbed in their common knowledge +that they did not loose their grasp at her approach, but sat on like +lost, bewildered children in a wood.</p> + +<p>Wherever Helen went, he followed, clumsy but protective, peering at her +anxiously as though he feared something terrible would happen to her, +too.</p> + +<p>"You don't mind, do you?" he asked her.</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Having me."</p> + +<p>"I like it—but there's your hay."</p> + +<p>"There's hay every year," he answered.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Uncle Alfred moved quietly about the house, stood uneasily at a window, +or drifted into the garden, swinging his eyeglass, his expression +troubled, his whole being puzzled by the capacity of his relatives to be +dramatic, without apparent realization of their gift. Here was a sister +suddenly dead, a niece wandering hand in hand with the man from whom +another niece had fled, while the discarded lover acted the part of +family friend; and that family preserved its admirable trick of asking +no question, of accepting each member's right to its own actions. Only +Miriam, now and then catching his eye in the friendly understanding they +had established, seemed to make a criticism without a comment, and to +promise him that, foolish as she was, he need not fear results on +Helen's colossal scale.</p> + +<p>It was Rupert who could best appreciate Helen's attitude, and when he +was not thinking of the things he might have done for a woman he could +help no longer, he was watching his sister and her impassivity, her +unfailing gentleness to George, the perfection of her manner to Zebedee. +She satisfied his sense of what was fitting, and gave him the kind of +pleasure to be derived from the simple and candid handiwork of a master.</p> + +<p>"If tragedy produces this kind of thing," he said to John with a +gesture, "the suffering is much more than worth while—from the +spectator's point of view."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you are talking about," John said.</p> + +<p>"The way she manages those two."</p> + +<p>"Who? And which?"</p> + +<p>"Good Lord, man! Haven't you seen it? Helen and the two suitors."</p> + +<p>John grunted. "Oh—that!" He had not yet learnt to speak of the affair +with any patience.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Mildred Caniper had left the house and all it held to Helen.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you'll try to let it," Rupert said. "I don't like to think of +that, though. Helen, I wish she hadn't died. Do you think we were more +unpleasant than we need have been?"</p> + +<p>"Not much. She was unpleasanter than we were, really, but then—"</p> + +<p>"Heavens, yes. What a life!"</p> + +<p>Her lips framed the words in echo, but she did not utter them, though +she alone had the right.</p> + +<p>"So perhaps I am not sorry she is dead," Rupert said.</p> + +<p>Helen's lips tilted in a smile. "I don't think you need ever be sorry +that any one is dead," she said, and before she could hear what her +words told him, he spoke quickly.</p> + +<p>"Well, what about this house?"</p> + +<p>"I shan't let it."</p> + +<p>"Will you live here?"</p> + +<p>"No. I'm going to George, but no one else shall have it. I don't think +the Pinderwells would be happy. Is there any furniture you want? You can +have anything except what's in the dining-room. That's for Zebedee. His +own is hideous."</p> + +<p>To Zebedee she said, "You'll take it, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"I've always taken everything you've given me," he said, and with the +words they seemed to look at each other fairly for the last time.</p> + +<p>"And don't have any more dead ferns," she told him. "There was one in +the dining-room the other day. You must keep fresh flowers on Mr. +Pinderwell's table."</p> + +<p>"I shall remember."</p> + +<p>Nothing was left in the house except the picture of Mr. Pinderwell's +bride, who smiled as prettily on the empty room as on the furnished one.</p> + +<p>"She must stay with Mr. Pinderwell," Helen said. "What would he do if he +found her gone? I wonder if they'll miss us."</p> + +<p>She refused to leave the house until the last cart had gone down the +road at which Helen must no longer look in hope. She watched the slow +departure of the cart and held to the garden gate, rubbing it with her +hands. She looked up at the long house with its wise, unblinking eyes. +She had to leave it: George was waiting for her at the farm, but the +house was like a part of her, and she was not complete when she turned +away from it.</p> + +<p>There was daylight on the moor, but when she dipped into the larch-wood +she found it was already night, and night lay on the cobbled courtyard, +on the farmhouse, and on George, who waited in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"You're like you were before," he said. "A silver star coming through +the trees—coming to me." He took her hand. "I don't know why you do +it," he murmured, and led her in.</p> + +<p>They slept in a room papered with a pattern of roses and furnished with +a great fourposted bed. It was the room in which George Halkett and his +father had been born, the best bedroom for many generations. The china +on the heavy washstand had pink roses on it, too, and the house was +fragrant with real roses, burning wood, clean, scented linen. Jasmine +grew round the window and nodded in.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to be happy?" George asked her, when the warm darkness +dropped on them like another coverlet, and she hardly knew that it was +she who reassured him. Could it be Helen Caniper in this room with the +low ceiling and farmhouse smells, this bridal chamber of the Halketts? +Helen Caniper seemed to have disappeared.</p> + +<p>She woke when she had been asleep for a little while, and at first she +could not remember where she was; then the window darted out of the +darkness and the furniture took on shapes. She looked up and saw the +looming canopy of the bed, she heard George breathing beside her, and +suddenly she felt suffocated by the draperies and the low ceiling and +the remembrance of the big pink roses growing on the wall.</p> + +<p>She slid to the edge of the bed and out of it. The carpet was harsh to +her feet, but, by the window, the bare boards soothed them.</p> + +<p>There were dark clouds floating against the sky, and the larches looked +like another cloud dropped down until she saw their crests, spear-like +and piercing: they hid the moor in its livery of night.</p> + +<p>She turned her head and listened to the sleeper, who did not stir except +to breathe. She wanted to see her moor and the house where the +Pinderwells were walking and wondering at its emptiness. George would +not hear her if she dressed and left the room, and, having done so, she +stood outside the door and listened before she fumbled her way along the +passages.</p> + +<p>She sped through the larches, but when her feet touched the heather they +went more slowly, and now it was she who might have been a cloud, +trailing across the moor. So she went until she saw the house, and then +she ran towards it, startling the rabbits, hearing the blur of wings, +and feeling the ping or flutter of insects against her face.</p> + +<p>The doors were locked, but the kitchen window was not hasped, and +through it she climbed. The room had an unfamiliar look: it was +dismantled, and ghostly heaps of straw and paper lay where the men had +left them, yet this was still her home: nothing could exile her.</p> + +<p>She went into the hall and into each bare room, but she could not go +upstairs. It was bad enough to see Mr. Pinderwell walking up and down, +and she could not face the children whom she had deserted. She sat on +the stairs, and the darkness seemed to shift about her. She thought of +the bedroom she had left, and it seemed to her that there would never be +a night when she would not leave it to find her own, nor a day when, as +she worked in the hollow, her heart would not be here. Yet she was Helen +Halkett, and she belonged to Halkett's Farm.</p> + +<p>She rose and walked into the kitchen and slipped her hand along the +mantelshelf to find a box of matches she had left there.</p> + +<p>She was going to end the struggle. She could not burn Zebedee, but she +could burn the house. The rooms where he had made love to her should +stand no longer, and so her spirit might find a habitation where her +body lived.</p> + +<p>She piled paper and straw against the windows and the doors, and set a +lighted match to them; then she went to the moor and waited. She might +have done it in a dream, for her indifference: it was no more to her +than having lighted a few twigs in the heather; but when she saw the +flames climbing up like red and yellow giants, she was afraid. There +were hundreds of giants, throwing up hands and arms and trying to reach +the roof. They fought with each other as they struggled, and the dark +sky made a mirror for their fights.</p> + +<p>The poplars were being scorched, and she cried out at that discovery. +Oh, the poplars! the poplars! How they must suffer! And how their leaves +would drop, black and shrivelled, a black harvest to strew the lawn. She +thought she heard the shouting of the Pinderwells, but she knew their +agony would be short, and already they were silent. The poplars were +still in pain, and she ran to the front of the house that she might not +see them.</p> + +<p>There was a figure coming up the track. It was John, with his trousers +pulled over his night things.</p> + +<p>"God! What's up?" he cried.</p> + +<p>"It's the house—only the house burning. There's no one there."</p> + +<p>He looked into the face that was all black and white, like cinders; then +at the flames, red and yellow, like live coals, and he held her by the +arm because he did not like the look of her.</p> + +<p>A man came running up. It was Halkett's William.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen the master? He went round by the back."</p> + +<p>"Go and look for him. Tell him his wife's here. I'll search the front."</p> + +<p>Both men ran, shouting, but it was Helen who saw George at the window of +Mildred Caniper's room.</p> + +<p>She rushed into the garden where the heat was scorching, she heard his +joyful "Helen!" as he saw her, and she held out her arms to him and +called his name.</p> + +<p>She saw him look back.</p> + +<p>"I'll have to jump!" he shouted.</p> + +<p>"Oh, George, come quickly!"</p> + +<p>There were flames all round him as he leapt, and there were small ones +licking his clothes when he fell at her feet.</p> + +<p>"His neck's broke," William said.</p> + +<p>They carried him on to the moor, and there he lay in the heather. She +would not have him touched. She crouched beside him, watching the flames +grow and lessen, and when only smoke rose from the blackened heap, she +still sat on.</p> + +<p>"I'm waiting for Zebedee," she said.</p> + +<p>John sent for him, and he came, flogging his horse as a merciful man +may, and when she saw him on the road, she went to meet him.</p> + +<p>She put both hands on the shaft. "I set the house on fire," she said, +looking up. "I didn't think of George. He was asleep. I had to burn it. +But I've killed him, too. First there was Notya, and now George. I've +killed them both. His neck is broken. William said, 'His neck's broke,' +that's all, but he cried. Come and see him. He hasn't moved, but he was +too big to die. I've killed him, but I held my arms out to him when he +jumped."</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOOR FIRES***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 23990-h.txt or 23990-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/9/9/23990">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/9/9/23990</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/23990-h/images/cover.jpg b/23990-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1eb24b5 --- /dev/null +++ b/23990-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/23990.txt b/23990.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a95b2cb --- /dev/null +++ b/23990.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14289 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Moor Fires, by E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young + + +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: Moor Fires + + +Author: E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young + + + +Release Date: December 24, 2007 [eBook #23990] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOOR FIRES*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +MOOR FIRES + +by + +E. H. YOUNG + +Author of "WILLIAM" and "THE MALLETTS" + + + + + + + +New York +Harcourt, Brace and Company + +Printed in the U. S. A. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +In the dusk of a spring evening, Helen Caniper walked on the long road +from the town. Making nothing of the laden basket she carried, she went +quickly until she drew level with the high fir-wood which stood like a +barrier against any encroachment on the moor, then she looked back and +saw lights darting out to mark the streets she had left behind, as +though a fairy hand illuminated a giant Christmas-tree. + +Among the other trees, black and mysterious on the hill, a cold wind was +moaning. "It's the night wind," Helen murmured. The moor was inhabited +by many winds, and she knew them all, and it was only the night wind +that cried among the trees, for, fearless though it seemed, it had a +dread of the hours that made it. The fir-trees, their bare trunks like a +palisade, swayed gently, and Helen's skirts flapped about her ankles. +More lights glimmered in the town, and she turned towards home. + +The moor stretched now on either hand until it touched a sky from which +all the colour had not departed, and the road shone whitely, pale but +courageous as it kept its lonely path. Helen's feet tapped clearly as +she hurried on, and when she approached the road to Halkett's Farm, the +sound of her going was mingled with that of hoofs, and an old horse, +drawing a dog-cart, laboured round the corner. It was the horse Dr. +Mackenzie had always driven up the long road; it was now driven by his +son, and when he saw that some one motioned him to stop, the young +doctor drew up. He bent forward to see her. + +"It's Helen," he said. "Oh, Helen, how are you?" + +She stood by the step and looked up at him. "I'm very well. I'm glad you +knew me. It's three years." + +"And your hair is up." + +"Miriam and I are twenty," she said gravely, and he laughed. + +The horse shook himself and set the dog-cart swaying; the jingle of his +bit went adventurously across the moor; heather-stalks scratched each +other in the wind. + +"You haven't lighted your lamps," Helen said. "Somebody might run into +you." + +"They might." He jumped down and fumbled for his matches. "The comfort +is that we're not likely to do it to any one, at our pace. When I've +made my fortune I shall buy a horse from George Halkett, one that will +go fast and far." + +"But I like this one," said Helen. "We used to watch for him when we had +measles. He's mixed up with everything. Don't have another one." + +"The fortune's still to make," he said. He had lighted the nearer lamp +and Helen's slim figure had become a thing of shadows. He took the +basket from her and put it under the seat. She was staring over the +horse's back. + +"There was a thing we used to do. We had bets about Dr. Mackenzie's +ties, what colour they were; but we never won or lost, because we never +saw them. His beard was so big. And once Miriam pretended there was a +huge spider on the ceiling, but he wouldn't look up, though she +screamed. He told her not to be a silly little girl. So we never saw +them." + +"I'm not surprised," the young doctor said. "He didn't wear them. What +was the use? He was a practical man." + +"Oh," Helen cried, "isn't that just like life! You bother and bother +about something that doesn't exist and make yourself miserable for +nothing. No, I won't do it." + +"Do you?" + +"It's a great fault of mine," she said. + +He went round the back of the cart and lighted the other lamp. "Now I'm +going to drive you home. That basket's heavy." + +"I have been shopping," she explained. "Tomorrow a visitor is coming." + +"Your father?" he asked quickly. + +"No; he hasn't been again. He's ill, Notya says, and it's too cold for +him here. Dr. Zebedee, aren't you glad to be back on the moor?" + +"Well, I don't see much of it, you know. My work is chiefly in the +streets--but, yes, I think I'm glad." + +"We've been watching for you, Miriam and I. She'll be angry that I've +seen you first. No; she's thinking too much about tomorrow. It's an +uncle who's coming, a kind of uncle--Notya's brother. We haven't seen +him before and Miriam's excited." + +"And you're not." + +"I don't like new things. They feel dangerous. You don't know what +they'll bring." + +"I thought you weren't going to make yourself miserable," he said. "Jump +up, and we'll take home the fatted calf." + +She hesitated. "I'm not going straight home." + +"Let me deliver the calf, then." + +"No, please; it isn't heavy." She went to the horse's head and stroked +his nose. "I've never known his name. What is it?" + +"Upon my word, I don't believe he has one. He's just the horse. That's +what we always called him." + +"'The horse'! How dreary! It makes him not a person." + +"But the one and only horse!" + +"I don't suppose he minds very much," she murmured. "Good-night, horse. +Good-night, Zebedee. My basket, please. I'm very late." + +"I wish you'd let me take you home. You oughtn't to go wandering over +the moor by night." + +She laughed. "I've done it all my life. Do you remember," she went on +slowly, "what I once told you about the fires? Oh, years ago, when I +first saw you." + +"The fires?" he said. + +"Never mind if you've forgotten." + +"I don't forget things," he said; "I'm remembering." His mind was urged +by his sense of her disappointment and by the sight of her face, which +the shadows saddened. The basket hung on her arm and her hands were +clasped together: she looked like a child and he could not believe in +her twenty years. + +"It doesn't matter," she said softly. + +"But I do remember. It's the spring fires." + +"The Easter fires." + +"Of course, of course, you told me--" + +"I think they must be burning now. That's where I'm going--to look for +them." + +"I wish I could come too." + +"Do you? Do you? Oh!" She made a step towards him. "The others never +come. They laugh but I still go on. It's safer, isn't it? It can't do +any harm to pray. And now that Uncle Alfred's coming--" + +"Is he a desperate character?" + +She made a gesture with her clasped hands. "It's like opening a door." + +"You mustn't be afraid of open doors," he said--"you, who live on the +moor." He grasped her shoulder in a friendly fashion. "You mustn't be +afraid of anything. Go and find your fires, and don't forget to pray for +me." + +"Of course not. Good-night. Will you be coming again soon?" + +"Old Halkett's pretty ill," was his reply and, climbing to his seat, he +waved his hat and bade the old horse move on. + +The moor lay dark as a lake at Helen's feet and the rustling of the +heather might have been the sound of water fretted by the wind--deep, +black water whose depths no wind could stir. At Helen's right hand a +different darkness was made by the larch-trees clothing Halkett's +hollow, and on her left a yellow gleam, like the light at the masthead +of a ship at sea, betrayed her home. Behind her, and on the other side +of the road, the Brent Farm dogs began to bark, and in the next instant +they were answered from many points of the moor, so that houses and +farmsteads became materialized in the night which had hidden them and +Helen stood in a circle of echoing sound. Often, as a child, she had +waked at such a clamour, and pictured homeless people walking on the +road, and now, though she heard no footsteps, she seemed to feel the +approach of noiseless feet, bringing the unknown. For her, youth's +delights of strength and fleetness were paid for by the thought of the +many years in which her happiness could be assailed. Age might be +feeble, but it had, she considered, the consolation of knowing something +of the limitations of its pain. She wished she could put an unscalable +wall about the moor, so that the soundless feet should stay outside, for +she did not know that already she had heard the footsteps of those whose +actions were weaving her destiny. Helen Caniper might safely throw open +all her doors. + +The barking of the dogs lessened and then ceased; once more only the +whistling of the wind broke the silence, until Helen's skirts rubbed the +heather as she ran and something jingled in her basket. She went fast +to find her fires and, while her mind was fixed on them, she was still +aware of the vast moor she loved, its darkness, its silence, the smells +it gave out, the promise of warmth and fertility in its bosom. She could +not clearly see the ground, but her feet knew it: heather, grass, +stones, and young bracken were to be overcome; here and there a rock or +thorn-bush loomed out blacker than the rest in warning; sometimes a dip +in the earth must be avoided; once or twice dim grey objects rose up and +became sheep that bleated out of her way, and always, as she ran, she +mounted. For a time she was level with the walled garden of her home, +but, passing its limit, she topped a sudden steepness, descended it with +a rush, and lost all glimmerings from road or dwelling-place. + +A greenish sky, threatening to turn black, delicately roofed the world; +no stars had yet come through, and, far away, as though in search of +them, the moor rose to a line of hills. Their rounded tops had no +defiance, their curve was that of a wave without the desire to break, +held in its perfect contour by its own content. The moor itself had the +patience of the wisdom which is faith, and Helen might have heard it +laughing tenderly if she had been less concerned with the discovery of +her fires. She stood still, and her eyes found only the moor, the rocks +and hills. + +"I must go on," she said in a whisper. And now, for pleasure in her +strength, she went in running bounds over a stretch of close-cropped +turf, and space became so changed for her that she hardly knew whether +she leapt a league or foot; and it was all one, for she had a feeling of +great power and happiness in a world which was empty without loneliness. +And then a creeping line of fire arrested her. Not far off, it went +snake-like over the ground, disappeared, and again burned out more +brightly: it edged the pale smoke like embroidery on a veil, and behind +that veil there lived and moved the smoke-god she had created for +herself when she was ten years old. She could not hear the crackling of +the twigs nor smell their burning, and she had no wish to draw nearer. +She stretched out her arms and dropped to her knees and prayed. + +"Oh, Thou, behind the smoke," she said aloud, "guard the moor and us. We +will not harm your moor. Amen." + +This was the eleventh time she had prayed to the God behind the smoke, +and he had guarded both the Canipers and the moor, but now she felt the +need to add more words to the childish ones she had never changed. + +"And let me be afraid of nothing," she said firmly, and hesitated for a +second. "For beauty's sake. Amen." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +After her return over the moor, through the silent garden and the dim +house, Helen was dazzled by the schoolroom lights and she stood blinking +in the doorway. + +"We're all here and all hungry," Rupert said. "You're late." + +"I know." She shut the door and took off her hat. "Miriam, I met +Zebedee." + +"Oh," Miriam said on a disapproving note. She lay on the sofa as though +a wind had flung her there, and her eyes were closed. In her composure +she looked tired, older than Helen and more experienced, but her next +words came youthfully enough. "Just like you. You get everything." + +"I couldn't help it," Helen said mildly. "He came round the corner from +Halkett's Farm. Ought I to have run away?" + +Miriam sat up and laughed, showing dark eyes and shining little teeth +which transformed her face into a childish one. + +"Is he different?" + +"I couldn't see very well." + +"He is different," Rupert said; and John, on the window-seat, put down +his book to listen. + +"Tell us," Miriam said. + +"Nothing much, but he is older." + +"So are we." + +"Not in his way." + +"We haven't had the chance," Miriam complained. "I suppose you mean he +has been doing things he ought not to do in London." + +"Not necessarily," Rupert answered lightly and John picked up his book +again. He generally found that his excursions into the affairs of men +and women were dull and fruitless, while his book, on the subject of +manures, satisfied his intellect and was useful in its results. + +There was a silence in which both girls, though differently, were +conscious of a dislike for Zebedee's unknown adventures. + +Miriam laid her head on the red cushion. "I wish tomorrow would come." + +"I bought turbot," Helen said. "I should think he's the kind of man who +likes it." + +"I suggest delicate sauces," Rupert said. + +"You needn't be at all anxious about his food," Miriam assured them. +"I'm going to be the attraction of this visit." + +"How d'you know?" + +Her teeth caught her under-lip. "Because I mean to be." + +"Well, don't make a fool of yourself, my dear." + +"She will," John growled. + +Helen spoke quickly. "Oh, Miriam, I told Zebedee about Dr. Mackenzie's +ties, and, do you know, he never wore any at all!" + +"Old pig! He wouldn't. Mean. Scotch. We might have thought of that. If +Daniel had a beard he would be just the same." + +"It may surprise you to learn," Rupert remarked, "that Daniel takes a +great interest in his appearance lately." + +"That's me again," Miriam said complacently. + +"Ugly people are rather like that," Helen said. "But he wears terrible +boots." + +"He's still at the collar-and-tie stage," Rupert said. "We'll get to +boots later. He needs encouragement--and control. A great deal of +control. He had a bright blue tie on yesterday." + +"Ha!" Miriam shouted in a strangled laugh, and thrust her face into the +cushion. "That's me, too!" she cried. "I told him blue would suit him." + +Rupert wagged his head. "I can't see the fun in that kind of thing, +making a fool of the poor beggar." + +"Well," she flashed, "he shouldn't ask me to marry him!" + +"You'd complain if he didn't." + +"Of course I should--of course! I'm so dull that I'm really grateful to +him, but I'm so dull that I have to tease him, too. It's only clutching +at straws, and Daniel likes it." + +"He's wasted half a crown on his tie, though. I'm going to tell him that +you're not to be trusted." + +"Then I shall devote myself to Zebedee." + +"You won't influence Zebedee's ties," Helen said, "or his collars--the +shiniest ones I have ever seen." + +"She won't influence him at all, my good Helen. What's she got to do it +with?" + +"This!" Miriam said, rising superbly and displaying herself. + +"Shut her up, somebody!" John begged. "This is beastly. Has she nothing +better to do with herself than attracting men? If you met a woman who +made that her profession instead of her play, you'd pass by on the other +side." + +Miriam flushed, frowned, and recovered herself. "I might. I don't think +so. I can't see any harm in pleasing people. If I were clever and +frightened them, or witty and made them laugh, it would be just the +same. I happen to be beautiful." She spread her hands and waved them. +"Tell birds not to fly, tell lambs not to skip, tell me to sit and darn +the socks!" She stood on the fender and looked at herself in the glass. +"Besides," she said, "I don't care. I'm not responsible. If Notya hadn't +buried us all here, I might have been living a useful life!" She cast a +sly glance at John. "I might be making butter like Lily Brent." + +"Not half so good!" + +She ignored that, and went on with her thoughts. "I shall ask Uncle +Alfred what made Notya bring us here." + +She turned and stood, very slim in her dark dress, her eyelids lowered, +her lips parted, expectant of reproof and ready with defiance, but no +one spoke. She constantly forgot that her family knew her, but, +remembering that fact, her tilted eyebrows twitched a little. Her face +broke into mischievous curves and dimples. + +"What d'you bet?" + +"No," Helen said, thinking of her stepmother. "Notya wouldn't like it." + +"Bah! Pish! Faugh! Pshaw--and ugh! What do I care? I shall!" + +"Oh, a rotten thing to do," said John. + +"And, anyhow, it doesn't matter," Helen said. "We're here." + +"Rupert?" Miriam begged. + +"Better not," he answered kindly. "Not worth while." He lay back in a +big chair and watched the world through his tobacco smoke. He had all +Miriam's darkness and much of her beauty, but he had already acquired a +tolerant view of things which made him the best of companions, the least +ambitious of young men. "Live and let live, my dear." + +"I shan't promise. I suppose I'm not up to your standards of honour, but +if a person makes a mystery, why shouldn't the others try to find it +out? That's what it's for! And there's nothing else to do." + +"You're inventing the mystery," Rupert said. "If Notya and our absent +parent didn't get on together--and who could get on with a man who's +always ill?--they were wise in parting, weren't they?" + +"But why the moor?" + +"Ah, I think that was a sudden impulse, and she has always been too +proud to own that it was a mistake." + +"That's the first sensible thing any one has said yet," John remarked. +"I quite agree with you. It's my own idea." + +"I'm a young man of penetration, as I've told you all before." + +"And shoved into a bank!" John grumbled. + +"I like the bank. It's a cheerful place. There's lots of gold about, and +people come and talk to me through the bars." + +"But," Helen began, on the deep notes of her voice, "what should we have +done if she had repented and taken us away? What should we have done?" + +"We might have been happy," Miriam said. + +"John, what would you have done?" Helen persisted. + +"Said nothing, grown up as fast as I could, and come back." + +"So should I." + +Rupert chuckled. "You wouldn't, Helen. You'd have stayed with Notya and +Miriam and me and looked after us all, and longed for this place and +denied yourself." + +"And made us all uncomfortable." Miriam pointed at Helen's grey dress. +"What have you been doing?" + +Helen looked down at the dark marks where her knees had pressed the +ground. + +"It will dry," she said, and went nearer the fire. "Zebedee says old +Halkett's ill." + +"Drink and the devil," Rupert hummed. "He'll die soon." + +"Hope so," John said fervently. "I don't like to think of the bloated +old beast alive." + +"He'll be horrider dead, I think," said Helen. "Dead things should be +beautiful." + +"Well, he won't be. Moreover, nothing is, for long. You've seen sheep's +carcasses after the snows. Don't be romantic." + +"I said they should be." + +"It's a good thing they're not. They wouldn't fertilize the ground. +Can't we have supper?" + +"Here's Notya!" Miriam uttered the warning, and began to poke the fire. + +The room was entered by a small lady who carried her head well. She had +fair, curling hair, serious blue eyes and a mouth which had been +puckered into a kind of sternness. + +"So you have come back, Helen," she said. "You should have told me. I +have been to the road to look for you. You are very late." + +"Yes. I'm sorry. I met Dr. Mackenzie." + +"He ought to have brought you home." + +"He wanted to. I got turbot for Uncle Alfred. It's on the kitchen +table." + +"Then I expect the cat has eaten it," said Mrs. Caniper with +resignation, but her mouth widened delightfully into what might have +been its natural shape. "Miriam, go and put it in the larder." + +Surreptitiously and in farewell, Miriam dropped the poker on Helen's +toes. "Why can't she send you?" she muttered. "It's your turbot." + +"But it's your cat." + +Wearing what the Canipers called her deaf expression, their stepmother +looked at the closing door. "I did not hear what Miriam said," she +remarked blandly. + +"She was talking to me." + +"Oh!" Mrs. Caniper flushed slowly. "It is discourteous to have private +conversations in public, Helen. I have tried to impress that on +you--unsuccessfully, it seems; but remember that I have tried." + +"Yes, thank you," Helen said, with serious politeness. She made a +movement unnatural to her in its violence, because she was forcing +herself to speak. "But you don't mind if the boys do things like that." +She hesitated and plunged again. "It's Miriam. You're not fair to her. +You never have been." + +Over Mrs. Caniper's small face there swept changes of expression which +Helen was not to forget. Anger and surprise contended together, widening +her eyes and lips, and these were both overcome, after a struggle, by a +revelation of self-pity not less amazing to the woman than to the girl. + +"Has she ever been fair to me?" Mildred Caniper asked stumblingly, +before she went in haste, and Helen knew well why she fumbled for the +door-handle. + +The acute silence of the unhappy filled the room: John rose, collided +clumsily with the table and approached the hearth. + +"Now, what did you do that for?" he said. "I can't stomach these family +affairs." + +Helen smoothed her forehead and subdued the tragedy in her eyes. "I had +to do it," she breathed. "It was true, wasn't it?" She looked at Rupert, +but he was looking at the fire. + +"True, yes," said John, "but it does Miriam no harm. A little +opposition--" + +"No," said Helen, "no. We don't want to drive her to--to being silly." + +"She is silly," John said. + +"No," Helen said again. "She ought not to live here, that's all." + +"She'll have to learn to. Anyhow"--he put his hands into his +pockets--"we can't have Notya looking like that. It's--it won't do." + +"It's quite easy not to hurt people," Helen murmured; "but you had to +hurt her yourself, John, about your gardening." + +"That was different," he said. He was a masculine creature. "I was +fighting for existence." + +"Miriam has an existence, too, you know," Rupert said. + +From the other side of the hall there came a faint chink of plates and +Miriam's low voice singing. + +"She's all right," John assured himself. + +Helen was smiling tenderly at the sound. "But I wonder why Notya is so +hard on her," she sighed. + +Rupert knocked his pipe against the fender. "I should be very glad to +know what our mother was like," he said. + +Long ago, out of excess of loyalty, the Canipers had tacitly agreed not +to discuss those matters on which their stepmother was determinedly +reserved, and now a certain tightening of the atmosphere revealed the +fact that John and Helen were controlling their desires to ask Rupert +what he meant. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The Canipers had lived on the moor for sixteen years, and Rupert was the +only one of the children who had more distant memories. These were like +flashes of white light on general darkness, for the low house of his +memory was white and the broad-leaved trees of the garden cast their +shadows on a pale wall: there was a white nursery of unlimited +dimensions and a white bath-room with a fluffy mat which comforted the +soles of his feet and tickled his toes. Another recollection was of the +day when a lady already faintly familiar to him was introduced by an +officious nurse as his new mother, and when he looked up at her, with +interest in her relationship and admiration for her prettiness, he saw +her making herself look very tall and stern as she said clearly, "I am +not your mother, Rupert." + +"Notya mother," he echoed amiably, and so Mildred Caniper received her +name. + +As he grew older, he wondered if he really remembered this occasion or +whether Notya herself had told him of it, but he knew that the house and +the garden wall and the nursery were true. True, too, was a dark man +with a pointed beard whom he called his father, who came and went and at +last disappeared; and his next remembrance was of the moor, the biggest +thing he had ever seen, getting blacker and blacker as the carriage-load +of Canipers jogged up the road. The faces of his stepmother, the +nursemaid, John and the twins, were like paper lanterns on the +background of night, things pale and impermanent, swaying to the +movements of the carriage while this black, outspread earth threatened +them, and, with the quick sympathy natural to him even then, he knew +that Notya was afraid of something too. Then the horse stopped and +Rupert climbed stiffly to the ground and heard the welcome of the +friend whom he was to know thereafter as Mrs. Brent. Her voice and +presence were rich with reassurance: she was fat and hearty, and the +threatening earth had spared her, so he took comfort. The laurels by the +small iron gate rattled at him as he passed, but Mrs. Brent had each boy +by a hand, and no one could be afraid. It was, he remembered, impossible +for the three to go through the gate abreast. + +"Run in now," said Mrs. Brent, and when he had obeyed he heard a tall +grandfather clock ticking in the hall. He could see a staircase running +upwards into shadows, and the half-opened doors made him think of the +mouths of monsters. It seemed a long time before Mrs. Brent followed him +and made a cheerful noise. + +With these memories he could always keep the little girls entranced, +even when great adventures of their own came to them on the moor, for +Notya was a stepmother by her own avowal, and in fairy tales a +stepmother was always cruel. They pretended to believe that she had +carried them away by force, that some day they would be rescued and +taken back to the big white nursery and the fluffy white mat; but Helen +at last spoilt the game by asserting that she did not want to be rescued +and by refusing to allow Notya to be the villain of the piece. + +"She isn't cruel. She's sad," Helen explained. + +"Yes, really; but this is pretending," Rupert said. + +"It's not pretending. It's true," Miriam said, and she went on with the +game though she had to play alone. At the age of twenty she still played +it: Notya was still the cruel stepmother and Miriam's eyes were eager on +a horizon against which the rescuer should stand. At one time he had +been splendid and invincible, a knight to save her, and if his place had +now been taken by the unknown Uncle Alfred, it was only that realism +had influenced her fiction, and with a due sense of economy she used the +materials within her reach. + +Domestic being though Helen was, the white nursery had no attraction for +her: she was more than satisfied with her many-coloured one; its floor +had hills and tiny dales, pools and streams, and it was walled by +greater hills and roofed by sky. On it there grew thorn-bushes which +thrust out thin hands, begging for food, in winter, and which wore a +lady's lovely dress in summertime and a warm red coat for autumn nights. +There was bracken, like little walking-sticks in spring, and when the +leaves uncurled themselves and spread, they made splendid feathers with +which to trim a hat or play at ostrich farms; but, best of all and most +fearsome, as the stems shot upwards and overtopped a child, the bracken +became a forest through which she hardly dared to walk, so dense and +interminable it was. To crawl up and down a fern-covered hillock needed +all Helen's resolution and she would emerge panting and wild-eyed, +blessing the open country and still watchful for what might follow her. +After that experience a mere game of hunters, with John and Rupert +roaring like lions and trumpeting like elephants, was a smaller though +glorious thing, and for hot and less heroic days there was the game of +dairymen, played in the reedy pool or in Halkett's stream with the aid +of old milk-cans of many sizes, lent to the Canipers by the lovable Mrs. +Brent. + +In those days Mrs. Brent furnished them with their ideas of motherhood. +She seemed old to them because her husband was long dead and she was +stout, but she had a dark-eyed girl no older than John, and her she +kissed and nursed, scolded, teased and loved with a joyous confidence +which impressed the Canipers. Their stepmother rarely kissed, her +reprimands had not the familiarity of scoldings, and though she had a +sense of fun which could be reached and used with discretion, there was +no feeling of safety in her company. They were too young to realize that +this was because she was uncertain of herself, as that puckered mouth +revealed. That she loved them they believed; with all the aloofness of +their young souls they were thankful that she did not caress them; but +they liked to see Lily Brent fondled by her mother, and they themselves +suffered Mrs. Brent's endearments with a happy sense of +irresponsibility. It was Mrs. Brent who gave them hot cakes when they +went to the dairy to fetch butter or eggs, and who sometimes let them +skim the milk and eventually lick the ladle, but she was chiefly +wonderful because she could tell them about Mr. Pinderwell. Poor Mr. +Pinderwell was the late owner of the Canipers' home. He had lived for +more than fifty years in the house chosen and furnished for a bride who +had softly fallen ill on the eve of her wedding-day and softly died, and +Mr. Pinderwell, distracted by his loss, had come to live in the big, +lonely house and had grown old and at last died there, in the hall, with +no voice to bewail him but the ticking of the grandfather clock. Going +on her daily visit, for she alone was permitted to approach him, Mrs. +Brent had found him lying with his face on his outflung arm, "just like +a little boy in his bed." + +"And were you frightened?" Miriam asked. + +"There was nothing to be afraid of, my dear," Mrs. Brent replied. "Death +comes to all of us. It's a good thing to get used to the look of him." + +Mrs. Brent had been fond of Mr. Pinderwell. He was a gentleman, she +said, and though his mind had become more and more bewildered towards +the end, he had been unfailingly courteous to her. She would find him +wandering up and down the stairs, carrying a small basket of tools in +his hand, for he took to wood-carving at the last, as the panels of the +bedroom doors were witness, and he would stop to speak about the weather +and beg her to allow him to make her some return for all her kindness. + +"I used to clean up the place for him," Mrs. Brent would always +continue, "and do a little cooking for him, poor old chap! I missed him +when he'd gone, and I was glad when your mother came and took the house, +just as it stood, with his lady's picture and all, and made the place +comfortable again." + +Miriam would press against Mrs. Brent's wide knees. "Will you tell us +the story again, please, Mrs. Brent?" + +"If you're good children, but not today. Run along home." + +At that stage of their development they were hardly interested in the +portrait of Mr. Pinderwell's bride, hanging above the sofa in the +drawing-room. It was the only picture in the house, and from an oval +frame of gilt a pretty lady, crowned with a plait of hair, looked mildly +on these usurpers of her home. She was not real to them, though for +Helen she was to become so, but Mr. Pinderwell, pacing up and down the +stairs, carrying a little chisel, was a living friend. On the wide, +wind-swept landing, they studied his handiwork on the doors, and they +made a discovery which Mrs. Brent had missed. These roughnesses, known +to their fingers from their first day in the house, were letters, and +made names. Laboriously they spelt them out. Jane, on the door of +Helen's room, was easy; Phoebe, on Miriam's, was for a long time +called Pehebe; and Christopher, on another, had a familiar and +adventurous sound. + +"Funny," Rupert said. "What are they?" + +Helen spoke with that decision which often annoyed her relatives. "I +know. It's the names of the children he was going to have. Jane and +Pehebe and Christopher. That's what it is. And these were the rooms he'd +settled for them. Jane is a quiet little girl with a fringe and a white +pinafore, and Pehebe has a sash and cries about things, and Christopher +is a strong boy in socks." + +"Stockings," Rupert said. "He's the oldest." + +"He isn't. He's the baby. He wears socks. He's not so smooth as the +others, and look, poor Mr. Pinderwell hadn't time to put a full stop. +I'm glad I sleep in Jane." + +"And of course you give me a girl who cries!" Miriam said. But the +characters of Mr. Pinderwell's children had been settled, and they were +never altered. Jane and Christopher and Phoebe were added to the +inhabitants whom Mildred Caniper did not see, but these three did not +leave the landing. They lived there quietly in the shadows, speaking +only in whispers, while Mr. Pinderwell continued his restless tramping +and his lady smiled, unwearied, in the drawing-room. + +"He's the only one who can get at her and them," Helen said in pain. "I +don't know how their mother can bear it. I wonder if she'd mind if we +hung her on the landing, but then Mr. Pinderwell might miss her. He's so +used to her in the drawing-room, and perhaps she doesn't mind about the +children." + +"I'm sure she doesn't," said John, for he thought she had a silly face. + +This was when John and Rupert went to the Grammar School in the town, +while the girls did their lessons with Mildred Caniper in the schoolroom +of Pinderwell House. Enviously, they watched the boys step across the +moor each morning, but their stepmother could not be persuaded to allow +them to go too. The distance was so great, she said, and there was no +school for girls to which she would entrust them. + +"The boys get all the fun," Miriam said. "They see the people in the +streets, and get a ride in Mrs. Brent's milk-cart nearly every day, and +we sit in the stuffy schoolroom, and Notya's cross." + +"You make her cross on purpose," Helen said. + +"She shouldn't let me," Miriam answered with perspicuity. + +"But it's so silly to make ugliness. It's wicked. Do be good, and let's +try to enjoy the lessons and get them over." + +But Miriam was not to be influenced by these wise counsels. During +lesson hours the strange antipathy between herself and Mildred Caniper +often blazed into a storm, and Helen, who loved to keep life smooth and +gracious, had the double mortification of seeing Miriam, whom she loved, +made naughtier, and Notya, whom she pitied, made more miserable. + +"Oh, that we'd had an ignorant stepmother!" Miriam cried. "If +stepmothers are not witches they ought to be dunces. Everybody knows +that. I'll worry her till she sends us both to boarding-school." + +Mildred Caniper was not to be coerced. Her mouth grew more puckered, her +eyes more serious, and her tongue sharper; for though anger, as she +found, was useless, sarcasm was potent, and in time Miriam gave up the +battle. But she did not intend to forgive Mildred Caniper for a single +injury, and even now that she was almost woman she refused her own +responsibility. Notya had arranged her life, and the evil of it, at +least, should be laid at Notya's door. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +For Helen, the moor was a personality with moods flecking the solid +substance of its character, and even Miriam, who avowed her hatred of +its monotony, had to admit an occasional difference. There were days +when she thought it was full of secrets and capable of harbouring her +own, and there were other days when she forgot its little hills and +dales and hiding-places and saw it as a large plain, spread under the +glaring eye of the sun, and shelterless, so that when she walked there +she believed that her body and, in some mysterious way, her soul, were +visible to all men. + +Such a day was that on which Uncle Alfred was expected. Miriam went out +with a basket on her arm to find flowers for the decoration of his room, +and she had no sooner banged the garden door behind her and mounted the +first rise than she suffered from this sensation of walking under a +spyglass of great size. There was a wonderful clearness everywhere. The +grass and young heather were a vivid green, the blue of the sky had a +certain harshness and heavily piled clouds rolled across it. Miriam +stood on a hillock and gazed at the scene which looked as though +something must happen to it under the concentration of the eye behind +the glass, but she saw nothing more than the familiar things: the white +road cutting the moor, Brent Farm lying placidly against the gentle +hillside, the chimneys of Halkett's Farm rising amid trees, and her own +home in its walled garden, and, as she looked, a new thought came to +her. Perhaps her expectation was born of a familiarity so intense as to +be unreal and rarely recognized, and with the thought she shut her eyes +tightly and in despair. Nothing would happen. She did not live in a +country subject to convulsions, and when she opened her eyes the same +things would still be there; yet, to give Providence an opportunity of +proving its strength and her folly, she kept her eyelids lowered for a +while. This was another pastime of her childhood: she tried to tempt +God, failed, and laughed at Him instead of at herself. + +She stood there, clad in a colour of rich earth, her head bare and +gilded by the sunlight, both hands on the frail basket, and the white +eyelids giving the strange air of experience to her face. + +"I'm going to look in a minute," she said, and kept her word. Her dark +eyes illumined her face, searched the world and found nothing new. There +was, indeed, the smallest possible change, but surely it was not one in +which God would trouble to take a hand. She could see John's figure +moving slowly on the Brent Farm road. A woman's form appeared in the +porch and went to meet his: the two stood together in the road. + +Miriam made an impatient noise and turned her back on them. She was +irritated by the sight of another woman's power, even though John were +its sole victim, for she knew that the world of men had only to become +aware of her existence and the track to Pinderwell House would be +impassable. + +"There's no false modesty about me!" she cried to an astonished sheep, +and threw a tuft of heather at it. + +Suddenly she lifted her chin and began to sing on notes too high for +her, and tunelessly, as sign of her defiance, and the words of her song +dealt with the dreariness of the moor and her determination to escape +from it; but in the midst of them she laughed delightedly. + +"I'm an idiot! Uncle Alfred's coming. But if he fails me"--she kicked +the basket and ran after it--"I'll do that to him!" + +She sang naturally now, in her low, husky voice, as she searched the +banks for violets, but once she broke off to murmur, without humour, +with serious belief, "He can't fail me. Who could? No one but Notya." +Such was her faith in the word's acknowledgement of charm. + +She found the violets, but she would not pick them because they stared +at her with a confidence like her own, and with an appealing innocence, +and thinking she might get primroses under Halkett's larches she went on +swiftly, waving the basket as though it were an Indian club. + +She stopped when she met the stream which foamed into the stealthy quiet +of the wood, and on a large flat stone she sat and was splashed by the +noisy water. The larch-trees were alive with feathery green, and their +arms waved with the wind, but when Miriam peered through their trunks, +all was grave and secret except the stream which shouted louder than +before in proof of courage. She did not like the trees, but the +neighbourhood of Halkett's Farm had an attraction for her. Down there, +in the hollow, old Halkett was drinking himself to death, after a life +which had been sober in no respect. Mrs. Samson, the charwoman, now +exerting herself at Pinderwell House, and the wife of one of Halkett's +hands, had many tales of the old man's wickedness and many nodded hints +that the son was taking after him. The Halketts were all alike, she +said. They married young and their wives died early, leaving their men +to take comfort, or celebrate relief, in their own way. + +"Ah, yes! They're a hearty, jolly lot," she often said, and smacked her +lips. She was proud and almost envious of the Halketts' exploits, for +her own husband was a meek man who never misused her and seldom drank. + +Widely different as Mrs. Samson and Miriam believed themselves to be, +they had a common elementary pleasure in things of ill report, a savage +excitement in the presence of certain kinds of danger, and Miriam sat +half fearfully by the larch-wood and hoped something terrible would +happen. If there was a bad old man on the moor it was a pity that she +should not benefit by him, yet she dreaded his approach and would have +run from him, for he was ugly, with a pendulous nose and a small leering +eye. She decided to stay at a safe distance from the house and not to +venture among the larches: any primroses growing there should live +undisturbed, timid and pale, within earshot of old Halkett's ragings, +and Uncle Alfred must go without his flowers. Helen had said he would +not like them, but that was only because Helen did not like the thought +of Uncle Alfred. Helen did not want new things: she was content: she was +not wearied by the slow hours, the routine of the quiet house with its +stately, polished furniture, chosen long ago by Mr. Pinderwell, the +rumbling of cart-wheels on the road, and the homely sounds of John +working in the garden. She belonged, as she herself averred, to people +and to places. + +"And I," Miriam called aloud, touching her breast--"I belong to nobody, +though everything belongs to me." + +In that announcement she outcried the stream, and through the +comparative quietness that followed a hideous noise rumbled and shrieked +upwards from the hollow. Bestial, but humanly inarticulate, it filled +the air and ceased: there was the loud thud of furniture overthrown, a +woman's voice, and silence. Then, while Miriam's legs shook and her back +was chilled, she heard a sweet, clear whistling and the sound of feet. A +minute later George Halkett issued from the trees. + +"George!" she said, and half put out her hand. + +He stood before her, his mouth still pursed for whistling, and jerked +his head over his shoulder. + +"You heard that?" + +"Yes. Oh, yes!" + +"I'm sorry." + +"It's my fault for being here. Was it--what was it?" + +His eyes narrowed and she could see a blue slit between lashes so thick +that they seemed furred. + +"My father. He's ill. I'm sorry you heard." + +"Will he--do it again?" + +"He's quiet now and Mrs. Biggs can manage him." + +"Isn't she afraid?" + +"Not she." His thoughts plainly left old Halkett and settled themselves +on her. "Are you?" + +"Yes." She shuddered. "But then, I'm not used to it." + +He was beating his leggings with his cane. "There's a lot in use," he +said vaguely. He was a tall man, and on his tanned face were no signs of +the excesses imputed to him, perhaps out of vainglory, by Mrs. Samson. A +brown moustache followed the line of a lip which was sometimes pouted +sullenly, yet with a simplicity which could be lovable. The hair was +short and crisp on his round head. + +Miriam watched his shapely hands playing with the cane, and she looked +up to find his eyes attentively on her. She smiled without haste. She +had a gift for smiling. Her mouth stretched delicately, her lips parted +to show a gleam of teeth, opened widely for a flash, and closed again. + +"What are you laughing at?" he asked her, and there was a faint glow in +his cheeks. + +"That wasn't laughing. That was smiling. When I laugh I say ha, ha!" + +"Well, you looked pleased about something," he mumbled. + +"No, I was just being friendly to you." + +He took a step nearer. "That's all very well. Last time I met you you +hadn't a look for me, and you saw me right enough." + +"Yes, George, I saw you, but I wasn't in the mood for you." + +"And now you are?" + +She looked down. "Do you like people always to be the same? I don't." +Laughter bubbled in her voice. "I get moments, George, when my thoughts +are so--so celestial that though I see earthly things like you, I don't +understand them. They're like shadows, like trees walking." She pointed +a finger. "Tell me where that comes from!" + +He looked about him. "What?" + +She addressed the stream. "He doesn't know the foundation of the English +language, English morals--I said morals, George--the spiritual food of +his fathers. Do you ever go to church?" + +He did not answer: he was frowning at his boots. + +"Neither do I," she said. "Help me up." + +His hand shot out, but she did not take it. She leapt to her feet and +jumped the stream, and when he said something in a low voice she put her +fingers to her ears and shook her head, pretending that she could not +hear and smiling pleasantly. Then she beckoned to him, but it was his +turn to shake his head. + +"Puss, puss, puss!" she called, twitching her finger at him. "Don't +laugh! Well, I'll come to you." At his side, she looked up solemnly. +"Let us be sensible and go where we needn't shout at each other. Beside +that rock. I want to tell you something." + +When they had settled themselves on a cushion of turf, she drew her +knees to her chin and clasped her hands round them, and in that position +she swayed lightly to and fro. + +"I think I am going away," she said, and stared at the horizon. For a +space she listened to the chirping of a cheerful insect and the small, +regular noise of Halkett's breathing, but as he made no other sound she +turned sharply and looked at him. + +"All right," he said. + +She moved impatiently, for that was not what she wished to hear, and, +even if it expressed his feeling, it was the wrong word. He had +roughnesses which almost persuaded her to neglect him. + +"Aren't you sorry?" + +There was courage in his decision to be truthful. He showed her the full +blue of his eyes, and said "Yes" so simply that she felt compassionate. +"Where?" he added. + +"I'm going to be adopted by an uncle," she said boldly. + +"You'll like that?" + +"I'm tired of the moor." + +"You don't fit it. I couldn't tire of it, but it'll be--different when +you've gone." + +She consoled him. "I may not go at once." + +"How soon?" + +"I don't know." + +"Are you really going?" he asked and his look pleaded with her for +honesty. + +"I shall have to arrange it all with Uncle Alfred." + +He straightened himself against the rock, but he said nothing. + +"And we're just beginning to be friends," she added sensibly, with the +faintest accent of regret. + +At that he stirred again, and "No," he said steadily, "that's not true. +We're not friends--couldn't be. You think I'm a fool, but I can see +you're despising me all the time. I can see that, and I wonder why." + +She caught her lip. "Well, George," she began, and thought quickly. "I +have heard dreadful stories about you. You can't expect me to be--not to +be careful with you." + +"What stories?" he demanded. + +"Oh! I couldn't tell you." + +"H'm. There never was a Halkett but was painted so black that he got to +think it was his natural colour. That doesn't matter. And you don't care +about the stories. You've some notion--D'you know that I went to the +same school as your brothers?" + +"Yes, I know." She swung herself to her knees. "But you're not like +them. But that isn't it either. It's because you're a man." She laughed +a little as she knelt before him. "I can't help feeling that I can--that +men are mine--to play with. There! I've told you a secret." + +"I'd guessed it long ago," he muttered. He stood up and turned aside. +"You're not going to play with me." + +"Just a little bit, George!" + +"Not a little bit." + +"Very well," she said humbly, and rose too. "I may never see you again, +so I'll say good-bye." + +"Good-bye," he answered, and held her hand. + +"And if I don't go away, and if I feel that I don't want to play with +you, but just to--well, really to be friends with you, can I be?" + +"I don't know," he said slowly. "I don't trust you." + +She nodded, teasing her lip again. "Very well," she repeated. "I shall +remember. Yes. You're going to be very unhappy, you know." + +"Why?" he asked dully. + +"For saying that to me." + +"But it's the truth." + +She shook her little hands at him and spoke loudly. "You seem to think +the truth's excuse enough for anything, but you're wrong, George, and if +you were worth it, I should hate you." + +Then she turned from him, and as he watched her run towards home he +wished he had lied to her and risked bewitchment. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +The efforts of Mildred Caniper, Helen and Mrs. Samson produced a +brighter polish on floors and furniture, a richer brilliance from brass, +a whiter gleam from silver, in a house which was already irreproachable, +and the smell of cleanliness was overcome by that of wood fires in the +sitting-rooms and in Christopher where Uncle Alfred was to sleep. A bowl +of primroses, brought by John from Lily Brent's garden and as yellow as +her butter, stood on a table near the visitor's bed: the firelight cast +shadows on the white counterpane, a new rug was awaiting Uncle Alfred's +feet. In the dining-room, the table was spread with the best cloth and +the candles were ready to be lighted. + +"When we see the trap," Miriam said, "I'll go round with a taper. And +we'd better light the lamp in the kitchen passage or Uncle Alfred may +trip over something when he hangs up his coat." + +"There won't be anything for him to trip over," Helen said. + +"How do you know? It's just the sort of accident that happens to +families that want to make a good impression. We'd better do it. Where +are the steps?" + +"The lamp hasn't been trimmed for months, and we can't have a smell of +oil. Leave it alone. The hall is so beautifully dim. Rupert must take +his coat and hang it up for him." + +"Very well," Miriam said resignedly; "but if Notya or John had suggested +the lamp, you would have jumped at it." + +"No, I should have fetched the steps." + +"Oh, funny, funny! Now I'm going to dress." + +"There are two hours." + +"It will take me as long as that. What shall I wear? Black or red? It's +important, Helen. Tell me." + +"Black is safer." + +"Yes, if only I had pearls. I should look lovely in black and pearls." + +"Pearls," Helen said slowly, "would suit me." + +"You're better without them." + +"I shall never have them." + +"When I've a lot of money I'll give you some." + +"Thank you," Helen said. + +"Because," Miriam called out when she was half way up the stairs, "I'm +going to marry a rich man." + +"It would be wise," Helen answered, and went to the open door. + +She could hear Notya moving in her bedroom, and she wondered how a +sister must feel at the approach of a brother she had not seen for many +years. She knew that if she should ever be parted from John or Rupert +there would be no shyness at their meeting and no effusion: things would +be just as they had been, for she was certain of an affection based on +understanding, and now the thought of her brothers kept her warm in +spite of the daunting coldness of the light lying on the moor and the +fact that doors were opening to a stranger. + +She checked a little sigh and stepped on to the gravel path, rounded the +house and crossed the garden to find John locking up the hen-house for +the night. He glanced at her but did not speak, and she stood with her +hands clasped before her and watched the swaying of the poplars. The +leaves were spreading and soon they would begin their incessant +whispering while they peeped through the windows of the house to see +what the Canipers were doing. + +"They know all our secrets," she said aloud. + +John dropped the key into his pocket. "Have we any?" + +"Perhaps not. I should have said our fears." + +"Our hopes," he said stubbornly. + +"I haven't many of those," she told him and, to hide her trouble, she +put the fingers of both hands to her forehead. + +"What's the matter with you? You sound pretty morbid." + +"No, I'm only--careful. John, are you afraid of life?" + +His eyes fell on the rows of springing vegetables. "Look at 'em coming +up," he murmured. "Rather not. I couldn't grow things." He gathered up +his tools and put them in the shed. + +"You see," she said, "one never knows what's going to happen, but it's +no good worrying, and I suppose one must just go on." + +"It's the only thing to do," John assured her gravely. "Have you made +yourself beautiful for the uncle?" + +She pointed to an upper window smeared with light. "I have left that to +Miriam, but I must go and put on my best frock." + +"You always look all right," he said. "I suppose it's because your +hair's so smooth." + +"No," she answered, and laughed with her transforming gaiety, "it's just +because I'm mediocre and don't get noticed." + +He hesitated and decided to be bold. "I'll tell you something, as you're +so down in the mouth. Rupert thinks you're better looking than Miriam. +There! Go and look at yourself." He waved her off, and the questions +fell from her lips unuttered. + +She lighted a candle and went upstairs, but when she had passed into the +dark peace of Jane and put the candle on her dressing-table, she found +she needed more illumination by which to see this face which Rupert +considered fair. + +"Miriam will have heaps of them," she said and knocked at Phoebe's +door. + +"I've come to borrow a candle," she said as she was told to enter, and +added, "Oh, what waste! I hope Notya won't come in." + +"She can't unless I let her," Miriam answered grimly. + +There were lights on the mantelpiece, on the dressing-table, on the +washstand, and two in tall sticks burned before the cheval glass as +though it had been an altar. + +"You can take one of them," Miriam said airily. + +The warm whiteness of her skin gleamed against her under-linen like a +pale fruit fallen by chance on frozen snow: her hair was held up by the +white comb she had been using, and this stood out at an impetuous angle. +She went nearer to the mirror. + +"I've been thinking," she said, "what a lovely woman my mother must have +been. Do you think I look like a Spanish dancer? Now, don't tell me +you've never seen one. Take your candle and go away." + +Helen obeyed and shut both doors quietly. She put the second candle +beside the first and studied her pale face. She was not beautiful, and +Rupert was absurd. She was colourless and rather dull, and to compare +her with the radiant being in the other room was to hold a stable +lantern to a star. + +She turned from her contemplation and, changing grey dress for grey +dressing-gown, she brushed her long, straight hair. Ten minutes later +she left the room and went about the house to see that all was ready for +the guest. + +She put coal on the fire in Christopher and left the door ajar so that +the flames might cast warm light on the landing: she took a towel from +the rail and changed it for another finer one; then she went quietly +down the stairs, with a smile for Mr. Pinderwell, and fancied she smelt +the spring through the open windows. The hall had a dimness which hid +and revealed the rich mahogany of the clock and cupboard and the table +from which more primroses sent up a memory of moonlight and a fragrance +which was no sooner seized than lost. She could hear Mrs. Samson in the +kitchen as she watched over the turbot, and from the schoolroom there +came the scraping of a chair. John had dressed as quickly as herself. + +In the dining-room she found her stepmother standing by the fire. + +"Oh, you look sweet!" Helen exclaimed. "I love you in that dark blue." + +"I think I'll wait in the drawing-room," Mildred Caniper said, and went +away. + +Once more, Helen wandered to the doorway; she always sought the open +when she was unhappy and, as she looked over the gathering darkness, she +tried not to remember the tone of Notya's words. + +"It's like pushing me off a wall I'm trying to climb," she thought, "but +I mean to climb it." And for the second time within an hour, she gave +tongue to her sustaining maxim: "I must just go on." + +She hoped Uncle Alfred was not expectant of affection. + +Night was coming down. The road was hardly separable from the moor, and +it was the Brent Farm dogs which warned her of the visitor's approach. +Two yellow dots slowly swelled into carriage lamps, and the rolling of +wheels and the thud of hoofs were faintly heard. She went quickly to the +schoolroom. + +"John, the trap's coming." + +"Well, what d'you want me to do about it? Stop it?" + +"I wish you could." + +"Now, don't get fussy." + +"I'm not." + +"Not get fussy?" + +"Not getting fussy." + +"That's better. If your grammar's all right the nerves must be in +order." + +"You're stupid, John. I only want some one to support me--on the step." + +"Need we stand there? Rupert's with him. Won't that do?" + +"No, I think we ought to say how-d'you-do, here, and then pass him on to +Notya in the drawing-room." + +"Very good. Stand firm. But they'll be hours rolling up the track. What +the devil do we want with an uncle? The last time we stood like this was +when our revered father paid us a call. Five years ago--six?" + +"Six." + +"H'm. If I ever have any children--Where's Miriam? I suppose she's going +to make a dramatic entry when she's sure she can't be missed." + +"I hope so," Helen said. "The first sight of Miriam--" + +"You're ridiculous. She's no more attractive than any other girl, and +it's this admiration that's been her undoing." + +"Is she undone?" + +"She's useless." + +"Like a flower." + +"No, she has a tongue." + +"Oh, John, you're getting bad-tempered." + +"I'm getting tired of this damned step." + +"You swear rather a lot," she said mildly. "They're on the track. Oh, +Rupert's talking. Isn't it a comfortable sound?" + +A few minutes later, she held open the gate and, all unaware of the +beauty of her manners, she welcomed a small, neat man who wore an +eyeglass. John took possession of him and led him into the hall and +Helen waited for Rupert, who followed with the bag. She could see that +his eyebrows were lifted comically. + +"Well?" she asked. + +"Awful. I know he isn't dumb because I've heard him speak, nor deaf +because he noticed that the horse had a loose shoe, but that's all I can +tell you, my dear. I talked--I had to talk. You can't sit in the dark +for miles with some one you don't know and say nothing, but I've been +sweating blood." He put the bag down and leaned against the gate. "That +man," he said emphatically, "is a mining engineer. He--oh, good-night, +Gibbons--he's been all over the globe, so Notya tells us. You'd think he +might have picked up a little small talk as well as a fortune, but no. +If he's picked it up, he's jolly careful with it. I tell you, I've made +a fool of myself, and talked to a thing as unresponsive as a stone +wall." + +"Perhaps you talked too much." + +"I know I did, but I've a hopeful disposition, and I've cured hard cases +before now. Of course he must have been thinking me an insufferable +idiot, but the darkness and his neighbourhood were too much for me. And +that horse of Gibbons's! It's only fit for the knacker. Oh, Lord! I +believe I told him the population of the town. There's humiliation for +you! He grunted now and then. Well, I'll show the man I can keep quiet +too. We ought to have sent John to meet him. They'd have been happy +enough together." + +"You know," Helen said sympathetically, "I don't suppose he heard half +you said or was thinking about you at all." + +Rupert laughed delightedly and put his arm through hers as he picked up +the bag. + +"Come in. No doubt you're right." + +"I believe he's really afraid of us," she added. "I should be." + +As they entered the hall, they saw Miriam floating down the stairs. One +hand on the rail kept time with her descent; her black dress, of airy +make, fluffed from stair to stair; the white neck holding her little +head was as luminous as the pearls she wanted. She paused on one foot +with the other pointed. + +"Where is he?" she whispered. + +"Just coming out of the drawing-room," Rupert answered quickly, +encouraging her. "Stay like that. Chin a little higher. Yes. You're like +Beatrix Esmond coming down the stairs. Excellent!" + +A touch from Helen silenced him as Mildred Caniper and her brother +turned the corner of the passage. They both stood still at the sight of +this dark-clad vision which rested immobile for an instant before it +smiled brilliantly and finished the flight. + +"This is Miriam," Mildred Caniper said in hard tones. + +Miriam cast a quick, wavering glance at her and returned to meet the +gaze of Uncle Alfred, who had not taken her hand. At last, seeing it +outstretched, he took it limply. + +"Ah--Miriam," he said, with a queer kind of cough. + +"She's knocked him all of a heap," Rupert told himself vulgarly as he +carried the bag upstairs, and once more he wished he knew what his +mother had been like. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +At supper, Uncle Alfred was monosyllabic, and the Canipers, realizing +that he was much shyer than themselves, became hospitable. Notya made +the droll remarks of which she was sometimes capable, and Miriam showed +off without fear of a rebuke. It was a comely party, and Mrs. Samson +breathed her heavy pleasure in it as she removed the plates. When the +meal was over and Uncle Alfred was smoking placidly in the drawing-room, +Helen wandered out to the garden gate. There she found John biting an +empty pipe. + +After their fashion, they kept silence for a time before Helen said, +"Would it matter if I went for a walk?" + +"I was thinking of having one myself." + +"He won't miss you and me," she said. "May I come with you, or were you +going to Brent Farm?" + +"I'm not going there. Come on." + +The wind met them lightly as they headed towards the road. The night was +very dark, and the ground seemed to lift itself before them and sink +again at their approach. + +"It's like butting into a wave," John said. "I keep shutting my eyes, +ready for the shock." + +"Yes." Helen began to talk as though she were alone. "The moor is always +like the sea, when it's green and when it's black. It moves, too, +gently. And now the air feels like water, heavy and soft. And yet the +wind's far more alive than water. I'd like to have a wind bath every +day. Oh, I'm glad we live here." + +She stumbled, and John caught her by the elbow. + +"Want a hand?" + +"No, thank you. It's these slippers." + +"High heels?" + +"No, a stone. I wonder if the fires are out. It's so long since last +night. We'd better not go far, John." + +"We'll stop at Halkett's turning." + +They took the road, and their pace quickened to the drum beats of their +feet. + +"It sounds like winter," Helen said. + +"But it feels like spring." + +She thought she heard resentment for that season in his voice. "Well, +why don't you go and tell her?" + +"Oh, shut up! What's the use? I've no money. A nice suitor I'd make for +a woman like that!" + +Helen's voice sang above their footsteps and the swishing of her dress. +"Silly, old-fashioned ideas you've got! They're rather insulting to her, +I think." + +"Perhaps, if she cares; but if she doesn't--She'd send me off like a +stray dog." + +"That's pride. You shouldn't be proud in love." + +"You should be proud in everything, I believe. And what do you know +about it?" + +"Oh--I think. Can you hear a horse, a long way off? And of course I want +to be married, too, but Miriam is sure to be, and then Notya would be +left alone. Besides, I couldn't leave the moor, and there's no one but +George Halkett here!" + +"H'm. You're not going to marry him." + +"No, I'm not--but I'm sorry for him." + +"You needn't be. He's no good. You must have nothing to do with him. Ask +Lily Brent. He tried to kiss her once, the beast, but she nearly broke +his nose, and serve him right." + +"Oh? Did she mind?" + +"Mind!" + +"I don't think I should have. He looks clean, and if he really wanted to +kiss me very badly, I expect I should let him. It's such a little +thing." + +"Good heavens, girl!" He stopped in a stride and turned to her. "That +kind of charity is very ill-advised." + +Her laughter floated over his head with the coolness of the wind. "I +hope I shan't have to give way to it." + +He continued to be serious. "Well, you're not ignorant. Rupert and I +made up our minds to that as soon as we knew anything ourselves; but +women are such fools, such fools! Tender-hearted idiots!" + +"Is that why you're afraid to go to Lily Brent?" she asked. + +"Ah, that's different," he mumbled. "She's more like a man." + +Helen was smiling as they walked on. "If you could have Lily Brent and +give up your garden, or keep your garden and lose her--" + +"I'm not going to talk about it," he said. + +"I wanted to know how much love really matters. That horse is much +nearer now. We'll see the lights soon. And there's some one by the +roadside, smoking. It's George. Good-evening, George." + +His deep voice rumbled through the darkness, exchanging salutations. +"I'm waiting for the doctor." + +"Some one's coming now." + +"Yes, it's his old nag. That horse makes you believe in eternity, +anyhow." + +She felt a sudden, painful anger. "He's a friend of mine--the horse," +and quietly, she repeated to herself, "The horse," because he had no +name by which she could endear him. + +"Is Mr. Halkett worse?" John asked, from the edge of the road. + +The red end of Halkett's cigar glowed and faded. "I'm anxious about +him." + +The yellow lights of the approaching dog-cart swept the borders of the +moor and Helen felt herself caught in the illumination. The horse +stopped and she heard the doctor's clear-cut voice. + +"Is that you, Helen?" + +"Yes." + +"Anything wrong?" + +"No, I'm just here with John," she said and went close to the cart. "And +George is waiting for you." + +"He'd better hop up, then." He bent towards her. "Did you find the +fires?" + +She nodded with the vehemence of her gladness that he should remember. +"And," she whispered hurriedly, "you were quite right about the doors. +Uncle Alfred's going to be a friend." + +"That's good. Hullo, Halkett. Get up, will you, and we'll go on. Where's +John?" + +"Sitting on the bank." + +The cart shook under Halkett's added weight, and as he took his seat he +bulked enormous in the darkness. Dwarfed by that nearness, the doctor +sat with his hat in one hand and gathered the reins up with the other. + +"No, just a minute!" Helen cried. "I want to stroke the horse." Her +voice had laughter in it. + +"There's a patient waiting for me, you know." + +"Yes. There! It's done. Go on. Good-night." + +The cart took the corner in a blur of lamplight and shadow, tipped over +a large stone and disappeared down the high-banked lane, leaving Helen +with an impressive, half-alarming memory of the two jolted figures, +black, with white ovals for faces, side by side, and Zebedee's spare +frame clearing itself, now and then, from the other's breadth. + +In the drawing-room, Uncle Alfred sat on one side of the hearth and +Miriam on the other. The room was softly lighted by candles and the +fire, and at the dimmer end Mr. Pinderwell's bride was smiling. The +sound of Mildred Caniper's needle, as she worked at an embroidery +frame, was added to the noises of the fire and Uncle Alfred's regular +pulling at his pipe. Rupert was proving his capacity for silence on the +piano stool. + +"And which country," Miriam asked, leaning towards her uncle, "do you +like best?" + +"Oh--well, I hardly know." + +"I never care for the sound of Africa--so hot." + +"Hottish," conceded Uncle Alfred. + +"Oh, Lord!" Rupert groaned in spirit. + +"And South America, full of crocodiles, isn't it?" + +"Is it?" + +"Haven't you been there?" + +"Yes, yes--parts of it." + +"Miriam," said Mildred Caniper, "Alfred is not a geography book." + +"But he ought to be," she dared. + +"And," the cool voice went on, "you never cared for geography, I +remember." + +Miriam sat back sullenly, stiffening until her prettily shod feet +reached an inch further along the fender. Rupert would not relieve the +situation and the visitor smoked on, watching Miriam through his tobacco +smoke, until a knock came at the door. + +"I beg your pardon, M'm--" + +"It's Mother Samson," said Rupert. "Shall I look after her?" + +"No. I will go." The door closed quietly behind Mrs. Caniper. + +Uncle Alfred lowered his pipe. "You are extraordinarily like your +mother," he said in quick and agitated tones, and the life of the room +was changed amazingly. Rupert turned on his seat, and his elbow scraped +the piano notes so that they jangled like a hundred questions. Miriam +slipped out of her chair. + +"Am I?" she asked from her knees. "I knew I was. Tell me!" + +He put his hand to his breast-pocket. "Ah," he said, as a step sounded +in the passage, "perhaps tomorrow--" + +Miriam lifted the poker. "Because you mustn't poke the fire, Uncle +Alfred," she was saying as Mildred Caniper came back. "You haven't known +us long enough." She turned to her stepmother. "Did Mrs. Samson want her +money? She's saving up. She's going to have a new dress this summer +because she hasn't had one since she was married." + +"And if she hadn't married," Rupert went on, feeling like a conspirator, +"she would have had one every year." + +"That gives one something to think about--yes," said Uncle Alfred, doing +his share. He was astonished at himself. He had spent the greater part +of his life in avoiding relationships which might hamper him and already +he was in league with these young people and finding pleasure in the +situation. + +Miriam was looking at him darkly, mischievously, from the hearthrug. +"Tomorrow," she said, resting on the word, "I'll take you for a walk to +see the sights. There are rabbits, sheep, new lambs, very white and +lively, a hare if we're lucky, ponies, perhaps, if we go far enough. +We've all these things on the moor. Oh," her grimace missed foolishness +by the hair's breadth which fortune always meted to her, "it's a +wonderful place. Will you come with me?" + +He nodded with a guilty quickness. "What are these ponies?" + +"Little wild ones, with long tails." + +"I'm fond of horses," he said and immediately looked ashamed of the +confession. "Ha, ha, 'um," he half hummed, trying to cloak +embarrassment. + +"I'm fond of all animals," Miriam said with loud bitterness, "but we are +only allowed to have a cat." + +"Hens," Rupert reminded her. + +"They're not animals; they're idiots." + +"Would you like to keep a cow in the garden?" Mildred Caniper enquired +in the pleasantly cold tones which left Miriam powerless. + +Uncle Alfred's tuneless humming began again. "Yes, fond of horses," he +said vaguely, his eyes quick on woman and girl. + +"And can you ride?" Miriam asked politely, implying that it was not +necessary for the whole family to be ill-mannered. + +"I've had to--yes, but I don't care about it. No, I like to look at +them." + +"We rode when we were children," his sister said. + +"Hung on." + +"Well, yes." + +Miriam would not encourage these reminiscences, so belated on the part +of her stepmother. "We have a neighbour who grows horses," she said. +"And he's a wonderful rider. Rupert, don't you think he'd like to show +them to Uncle Alfred? On Saturday afternoon, couldn't you take him to +the farm?" + +"But I'm going on Saturday," Uncle Alfred interposed. + +"Saturday! And today's Thursday! Oh!" + +"At least I think so," he said weakly. + +Secretly she shook her head at him. "No, no," she signed, and said +aloud, "A Sunday in the country--" + +"No place of worship within four miles," Rupert announced. + +"Ah," Uncle Alfred said with a gleam of humour, "that's distinctly +cheering." + +Miriam beat her hands together softly. "And yet," she said, "I've +sometimes been to church for a diversion. Have you?" + +"Never," he answered firmly. + +"I counted the bald heads," she said mournfully, "but they didn't last +out." She looked up and saw that Uncle Alfred was laughing silently: she +glanced over her shoulder and saw Mildred Caniper's lips compressed, and +she had a double triumph. This was the moment when it would be wise for +her to go to bed. Like a dark flower, lifting itself to the sun, she +rose from her knees in a single, steady movement. + +"Good-night," she said with a little air. "And we'll have our walk +tomorrow?" + +He was at the door, holding it open. "Yes, but--in the afternoon, if we +may. I am not an early riser, and I don't feel very lively in the +mornings." + +"Ah," she thought as she went upstairs, "he wouldn't have said that to +my mother. He's getting old: but never mind, I'm like a lady in a +romance! I believe he loved my mother and I'll make him love me." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +She was not allowed time for that achievement. On the morning of the day +which was to have been productive of so much happiness, the postman +brought a letter with a foreign stamp, and Miriam took it to the kitchen +where her stepmother and Helen were discussing meals. + +"A letter," Miriam said flippantly, "from Italy." + +"Thank you, Miriam. Put it on the table." The faint colour our deepened +on her cheeks. "I'm afraid one of you will have to go into the town +again. I forgot to ask Rupert to order the meat. Miriam--" + +"No, I can't go. I'm engaged to Uncle Alfred." + +"I think we might easily persuade him to excuse you. He really dislikes +walking, though he would not say so." + +"Or," Helen said with tact, "we could get chickens from Lily Brent. +Wouldn't that be better?" + +"Very well. Now, about sweets." + +"This letter," Miriam said, bending over it and growing bold in the +knowledge that Uncle Alfred was not far off, "this letter looks as if it +wants to be opened. All the way from Italy," she mumbled so that Mildred +Caniper could not distinguish the words, "and neglected when it gets +here. If he took the trouble to write to me, I wouldn't treat him like +that. Poor letter! Poor Mr. Caniper! No wonder he went away to Italy." +She stood up. "His writing is very straggly," she said clearly. + +Mildred Caniper put out a hand which Miriam pretended not to see. + +"Shall I order the chickens?" she asked; but no one answered, for her +stepmother was reading the letter, and Helen preserved silence as though +she were in a church. With care that the dishes should not click +against each other, she put the newly washed china on the dresser and +laid the silver in its place, and now and then she glanced at Notya, who +stood beside the table. It was some time before she folded the letter +with a crackle and looked up. Her eyes wandered from Helen to Miriam, +and rested there with an unconsciousness so rare as to be startling. + +"Philip is ill," she said in a voice carried by her thoughts to a great +distance. She corrected herself. "Your father is ill." She picked up the +envelope and looked at it. "That's why his writing is so--straggly." She +seemed to be thinking not only of Philip Caniper, but of many things +besides, so that her words, like her thoughts, came through obstacles. + +Intensely interested in a Notya moved to some sign of an emotion which +was not annoyance, Miriam stood in the doorway and took care to make no +movement which might betray her; but Helen stared at the fire and +suffered the pain she had always felt for her stepmother's distresses. + +"However--" Mildred Caniper said at last, and set briskly to work, while +Miriam disappeared into the shadows of the hall and Helen watched the +flames playing round the kettle in which the water for Uncle Alfred's +breakfast was bubbling. + +"How ill is he?" she asked. + +"Are you speaking of your father?" + +"Yes--please." + +"I wish you would use names instead of pronouns. A good deal worse, I am +afraid." + +"And there's nobody to look after him--our father?" + +"Certainly there is." + +"Oh! I'm glad," Helen said, looking candidly at Notya. "We can't pretend +to care about him--can we? But I don't like to have a father who is +ill." + +"If he had known that--" the other began, and stopped the foolish little +sarcasm in time. "It is no use discussing things, Helen. We have to do +them." + +"Well, let us go to Italy," Helen said. + +Mildred Caniper did not conceal her surprise. Her lips dropped apart, +and she stood, balancing in a spoon the egg she was about to boil for +Uncle Alfred, and gazed at Helen, before she recovered herself and said +easily, "You are rather absurd, Helen, aren't you?" + +But Helen knew that she was not. "I thought that was just what you were +wanting to do," she answered. + +The egg went into the saucepan and was followed by another. + +"We can't," Mildred Caniper said with the admonishing air which sat like +an imposition on her; "we cannot always do as we wish." + +"Oh, I know that," Helen said. She put on a pair of gloves, armed +herself with brooms and dusters, and left the room. + +It seemed to her that people wilfully complicated life. She put a just +value on the restraint which had been a great part of her training, but +a pretence which had the transparency of its weakness moved her to a +patient kind of scorn, and in that moment she had a flash of insight +which showed her that she had sometimes failed to understand her +stepmother because she had not suspected the variability of the elder +woman's character. Mildred Caniper produced an impression of strength in +which she herself did not believe; she had imprisoned her impulses in +coldness, and they only escaped in the sharp utterances of her tongue; +she was uncertain of her power, and she insisted on its acceptance. + +"And she's miserable, miserable," Helen's heart cried out, and she +laughed unhappily herself. "And Miriam's afraid of her! There's nothing +to be afraid of. She knows that, and she's afraid we'll find it out all +the time. And it might all have been so simple and so--so smooth." + +Helen was considered by the other Canipers and herself as the dullest of +the family, and this morning she swept, dusted and polished in the old +ignorance of her acuteness, nor would the knowledge of it have consoled +her. She was puzzling over the cause which kept the man in Italy apart +from the woman here, and when she gave that up in weariness, she tried +to picture him in a white house beside an eternally blue sea. The +windows of the house had jalousies of a purplish red, there were +palm-trees in the sloping garden and, at the foot of it, waves rocked a +shallow, tethered boat. And her father was in bed, no doubt; the flush +redder on his thin cheeks, his pointed black beard jerked over the +sheet. She had seen him lying so on his last visit to the moor, and she +had an important little feeling of triumph in the memory of that +familiarity. She was not sentimental about this distant parent, for he +was less real than old Halkett, far less real than Mr. Pinderwell; yet +it seemed cruel that he should lie in that warm southern country without +a wife or daughter to care for him. + +"Helen," Miriam said from Phoebe's door, "do you think he is going to +die?" + +"How can I tell?" + +"And you don't care?" + +"Not much, of course, but I'm sorry for him." + +"Sweet thing! And if he dies, shall we wear black?" + +Helen's pale lips condescended to a rather mocking smile. "I see you +mean to." + +"Well, if you can do the proper thing and look nice at the same time--" +She broke off and fidgeted. "I don't mind his dying if he does it far +away, but, oh, wouldn't it be horrible if he did it here? Ill people +make me sick." + +"Why don't you go and do something yourself? Go and amuse Uncle Alfred." + +"No, he's not nice in the mornings. He said so, and I've peeped at him. +Liverish." + +"Order the chickens, then, but ask Notya first." + +"Where is she?" + +Together they peeped over the banisters and listened. + +"You'd better ask," Miriam said. "I wonder where she is. Call her," she +added, daring Helen to break one of the rules of that quiet house; and +Helen, who had discovered the truth that day, lifted her voice clearly. + +"If she's not cross," Miriam whispered, "we'll know she's worried." + +"Oh," Helen said soberly, "how horrid of us! I wish I hadn't." + +Miriam's elbow was in her side. "Here she comes, look!" + +They could see the crown of Mildred Caniper's fair head, the white blot +of her clasped hands. + +"What is it?" she asked quietly, turning up her face. + +"Shall Miriam order the chickens?" Helen called down. + +"Oh, yes--yes," she answered, and went away. + +"Ha, ha! Quite successful! Any special kind of chicken? Black legs? +Yellow legs?" + +"She'll give you the best she has," Helen said. + +Miriam popped her head round the door of the dining-room where Uncle +Alfred was smoking, waved her hand, and spared him the necessity of +speech by running from the house. The sun shone in a callous sky and the +wind bit at her playfully as she went down the track, to remind her +that though she wore neither hat nor coat, summer was still weeks away. +Miriam faced all the seasons now with equanimity, for Uncle Alfred was +in the dining-room, and she intended that her future should be bound up +with his. Gaily she mounted the Brent Farm road, with a word for a +melancholy calf which had lost its way, and a feeling of affection for +all she saw and soon meant to leave. She liked the long front of the +farmhouse with its windows latticed into diamonds, the porch sentinelled +by large white stones, the path outlined with smaller ones and the green +gate with its two steps into the field. + +The dairy door stood open, and Miriam found both Lily Brent and John +within. They stood with the whole space of the floor between them and +there was a certain likeness in their attitudes. Each leaned against the +stone shelf which jutted, waist high, from the wall, but neither took +support from it. Her brown eyes were level with his grey ones; her hands +were on her hips, while his arms were folded across his breast. + +"Hullo, Napoleon!" Miriam said. "Good-morning, Lily. Is he being +tiresome? He looks it." + +"We're only arguing," she said. "We often do it." + +This was the little girl whom Mrs. Brent, now in her ample grave, had +slapped and kissed and teased, to the edification of the Canipers. She +had grown tall and very straight; her thick dark hair was twisted +tightly round her head; her skirt was short, revealing firm ankles and +wooden shoes, and she wore a jersey which fitted her body closely and +left her brown neck bare. Her watchful eyes were like those of some shy +animal, but her lips had the faculty of repose. Helen had once compared +her to a mettlesome young horse and there was about her some quality of +the male. She might have been a youth scorning passion because she +feared it. + +"If it's a very important argument," said Miriam, "I'll retire. There's +a sad baby calf down by your gate. I could go and talk to him." + +"Silly little beast!" Lily said; "he's always making a fuss. Listen to +this, Miriam. John wants to pay me for letting him work a strip of my +land that's been lying idle all these years." + +"If you won't let me pay rent--" + +"He hasn't any money, Lily." + +"I can try to pay you by helping on the farm. You can lie in bed and let +me do your share of milking." + +"He'll do no harm," Miriam asserted. + +"I know that. He's been doing odd jobs for us ever since we began +carrying his vegetables to town. He likes to pay for all he gets. You're +mean-spirited, John." + +"All right. I'll be mean-spirited, and I'll be here for this evening's +milking." + +"That's settled, then," she said, with a great semblance of relief. + +"And Mrs. Caniper of Pinderwell House will be very much obliged if +you'll let her have two chickens as soon as possible." + +"Certainly, miss. I'll go and see about them." + +Miriam let out a little scream and put her hands to her ears. + +"No, no, don't kill them yet! Not till you're quite sure that I'm safely +on the other side of the road. John, stop her!" + +"You're a little goose," Lily said. "They're lying quite comfortably +dead in the larder." + +"Oh, thank Heaven! Shall I tell you a horrible secret of my past life? +Once when I was very small, I crept through Halkett's larch-wood just to +see what was happening down there, because Mrs. Samson had been hinting +things, and what I saw--oh, what do you think I saw?" She shuddered +and, covering her face, she let one bright eye peep round the protecting +hand. "I saw that idiot boy wringing a hen's neck! And now," she ended, +"I simply can't eat chicken." + +"Dear, dear!" John said, and clucked his tongue. "Dreadful confession of +a young girl!" + +Lily Brent was laughing. "And to think I've wrung their necks myself!" + +"Have you? Ugh! Nasty!" + +"It is, but some one had to do it." + +"Don't do it again," said John quickly. + +She raised her eyebrows, met his glance, and looked away. + +"I can't get on with my work while you two are gossiping here." + +"Come home, John. Father's iller. Notya's too much worried to be cross. +She had a letter--Aren't you interested?" + +He was thinking, "I'll start breaking up that ground tomorrow," and +behind that conscious thought there was another: "I shall be able to +watch her going in and out." + +"John--" + +"No, I'm not interested. Go home and look after your uncle. I've a lot +to think about." + +She left him sitting on a fence and staring creatively at his knees. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Helen met Miriam in the hall. + +"There's been a telegram and Notya's going to Italy." + +"Ah!" Miriam said, but her bright looks faded when Helen added, "With +Uncle Alfred." + +Miriam dropped her head and thrust her doubled fists under her chin, in +the angry movement of her childhood. "Oh, isn't that just my luck!" she +muttered fiercely. "I--I hadn't done with Uncle Alfred." + +"Perhaps father hasn't done with life," Helen remarked. + +"Oh, don't be pious! Don't be pious! You're always adorning tales. +You're a prig!" + +"Well, I haven't time to think about that now," Helen said with the +excellent humour which made amends for her many virtues. "I'm helping +Notya to pack and I want you to ask George Halkett if he will drive her +down. The train goes at a quarter to three." + +"I'm sorry," Miriam said, looking like the heroine in a play, "but I +can't go there. I--don't approve of George." + +"Oh!" Helen cried, screwing up her face. "Has John been telling you +about Lily Brent?" + +"No. What? Tell me!" Miriam answered with complete forgetfulness of her +pose. + +"Some nonsense. George tried to kiss her." + +"Did he?" There was a flat tone in Miriam's voice. + +"And she hit him, and now John thinks he's wicked." + +"So he is." She was hardly aware of what she said, for she was +hesitating between the immediate establishment of her supremacy and the +punishment of George, and having decided that his punishment should +include sufficient tribute, she said firmly, "I won't have anything to +do with him." + +"Then I'll go. Help Notya if you can." + +Miriam took a step nearer. "What is she like?" + +"Oh--queer." + +"Then perhaps I'd rather go to George," she whispered. + +"I'm halfway there already," Helen said from the door. + +She slipped across the moor with the speed which came so easily to her, +and her breathing had hardly quickened when she issued from the +larch-wood and stood on the cobble-stones before the low white house. +Already the leaves of a rose-tree by the door were budding, for in that +sheltered place the sun was gathered warmly. So, too, she thought, +darkness would lie closely there and rain would shoot down in thick +splinters with intent to hurt. She was oppressed by a sense of +concentration in this tree-lined hollow, and before she stepped across +the yard she lifted and shook her shoulders to free them of the weight. +She remembered one summer day when the air had been clogged by the scent +of marigolds, but this was not their season, and the smell of the +larches came healthfully on the winds that struggled through the trees. + +She had raised her hand to knock on the open door when she heard a step, +and turned to see George Halkett. + +"George," she said without preamble, "I've come to ask you to do +something for us. Our stepmother has unexpectedly to catch a train. +Could you, would you, drive her down--and a box, and our uncle, and his +bag?" + +She found, to her surprise, that John's story had given George a new +place in her mind. She had been accustomed to see him as a mere part of +the farm which bore his name, and now she looked at him with a different +curiosity. She imagined him bending over Lily Brent and, with a strong +distaste, she pictured him starting back at her assault. It seemed to +her, she could not tell why, that no woman should raise her hand against +a man, and that this restraint was less for her dignity than for his. + +"I'll do it with pleasure," George was saying. + +"Thank you very much," she murmured, and named the time. "Is Mr. Halkett +better?" + +"I'm afraid he's never going to get better, Miss Helen," he said, using +the title he had given her long ago because of a childish dignity which +amused him. + +"I'm sorry," she said, and wondered if she spoke the truth. + +Her gaze, very wide and serious, affected his, and as they looked at +each other she realized that, with those half-closed eyes of his, he was +considering her as he had never done before. She became conscious of her +physical self at once, and this was an experience strange to her; she +remembered the gown she wore, the fashion of her hair, her grey +stockings and worn, low shoes; slowly, almost imperceptibly, she shifted +a foot which was twisted inwards, and having done this, she found that +she did not like George's appraisement. With a broken word of farewell +and thanks she quickly left him. + +"I didn't like that," she said emphatically to the broad freedom of the +moor. George's interest was like the hollow: it hemmed her in and made +her hot, but here the wide winds swept over her with a cleansing cold. +Nevertheless, when she went to Notya's room, she took the opportunity of +scanning herself in the glass. + +"You have been running," Mildred Caniper said. + +"No, not lately." + +"You are very pink." + +"Yes." + +Mildred Caniper's tone changed suddenly. "And I don't know where you +have been. I wish you would not run off without warning. And I could not +find Miriam anywhere." From anger she sank back to helplessness. "I +don't know what to take," she said, and her hands jerked on her lap. + +"Let's see," Helen said cheerfully. "Warm things for the journey, and +cooler things for when you get there." She made no show of consulting +Notya and, moving with leisurely competence from wardrobe to chest of +drawers, she laid little heaps of clothing on the bed. + +"Handkerchiefs: one, two, three, four--" + +"I shan't need many." + +"But you'd better take a lot." + +"I shall soon come back." + +"Five, six, seven," Helen counted on, and her whispers sounded loudly in +the room where Mildred Caniper's thoughts were busy. + +"You haven't a very warm coat, so you must take mine," Helen said, and +when she looked up she discovered in her stepmother the extraordinary +stillness of a being whose soul has gone on a long journey. Her voice +came, as before, from that great distance, yet with surprising +clearness, as though she spoke through some instrument which reduced the +volume and accentuated the peculiarities of her tones. + +"One ought never to be afraid of anything," the small voice +said--"never." Her lips tightened, and slowly she seemed to return to +the body which sat on the sofa by the window. "I don't know what to +take," she said again. + +"I'm doing it," Helen told her. "You mustn't lose the train." + +"No." She stood up, and, going to the dressing-table, she leaned on it +as though she searched intently for something lying there. "I expect he +will be dead," she said. "It's a long way. All those frontiers--" + +Helen looked at the bent back, and her pity shaped itself in eager +words. "Shall I come with you? Let me! I can get ready--" + +Mildred Caniper straightened herself and turned, and Helen recognized +the blue light in her eye. + +"Your presence, Helen," she said distinctly, "will not reduce the number +of the frontiers." Her manner blamed Helen for her own lack of +self-control; but to this her stepchildren were accustomed, and Helen +felt no anger. + +"Oh, no," she answered pleasantly; "it would not do that." + +She packed on methodically, and while she feigned absorption in that +business her thoughts were swift and troubled, as they were when she was +a little girl and, suffering for Notya's sake, wept in the heather. It +was impossible to help this woman whose curling hair mocked her +sternness, whose sternness so easily collapsed and as easily recovered +at a word; it was, perhaps, intrusive to attempt it, yet the desire was +as quick as Helen's blood. + +"You are much too helpful, Helen," Mildred Caniper went on, and softened +that harshness quickly. "You must learn that no one can help anybody +else." She smiled. "You must deny yourself the luxury of trying!" + +"I shall remember," Helen said with her quiet acquiescence, "but I must +go now and see about your lunch. Would you mind writing the labels? +Uncle Alfred will want one for his bag. Oh, I know I'm irritating," she +added on a wave of feeling which had to break, "but I can't help it. +I--I'm like that." She reflected with humiliation that it was absurd to +obtrude herself thus on a scene shadowed by tragedy, yet when she saw a +glint of real amusement on Mildred Caniper's face, a new thought came to +her. Perhaps reserve was not so great a virtue as she had believed. She +must not forget; nor must she forget that Miriam considered her a prig, +that Mildred Caniper found her too helpful. She pressed her hands +against her forehead and concentrated her energies on the travellers' +food. + +The minutes, busy as they were, dragged by like hours. Uncle Alfred ate +his luncheon with the deliberation of a man who cannot expect to renew +his digestive apparatus, and the road remained empty of George Halkett +and his trap. Mildred Caniper, calm now, and dressed for her journey, +had many instructions for Helen concerning food, the employment of Mrs. +Samson, bills to be paid, and other domestic details which at this +moment lacked reality. + +"And," she ended, "tell Rupert not to be late. The house should be +locked up at ten o'clock." + +"Yes," Helen answered, but when she looked at her stepmother she could +see only the distressed figure which had sat on the sofa, with hands +jerking on its knee. Did she love Philip Caniper? Had they quarrelled +long ago, and did she now want to make amends? No, no! She shut her +eyes. She must not pry. She felt as though she had caught herself +reading a letter which belonged to some one else. + +Not deterred by such squeamishness, Miriam watched the luncheon-party +with an almost indecent eagerness. Her curiosity about Mildred Caniper +was blurred by pleasure in her departure, and each mouthful unwillingly +taken by that lady seemed to minister to Miriam's freedom. Now and then +she went to the garden gate to look for George, yet with her hurry to +drive out her stepmother there was that luckless necessity to let Uncle +Alfred go. On him her dark gaze was fastened expectantly. Surely he had +something to say to her; doubtless he waited for a fitting opportunity, +and she was determined that he should have it, but she realized that he +was past the age when he would leap from an unfinished meal to whisper +with her. This put a disturbing limit to her power, and with an +instinct for preserving her faith in herself she slightly shifted the +view from which she looked at him. So she was reassured, and she waited +like an affectionate grand-daughter in the dark corner of the passage +where his coat and hat were hanging. + +"Let me help you on," she said. + +"Thank you. Thank you. This is a sad business." + +She handed him his hat. She found that, after all, she could say +nothing, and though hope was dying in her, she made no effort to revive +it. + +"Well--good-bye," Uncle Alfred was saying, and holding out his hand. + +She gave hers limply. "Good-bye." She hardly looked at him. Uncle +Alfred, who had loved her mother, was going without so much as a +cheering word. He looked old and rather dull as he went on with his +precise small steps into the hall and she walked listlessly behind him. + +"He's like a little performing animal," she thought. + +Fumbling in his breast pocket, he turned to her. "If you should need +me," he said, and produced his card. "I'll write and tell you what +happens--er--when we get there." + +She thanked and passed him coldly, for she felt that he had broken faith +with her. + +Outside the gate George Halkett sat in his high dog-cart and idly laid +the whip across the horse's back. John stood and talked to him with the +courtesy exacted by the circumstances, but George's eye caught the +sunlight on Miriam's hair, and sullenly he bowed to her. She smiled +back, putting the venom and swiftness of her emotion into that salute. +She watched until his head slowly turned towards her again, and then it +happened that she was looking far beyond the chimneys of Brent Farm. + +"Now he's angry," she told herself, and pleasure went like a creeping +thing down her back. She could see by the stubborn set of his head that +he would not risk another glance. + +Behind her, on the step, Notya was still talking to Helen. + +Uncle Alfred stopped swinging his eyeglass and clicked the gold case of +his watch. "We must be going," he said, and Miriam's heart cried out, +"Yes; go, go, go!" + +Lightly and strangely, Mildred Caniper kissed the cheeks of Miriam and +Helen and shook John's hand, before she took her place beside George +Halkett, with a word of thanks. Uncle Alfred stiffly climbed to his +perch at the back, and, incommoded by his sister's box, he sat there, +clasping the handrail. A few shufflings of his feet and rearrangements +of his body told of his discomfort, and on his face there was the +knowledge that this was but the prelude to worse things. Mildred Caniper +did not look back nor wave a hand, but Uncle Alfred's unfortunate +position necessitated a direct view of his young relatives. Three times +he lifted his hat, and at last the cart swung into the road and he need +look no more. + +Miriam fanned herself with her little apron. "Now, how long can we count +on in the most unfavourable circumstances?" she asked, but, to her +astonishment, the others walked off without a word. She set her teeth in +her under-lip and stared through tears at the lessening cart. She began +to sing so that she might keep down the sobs that hurt her throat, and +the words told of her satisfaction that Uncle Alfred was perched +uncomfortably on the back seat of the cart. + +"And I wish he would fall off," she sang. "Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, +dear!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +The three did not meet again until the sun had set and the brilliant sky +had taken on the pale, cold colour in which, like a reluctant bride, it +waited for the night. Then John put away his tools and Miriam began to +stir about the house which was alive with a secret life of stone and +woodwork, of footsteps silenced long ago, and thoughts which refused to +die: then, too, Helen came back from the moor where she had gone for +comfort. Her feet were wet, her hair was for once in disarray, but her +eyes shone with a faith restored. Warring in her always were two +beliefs, one bright with the beauty and serenity which were her idea of +good, the other dark with the necessity of sacrifice and propitiation. +She had not the freedom of her youth, and she saw each good day as a +thing to be accepted humbly and ultimately to be paid for, yet she would +show no sign of fear. She had to go on steadily under the banner of a +tranquil face, and now the moor and the winds that played on it had made +that going easier. + +She passed through the darkening garden, glanced at the poplars, which +looked like brooms sweeping away the early stars, and entered the house +by the kitchen door. John and Miriam sat by a leaping fire, but the room +was littered with unwashed dishes and the remains of meals. + +"Well," Miriam said in answer to Helen's swift glance and the immediate +upturning of her sleeves, "why should I do it all? Look at her, John, +trying to shame me." + +"I'm not. I just can't bear it." + +"Have some tea first," John said. + +"Let me pile up the plates." + +"Have some tea," Miriam echoed, "and I'll make toast; but you shouldn't +have gone away without telling me. I didn't know where you were, and the +house was full of emptiness." + +"I found her snivelling about you," John said. "She wanted me to go out +and look for you with a lantern! After a day's work!" + +"Things," Miriam murmured, "might have got hold of her." + +"I shouldn't have minded moor things. Oh, these stained knives! John, +did she really cry?" + +"Nearly, I did." + +"Not she!" + +"I did, Helen. I thought the dark would come, and you'd be lost perhaps, +out on the moor--O-oh!" + +"I think I'd like it--wrapped up in the night." + +"But the noises would send you mad. Your eyes are all red. Have you been +crying too?" + +"It's the wind. Here's the rain coming. And where's my hair?" She +smoothed it back and took off her muddy shoes before she sat down in the +armchair and looked about her. "Isn't it as if somebody were dead?" she +asked. "There are more shadows." + +"I'll turn up the lamp," John said. + +The tinkle of Helen's cup and saucer had the clearness of a bell in the +quiet room, and she moved more stealthily. Miriam paused as she spread +butter on the toast. + +"This house is full of dead people," she whispered. "If you begin to +think about them--John, you're not going, are you?" + +"Only to draw the curtains. Yes, here's the rain." + +"And soon Notya will be on the sea," Helen said, listening to the sounds +of storm. + +"And I hope," Miriam added on a rich burst of laughter, "that Uncle +Alfred will be sea-sick. Oh, wouldn't he look queer!" She flourished the +knife. "Can't we be merry when we have the chance? Now that she's gone, +why should the house still feel full of her? It isn't fair!" + +"You're dripping butter on the floor," Helen said. + +"Make your old toast yourself, then!" + +"It's not only Notya," Helen went on, as she picked up the knife. "It's +the Pinderwells and their thoughts, and the people who lived here before +them. Their thoughts are in the walls and they come out when the house +is quiet." + +"Then let us make a noise!" Miriam cried. "Tomorrow's Saturday, and +Daniel will come up. Shall we ask him to stay? It would make more live +people in the house." + +"If he stays, I'm not going to have Rupert in my room again. He talks in +his sleep." + +"It's better than snoring," Helen said. + +"Awful to marry a man who snores," Miriam remarked. "Uncle Alfred does. +I heard him." + +"You're not thinking of marrying him?" John asked. + +"No. I don't like the little man," she said incisively. "He gave me his +card as though he'd met me in a train. In case we needed him! I've +thrown it into Mrs. Pinderwell's desk." She looked frowningly at the +fire. "But he liked me," she said, throwing up her head and defying the +silent criticism of the company. "Yes, he did, but I hadn't enough +time." + +"That's better than too much," Helen said shrewdly, and stretched her +stockinged feet to the bars. "Thank you for the tea, and now let us wash +up." + +"You're scorching," Miriam said, and no one moved. The lamplight had +driven the shadows further back, and the room was the more peaceful for +the cry of the wind and the hissing of the rain. + +"Rupert will get wet," Helen said. + +"Poor lad!" John mocked drowsily over his pipe. + +"And he doesn't know about our father," Miriam said from her little +stool. "Our father, who may be in Heaven." + +"That's where Notya is afraid he is," Helen sighed remembering her +stepmother's lonely figure on the sofa backed by the bare window and the +great moor. + +"Does she hate him as much as that?" + +"Oh, I hate jokes about Heaven and Hell. They're so obvious," Helen +said. + +"If they weren't, you wouldn't see them, my dear." + +Helen let that pass, but trouble looked from her eyes and sounded in her +voice. "She wanted to see him and she was afraid, and no one should ever +be afraid. It's ugly." + +"Perhaps," Miriam said hopefully, "he will be ill for a very long time, +and then she'll have to stay with him, and we can have fun. Fun! Where +can we get it? What right had she to bring us here?" + +"For God's sake," John said, "don't begin that again. We're warm and fed +and roofed, and it's raining outside, and we needn't stir. That ought to +make you thankful for your mercies. Suppose you were a tramp." + +"Yes, suppose I was a tramp." She clasped her knees and forgot her anger +in this make-believe. "A young tramp. Just like me, but ragged." + +"Cold and wet." + +"My hair would still be curly and my face would be very brown." + +"You'd be dirty," Helen reminded her, "and your boots would be crumpled +and too big and sodden." She looked at her own slim feet. "That is what +I should hate." + +"Of course there'd be disadvantages, but if I were a tramp and dwelt on +my mercies, what would they be? First--freedom!" + +"Ha!" John snorted. + +"Well?" + +"Freedom! Where is it?" + +"With the lady tramp." + +"And what is it?" + +"Being able to do what you like," Miriam said promptly, "and having no +Notya." + +John was trying to look patient. "Very well. Let us consider that." + +"Yes, grandpapa," Miriam answered meekly, and tweaked Helen's toe. + +"You think the tramp can do what she likes, but she has no money in her +pocket, so she can't buy the comfortable bed and the good meal she is +longing for. She can only go to the first workhouse or sell herself for +the price of a glass of gin." + +"A pretty tramp like me," Miriam began, and stopped at Helen's pleading. +"But John and I are facing facts, so you must not be squeamish. When you +come to think of it," she went on, "lady tramps generally have gentlemen +tramps with them." + +"And there's your Notya." + +"Ah!" + +"And he'd beat you." + +"I might like it." + +"And he'd be foul-mouthed." + +"Horrid!" Helen exclaimed. + +"But I should be used to nothing else." + +"And if you came down our high road one day and begged at our door, and +saw some one like yourself, some one clean and fresh and innocent--" + +"So that's what he thinks of me!" + +"Hush! I like this," Helen said. + +"Even if there were a stern stepmother in the background, you'd be +envious of that girl. You might obey no laws, but you'd find yourself +the slave of something, your own vice, perhaps, or folly, or the will of +that gentleman tramp of yours." He ended with a sharp tap of his +emptied pipe, and sank back in a thoughtful silence. + +Helen's hands slid down her stockings from knee to ankle and back again: +her eyes were on the fire, but they saw the wet high road and the ragged +woman with skirt flapping against shapeless boots. The storm's voice +rose and fell, and sometimes nothing could be heard but the howling of +the wind, and she knew that the poplars were bent under it; but when it +rested for a moment the steady falling of the rain had a kind of +reassurance. In the room, there were small sounds of shifting coals and +breathing people. + +Miriam sat on her stool like a bird on a branch. Her head was on one +side, the tilted eyebrows gave her face an enquiring look, and she +smiled with a light mischief. "You ought to have been a preacher, John +dear," she said. "And you took--they always do--rather an unfair case." + +"Take any case you like, you can't get freedom. When you're older you +won't want it." + +"You're very young, John, to have found that out," Helen said. + +"But you know it." + +Miriam clapped her hands in warning. "Don't say," she begged, "that it's +because you are a woman!" + +"Is that the reason?" Helen asked. + +"No, it's because you are a Helen, a silly, a slave! And John makes +himself believe it because he's in love with a woman who is going to +manage him. Clever me!" + +Colour was in John's cheeks. "Clever enough," he said, "but an awful +little fool. Let's do something." + +"When I have been sitting still for a long time," Helen said, as though +she produced wisdom, "I'm afraid to move in case something springs on +me. I get stiff-necked. I feel--I feel that we're lost children with no +one to take care of us." + +"I'm rather glad I'm not that tramp," Miriam owned, and shivered. + +"And I do wish Notya were safe at home." + +"I don't," said Miriam stubbornly. + +The wind whistled with a shrill note like a call, and upstairs a door +banged loudly. + +"Which room?" Miriam whispered. + +"Hers, I think. We left the windows open," John said in a sensible loud +voice. "I'll go and shut them." + +"Don't go. I won't be left here!" Miriam cried. "This house--this house +is too big." + +"It's because she isn't here," Helen said. + +"John, you're the oldest. Make us happy." + +"But I'm feeling scared myself," he said comically. "And the front +door's wide open, I'll bet." + +"And that swearing tramp could walk in if he liked!" + +"But we mustn't be afraid of open doors," Helen said, and listened to +her own words for a moment. Then she smiled, remembering where she had +heard them. "We're frightening each other, and we must wash up. Look at +the muddle!" + +"It will make a clatter," Miriam objected, "and if you hadn't gone for +that walk and made the house feel lonely, I shouldn't be like this now. +Something's peeping at me!" + +"It's only Mr. Pinderwell," Helen said. "Come and dry." + +"I shall sleep in your bed tonight." + +"Then I shall sleep in yours." + +"I wish Rupert would come." + +"John, do go and shut the windows." + +"But take a light." + +"It would be blown out." + +Helen lowered the mop she had been wielding. "And Notya--where is she?" + +John lifted his shoulders and opened the door. A gust of wind came down +the passage, the front door was loudly shut, and Rupert whistled +clearly. + +"Oh, here he is," Miriam said on a deep breath, and went to meet him. + +John pointed towards the hall. "I don't know why he should make us all +feel brave." + +"There's something--beautiful about him," Helen said. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Helen was ironing in the kitchen the next afternoon when Daniel +Mackenzie appeared in the doorway. She turned to him with a welcome, but +the perfection of her manner was lost on Daniel: for the kitchen was +empty of Miriam, and that was all he noticed. + +"Hasn't Rupert come with you?" Helen asked. + +"I missed him," he said in his melancholy voice. "Perhaps he missed me," +he added with resignation. He was a tall young man with large hands and +feet, and his eyes were vague behind his spectacles. "I thought he would +be here. Is everybody out?" + +"Notya's away, you know." + +"He told me." + +"And John and Miriam--I don't know where they are." + +He found it difficult to talk to Helen, and as he sat down in the +armchair he searched his mind for a remark. "I thought people always +ironed on Tuesdays," he said at last. + +"Some people do. These are just odd things." + +"Eliza does. She makes us have cold supper. And on Mondays. It's too +bad." + +"But there can't be much to do for you." + +"I don't know. There's washing on Monday, and on Sunday she goes to +church--so she says." + +Helen changed her iron and worked on. She moved rhythmically and her +bare forearms were small and shapely, but Daniel did not look at her. He +seemed to be interested in the wrinkled boots he wore, and occasionally +he uttered a sad; "Puss, Puss," to the cat sleeping before the fire. A +light breeze was blowing outside and Helen sometimes paused to look +through the open window. + +"Our poplars are getting their leaves," she said. "It's strange that I +have never seen your garden. Are there any trees in it?" + +He sat like a half-empty sack of grain, and slowly, with an effort, he +raised his head. "What did you say?" + +"Have you any trees in your garden?" + +"There's a holly bush in the front and one of those thin trees that have +berries--red berries." + +"A rowan! Oh, I'm glad you have a rowan!" She looked as though he had +made a gift to her. + +He was born to ask questions. "Why?" he said, with his first gleam of +interest. + +"Oh, I like them. Is there a garden at the back?" + +"Apple-trees," he sighed. "No fruit." + +"They must want pruning. You know, gardening would do you good." + +He shook his head. "Too long in the back." + +"And Zebedee hasn't time?" + +"No, he hasn't time." Daniel was wondering where Miriam was, and how +long Rupert would be, and though Helen knew she wearied him, she went on +serenely. + +"Is he very busy now?" + +"Yes." + +"I can't think why people get ill in the spring, just when the lovely +summer's coming. Does he get called up at night?" + +"I suppose so." He was growing tired of this. "But when I'm in bed, I'm +asleep, you know." + +"Ah, that's nice for you," Helen said with a touch of irony as she +carefully pulled out the lace of a dainty collar. "Isn't he rather +lonely when you are up here?" + +"Lonely!" Daniel's mouth dropped wider and while he tried to answer this +absurd question adequately, Rupert entered the room. + +"I told you to meet me outside the Bull, you old idiot." + +Like Miriam, Rupert had the effect of fortifying the life of his +surroundings, but, unlike her, he had a happy trick of seeming more +interested in others than in himself. He saw at once, with something +keener than his keen eyes, that Daniel was bored, that Helen was at work +on more than ironing, and with his entrance he scattered the vague +dissension which was abroad. The kitchen recovered from the gloom with +which Daniel had shadowed it and Daniel himself grew brighter. + +"I thought you said the Plover." + +"You didn't listen. Even you couldn't mistake one for the other, but +I've scored off you. Helen, we shall want a good tea. I drove up with +Zebedee, and he's coming here when he's finished with old Halkett." + +She stood with a cooling iron in her hand. "I'll make some scones. I +expect Eliza gives him horrid food. And for supper there's cold chicken +and salad and plenty of pudding; but how shall we put up the horse?" + +"Don't worry, Martha. He's only coming to tea. He won't stay long." + +"Oh, yes, he will." She had no doubt of it. "I want him to. Make up the +fire for me, Daniel, please." She folded away the ironing cloth and +gathered up the little damp cuffs and collars she had not ironed. A +faint smile curved her steady lips, for nothing gave her more happiness +than serving those who had a claim on her, and Zebedee's claim was his +lack of womankind to care for him and her own gratitude for his +existence. He was the one person to whom she could give the name of +friend, yet their communion had seldom expressed itself in confidences: +the knowledge of it lay snugly and unspoken in her heart. + +"He has never had anything to eat in this house before," she said with +a solemnity which provoked Rupert to laughter. + +"What a sacrament women make of meals!" + +"I wish they all did," Daniel said in the bass notes of genuine feeling. + +"I don't know why you keep that awful woman," Helen said. + +"Don't start him on Eliza," Rupert begged. "Eliza and the intricacies of +English law--" + +"Have you seen her?" Daniel persisted. + +"No, but of course she's awful if she doesn't give you proper food." + +His look proclaimed his realization that he had never appreciated Helen +before. "I'm not greedy," he said earnestly, "but I've got to be fed." +He sent a wavering glance from his chest to his boots. "Bulk is what I +need, and fat foods, and it's a continuous fight to get them." + +Rupert roared aloud, but there was sympathy in Helen's hidden mirth. +"I'll see what I can do for you today," she said, like an attentive +landlady. "And you are going to stay the night. I fry bacon--oh, +wonderfully, and you shall have some for breakfast. But now," she added, +with a little air of dismissal, "I am going to make the scones." + +"Let's have a walk," Rupert said. + +"I've walked enough." He had an impulse to stay with Helen. + +"Then come outside and smoke. It's as warm as June." + +Daniel rose slowly, lifting his body piece by piece. "I shouldn't like +you to think," he said, "that I care too much for food." + +"I don't." + +"But I've got to be kept going." + +"I quite understand," she answered busily. Her hands were in the flour; +a patch of it, on her pale cheek, showed that her skin had a warm, faint +colour of its own. + +"We'll sit outside and watch for Zebedee," Rupert told her. + +She had baked the scones, changed her dress and made the table ready +before the guest arrived. From the dining-room she heard his clear +voice, broken by Miriam's low gay one, and, looking from the window, she +saw them both at the gate. Out of sight, behind the wall, Daniel and +Rupert were talking, involved in one of their interminable discussions, +and there were sounds made by the horse as he stretched to eat the +grass. For an instant, Helen felt old and forgotten; she remembered +Notya, who was in trouble, and she herself was shrouded by her own +readiness to see misfortune; all her little preparations, the flowers on +the table, the scones before the fire, her pretty dress, were gathered +into one foolishness when she saw Zebedee pushing open the gate and +looking down at Miriam. There was a sudden new pain in Helen's heart, +and in a blinding light which dazzled her she saw that the pain was +compounded of jealousy because Miriam was beautiful, and of renunciation +because it would be impossible to keep anything which Miriam wanted. + +But in the hall, these feelings, like a nightmare in their blackness, +passed away when Zebedee uttered the cheerful "Hullo!" with which he had +so often greeted her. There were comfort and safety in his +neighbourhood, in his swift, judging way of looking at people, as +though, without curiosity, he wished to assure himself of their +well-being and health, and while there was something professional in the +glance, it seemed to be a guarantee of his own honesty. His eyes, grey +with brown flecks in them, expected people to be reasonable and happy. + +Helen said simply, "I am so glad you have come." + +"I made him," Miriam said, and put her hand fleetingly on his arm. + +"You didn't. Rupert asked him." + +"Yes, but I waylaid him. He was sneaking home." + +"No, no, I wasn't." + +"Somewhere else, then!" + +He thrust his gloves into the pocket of his coat. + +"You were coming, weren't you?" Helen asked. + +"Of course I was." + +She smiled with her extraordinary, almost comic, radiance. "I'll go and +make the tea." + +Because Daniel blundered through the doorway at that moment, Miriam +followed Helen to the kitchen. + +"He's going to teach me to drive," she said. "But what a horse! It goes +on from generation to generation, like the practice!" + +George Halkett had laughed at the horse, too, and Helen felt a cold +resentment against him and Miriam. + +"Your hair is very untidy, and your cheeks are blue," she said. + +"Now you're being a cat. We certainly don't miss Notya when you are +here. I'm in the delightful position, my dear, of being able to afford +blue cheeks and untidy hair. Daniel won't notice them." + +"No, he's arguing with Rupert." + +"He came into the house after me. I'm going back to tease him." + +"Oh, do leave the poor thing alone." + +"No, I shan't. He'd be disappointed." + +Helen stood by the fire and watched the kettle and listened to the +noises in the schoolroom. Then a shuffling step came down the passage +and Daniel spoke. + +"Can I help you?" + +"Thank you very much." She knew that he had come for refuge and she +filled the teapot and put it into his hands. "Don't drop it." + +"I'll be careful," he said humbly. + +Walking in the trail of the tea he spilt, she followed him with the +kettle. She had not the heart to scold him, and at the dining-room door +he let out a sharp sound. + +"Oh, dear, has it gone through your boot?" she asked, checking her +laughter. + +"I should just think it has!" + +Miriam, whose ears were like a hare's, cried from the schoolroom: "Then +perhaps he'll have to have his boot cut off, and that would spoil that +lovely pair! Whatever you do, Zebedee, try to spare his boot!" + +"She never leaves me alone," Daniel muttered to the pot. + +"Don't take any notice of her," Helen said. + +Daniel looked up mournfully. "Wouldn't you?" + +"No. Sit here and talk to me." She called through the open door. "Come +in, everybody!" With Daniel on one side of the table and Zebedee on the +other, John's absence was the less apparent. Twilight had not yet come, +but Helen had lighted candles to give the room a festive look, and there +was a feeling of freedom and friendship in the house. They all talked of +unimportant things, and there was laughter amid the chinking of the +cups. For the young men, the presence of the girls had a potent, hardly +admitted charm: for Miriam there was the exciting antagonism of sex: for +Helen there was a pleasure which made her want to take deep breaths. + +"Oh!" Miriam cried at last, and flung herself back in her chair. "Isn't +this good? Why can't it always be like this?" + +"Hush!" Helen said. + +"You know it's nicer without her." + +"I didn't want you to tempt things," Helen explained. + +"She's as superstitious as a savage," Rupert said. "Talk to her, +Zebedee, man of science." + +"Yes, I will." His glance was humorous but not quite untroubled. + +"When?" she said, with great willingness. + +"After tea." + +"We've finished, haven't we?" Miriam asked. "Daniel, be quick and drink +that. We're all waiting for you. And don't slop it on your waistcoat. +There's a good boy! Very nice. Come into the drawing-room and I'll play +to you. I might even sing. Ask Helen if you may get down." + +"May I?" he asked, and went after Miriam. + +The notes of the old piano tinkled through the hall. Miriam was playing +a waltz, lightly and gaily. + +"I'll go and make Daniel dance with me," Rupert said. + +"Don't tease him any more." + +"It'll do him good, and I want Zebedee to have a chance of lecturing +you." + +"It's not easy to lecture you," Zebedee said. + +"Isn't it?" + +Above their voices and the tinkling music there now came Daniel's +protest, Rupert's persuasions, and Miriam's laughter: then these all +died away and the waltz called out plaintively and with desire. + +"She is making the piano cry," Helen said. + +Zebedee did not speak, for he was listening: the whole house was +listening. No other sound came from the drawing-room, and Helen fancied +that Mr. Penderwell was standing on the stairs, held by the memory of +days when he had taken his lady by her tiny waist and felt the whiff of +her muslin skirts against him as they whirled. The children on the +landing were wide-eyed and hushed in their quiet play. The sounds grew +fainter; they faded away as though the ballroom had grown dark and +empty, and for a little space all the listeners seemed to be easing +themselves of sighs. Then Miriam's whistle, like a blackbird's, came +clearly. She did not know how well she had been playing. + +Helen stood up. "I wonder if the horse has walked away. Go into the +drawing-room. I'll see." + +"No. I'll come with you." + +The music had subdued their voices and, because they had heard it +together, they seemed to be wrapped round by it in a world unknown to +anybody else. Quietly they went out of the house and found the horse, +only a few yards distant, with his feet tangled in the reins. + +"You ought to have fastened him to the post," Helen said, and together +they led him back. + +"Shall we take him out of the cart?" + +"But I ought to go home." + +"No," she said. + +"Perhaps not." + +The sunshine had gone, and over the moor the light was grey; grey clouds +hung low in the sky, and as he looked down at her, it seemed to Zebedee +that Helen was some emanation of grey earth and air. + +"We'll take him out," she said. + +"And then what shall we do with him?" + +"I believe he'd be quite happy in the kitchen!" + +"Yes, he's a domesticated old boy." + +"We can't put him in the hen-house. Just tie him to the post and let him +eat." + +When that was done, she would have gone into the house, but Zebedee kept +her back. + +"Mayn't we stay in the garden? Are you warm enough?" + +She nodded to both questions. "Let us go round to the back." The path at +the side of the house was dark with shrubs. "I don't like this little +bit," she said. "I hardly ever walk on it. It's--" + +"What?" + +"Oh, they don't come out. They stay there and get unhappy." + +"The bushes?" + +"The spirits in them." + +He walked beside her with his hands behind his back and his head bent. + +"You're thinking," she said. + +"Yes." + +"Don't," she begged, "think away from me." + +He stopped, surprised. "I'm not doing that--but why?" + +"I don't know," she said, looking him in the eyes, "but I should hate +it." + +"I was wondering how to bring myself to scold you." + +They had reached the lawn and, caught by the light from the +drawing-room, they stood under the poplars and watched the shadows +moving on walls and ceiling. The piano and the people in the room were +out of sight, and Miriam's small, husky voice came with a hint of +mystery. + +"'Drink to me only with thine eyes,'" she sang. + +"'And I will pledge with mine,'" Rupert joined in richly. + +"'Or leave a kiss within the cup--'" + +In silence, under the trees, Helen and Zebedee listened to the singing, +to voices wrangling about the words, and when a figure appeared at the +window they turned together and retreated beyond the privet hedge, +behind John's vegetable garden and through the door on to the moor. + +The earth was so black that the rising ground was exaggerated into a +hill; against it, Helen's figure was like a wraith, yet Zebedee was +acutely conscious of her slim solidity. He was also half afraid of her, +and he had an easily controlled desire to run from the delight she gave +him, a delight which hurt and reminded him too clearly of past joys. + +"Now," she said, and stood before him in her dangerous simplicity. "What +are you going to say?" + +She seemed to have walked out of the darkness into his life, a few +nights ago, an unexpected invasion, but one not to be repelled, nor did +he wish to repel it. He was amazed to hear himself uttering his thoughts +aloud. + +"I always liked you when you were a little girl," he said, as though he +accounted for something to himself. + +"Better than Miriam?" she asked quickly. + +"Of course." + +"Oh," she said, and paused. "But I feel as if Miriam--" She stopped +again and waited for his next words, but he saw the steepness of the +path on which he had set his feet and he would not follow it. + +"And I used to think you looked--well, brave." + +"Did I? Don't I now?" + +"Yes; so you see, you must be." + +"I'll try. Three stars," she said, looking up. "But mayn't I--mayn't I +say the things I'm thinking?" + +"I hope you will," he answered gravely; "but then, you must be careful +what you think." + +"This is a very gentle lecture," she said. "Four stars, now. Five. When +I've counted seven, we'll go back, but I rather hoped you would be a +little cross." + +Pleased, yet half irritated, by this simplicity, he stood in silence +while she counted her seven stars. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +It had long been a custom of the Canipers to spend each warm Sunday +evening in the heather, and there, if Daniel were not already with them, +they would find him waiting, or they would watch for his gaunt, loose +figure to come across the moor. This habit had begun when his father was +alive, and the stern chapel-goer's anger must be dared before Daniel +could appear with the light of a martyr on his brow. In those days, +Zebedee, who was working under the old doctor, sometimes arrived with +Daniel, and sank with an unexpressed relief into the lair which was a +little hollow in the moor, where heather grew thickly on the sides, but +permitted pale violets and golden tormentilla to creep about the grassy +bottom. Zebedee was more than ten years older than his brother, and he +suffered from a loneliness which made their honest welcome of great +value to him. He liked to listen to the boys' precocious talk and watch +the grace and beauty of the girls before he went back to the ugly house +in the town of dreary streets, to the work he liked and wearied himself +over, and the father he did not understand. Then he went away, and he +never knew how bitterly Helen missed him, how she had recognized the +tired look which said he had been working too hard, and the unhappy look +which betrayed his quarrels with his father, and how, in her own +fashion, she had tried to smooth those looks away, and now he had +returned with a new expression on his face. It was that, she thought, of +a man who, knowing misery like a great block in his path, had ridden +over it and not looked back. She knew what Rupert meant by saying he was +different, and again she felt a strong dislike for all his experiences +which she had not shared. + +On the evening after his visit, the Canipers and Daniel went to the +trysting place. Helen wrapped herself in a shawl and lay down with her +head on her arms and one eye for the clouds, but she did not listen to +the talk, and she had no definite thoughts. The voices of Rupert and +Daniel were like the buzzing of bees, a sound of warmth and summer, and +the smell of their tobacco came and went on the wind. She was aware that +John, having smoked for a time and disagreed with everything that was +said, had walked off towards the road, and the succeeding peace was +proof that Miriam too, had disappeared. + +Helen rolled on her back and went floating with the clouds. While she +merely watched them, she thought they kept a level course, but to go +with them was like riding on a swollen sea, and as she rose and fell in +slow and splendid curves, she discovered differences of colour and +quality in a medium which seemed invariable from below. She swooped +downwards like a bird on steady wings and saw the moor lifting itself +towards her until she anticipated a shock; she was carried upwards +through a blue that strained to keep its colour, yet wearied into a +pallor which almost let out the stars. She saw the eye of a hawk as its +victims knew it, and for a time she kept pace with a lark and saw the +music in his throat before he uttered it. Joy escaped her in a little +sound, and then she felt that the earth was solid under her. + +Daniel and Rupert were still discussing the great things which did not +matter, and idly she marvelled at their capacity for argument and +quarrel; but she realized that for Rupert, at least, this was a sport +equivalent to her game of sailing with the clouds, and when she turned +to look at him, she saw him leaning against his heather bush, wearing +the expression most annoying to an antagonist, and flicking broken +heather stalks at Daniel's angular and monumental knees. + +"You talk of the mind," Rupert said, "as though it were the stomach." + +"I do," Daniel said heavily. + +"And your stomach at that! Bulk and fat foods--" + +"This is merely personal," Daniel said, "and a sign that you are being +beaten, as usual. I was going to say that in a day of fuller knowledge +we shall be able to predict the effect of emotions with the same +certainty--" + +"With which you now predict the effect of Eliza's diet. God forbid! +Anyhow, I shall be dead. Come on." + +Daniel stood up obediently, for they had now reached the point where +they always rose and walked off side by side, in the silence of +amusement and indignation. + +There was a rustling in the heather, and she heard no more of them. Then +the thud of approaching footsteps ran along the ground, and she sat up +to see Miriam with Zebedee. + +"I went fishing," Miriam said, "and this is what I caught." + +He smiled at Helen a little uncertainly. "I had some time to spare, and +I thought you wouldn't mind if I came up here. You used to let me." + +"I've always wanted you to come back," she said with her disconcerting +frankness. + +"You may sit down," Miriam said, "and go on telling us about your +childhood. Helen, we'd hardly said how d'you do when he began on that. +It's a sure sign of age." + +"I am old." + +"Oh," Helen murmured. "No." She dropped back into her bed. She could see +Zebedee's grey coat sleeve and the movements of his arm as he found and +filled his pipe, and by moving her head half an inch she saw his collar +and his lean cheek. + +"Yes, old," he said, "and the reason I mentioned my unfortunate +childhood was to point a moral in content. When I was young I was made +to go to chapel twice on Sundays, three times counting Sunday-school, +and here I find you all wandering about the moor." + +"I'd rather have had the chapel," Miriam said. "One could at least look +at people's hats." + +"The hats in our particular Bethel were chiefly bonnets. Bonnets with +things in them that nodded, and generally black." He stared across the +moor. "I don't know that the memory of them is a thing to cherish." + +Helen tried to do justice to the absent. "We were never told not to go. +We could do what we liked." + +"Ah, but we weren't encouraged," Miriam chuckled. "You have to be +encouraged, don't you, Zebedee, before you go into places like that?" + +"My father had other methods," he said grimly. + +The silence tightened on his memories, and no one spoke until Miriam +said, almost gently, "Please tell us some more." + +"The pews were a bright yellow, and looked sticky. The roof was painted +blue, with stars. There was a man in a black gown with special knowledge +on the subject of sin." + +"That," Miriam said pensively, "must have been amusing." + +"No. Only dreary and somehow rather unclean. I liked to go to the +surgery afterwards and smell the antiseptics." + +"I wish the horrible black-gowned man could know that," Helen said +fiercely. + +He looked down, smiling tolerantly. "But it doesn't matter now." + +"It does. It will always matter. You were little--" She broke off and +huddled herself closer in her shawl, as though she held a small thing in +its folds. + +He found nothing to say; he was swept by gratitude for this tenderness. +It was, he knew, what she would have given to anything needing comfort, +but it was no less wonderful for that and he was warmed by it and, at +the same time, disturbed. She seemed to have her hands near his heart, +and they were pressing closer. + +"Go on," said Miriam, unconscious of the emotions that lived near her. +"I like to hear about other people's miseries. Were you rather a funny +little boy?" + +"I expect so." + +"Pale and plain, I should think," she said consideringly, "with too big +a nose. Oh, it's all right now, rather nice, but little boys so often +have noses out of proportion. I shall have girls. Did you wear black +clothes on Sunday?" + +"I'm afraid so." + +"Poor little ugly thing! Helen, are you listening? Black clothes! And +your hair oiled?" + +"No, not so bad as that. My mother was a very particular lady." + +"Can you tell us about her?" Helen asked. + +"I don't know that I can." + +"You oughtn't to have suggested it," Miriam said in a reproof which was +ready to turn to mockery at a hint from Zebedee. + +"He won't tell us if he doesn't want to. You wouldn't be hurt by +anything we said, would you?" + +"Of course not. The difficulty is that there seems nothing to tell. She +was so quiet, as I remember her, and so meek, and yet one felt quite +safe with her. I don't think she was afraid, as I was, but there was +something, something that made things uncertain. I can't explain." + +"I expect she was too gentle at the beginning," Helen said. "She let him +have his own way and then she was never able to catch up, and all the +time--all the time she was thinking perhaps you were going to suffer +because she had made that mistake. And that would make her so anxious +not to make another, wouldn't it? And so--" + +"And so it would go on. But how did you discover that?" + +"Oh, I know some things," she said, and ended feebly, "about some +things." + +"She died when I was thirteen and Daniel three, and my father was very +unhappy." + +"I didn't like your father a bit," Miriam said. + +"He was a good man in his way, his uncomfortable way." + +"Then I like them wickeder than that." + +"It made him uncomfortable too, you know." + +"If you're going to preach--" + +He laughed. "I didn't mean to. I was only offering you the experience of +my maturity!" + +"Well, I'm getting stiff and cold. Helen likes that kind of thing. Give +it to her while I get warm. Unless you'll lend me your shawl, Helen?" + +"No, I won't." + +"I must go too," said Zebedee, but he did not move and Helen did not +speak. His thoughts were on her while his eyes were on the dark line of +moor touching the sky; yet he thought less of her than of the strange +ways of life and the force which drew him to this woman whom he had +known a child so short a time ago. He wondered if what he felt were +real, if the night and the mystery of the moor had not bewitched him, +for she had come to him at night out of the darkness with the wind +whistling round her. It was so easy, as he knew, for a solitary being to +fasten eagerly on another, like a beaten boat to the safety of a buoy, +but while he thus admonished himself, he had no genuine doubt. He knew +that she was what he wanted: her youth, her wisdom, her smoothness, her +serenity, and the many things which made her, even the stubbornness +which underlay her calm. + +Into these reflections her voice came loudly, calling him from the +heights. + +"I do wish you wouldn't keep Eliza. She's a most unsuitable person to +look after you." + +He laughed so heartily and so long that she sat up to look at him. "I +don't know what's amusing you," she said. + +"It's so extraordinarily like you!" + +"Oh!" + +"And why don't you think her suitable?" + +"From things Daniel has told me." + +"Oh, Daniel is an old maid. She's ugly and disagreeable, but she +delivers messages accurately, and that's all I care about. Don't believe +all Daniel's stories." + +"They worry me," she said. + +"Do you worry about every one's affairs?" he asked, and feared she would +hear the jealousy in his voice. + +"I know so few people, you see. Oughtn't I to?" + +"I'm humbly thankful," he said with a light gravity. + +"Then I'll go on. Aren't you lonely on Sundays in that house with only +the holly bush and the rowan and the apple-trees that bear no fruit? Why +don't you come up here?" + +"May I?" + +"You belong to the moor, too," she said. + +He nodded his thanks for that. "Who told you about our trees? Daniel +again?" + +"Yes; but I asked him." + +He stood up. "I must go back. Thank you and good night." + +It was getting dark and, with a heavy feeling in her heart, she watched +him walk away, while Miriam ran up with a whirl of skirts, crying out, +"Is he going? Is he going? Come and see him to the road." + +Helen shook her head. She would let Miriam have anything she wanted, but +she would not share with her. She turned her back on the thin striding +figure and the small running one behind it, and she went into the house. +There, the remembrance of Mildred Caniper went with her from room to +room, and the house itself seemed to close on Helen and hold her in. + +She stood at the schoolroom window and watched the twilight give place +to night. In the garden, the laurel bushes were quite black and it +seemed to her that the whole world was dead except herself and the +lurking shadows that filled the house. Zebedee, who tramped the long +road to the town, had become hardly more than a toy which had been wound +up and would go on for ever. Then, on the hillside, a spark leapt out, +and she knew that John or Lily Brent had lighted the kitchen lamp. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Miriam took Zebedee to the road and, finding him uninteresting, she gave +him a scant good-night and left him. She sank into the heather and told +herself many times that she did not know what to do. She had wit enough +to realize that she was almost ridiculous in her discontent, but for +that Notya must be blamed, and her own immediate necessity was to find +amusement. In all the vastness of the moor, George Halkett was the only +being who could give her a taste of what she wanted, and she had +quarrelled with George Halkett. She sat and glowered at the white road +cutting the darkness of the moor and she thought it had the cruel look +of a sharp and powerful knife. It seemed to threaten her and, though she +had all youth's faith in her good fortune, at times she was taken by a +panic lest she should turn out to be one of those whom fate left +stranded. That fear was on her now, for there were such women, she knew, +and sometimes they were beautiful! Perhaps they were often beautiful, +and in the long run it might be better to be good, yet she would not +have exchanged her looks for all the virtues in the world. + +"Nobody would!" she cried aloud, and, seizing two bunches of heather by +their stalks, she shook them violently. + +Nevertheless, she might grow old on the moor and marry Daniel in +despair. She shuddered. No one could love Daniel enough to pardon his +appearance, and amusement would soon change to hatred. She tormented +herself with pictures of their common life. She saw his shapeless +clothes lying about the room she had to share with him; his boots stared +up at her from the hall with much of his own expression. She heard him +talking legally to her through their meals and saw him gazing at her +with his peculiar, timid worship. But if they had children, they would +have Daniel's stamp on them, and then he would grow bold and take all +she gave for granted. Girls and boys alike, they would be big and gaunt +and clumsy, but considerate and good. + +She threw her arms across her breast and held herself in a fury of +self-possession. Marriage suddenly appeared to her as an ugly thing even +if it attained to the ideal. No, no! Men were good to play with, to +tease and torture, but she had fixed her limits, and she fixed them with +some astonishment for her own reserve. The discovery of this inherent +coldness had its effect: it bounded her future in a manner which was too +disturbing for much contemplation, but it also gave her a new freedom of +action, assuring her that she need have no fears for her own restraint, +that when her chance came, she might go into the world like a Helen of +Troy who could never be beguiled. In the meantime, though she had +quarrelled with George Halkett, she remembered that she had not forsworn +his company; she had only sworn to punish him for having told the truth, +and she easily pretended not to know that her resentment was no more +than an excuse. + +She swung herself to her feet, and not without fear, for the moor had +never been her friend, she walked quickly towards the patch of darkness +made by the larch-trees. "I am being driven to this," she thought +dramatically and with the froth of her mind. She went with her head held +tragically high, but in her throat, where humour met excitement, there +was a little run of laughter. + +The trees stood without movement, as though they were weighted by +foreknowledge and there was alarm in the voice of the stream. She +stopped short of the water and stood by the brown path that led down to +the farm, and her feet could feel the softness of many falls of larch +needles. She listened and she could hear nothing but the small noises of +the wood and all round it the moor was like a circle of enchantment +keeping back intruders. There was no wind, but she was cold and her +desire for George had changed its quality. She wanted the presence of +another human being in this stillness; she would have welcomed Mrs. +Samson with a shout and even Notya with a smile, but she found herself +unable to turn and make for home. It would have been like letting danger +loose on her. + +"George!" she called loudly, before she knew she was going to do it. +"George, George, George!" Her voice, shriller than its wont, raged at +her predicament. + +A dog barked in the hollow and came nearer. She heard George silence +him, and she knew that man and dog were approaching through the wood. +Then her fears vanished and she strolled a few paces from the trees and +stood, an easy mark for George when he appeared. + +"Was it you who called?" he asked her from a little distance. + +"Me?" Now he was close to her, and she saw his guarded eyes soften +unwillingly. + +"Somebody called. Didn't you hear the dog barking? Somebody called +'George!'" + +"Perhaps," she ventured in the falsely innocent manner which both +recognized as foolish and unworthy and in which both took a different +delight, "perhaps it was--thought-reading!" + +"With the dog?" he sneered. + +"You and the dog," she said, joining them deliberately. "It's getting so +dark that I can hardly see your cross face. That's a good thing, because +I want to say thank you for driving Uncle Alfred and Notya to the +station." + +"That's all right," he said, and added with a sullen curiosity, "Is he +the one who's going to adopt you?" + +"Yes." + +"He hasn't done it yet?" + +"I'm not sure that I want to go. George, shall I tell you something? +Something charming, a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night--I did +call you!" + +"Well," he said after a pause, "I knew that." + +"You weren't certain. Tell the truth! Were you certain?" + +"No, I was not," he said with the sulky honesty which should have moved +her. + +"And had you been thinking of me?" + +He would not answer that. + +"I shan't be hurt," she said, swaying from foot to foot, "because I +know!" Against the invading blackness her face and teeth gleamed +clearly. + +"You're like a black cat!" he burst out, in forgetfulness of himself. + +"A witch's cat!" + +"A witch." + +"Do you think witches are ever afraid? Only when they see the cross, +isn't it? But I was, George, when I called out." + +"What of?" + +"I--don't know. The quietness and the dark." + +He gave a short laugh which tried to conceal his pleasure in her +weakness. + +"Aren't you ever?" + +"Can't remember it." + +"Not of anything?" + +"No." + +"How--stupid of you." + +"Stupid?" + +"Yes, when the world's full of things you don't understand." + +"But nothing happens." + +That was her own complaint, but from him the words came in the security +of content. "But tonight--" she began, shivered lightly and raised her +hand. "What's that?" + +He lifted his head; the dog, sitting at his feet, had cocked his ears. +"Nothing." + +"I heard something." + +Hardly heeded, he put his strong fingers on her wrist and grasped it. +His voice was rich and soft. "What's the matter with you tonight?" + +Unmistakably now, a sound came from the hollow; not, this time, the +raging of old Halkett, but a woman's cry for help, clear and insistent. + +"It must be my father," he said, and his hand fell away from Miriam's; +but for a few seconds he stared at her as though she could tell him what +had happened. Then he went after the dog in his swift passage through +the trees, while, urged by an instinct to help and a need for George's +solid company, Miriam followed. She was soon outstripped, so that her +descent was made alone. Twigs crackled under her feet, the ranks of +trees seemed to rush past her as she went, and, with the return of +self-remembrance, she knew that this was how she had felt long ago when +she read fairy stories about forests and enchanted castles. + +Yet she would have been less alarmed at the sight of a moated, +loop-holed pile than at this of Halkett's farm, a white-washed +homestead, with light beaming from a window on the ground floor, the +whole encompassed by a merely mortal possibility of strange events. Her +impulse had been to rush into the house, but she stood still, feeling +the presence of the trees like a thick curtain shutting away the outer, +upper world and, having paused, she found that she could not pursue her +course. + +"I must go back," she whispered. After all, this was not her affair. + +A murmur of voices came from the lighted room; the movement of a horse +in the stables was the friendliest sound she had ever heard. +Reluctantly, for she was alive with curiosity, she turned to go when a +step rang on the flagged passage of the farm and George stood in the +doorway. He beckoned and met her half way across the yard. + +"He's gone," he said, and he looked dazed. "Can't believe it," he +muttered. + +"Oh!" she said under her breath. "Oh, dear!" It was her turn to put a +hand on him, for she was afraid of death. + +"Can't believe it," he said again, and taking her with him, he went as +though he were drawn, towards the lighted windows and looked in. + +"Yes," he said, assuring himself that this thing really was. + +Fascinated by the steadfastness of his gaze, Miriam looked too and drew +back with a muffled cry. She had seen the old man rigid on a red velvet +sofa, his head on a yellow cushion, his grey hair in some way coarsened +by the state of death, his limbs clad in the garments of every day and +strangely insulted by them. Near him, with her back to the window and +straight and stiff as a sentinel, sat Mrs. Biggs, the housekeeper, the +knob of her smooth black hair defying destiny. + +Still whispering, Miriam begged, "George, don't look any more." Her +horror was as much for the immobile woman as for the dead man. "Come +away, before she turns round. I want to go home. George--I'm sorry." + +"Yes," he said. + +"Good-night." + +"Good-night," he answered, and she saw him look through the window +again. + +Going across the moor, she cried feebly. She wished old Halkett had not +been lying on the red sofa. He should have died in the big kitchen of +his fathers, or upstairs in a great bed, not in that commonly-furnished +little sitting-room where the work-basket of Mrs. Biggs kept company +with a cheap china lamp and photographs in frames. She wondered how they +would manage to undress him, and for how long Mrs. Biggs would sit +beside him like a fate, a fate in a red blouse and a brown skirt. +Perhaps even now they were pulling off his clothes. Terrible for George +to have to do that, she thought, yet it seemed natural enough work for +Mrs. Biggs, with her hard mouth and cold eyes, and no doubt she had +often put him to bed in the lusty days of his carousals. Perhaps the +dead could really see from under their stiff eyelids, and old Halkett +would laugh at the difficulty with which they disrobed him for this last +time. Perhaps he had been watching when George and she looked through +the window. Until now she had never seen him when he did not leer at +her, and she felt that he must still be leering under the mask of death. + +The taint of what she had looked on hung heavily about her, and the +fresh air of the moor could not clear it away. Crying still, in little +whimpers which consoled her, she stole through the garden and the house +to the beautiful solitude of Phoebe's room and the cleanliness of +linen sheets. + +Supperless she lay there, by turn welcoming and rejecting the pictures +which appeared on the dark wall of her mind, and when Helen knocked on +the door she was not bidden to enter. + +"Don't you want anything to eat?" she called. + +"No." + +"What's the matter?" + +"I--feel sick." + +"Then mayn't I come in and look after you?" Helen asked in a voice +which impelled Miriam to bark an angry negative. + +It was Helen, who liked to help people, to whom this thing should have +happened, yet Miriam possessed her experience jealously; it had broken +into the monotony of life and to that extent she was grateful. + +"And I must be very kind to George," she decided before she went to +sleep. + +She dropped her white eyelids the next morning when John gave the news +of the old man's death, for she did not want to betray her knowledge. + +"Oh!" Helen said, and Rupert remarked lightly and watchfully that +Zebedee would now be less often on the moor. + +"There's still the funeral," Helen said oddly. + +"And let's hope they'll bury him soon," John added, and so finished with +old Halkett. + +Helen was still thoughtful. "Perhaps we ought to go and be nice to +George. There won't be anything we can do, but we might ask him if there +is." + +"The less you have to do with George--" John began, and Miriam +interrupted him, clicking her tongue. + +"Helen, Helen, haven't you heard about George and Lily Brent? A dreadful +story. Ask John." + +"If you're not careful," he said menacingly, "I'll do what she did to +him." + +"No, no, you won't, Johnny; for, in spite of everything, you're a little +gentleman." + +"Oh, do be quiet, you two! Rupert's trying to say something." + +"Send a note of condolence to George," he advised, "and I'll go to the +funeral. It's no good asking John to do it. He wouldn't shine. Heavens! +it's late, and I haven't cleaned the boots!" + +The boys went about their business and left the girls to theirs. + +"I don't think a note is enough for George," Helen said as she rolled up +her sleeves. "A man without a mother or a father, and only a Mrs. +Biggs!" + +"H'm," Miriam commented. "Except for Mrs. Biggs, I don't know that he's +to be pitied. Still, I'm quite willing to be agreeable, unless you mean +to go and knock at the farm door?" + +"No. Couldn't we catch him somewhere!" + +"Yes," Miriam said too promptly. She made a cautious pause. "He won't be +riding on the moor today, because there'll be undertakers and things. If +we went down the road--or shall I go alone?" + +"Both of us--to represent the family. And we can say we're sorry--" + +"But we're not." + +"Yes, in a way. Sorry he hadn't a nicer father to be sorry for." + +"What about ours?" Miriam asked. + +"He may be dead, too, by now." + +"And that will matter less to us than old Halkett does to George." + +"But the great thing," Helen said, "is to have people one can't be +ashamed of." + +"Oh!" + +"I know; but it's true. And our father would always look nice and be +polite, even when he was dying. Old Halkett--" + +"Don't talk about him! Come along. We'll catch George on his way to that +shop with the pictures of hearses in the window. If I die before you, +don't put me in one of those black carts." + +"I don't think I could put you into anything," Helen said with simple +fervour. + +"Then you'd have to mummify me and stick me up in the hall beside the +grandfather clock, and you'd think the ticking was my heart." + +"There are hearts beating all over the house now," Helen said. "But this +is not meeting George," she added, and rolled her sleeves down again. + +They waylaid him successfully where the road met Halkett's lane, and +from his horse he looked down on the two upturned faces. + +"We've heard about Mr. Halkett," Helen said, gazing with friendliness +and without embarrassment into his eyes. "I suppose there's nothing we +can do?" + +"Nothing, thanks." + +"And Rupert said he would like to go to the funeral, if he may." + +"Thank you. I'll let him know about it." He glanced at Miriam and +hesitated, yet when he spoke it was in a franker voice than the one she +was used to hear. "I'm afraid you were upset last night." + +Her answering look made a pact between them. "We didn't hear about it +till this morning." + +He nodded, watching her through his thick lashes. He gave her a strong +impression that he was despising her a little, and she saw him look from +her to Helen as though he made comparisons. Indeed, at that moment, he +thought that these sisters were like thirst and the means to quench it, +like heat and shade; and a sudden restlessness made him shift in his +seat. + +"I expect you have a lot to do," Helen said. "Good-bye." + +"Good-bye. And thank you," he said gruffly, and caught the flash of +Miriam's smile as he turned. + +Helen stood looking after him. "Poor George!" she said. "I rather like +him. I wish he wouldn't drink." + +"Exaggerated stories," Miriam remarked neatly. + +"Oh, yes, but he looks as if he had never had a chance of being nice." + +"I don't believe he has ever wanted one," Miriam said. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Uncle Alfred wrote a short note from Calais, and on the day when old +Halkett was taken to his grave another letter came to say that Philip +Caniper was dead before the travellers could reach him. + +"Then we're poor little orphans, like George," Miriam said, and, with +the peering look which asked how far she might venture, she added, "And, +like George, we have our Mrs. Biggs." + +If Helen heard those words, she made no sign. "She'll never be happy +again," she said. + +"Well, she never has been happy, and she has never wanted us to be +happy, so nothing's changed." + +"What can we do?" Helen went on, and her thoughts alighted on such +practical kindnesses as a perfect state of cleanliness in the house to +which Notya would return, flowers in her bedroom for a welcome, and a +great willingness to do what pleased her. "But we mustn't be too +obvious," she murmured to herself. + +"And whatever you do, don't slobber." + +"Is it likely?" Helen asked superbly. + +The firmest intentions in that direction would have been frustrated by +the sight of Mildred Caniper's cold face, and Helen saw with surprise +that it was almost as it had always been. Her "Well, Helen!" was as calm +as her kiss, and only when she raised her veil was her bitter need of +sleep revealed. Then, too, Helen saw that her features and her fair, +bright colouring had suffered an indefinable blurring, as though, in +some spiritual process, their sharpness had been lost, and while she +looked at her, Helen felt the full weight of responsibility for this +woman settling once more on her own slim shoulders. Yet she noticed that +the shadows which had hung so thickly in the house became thinner as +soon as Mildred Caniper entered it. No doubt they had slipped into the +body which was their home. + +"Daniel is here," Helen said, "because it's Saturday and we didn't know +you were coming." + +"Well?" + +"I thought you might be sorry. And we have asked him to stay the night." + +"I promise not to turn him out," Mildred Caniper said, with her humorous +look, and Helen laughed back with a friendliness for which Miriam, +listening in a corner, admired her secretly. + +"But I shall want to talk to you this evening when you are all +together," Notya said. + +For that ceremony, Miriam wore her customary black with an air which at +once changed the dress into one of mourning; the fashion of her hair was +subdued to match her manners, and Daniel, having a dim notion that he +might unknowingly have offended, asked in his clumsy way what troubled +her. + +She edged closer to him and looked up, and he could see that she was +laughing at herself, though that helped him not at all. + +"Isn't my father dead? And aren't we going to have a family consultation +in the dining-room? Well, here am I." + +"I see." + +"What do you see?" + +He turned away. "I'm not going to tell you." + +"Ah, Daniel dear, do! I know I'm horrid and frivolous and vain, and I +tease you, but I'm very fond of you and I should love--oh, love--you to +tell me something nice. Quick, Daniel! Quick, before the others come +in!" + +He was red, and his forehead glistened as he said, "You'll only throw it +up at me." + +"Oh, as if I would! I don't care for that expression, but I won't. +Daniel, some one's coming!" + +He blew his nose and bent over his book, yet through the trumpeting and +the manipulation of his handkerchief, she heard a word. + +"Beautiful," he mumbled. + +"Always?" + +He nodded, and like a delighted child, she clapped her hands. + +Rupert, less debonair than usual, opened the door. "Come on," he said. +"We're all ready. Daniel, stay where you are. We don't want you tumbling +into the conclave." + +"All right, all right." + +"Got something to keep you quiet?" + +"Greek grammar." + +"Good man. Now then!" He plunged across the hall as though it were an +icy bath. + +In the candle-lighted dining-room, Mildred Caniper sat by a wood fire. +The table barricaded her from the four Canipers who sat and looked at +her with serious eyes, and suddenly she found that she had very little +to say. Those eyes and the four mouths curved, in their different ways, +for passion and resolve, seemed to be making courteous mock of her; yet +three at least of the Canipers were conscious only of pity for her +loneliness behind the shining table. + +"After all," she said, trying to be at ease, "there is not much to tell +you; but I felt that, perhaps, you have never understood your father +very well." + +"He did not give us the opportunity," Rupert said. + +John had his shoulders raised as though he would shield his ears from +family discordances, and he swore inwardly at Rupert for answering back. +What was the good of that? The man was dead, and he might be allowed to +rest. It was strange, he thought, that Rupert, under his charming ways, +had a hardness of which he himself was not capable. + +"No," Mildred Caniper was saying, and by her tone she shifted the blame +from her husband to his children. The word acted as a full stop to her +confidences, and there was an uneasy pause. + +"But tell us, please," Helen said, leaning forward. + +"Oh, please," Rupert added. + +Mildred Caniper smiled waveringly, between pride and pain. "I was only +going to tell you a little about him, but now I don't know that I can." +She swallowed hard. "I wanted you to know how gifted he was." + +"How?" Rupert asked. + +"He wrote," she said, defying their criticism of what they had not seen, +"but he destroyed all he did because he was never satisfied. I found +nothing--anywhere." + +Here was a father whom Rupert could understand, and for the first time +he regretted not having known him; but to John it was foolishness for a +man to set his hand to work which was not good enough to stand. He must +content himself with a humbler job. + +"He liked only the best," Mildred Caniper said, doing her duty by him, +and the next moment she caught the full shaft of Miriam's unwary glance +which was bright with the conviction that her father's desertion needed +no more explanation. + +Mildred Caniper's mind registered the personal affront, and swept on to +its implication as rain sweeps up a valley. The result was darkness, and +as she sat straight and motionless in her chair, she seemed to herself +to struggle, for her soul sighted despair. Long ago, she had taken life +into her hands and used it roughly, and life was taking its slow +revenge. In the shuttered room by the sea, the dead man, deaf to the +words with which she had hurried to him, and here, in this house, the +eyes of Miriam announced her failure, yet to that cold clay and to this +living flesh she had been, and was, a power. + +She dropped her hands limply. She was tired of this fictitious power; +she was almost ready to pretend no longer; and with that thought she +found herself being observed by Helen with a tenderness she was not +willing to endure. She spoke abruptly, resigning the pious task of +sweetening Philip Caniper's memory. + +"Your father has left you each nearly a hundred pounds a year"--she +glanced at Miriam--"to be handed over when you have reached the age of +twenty-one." + +There was a feeling that some one ought to thank him, but no one spoke, +and his children left the room with an unaccountable sense of guilt. + +In the safety of the schoolroom Miriam's voice rose bitterly: "Oh, why +aren't we an ordinary family? Why can't we cry for a father who leaves +us nearly a hundred pounds?" + +"Try to," Rupert advised. He was smiling queerly to himself. + +"Helen, isn't it horrid?" + +"No: I don't like crying." + +"John, you look as though you're going to refuse the money. I will if +you do. John--" + +"Don't be a little fool," he said. "Refuse it! I'm holding on to it with +both hands." + +She drooped forlornly, but no one seemed to notice her. Daniel was +absorbed in the Greek grammar, and the others were thinking their own +thoughts. + +"I'll go on to the moor," she told herself, and she slipped through the +window in search of what adventure she could find. Outside the garden +she paused and nodded towards the house. + +"I don't care," she said. "It's all their fault. And Helen--oh, I could +kill Helen!" Wickedly she tried to mimic Helen's face. + +A few minutes later John followed through the window, and he went into +the darkness with a strange excitement. For a time he did not think, for +he was experiencing all the relief of daring to feel freely, and the +effect was at first only a lightening of the heart and feet. Hardly +knowing where he wandered, he found himself on the moor behind Brent +Farm, and there, in the heather, he sat down to light his pipe. He was +puzzled when the match quivered in his hand, and then he became aware +that innumerable pulses were beating in his body, and with that +realization others rushed on him, and he knew how he had held himself in +check for months, and how he desired the touch of Lily Brent's splendid +strength and the sight of her drowsy, threatening eyes. Picturing her, +he could not rest, and he rose and marched aimlessly to and fro. He had +been a fool, he told himself: he had denied his youth and doubted her: +proud in poverty, he should have gone to her and offered all he had, the +love and labour of his body and brain, honouring her in asking her to +take him empty-handed if she would take him at all. Now he must go to +her as though she could be bought at the price of a hundred pounds a +years and the poor thing he had once called his pride, known now for a +mere notion gathered from some source outside himself. He who had +scorned convention had been its easy victim, and he bit hard at his pipe +stem and grunted in disgust. + +"We get half our ideas out of books," he said. "No woman would have been +such a fool. They get things at first hand." + +He stopped and pointed at the farm. No doubt the woman down there had +read his thoughts and laughed at him, yes, loving him or not, she must +be laughing at him. He laughed himself, then listened for the chance +sound of her distant voice. He could hear footsteps on the cobbled yard, +the clattering of a pail, the shrill stave of a song uttered by the +maid-servant, but no more; and he paced on until the lights in Brent +Farm went out and his own home was darkened. + +In the grey of the morning, he went down the track. Mists were lying on +the moor; above them, trees showed like things afloat, and when he +crossed the road he felt that he was breasting silent floods. Through +his thick boots he could feel the cold of ground soaked by a night of +unexpected rain, and against his gaiters the long grasses rid themselves +of their loads of drops and swung back to their places as he passed. He +turned at the sound of footsteps on the road and saw one of Halkett's +men walking through that semblance of grey water. The man gave a nod of +greeting, John raised a hand, and the peace of the waking day was not +shattered by human speech. + +In the corner of the meadow near the house, the cows, looming large and +mysterious and unfamiliar, were waiting with hanging heads, and John +stood and looked at them in a kind of dream before he fetched his pail +and stool and settled down to work. His hands were not steady and the +cow was restless at his touch, and when he spoke to her the sound of his +own voice startled him, for the world was leagued with silence and even +the hissing of the milk into the pail had the extravagance of a cascade. + +As he worked, he watched the house. No smoke came from its chimneys, but +at length he heard the opening of a door and Lily Brent appeared. He +thought she was like the morning, fresh and young, with all the promise +and danger of a new day, and while he looked at her his hands dropped +idle. She stood on the step and nodded to him before she walked across +the grass. + +"You here alone?" she said, and there was a fine frown on her brow. +"Where's the rest of them? If I don't rout them out myself--" + +"Don't," he said. "It's early, and it's Sunday morning. They'll come +soon enough." He stood up and rested his folded arms on the cow's back +and looked at Lily. + +"She'll have the pail over," she warned him quickly. + +He put it out of danger and returned. + +"You haven't fetched my stool," she said. + +"I forgot it. Wait a bit. I'll get it soon." + +"What's the matter with you this morning? We're wasting time." + +"Let's waste time," he said. He looked round at the mists floating off +the moor. The light was clearing; the cows had dwindled; the road was no +longer a fairy flood but a highway for the feet of men. + +"I want you to pretend it's yesterday," he said. + +"What's the matter with you, John?" + +"I'm going to tell you. Will you pretend it's yesterday?" + +"Yes. It's Saturday morning, a busy day for us. We ought to get to +work." + +"Come a step nearer," he said, and she obeyed. + +He clutched the hair on the cow's back and spoke in a harsh voice. "Will +you marry me?" he said, frowning and looking her in the eyes. "I've +hardly any money, but I love you. I want you. I didn't know what to do. +If I'd waited till I had as much as you, I might have lost you. I didn't +know what to do, but I thought I'd tell you." + +"You needn't explain any more," she said. Her hands, too, fell on the +cow's back, and with a little movement she bade him take them. He +gathered her fingers into his and turned and twisted them. + +"I thought--if you wanted me--why should we live on opposite sides of +the way? I can help you--and I love you." He relied on that. + +"I love you," he said again. + +He heard her ask softly, "Why?" + +"Because--because--oh, you're all I want. You're like the earth, like +herbs, like fresh green grass. I've got your hands: give me the rest of +you!" + +Her eyes flashed open, he saw and heard her laugh, and their lips met +across the bulky barrier. + +"But I want you in my arms," he said, and in the clearing light he held +her there, though the sound of an opening window told them that the farm +was waking. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +On the night of Mildred Caniper's return, Helen felt that the house had +changed. A new emotion was mingling with the rest, and it was as +unmistakable as a scent, and like a scent, it would grow fainter, but +now it hung in every room and on the stairs. Surely Mr. Pinderwell must +be disturbed by it. She fancied his grey old face puckered in +bewilderment and his steps going faster up and down the stairs. Helen, +too, was restless, and having slept uneasily, she woke in the dark of +the night. + +Outside her widely-opened windows the poplars were moving gently. They +seemed near enough to touch, but she found something formidable in their +aspect. Black, tall and bare, they watched her to the accompaniment of +their indifferent whispering and swaying, and they warned her that +whatever might be her lot, theirs would continue to be this one of lofty +swinging. So, aware of all that happened they had always watched and +whispered, and only tonight was she resentful in her love for them. +Could they not feel a little sorrow for the woman burdened with trouble +who had come back to the house? Had not the sense of that trouble stolen +through the doors and windows? Beyond the garden walls there was, she +knew, immunity from human pain. The moor understood it and therefore +remained unmoved. It was the winds that grieved, the grey clouds that +mourned and the sunshine that exulted; under all these, and changed only +on the surface, the moor spread itself tranquilly, but the poplars were +different. For Helen, all trees were people in another shape and she +could not remember a time when these had not been her friends, but now +they seemed not to care, and she started up in the sudden suspicion that +nothing cared, that perhaps the great world of earth and sky and +growing things had lives as absorbing and more selfish than her own. + +"But only perhaps," she said aloud, asserting her faith in what she +loved. + +She pushed the pillow behind her back and stared into the clearing +darkness of Jane's large bare room. The curved front of her elegant +dressing-table with its oval mirror became distinct. Helen's clothes lay +like a patch of moonlight on a chair, the tallboy and the little stool +by which she reached the topmost drawers changed from their semblances +of beasts to sedate and beautiful furniture. By the bedside, soft +slippers waited with an invitation, and into them Helen soon slipped her +feet, for it seemed to her that the trouble thickened with each minute +and that Notya must be in need of help. + +Yet, when she had noiselessly opened the door of the room opposite, she +found Mildred Caniper sleeping in her narrow bed with the steadiness of +complete fatigue, with something, too, touchingly childlike in her pose. +She might have been a child who had cried bitterly for hours before she +at last found rest, but Notya's grief, Helen divined, had not the +simplicity which allowed of tears nor the beauty which was Mr. +Pinderwell's consolation. It was not death which had hurt her. + +Mildred Caniper's head had slid from the pillow and lay on her +outstretched arm; the other arm, slender and round as youth, was thrown +outside the bed-clothes, and only when Helen bent quite low could she +see the frown of trouble between the brows. Then, feeling like a spy, +she returned to the darkness of the landing where Phoebe and Jane and +Christopher were wondering what she did. + +She might have been a mother who, waking from a bad dream, goes about +the house to see that all is safe: she wished she could go into each +room to make sure that its occupant was there, but such kindnesses had +never been encouraged in a family trained to restraint; moreover, Miriam +might wake in fright, Rupert was a light sleeper and John had an +uncertain temper. There was nothing to do but to go back to bed, and she +did not want to do that. She could not sleep, and she would rather stay +on the landing with the Pinderwells, so she leaned against the wall and +folded her arms across her breast. She wanted to be allowed to care for +people practically and she wished her brothers and sister were small +enough to be held in the arms which had to be contented with herself. +She had, she complained silently to the Pinderwells, to pretend not to +care for the others very much, lest she should weary them. But she had +her secret visions of a large house with unencumbered shining floors on +which children could slide, with a broad staircase down which they would +come heavily, holding to the rails and bringing both feet to each stair. +She lived there with them happily, not thwarted by moods and past +miseries, and though she had not yet seen the father of those children +about the house, tonight, as she stood in the covering darkness, she +thought she heard his footsteps in the garden where the children played +among the trees. + +She moved abruptly, slipped, and sat down with a thud. Her laughter, +like a ghost's, trickled through the stillness, and even while she +laughed a door was opened and John appeared, holding a lighted candle in +his hand. + +"It's only me," Helen said. + +"What the devil are you up to?" + +"I'm not up to anything. I'm on the floor." + +"Ill?" + +"No." + +"I thought I heard some one prowling about." + +"Couldn't you sleep either?" + +He put his fingers through his hair. "No, I couldn't sleep." + +"The house is full of--something, isn't it?" + +"Fools, I think," he answered, laughing a little. "Look here, you +mustn't sit there. It's cold. Get up." + +"Help me." + +"Why didn't you put on your dressing-gown?" + +"You didn't." + +"I don't wear this flimsy rubbish. Go back to bed." + +"Yes. What's the time?" + +"One o'clock. The longest night I've ever known!" + +Rather wistfully she looked at him. "What's the matter, John?" + +"I'm waiting for tomorrow," he said almost roughly. + +"So am I," she said, surprising herself so that she repeated the words +slowly, to know their meaning. "So am I--and it's here." + +"Not till the dawn," he said. "Go to sleep." + +Together their doors were softly closed and Helen knew now whose +footsteps were in the children's garden. She went to the window and +nodded to the poplars. "And you knew, I suppose; but so did I, really, +all the time." + +She slept profoundly and woke to a new wonder for the possibilities of +life, a new fear for the dangers which might assail those who had much +to cherish; and now she descried dimly the truth she was one day to see +in the full light, that there is no gain without loss and no loss +without gain, that things are divinely balanced, though man may +sometimes throw his clumsy weight into the scale. Yet under these +serious thoughts there was a song in her heart and her pleasure in its +music shone out of her eyes so brilliantly that Rupert, watching her +with tolerant amusement, asked what had befallen her. + +"It's only that it's Sunday," the quick-witted Miriam said and Helen +replied with the gravity which was more misleading than a lie: "Yes, +that's all." + +Nevertheless, when Zebedee arrived on the moor, her brightness faded. +Already the desire of possession hurt her and Miriam had attached +herself to him as though she owned him. She was telling him about Philip +Caniper's death, about the money which was to come to them, and +asserting that Daniel now wanted to marry her more than ever. Daniel was +protesting through his blushes, and Zebedee was laughing. It all seemed +very foolish, and she was annoyed with Zebedee for even pretending to be +amused. + +"Oh, don't," she murmured and lay back. + +"Be quiet, prig!" + +"She's not that, is she?" Zebedee asked, his strangely flecked eyes +twinkling. + +"Oh, a bad one. She disapproves of everything she doesn't like herself." + +"Helen, wake up! I want to know if this is true." + +"Do you think it is?" + +"I'm afraid it's very likely." + +"Oh, dear!" she sighed, "I don't know what to do about it. A person +without opinions is just nothing, and you really were being very silly +just now. I hate jokes about marrying." + +"H'm, they are rather feeble," Zebedee owned. + +"Vulgar, I think," she said, with her little air of Mildred Caniper. + +"Ah," said Rupert, tapping Daniel lightly on the head, "a man with a +brain like this can't develop a taste for the real thing. I've seen him +shaking over jokes that made me want to cry, but you mustn't expect too +much of him. He does very well. Come along, my boy, and let's have some +reasonable talk." + +"He doesn't want to go!" Miriam cried. + +"But he must. I know what's good for him." + +"He looks just like an overgrown dancing bear," Miriam said as she +watched the two figures stepping across the moor. + +Helen continued her own gloomy thoughts. "No one can like a prig." + +"Oh, yes," Zebedee assured her cheerfully, "I can. Besides, you'll grow +out of it." + +"She never will! She's getting worse, and it's with living here. As a +doctor, I think you might prescribe a change for her--for all of us. +What will become of us? I can't," she added bitterly, "be expected to +marry a dancing bear!" + +"If you're speaking of Daniel--" Zebedee began sharply. + +"Oh, don't you be cross, too! I did think I had one friend!" + +"Daniel's a good man. He may be queer to look at, but he's sound. You +only hurt yourself, you know, when you speak like that." + +Miriam pouted and was silent, and Helen was not sure whether to be angry +with Zebedee for speaking thus to her who must be spoiled, or glad that +he could do it to one so beautiful, while he could preserve friendliness +for a prig. But her life-long loyalty refused this incipient rivalry; +once more she decided that Miriam must have what she wanted, and she lay +with clenched hands and a tranquil brow while she listened to the +chatter which proclaimed Miriam's recovery. + +Helen could see nothing but a sky which was colourless and unclouded, +and she wished she could be like that--vague, immaterial, without form. +Perhaps to reach that state was happiness; it might be negation, but it +would be peace and she had a young, desperate wish to die and escape the +alternations of joy and pain. "And yet this is nothing," she said with +foresight, and she stood up. "I'm going home." + +"No!" Zebedee exclaimed in the middle of one of Miriam's sentences. + +"I must. Notya's all alone. Good-night." + +He would not say the word, and he walked beside her. "But I'm your +guest," he reminded her. + +"I know. But you see, she's lonely." + +"And I've been lonely all my life." + +She caught her breath. "Have you?" Her hands moved against her skirt and +she looked uneasily about her. "Have you?" She was pulled two ways, and +with a feeling of escape, she found an answer for him. "But you are you. +You're not like her. You're strong. You can manage without any one." + +"I've had to." + +"Oh," she moaned, "don't make me feel unhappy about going." + +"I wouldn't have you unhappy about anything." + +"You're a wonderful friend to me. Good-night." + +He watched her move away, but when she had gone a few paces she ran +back. + +"It wasn't quite the truth," she said. "It was only partly Notya." + +"You're not angry with me?" + +"With you? I couldn't be. It was just my silly self, only I didn't want +to be half truthful with you." + +Their hands touched and parted, and he waited until she was out of sight +before he went back to Miriam. + +"You're a little pest," he said, "wasting my time--" + +"Ha, ha! I knew. I won't waste any more of it. Wasn't it horrid of me? +If you hadn't scolded me I might have been kind; but I always, always +pay people out." + +"Silly thing to do," he muttered, and went off. + +Miriam chuckled under her whistling as she strolled across the moor. +She did not whistle a tune, but uttered sweet, plaintive notes like a +bird's call, and as she reached the stream a tall figure rose up from +the darkness of the ground. + +"Oh, are you here, George?" she said. "I'm glad. I'm sick of +everything." + +"H'm. I'm glad I'm useful. Are the others having their usual +prayer-meeting?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"That Mackenzie of yours and your brother, sitting in the dip and +talking. I can't think what on earth they find to say." + +"Well, you see, George, they are very clever people. Let us sit down. +You can't--I mean you and I can't appreciate them properly." + +"The Mackenzie looks a fool." + +"He is a great friend of mine. You must not be rude. Manners makyth man. +According to that, you are not always a man when you're with me." + +He breathed deeply. "There's something about you--" + +"Now you're blaming me, and that's not gallant." + +"You think I'm not fit to breathe the same air with you, don't you?" + +"Yes, sometimes." She sat hugging her knees and swaying to and fro, and +with each forward movement her face neared his. "But at others you are +quite presentable. Last night you were charming to me, George." + +"I can be what I choose. D'you know that I had the same education as +your brothers?" + +"You're always saying that. But you forget that you didn't have me for a +sister." + +"No, thank God." + +"Now--!" + +"That's a compliment." + +"Oh! And, George," she peered at him and dared herself to say the +words, though old Halkett's ghost might be lurking among the trees: "I +don't think your father can have been a ve-ry good influence on a wild +young man like you." + +"The old man's dead. Leave it at that. And who says I'm wild?" + +"Aren't you? Don't disappoint me." + +"I'm all right," he said with admirable simplicity, "if I don't drink." + +"Then you mustn't, and yet I love to think that you're a bold, bad man." + +His eyes, which rarely widened, did so now, and in the gathering dusk +she saw a flash of light. + +"You see, it makes me feel so brave, George." + +"It ought to." + +There was danger in his presence and she liked invoking it; but there +was a certain coarseness, also invoked by her, from which she shrank, +towards which she crept, step by step, again. She made no answer to his +words. In her black dress and against the darkness of the wood, she was +hardly more than a face and two small hands. There was a gentle movement +among the trees; they were singing their welcome of a peaceful night; +the running of the stream came loudly, giving itself courage for the +plunge into the wood. + +Miriam spoke in a low voice. "It's getting late. The others must have +gone in. They'll wonder where I am." + +"And they'd be horrified, I suppose, if they knew." + +She bent towards him so that he might see her reproachful face. + +"You've spoilt this lovely night. You don't match the sky and stars. I +wish I hadn't met you." + +"You needn't have done," he said. + +"Are you sorry I did?" she challenged him. + +"Oh, I don't know," he muttered almost to himself. "That's it. I never +know." + +She choked down the lilt of triumph in her voice. "I'll leave you to +think, about it," she said and, looking at the high fir-wood, she added, +"But I thought we were going to be such friends, after all." + +Halkett stood up, and he said nothing, for his feelings were not to be +put into words he could say to her. In her presence he suffered a +mingling of pain and pleasure, anger and delight; cruelty strove in him +with gentleness, coarseness with courtesy; he wanted to kiss her roughly +and cast her off, yet he would have been grateful for the chance of +serving her. + +"George," she said quietly. + +"Yes?" + +"When you think of life, what do you see?" + +"I--don't know." + +"But you must." + +He compelled his imagination. "The moor, and the farm, and the folks in +the town, standing on the pavement, and Oxford Street in London--and +Paris." + +"Have you been to Paris?" + +"I couldn't think about it if I hadn't." + +She gave the laugh which coolly put him from her. "Couldn't you? Poor +George!" She balanced from her heels to her toes and back again, with +steadying movements of her arms, so that she was like a bird refusing to +take flight. "I don't see things plainly like that," she murmured. "It's +like a black ball going round and round with sparks inside, and me; and +the blackness and the sparks are feelings and thoughts, and things that +have happened and are going to happen, all mixing themselves up with the +me in the middle. George, do you feel how strange it is? I can't +explain, but here we are on the moor, with the sky above us, and the +earth underneath--and why? But I'm really rolling over and over in the +black ball, and I can't stop and I can't go on. I'm just inside." + +"I know," he said. "It's all mixed. It's--" He kicked a heather-bush. +"You want a thing and you don't want it--I don't know." + +"I always know what I want," she said, and into her thoughtfulness there +crept the personal taint. "I want every one to adore me. Good-night, +George. I wonder if we shall ever meet again!" + +In the garden, with her hands folded on her knee, Helen was sitting +meekly on a stool under the poplars and watching the swaying of the +tree-tops. + +"The young nun at prayer," Miriam said. "I thought you came back to be +with Notya." + +"She seemed not to want me." + +"Then you sacrificed me for nothing. That's just like you." + +"How?" + +"By throwing me into the alluring company of that young man. If I love +him and he doesn't love me, well, you've blighted my life. And if he +loves me and I don't love him--" + +"You are always talking about love," Helen said with an accent of +distaste. + +"I know it's not the sort of thing a young virgin should be interested +in; but after all, what else can be so interesting to the Y. V.?" + +"But you spoil it." + +"I don't. Do you mind if I put my head on your knee? No, I'm not +comfortable. That's better. It's you who spoil it with being sentimental +and one-love-one-life-ish. Now for me it's a game that nymphs and +goddesses might play at." + +"But you can't play it alone," said Helen, troubled. + +"No, that's the fun of it." She smiled against Helen's dress. "I wonder +if my young man is at home yet. And there's only a cold supper for him! +Dear, dear, dear!" + +With her apparent obtuseness, Helen said, "It won't matter so much in +the summertime." + +"Ah, that's a comfort," Miriam said, and rolled her head luxuriously. + +John came through the French window. + +"I've been looking for you both," he said. "I want to tell you +something." + +"Now it's coming," Miriam muttered. + +"Sit down, then," Helen said. "We can't see you so high up." + +"What! in my best clothes? All right." The light was dim, but they felt +the joviality that hung about him and saw his teeth exposed in a smile +he could not subdue. "The ground's damp, you know. There's a heavy dew." + +There was a silence through which the poplars whispered in excitement. + +"Perhaps I am a little deaf," Miriam said politely, "but I haven't heard +you telling us anything." + +"Yes; he said the ground was damp." + +"So he did! Come along, we'll go in." + +"No, don't!" he begged. "I know I'm not getting on very fast, but the +fact is--I can't bear women to be called after flowers. If it weren't +for that I should have told you long ago. And hers is one of the worst," +he added sadly. + +Miriam and Helen shook each other with their silent laughter. + +"You can call her something else," Helen said. + +"Mrs. C. would be a jaunty way of addressing her." + +"Well, anyway, she's going to marry me, bless her heart. Get up! Notya +wants to know why supper isn't ready." He did a clumsy caper on the +grass. "Who's glad?" + +"I am," Helen said. + +"When?" Miriam asked. + +"Soon." + +"What did Notya say?" was Helen's question. + +"Nothing worth repeating. Don't talk of that." + +"Well," Miriam remarked, "it will be a very interesting affair to +watch." + +"Confound your impudence!" + +"You're sure to have heaps of children," she warned him. + +"Hope so." + +"You'll forget how many there are, and mix them up with the dogs and the +cats and the geese. They'll be very dirty." + +"And perfectly happy." + +"Oh, yes. Now Helen's will always be clean little prigs who couldn't be +naughty if they tried. I shall like yours best, John, though they won't +be clean enough to kiss." + +"Shut up!" he said. + +"I shall be a lovely aunt. I shall come from London Town with a +cornucopia of presents. We're beginning to go," she went on. "First +John, and then me, as soon as I am twenty-one." + +"But Rupert will be here," Helen said quickly. + +"He'll marry, too, and you'll be left with Notya. Somebody will have to +look after her old age. And as you've always been so fond of her--!" + +"There would be the moor," Helen said, answering all her unspoken +thoughts. + +"It wouldn't comfort me!" + +"Don't worry, my dear," John said kindly; "the gods are surely tender +with the good." + +"But she won't grow old," Helen said earnestly. "I don't believe she +could grow old. It would be terrible." And it was of Mildred Caniper and +not of herself she thought. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Mildred Caniper was wearing her deaf expression when they went into the +house, and getting supper ready as a form of reproof. John was another +of her failures. He had chosen work she despised for him, and now, +though it was impossible to despise Lily Brent, it was impossible not to +disapprove of such a marriage for a Caniper. But when she was helpless, +Mrs. Caniper had learnt to preserve her pride in suavity, and as they +sat down to supper she remarked that she would call on Lily Brent +tomorrow. + +"How funny!" Helen said at once. + +Miriam darted a look meant to warn Helen that Notya was in no mood for +controversy, and John frowned in readiness to take offence. + +"Why funny?" he growled. + +"I was just wondering if Notya would put on a hat and gloves to do it." +She turned to Mildred Caniper. "Will you?" + +"I'm afraid I have not considered such a detail." + +"None of us," Helen went on blandly, "has ever put on a hat to go to the +farm. I should hate any of us to do it. Notya, you can't." + +"You forget," Mildred Caniper said in her coldest tones, "that I have +not been accustomed to going there." + +"Well, do notice Lily's primroses," Helen said pleasantly. "They're like +sunshine, and she's like--" + +"No, please," John begged. + +"I wonder why Rupert has not come to supper," Mildred Caniper said, +changing the subject, and Helen wondered pityingly why one who had known +unhappiness should not be eager to spare others. + +"But," Miriam began, her interest overcoming dread of her stepmother's +prejudices, "we shall have to wear hats for John's wedding. I shall +have a new one and a new dress, a dusky blue, I think, with a sheen on +it." + +"Did you mention my wedding?" John asked politely. + +"Yes. And a peacock's feather in my hat. No, that's unlucky, but so +beautiful." + +"Nothing beautiful," Helen said, "can be unlucky." + +"I wouldn't risk it. But what can I have?" + +"For my wedding," John announced, "you'll have nothing, unless you want +to sit alone in the garden in your new clothes. You're not going to be +present at the ceremony. Good Lord! I'll have Rupert and Daniel for +witnesses, and we'll come home in time to do the milking, but there'll +be no show. It would make me sick." + +"Not even a party?" + +"What the--what on earth should we have a party for?" + +"For fun, of course. Daniel and Zebedee and us." She leaned towards him. +"And George, John, just to show that all's forgiven!" To see if she had +dared too much, she cast a glance at Mildred Caniper, but that lady sat +in the stillness of determined indifference. + +"Not one of you!" John said. "It's our wedding, and we're going to do +what we like with it." + +"But when you're going to be happy--as I suppose you think you are--you +ought to let other people join in. Here's a chance of a little fun--" + +"There's nothing funny about being married," Helen said in her deep +tones. + +"Depends who--whom--you're marrying, doesn't it?" Miriam asked, and +looking at Mildred Caniper once more, she found that she need not be +afraid, for though the expression was the same, its effect was +different. Notya looked as though she could not rouse her energies to +active disapproval; as though she would never say her rare, amusing +things again, and Miriam was reminded of the turnip lanterns they had +made in their youth--hollowness and flickering light within. + +The succeeding days encouraged that reminder, for something had gone +from Mildred Caniper and left her stubbornly frail in mind and body. +Rupert believed that hope had died in her but the Canipers did not speak +of the change which was plain to all of them. She was a presence of +flesh and blood, and she would always be a presence, for she had that +power, but she approached Mr. Pinderwell in their thoughts, and they +began to use towards her the kind of tenderness they felt for him. +Sometimes she became aware of it and let out an irony with a sharpness +which sent Helen about the house more gaily and persuaded her that Notya +would be better when summer came, for surely no one could resist the +sun. + +John's soft heart forgave his stepmother's coldness towards his marriage +and his bride, and prompted him to a generous suggestion. He made it +shyly and earnestly one night in the drawing-room where Mildred Caniper +sat under the picture of Mr. Pinderwell's lady. + +"Notya," he began, "we want you to come to our wedding, too. Just you +and Rupert and Daniel. Will you?" + +She looked faintly amused, yet, the next moment, he had a fear that she +was going to cry. "Thank you, John." + +"We both want you," he said awkwardly, and went nearer. + +"I'm glad you have asked me, but I won't come. I'm afraid I should only +spoil it. I do spoil things." She smiled at him and looked at the hands +on her knee. "It seems to me that that's what I do best." + +He did not know what to say and, having made inarticulate noises in his +throat, he went quickly to the schoolroom. + +"Go to Notya, some one, and make her angry. She's being miserable in the +drawing-room. Tell her you've broken something!" + +"I won't," Miriam said. "I've had too much of that, and I'm going to +enjoy the unwonted peace. You go, Helen." + +"Leave her alone," Rupert advised. "You won't cure Notya's unhappiness +so easily as that." + +"When the summer comes--" Helen began, cheerfully deceiving herself, and +John interrupted. + +"Summer is here already. It's June next week." + +He was married in his own way on the first day of that month, and Miriam +uttered no more regrets. She was comparatively contented with the +present. Mildred Caniper seldom thwarted her, and she knew that every +day George Halkett rode or walked where he might see her, and her memory +of that splendid summer was to be one of sunlight blotted with the +shapes of man and horse moving across the moor. George was not always +successful in his search, for she knew that he would pall as a daily +dish, but on Sundays if Daniel would not be beguiled, and if it was not +worth while to tease Helen through Zebedee, she seldom failed to make +her light secret way to the larch-wood where he waited. + +Her excitement, when she felt any, was only sexual because the danger +she sought and the power she wielded were of that kind, and she was +chiefly conscious of light-hearted enjoyment and the new experience of +an understanding with the moor. Secrecy quickened her perceptions and +she found that nature deliberately helped her, but whether for its own +purposes or hers she could not tell. The earth which had once been her +enemy now seemed to be her friend, and where she had seen monotony she +discovered delicate differences of hour and mood. If she needed shelter, +the hollows deepened themselves at her approach, shadows grew darker and +the moor lifted itself to hide her. She seemed to take a friend on all +her journeys, but she was not quite happy in its company. It was a +silent, scheming friend and she was not sure of it; there were times +when she suspected laughter at which she would grow defiant and then, +pretending that she went openly in search of pleasure, she sang and +whistled loudly on her way. + +There was an evening when that sound was answered by the noise of hoofs +behind her, the music of a chinking bridle, the creaking of leather and +the hard breathing of a horse. She did not turn as George drew rein +beside her and said "Good-evening," in his half sulky tones. She had her +hands behind her back and she looked at the sky. + +"'Sunset and evening star,'" she said solemnly, "'and one clear call for +me.' Do you know those beautiful words, George?" + +He did not answer. She could hear him fidgeting with whip and reins, but +she gazed upward still. + +"I'm sorry I can't recite the rest. I have forgotten it, but if you will +promise to read it, I'll lend you a copy. On Sunday evenings you ought +to sit at home and improve your mind." + +He gave a laugh like a cough. "I don't care about my mind," he said, and +he touched the horse with his heel so that she had to move aside. He saw +warm anger chase the pious expression from her face. + +"Ah!" she cried, "that is the kind of thing you do! You're rough! You +make me hate you! Why!" her voice fell from its height, "that's a new +horse!" Her hands were busy on neck and nose. "I like him. What is he +called?" + +Halkett was looking at her with an eagerness through which her words +could hardly pierce. She was wonderful to watch, soft as a kitten, swift +as a bird. + +"What do you call him, George?" she said again, and tapped his boot. + +"'Charlie'--this one." + +She laughed. "You choose dull names. Is he as wicked as Daisy?" + +"Nothing like." + +"Why did you get him, then?" + +"I want him for hard work." + +"I believe you're lazy. If you don't walk you'll get fat. You're the +kind of man that does." + +"Perhaps, but that's a long way off. Riding is hard work enough and my +father was a fine man up to sixty." + +A thin shock of fear ran through her at the remembrance of old Halkett's +ruined shape. "I was always frightened of him," she said in a small +voice, and she looked at George as though she asked for reassurance. +There was a cold grey light on the moor; darkness was not far off and it +held a chill wind in leash. + +"Do you wish he wasn't dead?" she whispered. + +He lifted his shoulders and pursed his mouth. "No," he said. + +"Are you lonely in that house?" + +"There's Mrs. Biggs, you know," he said with a sneer. + +"Yes, I know," she murmured doubtfully, and drew closer. + +"So you don't think she's enough for me?" + +"Of course I don't. That's why I'm so kind to you. She couldn't be +listening to us, could she? Everything seems to be listening." + +"So you're kind to me, are you?" + +"Yes," she said, raising her eyebrows and nodding her head, until she +looked like a dark poppy in a wind. + +"And when I saw you on the road the other day you wouldn't look at me. +That's the second time." + +"I did." + +"As if I'd been a sheep." + +"Oh!" Laughter bubbled in her. "You did look rather like one. I was +occupied in thinking deeply, seriously, intently--" + +"That's no excuse." + +"My good George, I shouldn't think of excusing myself to you. I chose to +ignore you and I shall probably ignore you again." + +"Two can play at that game." + +"Well, dear me, I shan't mind." + +He bent in the saddle, and she did not like the polished whiteness of +his eyeballs. His voice was very low and heavy. "You think you can go on +making a mock of me for ever." + +She started back. "No, George, no." + +"You do, by God!" He lifted his whip to shake it in the face of heaven. + +"Oh, don't, George, please! I can't stay"--she crept nearer--"if you go +on like that. What have I done? It's you who treat me badly. Won't you +be nice? Tell me about something." She put her face against the horse's +neck. "Tell me about riding. It must be beautiful in the dark. Isn't it +dangerous? Dare you gallop?" + +"Well, we do." + +"Such lots of rabbit-holes." + +"What does it matter?" + +"Oh, dear, you're very cross." + +"I can't help it," he said like an unhappy child. "I can't help it." And +he put his hand to his head with an uncertain movement. + +"Oh." With a practical air she sought for an impersonal topic. "Tell me +about Paris." + +"Paris." There was no need for him to speak above a murmur. "I want to +take you there." + +"Do you?" + +He leant lower. "Will you come?" + +Her eyes moved under his, but they did not turn aside. "I think I'm +going there with some one else," she said softly, and before her vision +of this eager lover there popped a spruce picture of Uncle Alfred. + +"That isn't true," Halkett said, but despair was in his voice. + +She was angered instantly. "I beg your pardon?" + +"It isn't true," he said again. + +"Very well," she said, and she began to walk away, but he called after +her vehemently, bitterly, "Because I won't let you go!" + +She laughed at that and came back to her place, to say indulgently, "How +silly you are! I'm only going with an aged uncle!" + +"But he's not the man to take you there." + +"No." + +"Come with me now." + +"Shall I?" + +"Get up beside me and I'll carry you away." + +She was held by his trouble, but she spoke lightly. "Could he swim with +us both across the Channel? No, I don't think I want to come tonight. +Some day--" + +"When?" + +"Oh," she said on a high note, "perhaps when I'm very tired of things." + +"You're tired already." + +"Not so much as that. And we're talking nonsense, and I must go." + +"Not yet." + +"I must. It's nearly time for bed, and I'm not sure that it's polite of +you to sit on that horse while I stand here." + +"Come up and you'll see how well he goes." + +"He wouldn't bear us both." + +"Pooh! You're a feather." + +"Oh, I couldn't. Wouldn't he jump?" + +"He'd better try!" + +"Now, don't be cruel to him." + +"What do you know about it? I've ridden since I could walk." + +"Lucky you!" + +"I'll teach you." + +"Could you?" + +"Give me a chance." + +"Here's one! No, no, I didn't mean it," she cried as he dismounted and +lifted her to the saddle. "Oh, I feel so high up. Don't move him till I +get used to it. I'm not safe on this saddle. Put me a little further on, +George. That's further forward! I'm nearly on his neck. No, I don't +think I like it. Take me down." + +"Keep still." The words were almost threatening in the gloom. "Sit +steady. I'm coming up." + +"No, don't. I shall fall off!" + +But already he was behind her, holding her closely with one arm. "There! +He's quiet enough. I couldn't do this with Daisy. And he's sure-footed. +He was bred on the moor." He set the horse trotting gently. "He goes +well, doesn't he?" + +"Yes." + +"Don't you like it?" + +"Ye-es." + +"What's the matter?" + +"There isn't room enough," she said, and moved her shoulders. + +He spoke in her ear. "If I don't hold you, you'll fall off. Here's a +smooth bit coming. Now, lad, show us what you can do and remember what +you're carrying!" + +The saddle creaked and the bit jangled and George's arm tightened round +her. Though she did not like his nearness, she leaned closer for safety, +and he and the horse seemed to be one animal, strong and swift and +merciless. Once or twice she gasped, "Please, George, not quite so +fast," but the centaur paid no heed. She shut her eyes because she did +not like to see the darkness sliding under them as they passed, and they +seemed to be galloping into a blackness that was empty and unending. Her +hands clutched the arm that fenced her breasts: her breath came quickly, +exhilaration was mixed with fear, and now she was part of the joint body +that carried her and held her. + +She hardly knew when the pace had slackened; she was benumbed with new +sensations, darkness, speed and strength. She had forgotten that this +was a man she leaned against. Then the horse stood still and she felt +Halkett's face near hers, his breath on her cheeks, a new pressure of +his arm and, unable to endure this different nearness, she gave his +binding hand a sharp blow with her knuckles, jerked her head backwards +against his and escaped his grasp; but she had to fall to do it, and +from the ground she heard his chuckle as he looked down at her. + +At that moment she would have killed him gladly; she felt her body +soiled by his, but her mind was curiously untouched. It knew no disgust +for his desire nor for her folly, and while she hated him for sitting +there and laughing at her fall, this was still a game she loved and +meant to play. In the heather she sat and glowered at him, but now she +could hardly see his face. + +"That was a silly thing to do," she heard him say. "You might easily +have been kicked. What did you do it for?" + +She would not own her knowledge of his real offence, and she muttered +angrily, "Galloping like that--" + +"Didn't you like it? He's as steady as a rock." + +"How could I know that?" + +"And I thought you had some pluck." + +"I have. I sat quite still." + +Again he laughed. "I made you." + +"Oh," she burst out. "I'll never trust you again." + +"You would if you knew--if you knew--but never mind. I wanted to see you +on a horse. You shall have him to yourself next time. I'll get a side +saddle." + +"I don't want one," she said. + +"Oh, yes, you do. Let me help you up. Say you forgive me." + +With her hand in his she murmured, "But you are always doing something. +And my head aches." + +"Does it? I'm sorry. What made it ache?" + +"It--I--I bumped myself when I fell." + +"Poor little head! It was silly of you, wasn't it? Let me put you on his +back again, and I'll walk you slowly home." + +He was faithful to his word, letting her go without a pressure of the +hand, and she crept into the house with the uneasy conviction that Helen +was right, that George wanted the chance he had never had, and her own +responsibility was black over her bed as she tried to sleep. Turning +from side to side and at last sitting up with a jerk, she decided to +evade responsibility by evading George, and with that resolution she +heaved a deep sigh at the prospect of her young life despoiled by duty. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Zebedee had the lover's gift of finding time which did not exist for +other men, and there were few Sundays when he did not spend some minutes +or some hours on the moor. There were blank days when Helen failed him +because she thought Mildred Caniper was lonely, others when she ran out +for a word and swiftly left him to the memory of her grace and her +transforming smile; yet oftenest, she was waiting for him in the little +hollow of earth, and those hours were the best he had ever known. It was +good to sit and see the sky slowly losing colour and watch the moths +flit out, and though neither he nor she was much given to speech, each +knew that the other was content. + +"Helen," he said one night in late September when they were left alone, +"I want to tell you something." + +She did not stir, and she answered slowly, softly, in the voice of one +who slept, "Tell it." + +"It's about beauty. I'd never seen it till you showed it to me." + +"Did I? When?" + +"I'm not sure. That night--" + +"On the moor?" + +"Always on the moor! When you had the basket. It was the first time +after I came back." + +"But you couldn't see me in the darkness." + +"Yes, a little. You remember you told me to light the lamps. And I could +hear you--your voice running with the wind--And then each day since. I +want to thank you." + +"Oh--" She made a little sound of depreciation and happiness. + +"Those old Sundays--" + +"Ah, yes! The shining pews and the painted stars. This is better." + +"Yes, this is better. Heather instead of the sticky pews--" + +"And real stars," she murmured. + +"And you for priestess." + +"No, I'm just a worshipper." + +"But you show the way. You give light to them that sit in darkness." + +"Ah, don't." There was pain in her voice. "Don't give me things. At +least, don't give me praise. I'm afraid of having things." + +"But why, my dear?" The words dropped away into the gathering dusk, and +they both listened to them as they went. + +"I'm afraid they will be taken away again." + +"Don't have that feeling. It will be hard on those who want to give +you--much." + +"I hadn't thought of that," she cried, and started up as though she were +glad to blame him. "And you never tell me anything. Why don't you? Why +don't you tell me about your work? I could have that. There would be no +harm in that." + +"Harm? No. May I?" + +"Why shouldn't you? They all tell me things. Don't you want somebody to +talk to?" + +"I want you, if you care to hear." + +"Oh, Zebedee, yes," she said, and sank into her place. + +"Helen," he said unsteadily, "I wish you would grow up, and yet, Helen, +what a pity that you should change." + +She did not answer; she might have been asleep, and he sat in a +stillness born of his disturbance at her nearness, her pale smooth skin, +her smooth brown hair, the young curves of her body. If he had moved, it +would have been to crush her beautiful, firm mouth, but her youth was a +chain wound round him, and though he was in bonds he seemed to be alive +for the first time. He and Helen were the sole realities. He could see +Miriam's figure, black against the sky as she stood or stooped to pick a +flower, but she had no meaning for him, and the voices of the young men, +not far off, might have been the droning of some late bee. The world was +a cup to hold him and this girl, and over that cup he had a feeling of +mastery and yet of helplessness, and all his past days dwindled to a +streak of drab existence. Life had begun, and it went at such a pace +that he did not know how much of it was already spent when Helen sat up, +and looking at him with drowsy eyes, asked, "What is happening?" + +"There was magic abroad. The sun has been going down behind the moor, +and night is coming on. I must be going home." + +"Don't go. Yes, it's getting dark. There will be stars soon. I love the +night. Don't go. How low the birds are flying. They are like big moths. +The magic hasn't gone." + +Grey-gowned, grey-eyed, white-faced, he thought she was like a moth +herself, fragile and impalpable in the gloom, a moth motionless on a +flower, and when he saw her smile he thought the moth was making ready +for flight. + +"I want this to go on for ever," she said. "The moor and the night and +you. You're such a friend--you and the Pinderwells. I don't know how I +should live without you." + +"Do you know what you're saying to me?" + +"I'm telling you I like you, and it's true. And you like me. It's so +comfortable to know that." + +"Comfortable!" + +"Isn't it?" + +"Comfortable?" he said again. "Oh, my love--" He broke off, and looking +at each other, both fell dumb. + +He got to his feet and looked down with an expression which was strange +to her, for into that moment of avowal there had come a fleeting +antagonism towards the woman who, in spite of all her gifts to him, had +taken his possession of himself: yet through his shamed resentment, he +knew that he adored her. + +"Zebedee," she said in a broken voice. "Oh, isn't it a funny name! +Zebedee, don't look at me like that." + +"How shall I look at you?" he asked, not clearly. + +"In the old way. But don't say things." She sprang up. "Not tonight." + +"When?" he asked sternly. + +"I--don't know. Tonight I feel afraid. It's--too much. I shan't be able +to keep it, Zebedee. It's too good. And we can't get this for nothing." + +"I'm willing to pay for it. I want to pay for it, in the pain of parting +from you now, in the work of all my days--" He stopped in his +realization of how little he had to give. "I can't tell you," he added +simply. + +"Will it hurt you to leave me tonight?" she whispered. + +"Yes." + +She touched his sleeve. "I don't like you to be hurt, yet I like that. +Will you come next Sunday?" + +"Not if you're afraid. I can't come to see you if you won't let me say +things." + +"I'll try not to be afraid; only, only, say them very softly so that +nothing else can hear." + +He laughed and caught her hand and kissed it. "I shall do exactly what I +like," he said; but as he strode away without another word he knew from +something in the way she stood and looked at him, something of patience +and resolve, that their future was not in his hands alone. + +When he was out of sight and hearing, Helen moved stiffly, as though she +waked from a long sleep and was uncertain where she was. The familiar +light shone in the kitchen of Brent Farm, yet the house seemed unreal +and remote, marooned in the high heather. The heather was thick and rich +that year, and the flowers touched her hands. The smell of honey was +heavy in the air, and thousands of small, pale moths made a +honey-coloured cloud between the purple moor and the night blue of the +sky. If she strained her ears, Helen could hear the singing of Halkett's +stream and it said things she had not heard before. A sound of voices +came from the road and she knew that some faithful Christians of the +moor were returning from their worship in the town: she remembered them +crude and ugly in their Sunday clothes, but they gathered mystery from +distance and the night. Perhaps they came from that chapel where Zebedee +had spent his unhappy hours. She turned and her hands swept the heather +flowers. This was now his praying place, as it had always been hers, and +when the Easter fires came again they would pray to them together. + +At the garden door her hand fell from the latch and she faced the moor. +She lifted her arms and dropped them in a kind of pleading for mercy +from those whom she had served faithfully; then she smoothed her face +and went into the house. + +In the drawing-room, Mildred Caniper was sitting on the sofa, and near +her John and Lily had disposed themselves like guests. + +Helen stopped in the doorway. "Then the light in your house meant +nothing," she said reproachfully. + +"What should it mean?" John asked. + +"Happiness and peace--somewhere," she said. + +"It does mean that," and turning to Lily, he asked, "Doesn't it?" + +"Yes, yes, but don't brag about it." + +They laughed together, and they sat with an alert tranquillity of +health which made Mildred Caniper look very small and frail. She was +listening courteously to the simple things John told her about animals +and crops and butter-sales, but Helen knew that she was almost too tired +to understand, and she felt trouble sweeping over her own happiness. + +To hide that trouble, she asked quickly, "Where are the others?" and an +invisible Rupert answered her. + +"You're the last in." He sat outside the window, and as she approached, +he added, "And I hope you have had a happy time." + +"Yes." She looked back into the room. + +"Daniel wouldn't stay," Rupert went on, smoking his pipe placidly. "If +it hadn't been for my good offices, my dear, he'd have hauled Zebedee +off long ago. He suddenly thought of a plan for getting rid of Eliza. +Why aren't you thanking me?" + +"He wouldn't have gone." + +"Oh, ho!" + +"But they ought to get rid of Eliza. I've told Zebedee." + +"Quite right," Rupert said solemnly. His dark eyes twinkled at the +answering stars. "When I have lunch with Daniel, I'm afraid of being +poisoned, though she rather likes me, and she's offensively ugly--ugh! +Yet I like to think that even Eliza has had her little story. Are you +listening, Helen? I'm being pastoral and kind. I'm going to tell you how +Eliza fell in love with a travelling tinker." + +"Is it true?" + +"As true as anything else." + +"Go on." + +"It happened when Eliza was quite young, not beautiful, but fresh and +ruddy. She walked out one summer night to meet the farm hand who was +courting her, but he was not at the appointed place, so Eliza walked +on, and she had a sore heart because she thought her lover was +unfaithful. She was walking over high downs with hollows in them and the +grass cropped close by sheep, and there was a breeze blowing the smell +of clover from some field, and suddenly she stood on the edge of a +hollow in which a fire was burning, and by the fire there sat a man. He +looked big as he sat there, but when he stood up he was a giant, in +corduroys, and a check cap over his black eyes. Picturesque beggar. And +the farm hand had deserted her, and there was a smell of burning wood, +and the sky was like a velvet curtain. What would you? Eliza did not go +home that night, nor the next, nor the next. She stayed with the +travelling tinker until he tired of her, and that was very soon. For +him, she was no more than the fly that happened to get into his web, but +for Eliza, the tinker--the tinker was beauty and romance. The tinker was +life. And he sent her back to the ways of virtue permanently soured, yet +proud. Thus, my dear young friend, we see--" + +"Don't!" Helen cried. "You're making me sorry for Eliza. I don't want to +be sorry for her. And you're making me like the tinker. He's attractive. +How horrid that he should be attractive." She shuddered and shook her +head. "Your story is too full of firelight--and the night. I'll go and +get supper ready." + +"Miriam's doing it. Stay here and I'll tell you some more." + +But she slipped past him and reached the kitchen from the garden. + +"Rupert has been telling me a story," she said a little breathlessly to +Miriam who was filling a tray with the noisy indifference of a careless +maid-servant. + +"Hang the plates! Hang the dishes! What story?" + +"It's rather wonderful, I think. It's about the Mackenzies' Eliza." + +"Then of course it's wonderful. And hang the knives and forks!" She +threw them on the tray. + +"And there's a travelling tinker in it." With her hands at her throat, +she looked into the fire and Miriam looked at her. + +"I'll ask him to tell it to me," she said, but very soon she returned to +the kitchen, grumbling. "What nonsense! It's not respectable, and it +isn't even true." + +"It's as true as anything else," Helen said. + +"Oh, you're mad. And so is Rupert. Let's have supper and go to bed. Why +can't we have a servant to do all this? Why don't we pay for one +ourselves?" + +"I don't want one." + +"But I do, and my hands are ruined." + +"Upstairs in Jane," Helen said, "in the small right-hand drawer of my +chest of drawers, there's the lotion--" + +"It's not only my hands! It's my whole life! Your lotion isn't going to +cure my life!" She sat on the edge of a chair and drooped there. + +"No," Helen said. "But what's the matter with your life?" + +Miriam flapped her hands. "I'm so tired of being good. I want--I want--" + +Helen knelt beside her. "Is it Zebedee you want?" Her voice and her body +shook with self-sacrifice and love and when Miriam's head dropped to her +shoulder Helen was willing to give her all she had. + +"I'm not crying," Miriam said, after an agitated pause. "I'm not +overcome. I'm only laughing so much that I can't make a sound! Zebedee! +Oh! No! That's very funny." She straightened herself. "Helen dear, did +you think you'd discovered my little secret, my maidenly little secret? +I only want Uncle Alfred to come and take me away. This is a dreadful +family to belong to, but there are humorous moments. It's almost worth +while. John, here's Helen suggesting that I'm in love with Zebedee!" + +"Well, why not?" he asked, but he was hardly thinking of what he said. +"I've left Lily on guard in there. Notya has gone to sleep." + +"But she can't have," Helen said. + +"She has, my child." + +"Are you sure she's not--are you sure she is asleep?" + +"Like a baby." + +"Then we shall have to make a noise and wake her. She would never +forgive us if she found out that we knew, so tell Lily to come out and +then we must all burst in." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Lily and John went down the track: Mildred Caniper climbed slowly, but +with dignity, up the stairs; Miriam was heard to bang her bedroom door +and Rupert and Helen were left together in the schoolroom. + +"I can't get the tinker out of my head," she told him. + +"I must have done it very well." + +"Miriam didn't like it. She thought it silly." + +"So it is." + +"No, it's real, so real that he has been sitting in our hollow," she +complained. + +"That won't do. Turn him out. He doesn't belong to our moor." + +"No. I think I'll go for a walk and forget him." + +"I should," he said, in his sympathetic way. "I won't go to bed till you +come back." He pulled his chair nearer to the lamp, opened a book and +contentedly heard Helen leave the house, for though he was fond of her +there were times when her forebodings and her conscience became +wearisome. Let the moor be her confessor tonight! + +Helen dropped into the darkness like a swimmer taking deep water quietly +and at once she was immersed in happiness. She forgot her stepmother +sitting so stiffly on the sofa and for a little while she forgot that +the future which held her and Zebedee in its embrace held a solitary +Mildred Caniper less warmly. In the scented night, Helen allowed herself +to taste joy without misgiving. + +She walked slowly because she was hemmed in by feelings which were +blissful and undefined: she knew only that the world smelt sweeter than +it had ever done, that the stars shone with amazing brightness. Through +the darkness she could see the splendid curves of the moor and the +shapes of thorn bushes thick with leaves. The familiar friends of other +days seemed to wait upon her happiness, but the stars laughed at her as +they had always done. She looked up and saw a host of them, clear and +distant, shining in a sky so blue and vast that to see it was like +flight. They were secure in their high places, and with the smiling +benignity of gods they assured her of her littleness, and gladly she +accepted that assurance, for she shared her littleness with Zebedee, and +now she understood that her happiness was made of small great things, of +the hope of caring for him, of keeping that shining house in order, of +cradling children in wide, airy rooms. She had a sudden desire to mend +Zebedee's clothes and put them neatly in their places, to feel the +smoothness of his freshly-laundered collars in her hand. + +She sat down in the heather and it was her turn to laugh up at the stars +who could do none of these things and lived in isolated grandeur. The +earth was nearer to her finite mind. It was warm with the sunshine of +many days and trodden by human, beloved feet; it offered up food and +drink and consolation. Darker than the sky, it had no colour but its +own, yet Helen sat among pale spikes of blossom. + +It was a night when even those beings who could not wander in the +daytime must be content to lie and listen to the silence, when evil must +run from the face of beauty and hide itself in streets. All round her, +Helen fancied shapes without substance, lying in worship of the night +which was their element, and when she rose from her bed at last she +moved with quietness lest she should disturb them. + +She had not gone far before she was aware that some one else was walking +on the moor. For a moment she thought it must be Rupert in search of +her, but Rupert would have called out, and this person, while he +rustled through the heather, let forth a low whistled note, and though +he went with care, it was for some purpose of his own and not for +courtesy towards the mystery of the night. + +She could not decide from what direction the sounds came; she stopped +and they stopped; then she heard the whistle again, but nearer now, and +with a sudden realization of loneliness and of the womanhood which had +seldom troubled her, she ran with all her strength and speed for home. + +Memories ran with her strangely, and brought back that day when she had +been hotly chased by Mrs. Brent's big bull, and she remembered how, +through all his fears for her, Rupert had laughed as though he would +never stop. She laughed in recollection, but more in fear. The bull had +snorted, his hoofs had thundered after her, as these feet were +thundering now. + +"But this is the tinker, the tinker!" her mind cried in terror, and +overcome by her quickened breathing, by some sense of the inevitable in +this affair, she stumbled as she ran. She saved herself, but a hand +caught at her wrist and some one uttered a sound of satisfaction. + +She did not struggle, but she wondered why God had made woman's strength +so disproportionate to man's, and looking up, she saw that it was George +Halkett who held her. At the same moment he would have loosed her hand, +but she clung to his because she was trembling fiercely. + +"Oh, George," she said, "it's you! And I thought it was some one +horrid!" + +She could not see him blush. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. She gleamed, in +the starlight, as he had seen pale rocks gleaming on such a night, but +she felt like the warm flesh she was, and the oval of her face was plain +to him; he thought he could see the fear leaving her widely-opened eyes. +"I'm sorry," he said again, and made an awkward movement. "I +thought--I--Wouldn't you like to sit down? There's a stone here." + +"It's the one I fell against!" She dropped on to it and laughed. "You +weren't there, were you, years and years ago, when the bull chased me? +That red bull of Mrs. Brent's? He was old and cross. No, of course you +weren't." + +"I remember the beast. He had a broken horn." + +"Yes. Just a stump. It made him frightful. I dream about him now. And +when you were running after me--" + +He broke in with a muffled exclamation and shifted from one foot to the +other like a chidden child. "I'm sorry," he said again, and muttered, +"Fool!" as he bent towards her. "Did you hurt yourself against that +stone? Are you all right? You've only slippers on." + +"I've nearly stopped shaking," she said practically. "And it doesn't +matter. You didn't mean to do it. I must go home. Rupert is waiting for +me." + +His voice was humble. "I don't believe I've spoken to you since that day +in the hollow." + +She remembered that occasion and the curious moment when she felt his +eyes on her, and she was reminded that though he had not been running +after her, he had certainly been running after somebody. She glanced at +him and he looked very tall as he stood there, as tall as the tinker. + +"Why don't you sit down?" she asked quickly, and as he did so she added, +on a new thought, "But perhaps I'm keeping you. Perhaps--Don't wait for +me." + +"I've nothing else to do," he told her. + +"I spoke to you," she said, "the day after your father died." + +"I meant alone," he answered. + +They sat in silence after that, and for Helen the smell of heather was +the speech of those immaterial ones who lay about her. Some change had +taken place among the stars: they were paler, nearer, as though they had +grown tired of eminence and wanted commerce with the earth. The great +quiet had failed before the encroachment of little sounds as of +burrowing, nocturnal hunting, and the struggles of a breeze that was +always foiled. + +"Do you know what time it is?" Helen asked in a small voice. + +He held his watch sideways, but he had to strike a match, and its light +drew all the eyes of the moor. + +"Quick!" Helen said. + +He was not to be hurried. "Not far off midnight." + +"And Rupert's waiting! Good-night, George." + +"And you've forgiven me?" he asked as they parted at the gate. + +"No." She laughed almost as Miriam might have done, and startled him. +"I'll forgive you," she said, "I'll forgive you when you really hurt +me." She gave him her cool hand and, holding it, he half asked, half +told her, "That's a promise." + +"Yes. Good-night." + +Slowly she walked through the dark hall, hesitated at the schoolroom +door and opened it. + +"I've come back," she said, and disappeared before Rupert could reply, +for she was afraid he would make some allusion to the tinker. + +It was characteristic of her that, as she undressed, carefully laying +her clothes aside, her concern was for George's moral welfare rather +than for the safety of the person for whom he had mistaken her, and this +was because she happened to know George, had known him nearly all her +life, while the identity of the other was a blank to her, because she +had no peculiar feeling for her sex; men and women were separated or +united only by their claim on her. + +Mildred Caniper, whose claim was great, came down to breakfast the next +morning with a return of energy that gladdened Helen and set Miriam +thinking swiftly of all the things she had left undone. But Mildred +Caniper was fair, and where she no longer ruled, she would not +criticize. She condescended, however, to ask one question. + +"Who was on the moor last night?" + +"Daniel," Helen said. + +"Zebedee," said Miriam. + +"Zebedee?" she said, pretending not to know to whom that name belonged. + +"Dr. Mackenzie." + +"Oh." + +"The father of James and John," Miriam murmured. + +"So he has children?" Mrs. Caniper went on with her superb assumption +that no one joked in conversation with her. + +"Oh, I don't think so," Helen said earnestly. "He isn't married! Miriam +meant the gentleman in the Bible." + +"I see." Her glance pitied Miriam. "But this was early in the evening. +Some one came in very late. Rupert, perhaps." + +"No, it was me," Helen said. + +"I," Mildred Caniper corrected. + +"Yes. I." + +"Did I hear voices?" + +"Did you?" Helen returned in another tone and with an innocence that +surprised herself and revealed the deceit latent in the mouth of the +most truthful. It was long since she had been so near a lie and lying +was ugly: it made smudges on the world; but disloyalty was no better, +and though she could not have explained the debt, she felt that she owed +George silence. She had to choose. He had been like a child as he +fumbled over his apologies and she could not but be tender with a +child. Yet only a few seconds earlier she had thought he was the tinker. +Oh, why had Rupert ever told her of the tinker? + +"I would rather you did not wander on the moor so late at night," +Mildred Caniper said. + +"But it's the best time of all." + +"I would rather you did not." + +"Very well. I'll try to remember." + +A sign from Miriam drew Helen into the garden. + +"Silly of you to come in by the front way. Of course she heard. If the +garden door is locked, you can climb the wall and get on to the scullery +roof. Then there's my window." + +Helen measured the distance with her eye. "It's too high up." + +"Throw up a shoe and I'll lower a chair for you." + +"But--this is horrid," Helen said. "Why should I?" + +Miriam's thin shoulders went up and down. "You never know, you never +know," she chanted. "You never know what you may come to." + +"Don't!" Helen begged. She leaned against a poplar and looked mournfully +from the window to Miriam's face. + +"No," Miriam said, "I've never done it. I only planned it in case of +need. It would be a way of escape, too, if she ever locked me up. She's +capable of that. Helen, I don't like this rejuvenation!" + +"Don't," Helen said again. + +"I haven't mended the sheets she gave me weeks ago." + +"I'll help you with them." + +"Good, kind, Christian girl! There's nothing like having a reputation to +keep up. That's why I told you about my secret road." + +"You're--vulgar." + +"No, I'm human, and very young, and rather beautiful. And quite +intelligent." There came on her face the look which made her seem old +and tired with her own knowledge. "Was it Zebedee last night?" + +Heat ran over Helen's body like a living thing. + +"You're hateful," she stammered. "As though Zebedee and I--as though +Zebedee and I would meet by stealth!" + +"Honestly, I can't see why you shouldn't. Why shouldn't you?" + +Helen smoothed her forehead with both hands. "It was the way you said +it," she murmured painfully and then straightened herself. "Of course +nothing Zebedee would do could be anything but good. I beg his pardon." +And in a failing voice, she explained again, "It was the way you said +it." + +"I suppose I'm not really a nice person," Miriam replied. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +During the week that followed, a remembrance of her responsibilities +came back to Helen and when she looked at Mildred Caniper, alternating +between energy and lassitude, the shining house seemed wearily far off, +or, at the best, Notya was in it, bringing her own shadows. Helen had +been too happy, she told herself. She must not be greedy, she must hold +very lightly to her desires lest they should turn and hurt her, yet with +all her heart she wanted to see Zebedee, who was a surety for everything +that was good. + +By Rupert he sent letters which delighted her and gave her a sense of +safety by their restraint, and on Sunday another letter was delivered by +Daniel because Zebedee was kept in town by a serious case. + +"So there will be no fear of my saying all those things that were ready +on my tongue," he wrote, to tease, perhaps to test her, and she cried +out to herself, "Oh, I'd let him say anything in the whole world if only +he would come!" And she added, on her own broken laughter, "At least, I +think so." + +She felt the need to prove her courage, but she also wanted an excuse +fit to offer to the fates, and when she had examined the larder and the +store cupboard she found that the household was in immediate need of +things which must be brought from the town. She laughed at her own +quibble, but it satisfied her and, refusing Miriam's company, she set +off on Monday afternoon. + +It was a soft day and the air, moist on her cheek, smelt of damp, black +earth. The moor would be in its gorgeous autumn dress for some months +yet and the distances were cloaked in blue, promising the wayfarer a +heaven which receded with every step. + +With a destination of her own, Helen was not daunted. Walking with her +light long stride, she passed the side road leading to Halkett's farm +and remembered how George and Zebedee, seated side by side, something +like figures on a frieze, had swung down that road to tend old Halkett. +Beyond the high fir-wood she came upon the fields where old Halkett had +grown his crops: here and there were the cottages of his hands, with +dahlias and staring children in the gardens, and before long other +houses edged the road and she saw the thronging roofs of the town. + +It was Zebedee who chanced to open to her when she knocked and she saw a +grave face change to one of youth as he took her by the wrist to draw +her in. + +"Do you always look like that when I'm not here?" she asked anxiously, +quickly, but he did not answer. + +"It's you!" he said. "You!" + +In the darkness of the passage they could hardly see each other, but he +had not loosed his grasp and with a deft turn of the wrist she thrust +her whole hand into his. + +"I was tired of waiting for you," she said. "A whole week! I was afraid +you were never coming back!" + +"You know I'd come back to you if I were dead." + +"Yes, I know." She leaned towards him and laughed and, wrenching himself +free from the contemplation of her, he led her to his room. There he +shut the door and stood against it. + +"I want to look at you. No, I don't think I'd better look at you." He +spoke in his quick usual way. "Come and sit down. Is that chair all +right? And here's a cushion for you, but I don't believe it's clean. +Everything looks dirty now that you are in the room. Helen, are you sure +it's you?" + +"Yes. Are you sure you're glad? I want to sit and laugh and laugh, do +all the laughing I've never had. And I want to cry--with loud noises. +Which shall I do? Oh--I can't do either!" + +"I've hardly ever seen you in a hat before. You must take it off. No, +let me find the pins. Now you're my Helen again. Sit there. Don't move. +Don't run away. I'm going to tell Eliza about tea." + +She heard a murmur in the passage, the jingle of money, the front door +opened and shut and she knew the Eliza had been sent out to buy cakes. + +"I had to get rid of her," Zebedee said. "I had to have you to myself." +He knelt before her. "I'm going to take off your gloves. What do you +wear them for? So that I can take them off?" + +He did it slowly. Each hand was like a flower unsheathed, and when he +had kissed her fingers and her palms he looked up and saw a face made +tragic by sudden knowledge of passion. Her eyes were dark with it and +her mouth had shaped itself for his. + +"Helen--!" + +"I know--I know--" + +"And there's nothing to say." + +"It doesn't matter--doesn't matter--" His head was on her knees and her +hands stroked his hair. He heard her whispering: "What soft hair! It's +like a baby's." She laughed. "So soft! No, no. Stay there. I want to +stroke it." + +"But I want to see you. I haven't seen you since I kissed you. And +you're more beautiful. I love you more--" He rose, and would not see the +persuasion of her arms. "Ah, dear, dearest one, forget I love you. You +are too young and too beautiful for me, Desire." + +"But I shall soon be old. You don't want to wait until I'm old." + +"I don't want to wait at all." + +"And I'm twenty, Zebedee." + +"Twenty! Well, Heaven bless you for it," he said and swung the hand she +held out to him. + +"And this is true," she said. + +"It is." + +"And I never thought it would be. I was afraid Miriam was loving you." + +"But," he said, still swinging, "I was never in any danger of loving +Miriam." + +She shook her head. "I couldn't have let her be unhappy." + +"And me?" + +She gave him an illuminating smile. "You're just myself. It doesn't +matter if one hurts oneself." + +"Ah!" He bent her fingers and straightened them. "How small they are. I +could break them--funny things. So you'd marry me to Miriam if she +wanted me. That isn't altogether satisfactory, my dear. To be +you--that's perfect, but treat me more kindly than you treat yourself." + +"Just the same--it must be. Swing my hand again. I like it." She went on +in a low voice. "All the time, I've been thinking she would come +between." + +"She can't now." + +She looked up, troubled, and begged, "Don't say so. Sometimes she's just +like a bat, flying into one's face. Only more lovely, and I can't be +angry with her." + +"I could. But let's talk about you and me, how much we love each other, +and how nice we are." + +"We do, don't we?" + +"We are, aren't we?" + +"Oh, how silly!" + +"Let's be sillier than any one has ever been before." + +"Listen!" Helen said and Zebedee stopped on his way to her. + +"It's that woman. Why didn't something run over her? Is my hair +ruffled?" + +"Come quickly and let me smooth it. Nice hair." + +"Yours is always smooth, but do you know, it curls a little." + +"Oh, no." + +"It does, really, on the temples. Come and look. No, stay there. She'll +be in soon, confound her." + +"We ought to be talking sensibly." + +"Can we?" + +"I can. Shall I put my hat on?" + +"No, no, not for one greater than Eliza. I'm afraid of you in a hat. Now +I'll sit here and you can begin your sensible conversation." + +"I'm serious, truly. It's about Notya. She's funny, Zebedee. At night I +can hear her walking about her room and she's hardly ever strict. She +doesn't care. I wish you would make her well." + +"Will she let me try?" + +"I couldn't ask her that because I pretend not to notice. We all do. +She's like a person who--who can't forget. I--don't know." + +"I'm sorry, darling." + +"Don't be. I'm always afraid of being sorry or glad because you don't +know what will happen. Father leaving us like that, making her +miserable--it's given you to me." She looked up at him. "The world's +difficult." + +"Always; but there are times when it is good. Helen--" + +Eliza entered, walking heavily in creaking boots, and when Helen looked +at her, she wondered at the tinker. Eliza was hard-featured: she had not +much hair, and on it a cap hung precariously. Spreading a cloth on a +small table, she went about her business slowly, carrying one thing at a +time and leaving the door open as a protest against Helen's presence. + +"Who'll pour?" she asked. + +"You can leave the table there." + +"They were out of sugar cakes. I got buns." + +He looked at them. "If that's the best they can do, they ought to be +ashamed of themselves." + +"If you want cakes you should get them in the morning. I've kept the +change to pay the milkman." + +With a flourish of the cosy Zebedee turned to Helen as the door was +shut. + +"Isn't she dreadful?" + +"She wants a new pair of boots." + +"And a new face." + +"I know she doesn't clean the house properly. How often does she sweep +this carpet? It isn't clean, but I wouldn't mind that if she took care +of you." + +"Daniel beat her on the supper question. He thought she'd leave rather +than give in, and he was hopeful, but she saw through that. She stuck." + +"Isn't she fond of you?" Helen asked wistfully. + +"No, darling, we detest each other. Do I put the milk in first?" + +"Bring the table to me and I'll do it. Is she honest?" + +"Rigidly. I notice that the dishonest are generally pleasing. No, you +can't have the table. It would hide a lot of you. I want to talk to you, +Helen. Have one of these stale buns. What a meal for you! We've got to +settle this affair." + +"But it is settled." + +"Eat your bun and listen, and don't be forward." + +She laughed at him. "It was forward to come here, wasn't it?" + +"It was adorable. But since last Sunday, I have been thinking. What do +you know about life, about men? I'm just the one who has chanced across +your path. It's like stealing you. It isn't fair." + +"There's Daniel," she said solemnly. "And the dentist. And your father +when we had measles. And George Halkett--" + +"Be serious." + +"There's the tinker." + +"Who on earth is he?" + +"A man Rupert told me about, a made-up man, but he has come alive in my +mind. I wish he hadn't. I might meet him. Once I nearly did, and if I +met him, Zebedee--" + +"Darling, I wish you'd listen. Suppose you married me--" + +"You want me to marry you?" + +"My dear, precious child--" + +"I wasn't sure. Go on." + +"If you married me, and afterwards you found some one you liked better, +as well you might, what would happen then?" + +"I should make the best of you." + +"You wouldn't run away?" + +"If I went, I should walk, but I shouldn't go. I'm like that. I belong +to people and to places." + +"You belong to me." + +"Not yet. Not quite. I wish I did, because then I should feel safe, but +now I belong to the one who needs me most. Notya, perhaps." + +"And if we were married?" + +"Then I should just be yours." + +"But we are married." + +"No," she said. + +"I don't see the distinction." + +"But it's there," she said, and once more he felt the iron under her +grace. + +"This isn't modern, Helen." + +"No, I'm simple." + +"And I don't like it." He was grave; the muscles in his cheek were +twitching and the brown flecks in his eyes moved quickly. "Marry me at +once." + +"You said I was too young!" + +"I say it still." He paced the room. "It's true, but neither your youth +nor anything else shall take you from me, and, oh, my little heart, be +good to me." + +"I can't be good enough and I'll marry you when you want me." + +"This week?" + +She caught his hand and laid her cheek against it. "Oh, I would, I +would, if Notya didn't need me." + +"No one," he said, "needs you as I do. We'll be married in the spring." + +Her hand and her smile acknowledged what he said while her eyes were +busy on his thin face, his worn, well-brushed clothes, the books and +papers on his desk, the arrangements of the room. + +"I don't like any of your furniture," she said suddenly. "And those +ornaments are ugly." + +He took them from the mantelpiece and threw them into the waste-paper +basket. + +"Anything else? It won't hold the furniture." + +"Ah, you're nice," she said, and, going to the window, she looked out on +the garden, where the apple-trees twisted themselves out of a rough +lawn. + +"When you marry me," Zebedee said, standing beside her and speaking +quietly, "we'll leave this house to Daniel and Eliza. There's one +outside the town, on the moor road, but set back in a big garden, a +square house. Shall we--shall we go and look at it?" + +"Shall we?" she repeated, and they faced each other unsmiling. + +"It's an old house, with big square windows, and there's a rising copse +behind it." + +"I know," Helen said. + +"There's a little stream that falls into the road." + +"Does it run inside the garden?" + +"That's what I'm not sure about." + +"It must." + +He put his hand on her shoulder. "We could peep through the windows. Are +you coming?" + +"I don't know," she said and there was a fluttering movement in her +throat. "Don't you think it's rather dangerously near the road?" + +"We could lock the gate," he said. + +She dropped her face into her hands. "No, I can't come. I'm afraid. It's +tempting things to happen." + +"It has been empty for a long time," he went on in the same quiet tones. +"I should think we could get it cheap." + +She looked up again. "And I shall have a hundred pounds a year. That +would pay the rent and keep the garden tidy." + +He turned on her sharply. "Mind, I'm going to buy your clothes!" + +"I can make them all," she said serenely. She leaned against him. "We +love each other--and we know so little about each other. I don't even +know how old you are!" + +"I'm nearly thirty-one." + +"That's rather old. You must know more than I do." + +"I expect I do." + +A faint line came between her eyebrows. "Perhaps you have been in love +before." + +"I have." His lips tightened at the memory. + +"Very much in love?" + +"Pretty badly." + +"Then I hope she's dead!" + +"I don't know." + +"I can't bear her to be alive. Oh, Zebedee, why didn't you wait for +me?" + +"I should have loved you less, child." + +"Would you? You never loved her like this?" + +"She wasn't you." + +In a little while she said, "I don't understand love. Why should we +matter so much to each other? So much that we're afraid? Or do we only +think we do? Perhaps that's it. It can't matter so much as we make out, +because we die and it's all over, and no one cares any more about our +little lives." On a sigh he heard her last words. "We mustn't struggle." + +"Struggle?" + +"For what we want." + +To this he made no answer, but he had a strange feeling that the firm, +fine body he held was something more perishable than glass and might be +broken with a word. + +He took her to the moor, but when they passed the empty house she would +not look at it. + +"The stream does run through the garden," he said. "We could sail boats +on it." And he added thoughtfully, "We should have to dam it up +somewhere to make a harbour." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Disease fell heavily on the town that autumn and Zebedee and Helen had +to snatch their meetings hurriedly on the moor. She found that Miriam +was right and she had no difficulty and no shame in running out into the +darkness for a clasp of hands, a few words, a shadowy glimpse of Zebedee +by the light of the carriage lamps, while the old horse stood patiently +between the shafts and breathed visibly against the frosty night. Over +the sodden or frozen ground, the peat squelching or the heather stalks +snapping under her feet, she would make her way to that place where she +hoped to find her lover with his quick words and his scarce caresses +and, returning with the wind of the moor on her and eyes wide with +wonder and the night, she would get a paternal smile from Rupert and a +gibing word from Miriam, and be almost unaware of both. For weeks, her +days were only preludes to the short perfection of his presence and her +nights were filled with happy dreams: the eyes which had once been so +watchful over Mildred Caniper were now turned inwards or levelled on the +road; she went under a spell which shut out fear. + +In December she was brought back to a normal world by the illness of +Mildred Caniper. One morning, without a word of explanation or +complaint, she went back to her bed, and Helen found her there, lying +inert and staring at the ceiling. She had not taken down her hair and +under the crown of it her face looked small and pinched, her eyes were +like blue pools threatening to over-run their banks. + +"Is your head aching?" Helen said. + +"I--don't think so." + +"What is it, then?" + +"I was afraid I could not--go on," she said carefully. "I was afraid of +doing something silly and I was giddy." + +"Are you better now?" + +"Yes. I want to rest." + +"Try to sleep." + +"It isn't sleep I want. It's rest, rest." + +Helen went away, but before long she came back with a dark curtain to +shroud the window. + +"No, no! I want light, not shadows," Mildred cried in a shrill voice. "A +dark room--" Her voice fell away in the track of her troubled memories, +and when she spoke again it was in her ordinary tones. "I beg your +pardon, Helen. You startled me. I think I must have dozed and dreamed." + +"And you won't have the curtain?" + +"No. Let there be light." She lay there helpless, while thoughts preyed +on her, as vultures might prey on something moribund. + +At dinner-time she refused to help herself to food, though she ate if +Helen fed her. "The spoon is heavy," she complained. + +Miriam was white and nervous. "She ought to have Zebedee," she said. +"She looks funny. She frightens me." + +"We could wait until tomorrow," Helen said. "He is so busy and I don't +want to bring him up for nothing. He's being overworked." + +"But for Notya!" Miriam exclaimed. "And don't you want to see him?" She +could not keep still. "I can't bear people to be ill. He ought to come." + +"Go and ask John." + +"What does he know about it?" she whispered. "I keep thinking perhaps +she will go mad." + +"That's silly." + +"It isn't. She looks--queer. If she does, I shall run away. I'm going to +George. He'll drive into the town. You mustn't sacrifice Notya to +Zebedee, you know." + +Helen let out an ugly, scornful sound that angered Miriam. + +"Old sheep!" she said, and Helen had to spare a smile, but she was +thoughtful. + +"Perhaps John would go." + +"But why not George?" + +"We're always asking favours." + +"Pooh! He likes them and I don't mind asking." + +"Well, then, it would be rather a relief. I don't know what to do with +her." + +The sense of responsibility towards George which had once kept Miriam +awake had also kept her from him in a great effort of self-denial, and +it was many days since she had done more than wave a greeting or give +him a few light words. + +"I believe I've offended you," he had told her not long ago, but she +assured him that it was not so. + +"Then I can't make you out," he muttered. + +She shut her eyes and showed him her long lashes. "No, I'm a mystery. +Think about me, George." And before he had time to utter his genuine, +clumsy speech, she ran away. + +"But I can't avoid temptation much longer," she told herself. "Life's +too dull." + +And now this illness which alarmed her was like a door opening slowly. + +"And it's the hand of God that left it ajar," she said as she sped +across the moor. + +Her steps slackened as she neared the larch-wood, for she had not +ventured into it since the night of old Halkett's death; but it was +possible that George would be working in the yard and, tiptoeing down +the soft path, she issued on the cobble-stones. + +George was not there, nor could she hear him, and she was constrained to +knock on the closed door, but the face of Mrs. Biggs, who appeared +after a stealthy pause, was not encouraging to the visitor. She looked +at Miriam and her thin lips parted and joined again without speech. + +"I want Mr. Halkett," Miriam said, straightening herself and speaking +haughtily because she guessed that Mrs. Biggs was suspicious of her +friendliness with George. + +"He's out. You'll have to wait," she said and shut the door. + +A cold wind was swooping into the hollow, but Miriam was hot with a +gathering anger that rushed into words as Halkett appeared. + +"George!" She ran to him. "I hate that woman. I always did. I wish you +wouldn't keep her. Oh, I hate her!" + +"But you didn't come here to tell me that," he said. In her haste she +had allowed him to take her hand and the touch of her softened his +resentment at her neglect; amusement narrowed his eyes until she could +not see their blue. + +"She's horrid, she's rude; she left me on the step. I didn't want to go +in, but she oughtn't to have left me standing there." + +"She ought not. I'll tell her." + +"Dare you?" + +"Dare I!" he repeated boastfully. + +"But you mustn't! Don't, George, please don't. Promise you won't. +Promise, George." + +"All right." + +"Thank you." She drew her hand away. + +"The fact is, she's always pretty hard on you." + +Miriam's flame went out. "You don't mean," she said coldly, "that you +discuss me with her?" + +"No, I do not." + +"You swear you never have?" + +He had a pleasing and indulgent smile. "Yes, I swear it, but she +dislikes the whole lot of you, and you can't always stop a woman's +talk." + +"You should be able to," she said. She wished she had not come for +George did not realize what was due to her. She would go to John and she +nodded a cold good-bye. + +Her hands were in the pockets of her brown woollen coat, her shoulders +were lifted towards her ears; she was less beautiful than he had ever +seen her, yet in her kindest moments she had not seemed so near to him. +He was elated by this discovery; he did not seek its cause and, had he +done so, he was not acute enough to see that hitherto the feelings she +had shown him had been chiefly feigned, and that this real resentment, +marking her face with petulance, revealed her nature to be common with +his own. + +"But you've not told me what you came for," he said. + +She was reluctant, but she spoke. "To ask you to do something for us." + +"You know I'll do it." + +Still sulky, she took a few steps and leaned against the house wall; she +had the look of a boy caught in a fault. + +"We want the doctor." + +"Who's ill?" + +"It's Notya." + +"What's the matter?" + +"I don't know." She forgot her grievance. "I don't like thinking of it. +It makes me sick." + +"Is she very bad?" + +"No, but I think he ought to come." + +"Must I bring him back?" + +"Just leave a message, please, if it doesn't put you out." + +In the pause before he spoke, he studied the dark head against the +white-washed wall, the slim body, the little feet crossed on the +cobbles, and then he stammered: + +"You--you're like a rose-tree growing up." + +She spread her arms and turned and drooped her head to encourage the +resemblance. "Like that?" + +He nodded, with the clumsiness of his emotions. "Look here--" + +"Now, don't be tiresome. Oh, you can tell me what you were going to +say." + +"All these weeks--" + +"I know, but it was for your sake, George." + +"How?" + +"It's difficult to explain, but one night my good angel bent over my +bed, like a mother--or was it your good angel?" + +He grinned. "I don't believe you'd know one if you saw one." + +"I'm afraid I shouldn't," she admitted, with a laugh. "Would you?" + +"I fancy I've seen one." + +"Mrs. Biggs?" she dared. "Me?" + +"I'm not going to tell you." + +"I expect it's me. But run away and bring the doctor." + +"I say--will you wait till I get back?" + +"I couldn't. Think of Mrs. Biggs!" + +"Not here. Up in the wood. But never mind. Come and see me saddle the +little mare." + +She liked the smell of the long, dim stable, the sound of the horses +moving in their stalls, the regular crunching as they ate their hay. +Years ago, she had been in this place with John and Rupert and she had +forgotten nothing. There were the corn-bins under the windows and the +pieces of old harness still hanging on big nails; above, there was the +loft that looked as vast as ever in the shadowy gloom, and again it +invited her ascent by the iron steps between the stalls. + +From the harness-room Halkett fetched a saddle, and as he put it on the +mare's back, he said, "Come and say how d'you do to her." + +"It's Daisy. She'll go fast. Isn't she beautiful! She's rubbing her nose +on me. I wish I could ride her." + +"She might let you--for half a minute. Charlie's the boy for you. Come +and see what's in the harness-room." + +"Not now. There isn't time." + +"Wait for me then." There was pleading in his voice. "Wait in the wood. +I've something to show you. Will you do that for me?" + +He was standing close to her, and she did not look up. "I ought to go +back, but I don't want to. I don't like ill people. They sicken me." + +"Don't go, then." + +Now she looked at him in search of the assurance she wanted. "I needn't, +need I? Helen can manage, can't she?" + +He forgot to answer because she was like a flower suddenly brought to +life in Daisy's stall, a flower for grace and beauty, but a woman for +something that made him deaf to what she said. + +"She can manage, can't she?" + +"Of course." He snatched an armful of hay from a rack and led her to the +larch trees and there he scraped together the fallen needles and laid +the hay on them to make a bed for her. + +"Rest there. Go to sleep and I'll be back before you wake." + +She lay curled on her side until all sounds of him had passed and then +she rolled on to her back and drew up her knees. It was dark and warm in +the little wood; the straight trunks of the larches were as menacing as +spears and the sky looked like a great banner tattered by their points. +Though she lay still, she seemed to be marching with a host, and the +light wind in the trees was the music of its going, the riven banner was +a trophy carried proudly and, at a little distance, the rushing of the +brook was the sound of feet following behind. For a long time she went +with that triumphant army, but at length there came other sounds that +forced themselves on her hearing and changed her from a gallant soldier +to a girl half frightened in a wood. + +She sat up and listened to the galloping of a horse and a voice singing +in gay snatches. The sounds rose and sank and died away and came forth +lustily again, and in the singing there was something full-blooded and +urgent, as though the singer came from some danger joyfully escaped or +hurried to some tryst. She stood up and, holding to a tree, she leaned +sideways to listen. She heard Halkett speaking jovially to the mare as +he pulled her up on the cobbles and gave her a parting smack of his open +hand: then there began a sweet whistling invaded by other sounds, by +Daisy's stamping in her stall, a corn-bin opened and shut, and Halkett's +footsteps in the yard. Soon they were lost in the softness of the larch +needles, but the whistling warned her of his coming and alarmed her with +its pulsing lilt, and as she moved away and tried to make no noise, a +dry branch snapped under her feet. + +"Where are you?" he called out. + +"Here," she answered, and awaited him. She could see the light gleaming +in his eyes. + +"Were you running off?" + +"I didn't run." + +He wound his arm about a tree and said, "We came at a pace, the mare and +I." + +"I heard you. Is Dr. Mackenzie coming?" + +"Yes--fast as that old nag of his will bring him." + +She slipped limply to the ground for she was chilled. She had braced +herself for danger and it had turned aside, and she felt no +thankfulness: she merely found George Halkett dull. + +"Thank you for going," she said in cool tones. "Now I must go back and +see how Notya is." + +"No. I want to show you the side saddle." + +"Which?" + +"The one for you." + +Adventure was hovering again. "For me? Are you really going to teach me +to ride?" + +"Didn't I say so?" + +"But when?" + +"When the rest of the world's in their beds." + +"Oh. Won't it be too dark?" + +"We'll manage. We'll try it first in daylight, right over the moor where +no one goes. Most nights are not much darker than it is now, though. I +can see you easily." + +"Can you?" She was rocking herself in the way to which she had +accustomed him. "What can you see?" + +"Black hair and black eyes. Come here." + +"I'm quite comfortable and you should never tell a lady to come to you, +George." + +"Are you asking me to come to you?" + +"Don't be silly. Aren't you going to show me the saddle?" + +"Yes. Where's your hand? I'll help you up. There you are! No, I'll keep +your hand. The ground's steep and you might fall." + +"No. Let me have it, George." + +Her resistance broke the bonds he had laid on himself, and over her +there fell a kind of wavering darkness in which she was drawn to him and +held against his breast. His coat smelt of peat and tobacco; she felt +his strength and the tense muscles under his clothes, and she did not +struggle to get free of him. Ages of warm, dark time seemed to have +passed over her before she realized that he was doing something to her +hair. He was kissing it and, without any thought, obedient to the hour, +she turned up her face to share those kisses. He uttered a low sound and +put a hand to either of her cheeks, marking her mouth for his, and it +was then she pushed him from her, stepped back, and shook herself and +cried, "Oh, oh, you have been drinking!" + +As she retreated, he advanced, but she fenced him off with outstretched +hands. + +"Go away. You have been drinking." + +"I swear I haven't. I had one glass down there. I was thirsty--and no +wonder. I swear I had no more. It's you, you that's sent it to my head." + +At that, half was forgiven, but she said, "Anyhow, it's horrid and it +makes me hate you. Go away. Don't touch me. Don't come near." In her +retreat she stumbled against a tree and felt a bitterness of reproach +because he did not ask if she were hurt. + +"I'll show you I'm sober," he grumbled. "What do you know about it? +You're a schoolgirl." + +"Then if you think that you should be still more ashamed." + +"Well, I'm not. You made me mad and--you didn't seem to mind it." + +"I didn't, but I do now, and I'm going." + +He followed her to the wood's edge and there she turned. + +"If your head is so weak you ought never to take spirits." + +"My head isn't weak, and I'm not a drunkard. Ask any one. It's you that +are--" + +She offered the word--"Intoxicating?" And she let a smile break through +her lips before she ran away. + +She felt no mental revulsion against his embrace; the physical one was +only against the smell of spirits which she disliked, and she was the +richer for an experience she did not want to repeat. She saw no reason, +however, why he should not be tempted to offer it. She had tasted of the +fruit, and now she desired no more than the delight of seeing it held +out to her and refusing it. + +The moor was friendly to her as she crossed it and if she had suffered +from any sense of guilt, it would have reassured her. Spread under the +pale colour of the declining sun, she thought it was a big eye that +twinkled at her. She looked at the walls of her home and felt unwilling +to be enclosed by them; she looked towards the road, and seeing the +doctor's trap, she decided to stay on the moor until he had been and +gone, and when at last she entered she found the house ominously dark +and quiet. The familiar scent of the hall was a chiding in itself and +she went nervously to the schoolroom, where a line of light marked its +meeting with the floor. + +Helen sat by the table, mending linen in the lamplight. She gave one +upward glance and went on working. + +"Well?" Miriam said. + +"Well?" + +"Did he come?" + +"Yes." + +"What did he say?" + +"He called it collapse." + +"How clever of him!" + +"I have left the tea-things for you to wash, and will you please get +supper?" + +"You needn't talk like that. I'm willing to do my share." + +"You shirked it today, and though I know you're frightened of her, +that's no excuse for leaving me alone." + +Miriam leaned on the table and asked in a gentler voice, "Is she likely +to be ill long?" + +"It's very likely." + +"Well, we shan't miss her while you are with us, but it's a pity, when +we might have peace. You're just like her. I hope you'll never have any +children, for they'd be as miserable as I am, only there wouldn't be one +like me. How could there be? One only has to think of Zebedee." + +Helen stood up and brought her hand so heavily to the table that the +lamplight flared. + +"Go!" she said, "go--" Her voice and body shook, her arms slid limply +over her mending, and she tumbled into her chair, crying with sobs that +seemed to quaver for a long time in her breast. Miriam could not have +imagined such a weeping, and it frightened her. With one finger she +touched Helen's shoulder, and over and over again she said, "I'm sorry, +Helen. I'm sorry. Don't cry. I'm sorry--" until she heard Rupert +whistling on the track. At that Helen stirred and wiped her eyes, but +Miriam darted from the room, shouted cheerfully to Rupert and, keeping +him in talk, led him to the dining-room, while Helen sat staring with +blurred eyes at the linen pile, and seeing the misery in Mildred +Caniper's face. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +It was a bitter winter, with more rain than snow, more snow than +sunshine, and it seemed to Helen that half her life was spent in +watching for Zebedee's figure bent against the storm as he drove up the +road, while Mildred Caniper lay slackly in her bed. She no longer stared +at the ceiling, for though her body had collapsed, her will had only +wavered, and it was righting itself slowly, and the old thoughts which +had been hunting her for years had not yet overcome her. Like hounds, +they bayed behind, and some day their breath would be on her neck, their +teeth in her flesh, and she would fall to them. This was the threat in +the sound which reached her, soft or loud, as bells are heard in the +wind, and in the meantime she steadied herself with varying arguments. +Said one of these, "The past is over," yet she saw the whole future of +these Canipers as the product of her acts. Reason, unsubdued, refused to +allow her so much power, and she gave in; but she knew that if good +befell the children she could claim no credit; if evil, she would take +all the blame. There remained the comfortable assurance that she had +done her best, and then Miriam's face mocked her as it peeped furtively +round the bedroom door. Thus she was brought back to her starting place, +and finding the circle a giddy one, she determined to travel on it no +more, and with her old rigidity, she kept this resolve. It was, however, +less difficult than it would once have been, for her mind was weary and +glad of an excuse to take the easiest path. She lay in bed according to +Zebedee's bidding, hardly moving under the clothes, and listening to the +noises in the house. She was astonished by their number and +significance. All through the night, cooling coals ticked in the grate +or dropped on to the hearth; sometimes a mouse scratched or cheeped in +the walls, and on the landing there were movements for which Helen could +have accounted: Mr. Pinderwell, more conscious of his loss in the +darkness, and unaware that his children had taken form, was moving from +door to door and scraping his hands across the panels. Often the wind +howled dolorously round the house while rain slashed furiously at the +windows, and there were stealthy nights when snow wound a white muffler +against the noises of the world. The clock in the hall sent out clear +messages as to the passing of man's division of time, and at length +there came the dawn, aged and eternally young, certain of itself, with a +grey amusement for man's devices. Before that, Helen had opened her door +and gone in soft slippers to light the kitchen fire, and presently +Rupert was heard to whistle as he dressed. Meanwhile, as though it +looked for something, the light spread itself in Mildred Caniper's room +and she attuned her ears for the different noises of the day. There was +Miriam's laughter, more frequent than it had been before her stepmother +was tied to bed, and provocative of a wry smile from the invalid; there +was her farewell shout to Rupert when he took the road, her husky +singing as she worked about the house. Occasionally Mildred heard the +stormy sound of Mrs. Samson's breathing as she polished the landing +floor, or her voice raised in an anecdote too good to keep. Brooms +knocked against the woodwork or swished on the bare floors, and still +the clock, hardly noticed now, let out its warning that human life is +short, or as it might be, over long. Later, but not on every day of the +week, the jingle of a bit, the turning of wheels, rose to Mildred's +window, telling her that the doctor had arrived, and though she had a +grudge against all who saw her incapacitated, she found herself looking +forward to his visits. He did not smile too much, nor stay too long, +though it was remarkable that his leave-taking of her was not +immediately followed by the renewed jingling of the bit. She was sure +her condition did not call for prolonged discussion and, as she +remembered Miriam who was free to come and go unchecked, to laugh away a +man's wits, as her mother had done before her, Mildred Caniper grew hot +and restless: she felt that she must get up and resume control, yet she +knew that it would never be hers in full measure again, and while, in a +rare, false moment, she pretended that the protection of Zebedee was her +aim, truth stared at her with the reminder that the legacy of her old +envy of the mother was this desire to thwart the daughter. + +After that, her thoughts were long and bitter, and their signs were on +her face when Helen returned. + +"What have you been doing?" Helen demanded, for she no longer had any +awe of Mildred Caniper, a woman who had been helpless in her hands. + +"Please don't be ridiculous, Helen." + +"I'm not." + +"This absurd air of authority--" + +"But you look--" + +"We won't discuss how I look. Where is Miriam?" + +"I don't know. Yes, I do. She went to Brent Farm to get some cream. +Zeb--He says you're to have cream." + +Mildred made a movement which was meant to express baffled patience. "I +have tried to persuade you not to use pronouns instead of proper names. +Can't you hear how vulgar it is?" + +"Dr. Mackenzie wishes you to have cream," Helen said meekly. + +"I do not need cream, and his visits are becoming quite unnecessary." + +"So he said today." + +"Oh." + +"But I," Helen said, smiling to herself, "wish him to come." + +"And no doubt the discussion of what primarily concerns me is what kept +Dr. Mackenzie so long this afternoon." + +"How did you know he stayed?" + +"My good Helen, though I am in bed, I am neither deaf nor an imbecile." + +"Oh, I know," Helen said with a seriousness which might as well have +been mockery as stupidity. "I gave him--I gave Dr. Mackenzie tea. He +was driving further, and it's such a stormy day." + +"Quite right. He looks overworked--ill. I don't suppose he is properly +cared for." + +"He has a cough. He says he often gets one," Helen almost pleaded, and +she went, at the first opportunity, from the room. + +She encountered Jane's solemn and sympathetic stare. "I can't have +neglected him, can I?" she asked of the little girl in the pinafore, and +the shadows on the landing once more became alive with the unknown. "He +does cough a lot, Jane, but he says it's nothing, and he tells the +truth." She added involuntarily and with her hand at her throat, "I've +been so happy," and immediately the words buzzed round her with menace. +She should not have said that; it was a thing hardly to be thought, and +she had betrayed her secret, but it comforted her to remember that this +was nearly the end of January, and before long the Easter fires would +burn again and she could pray. + +Between the present and that one hour in the year when she might ask for +help, Zebedee's cough persisted and grew worse. He had to own to a +weakness of the lungs; he suffered every winter, more or less, and +there had been one which had driven him to warmer climes. + +"And you never told me that before!" she cried, with her hand in that +tell-tale position at her throat. + +"My dear, there has been no time to tell you anything. There hasn't been +one day when we could be lavish. We've counted seconds. Would I talk +about my lungs?" + +"Perhaps we don't really know each other," Helen said, hoping he would +not intercept this hostage she was offering to fortune, and she looked +at him under her raised brows, and smiled a little, tempting him. + +"We don't," he said firmly, and she drew a breath. "We only know we want +each other, and all the rest of our lives is to be the adventure of +finding each other out." + +"But I'm not adventurous," she said. + +"Oh, you'll like it," he assured her, smiling with his wonderfully white +teeth and still more with the little lines round his eyes. He looked at +her with that practical air of adoration which was as precious to her as +his rare caress; she felt doubly honoured because, in his love-making, +he preserved a humour which did not disguise his worship of her. "You'll +like it," he said cheerfully. "Why don't you marry me now and take care +of me?" + +She made a gesture towards the upper room. "How can I?" + +"No, you can't. Not," he added, "so much on that account, as simply +because you can't. I'd rather wait a few months more--" + +"You must," she said, and faintly irritated him. She looked at her +clasped hands. "Zebedee, do you feel you want to be taken care of?" Her +voice was anxious and, though he divined how much was balanced on his +answer, he would not adjust it nicely. + +"Not exactly," he said honestly, and he saw a light of relief and a +shadow of disappointment chase each other on her face. + +"After all, I think I do know you rather well," he murmured, as he took +her by the shoulders. "Do you understand what I am doing?" + +"You're telling me the truth." + +"And at what a cost?" + +She nodded. "But you couldn't help telling me the truth." + +"And if I bemoaned my loneliness, how my collars get lost in the wash, +how tired I am of Eliza's cooking and her face, how bad my cough is, +then you'd let me carry you away?" + +"I might. Zebedee--are those things true, too?" + +"Not particularly." + +"And your cough isn't bad?" + +He hesitated. "It is rather bad." + +"And you're a doctor!" + +"But my dear, darling, love--I've no control over the weather." + +"You ought to go away," she said in a low voice. + +"I hope it won't come to that," he said. + +It was Rupert who asked her a week later if she had jilted Zebedee. + +"Why?" she asked quickly. + +"He's ill, woman." + +"I know." + +"But really ill. You ought to send him away until the spring." + +Her lips moved for a few seconds before she uttered "Yes," and after +that sound she was mute under the double fear of keeping him and parting +from him, but, since to let him go would give her the greater pain, it +was the lesser fear, and it might be that the powers who were always +waiting near to demand a price would, in this manner, let her get her +paying done. She welcomed the chance of paying in advance and she kept +silence while she strengthened herself to do it bravely. + +Because she did not speak, Rupert elaborated. "When Zebedee loses his +temper, there's something wrong." + +"Has he done that?" + +"Daniel daren't speak to him." + +"He never speaks to people: he expounds." + +"True; but your young man was distinctly short with me, even me, +yesterday. Listen to your worldly brother, Helen. Why don't you marry +him and take him into the sun? It's shining somewhere, one supposes." + +"I can't." + +"Why not? There's Miriam." + +"What good is she?" + +"You never give her a chance. You're one of those self-sacrificing, +selfish people who stunt other people's growth. It's like not letting a +baby learn to walk for fear it falls and hurts itself, or tumbles into +the best flower-beds and ruins 'em. Have you ever thought of that?" + +"But she's happier than she used to be," Helen said and smiled as though +nothing more were needed. "And soon she will be going away. She won't +stay after she is twenty-one." + +"D'you think that fairy-tale is going to come true?" + +"Oh, yes. She always does what she wants, you know. And she is counting +on Uncle Alfred, though she says she isn't. She had a letter from him +the other day." + +"And when she has gone, what are you going to do?" + +"I don't know what I'm going to do." + +"Things won't be easier for you then. You'd better face that." + +"But she'll be better--Notya will be better." + +"And you'll marry Zebedee." + +"I don't like saying what I'm going to do." + +Rupert's dark eyes had a hard, bright light. "Are you supposed to love +that unfortunate man? Look here, you're not going to be tied to Notya +all her life. Zebedee and I won't have it." + +"What's going to happen to her, then?" + +"Bless the child! She's grown up. She can look after herself." + +"But I can't leave just you and her in this house together." + +He said in rather a strained voice, "I shan't be here. The bank's +sending me to the new branch." + +"Oh!" Helen said. + +"I'm sorry about it. I tried not to seem efficient, but there's +something about me--charm, I think. They must have noticed how I talk to +the old ladies who don't know how to make out their cheques. So they're +sending me, but I don't know that I ought to leave you all." + +"Of course you must." + +"I can come home on Saturdays." + +"Yes. And Notya's better, and John is near. Why shouldn't you go?" + +"Because your face fell." + +"It's only that everybody's going. It seems like the end of things." She +pictured the house without Rupert and she had a sense of desolation, for +no one would whistle on the track at night and make the house warmer and +more beautiful with his entrance; there would be no one to look up from +his book with unfailing readiness to listen to everything and understand +it; no one to say pleasant things which made her happy. + +"Why," she said, plumbing the depths of loss, "there'll be no one to get +up early for!" + +"Ah, it's Miriam who'll feel that!" he said. + +"And even Daniel won't come any more. He's tired of Miriam's +foolishness." + +"To tell you a secret, he's in love with some one else. But he has no +luck. No wonder! If you could be married to him for ten years before you +married him at all--" + +"I don't know," Helen said thoughtfully. "Those funny men--" She did not +finish her thought. "It will be queer without you," and after a pause +she added the one word, "lonely." + +It was strange that Miriam, whom she loved best, should never present +herself to Helen's mind as a companion: the sisters, indeed, rarely +spoke together except to argue some domestic point, to scold each other, +or to tease, yet each was conscious of the other's admiration, though +Helen looked on Miriam as a pretty ornament or toy, and Miriam gazed +dubiously at what she called the piety of the other. + +"Yes, lonely," she said, but in her heart she was glad that her payment +should be great, and she said loudly, as though she recited her creed: +"I wouldn't change anything. I believe in the things that happen." + +"May they reward you!" he said solemnly. + +"When will you have to go?" + +"I'm not sure. Pretty soon. Look here, my dear, you three lone women +ought to have a dog to take man's place as your natural protector--and +so on." + +"Have you told Zebedee you are going?" + +"Yesterday." + +"Then he will be getting one." + +"H'm. He seems to be a satisfactory lover." + +"He is, you know." + +"Thank God for him." + +"Would you?" Helen said. She had a practical as well as a superstitious +distaste for offering thanks for benefits not actually received, and +also a disbelief in the present certainty of her possession, but she +took hope. John had gone, Rupert was going, of her own will she would +send Zebedee away, and then surely the powers would be appeased, and if +she suffered enough from loneliness, from dread of seeing Mildred +Caniper ill again, of never getting her lover back, the rulers of her +life might be willing, at the end, to let her have Zebedee and the +shining house--the shining house which lately had taken firmer shape, +and stood squarely back from the road, with a little copse of trees +rising behind. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +She cried out when next she saw him, for between this and their next +meeting he had grown gaunter, more nervous, sharper in voice and +gesture. + +"Oh, you're ill!" she said, and stepped back as though she did not know +him. + +"Yes, I'm ill." He held to a chair and tipped it back and forth. "For +goodness' sake, don't talk about it any more. I'm ill. That's settled. +Now let's get on to something else." + +He saw her lip quiver and, uttering a desperate, "I'm sorry," he turned +from her to the window. + +The wisdom she could use so well with others was of no avail with him: +he was too much herself to be treated cunningly. She felt that she +floated on a sea vastly bigger than she had ever known, and its waves +were love and fear and cruelty and fate, but in a moment he turned and +she saw a raft on which she might sail for ever. + +"Forgive me." + +"You've made me love you more." + +"With being a brute to you?" + +"Were you one? But--don't often be angry. I might get used to it!" + +He laughed. "Oh, Helen, you wonder! But I've spoilt our memories." + +"With such a little thing? And when I liked it?" + +"You nearly cried. I don't want to remember that." + +"But I shall like to because we're nearer than we were," she said, and +to that he solemnly agreed. "And I am going to talk about it." + +"Anything, of course." + +"You look tired and hungry and sleepy, and I'm going to send you away." + +"My dear," he said with a grimace, "I've got to go." + +"Give me the credit of sending you." + +"I don't want it. Ah! you've no idea what leaving you is like." + +"But I know--" + +"That's not the same thing." + +"It's worse, I believe. Darling one, go away and come back to me, but +don't come back until you're well. I want--I want to do without you +now--and get it over." Her eyes, close to his, were bright with the +vision of things he could not see. "Get it over," she said again, "and +then, perhaps, we shall be safe." + +He had it in him at that moment to say he would not go because of his +own fear for her, but he only took her on his knee and rocked her as +though she were a baby on the point of sleep and he proved that, after +all, he knew her very well, for when he spoke he said, "I don't think I +can go." + +She started up. "Have you thought of something?" + +"Yes." + +"What is it?" + +"You." + +"Me?" she asked on a long note. + +"I don't know whether I can trust you." + +"Me?" she said again. + +"Don't you remember how I asked you to be brave?" + +"I tried, but it was easier then because I hadn't you." Her arm +tightened round his neck. "Now you're another to look after." + +He held her off from him. "What am I to do with you? What am I to do +with you? How can I leave this funny little creature who is afraid of +shadows?" + +"That night," she said in a small voice, "you told me I looked brave." + +"Yes, brave and sane. And I have often thought--don't laugh at me--I +have thought that was how Joan of Arc must have looked." + +"And now?" + +"Now you are like a Joan who does not hear her voices any more." + +She slipped from his knee to hers. "You're disappointed then?" + +"No." + +"You ought to be." + +"Perhaps." + +"Would you love me more if I were brave?" + +"I don't believe I could." + +She laughed, and with her head aslant, she asked, "Then what's the good +of trying?" + +"Just to make it easier for me," he said. + +She uttered a little sound like one who stands in mountain mists and +through a rent in the grey curtain sees a light shining in the valley. + +"Would it do that for you? Oh, if it's going to help you, I'm afraid no +longer." She reached out and held his face between the finger-tips of +her two hands. "I promise not to be afraid. Already"--she looked about +her--"I am not afraid. How wonderful you are! And what a wise physician! +Physician, heal thyself. You'll go away?" + +"Yes, I can go now." + +"Where?" + +"For a voyage. The Mediterranean. Not a liner--on some slow-going boat." + +"Not a leaky one," she begged. + +"Ah, I'd come back if she had no bottom to her. Nothing is going to hurt +me or keep me from you!" + +She did not protest against his boasting, but smiled because she knew he +meant to test her. + +"You'll be away a long time," she said. + +"And you'll marry me when I come back?" + +"Yes. If I can." + +"Why not? In April? May? June? In June--a lovely month. It has a sound +of marriage in it. But after all," he said thoughtfully, "it seems a +pity to go. And I wouldn't," he added with defiance, "if I were not +afraid of being ill on your hands." + +"My hands would like it rather." + +"Bless them!" + +"Oh--what silly things we say--and do--and you haven't seen Notya yet." + +"Come along then," he said, and as they went up the stairs together +Helen thought Mr. Pinderwell smiled. + +It was after this visit that Mildred Caniper coolly asked Helen if Dr. +Mackenzie were in the habit of using endearments towards her. + +"Not often," Helen said. Slightly flushed and trying not to laugh, she +stood at the bed-foot and faced Mildred Caniper fairly. + +"You allow it?" + +"I--like it." + +Mildred Caniper closed her eyes. "Please ask him not to do it in my +presence." + +"I'll tell him when he comes again," Helen answered agreeably, and her +stepmother realized that the only weapons to which this girl was +vulnerable were ones not willingly used: such foolish things as tears or +sickness; she seemed impervious to finer tools. Helen's looks at the +moment were unabashed: she was trying to remember what Zebedee had said, +both for its own sake and to gauge its effect on Notya to whose memory +it was clear enough, and its naturalness, the slight and unmistakable +change in his voice as he spoke to Helen, hurt her so much with their +reminder of what she had missed that pain made her strike once more. + +"This is what I might have expected from Miriam." + +"But," said Helen, all innocence, "she doesn't care for him." + +"And you do." + +She did not wish to say yes; she could not say no; she kept her +half-smiling silence. + +"How long has this been going on?" The tones were sharp with impotence. + +"Oh--well--since you went to Italy. At least," she murmured vaguely, +"that was when he came to tea." + +But Mildred did not hear the last homely sentence, and Helen's next +words came from a great distance, even from the shuttered room in Italy. + +"And why should you mind? Why shouldn't we--like each other?" + +Mildred Caniper opened her remarkably blue eyes, and said, almost in +triumph, "You'll be disappointed." + +At that Helen laughed with a security which was pathetic and annoying to +the woman in the bed. + +"Life--" Mildred Caniper began, and stopped. She had not yet reached the +stage, she reflected, when she must utter platitudes about the common +lot. She looked at Helen with unusual candour. "I have never spoken to +you of these things," she said. + +"Oh, I shouldn't like you to!" Helen cried, and her hands were near her +ears. + +Mildred allowed her lips to curve. "I am not referring to the facts of +generation," she said drily, and her smile broadened, her eyebrows +lifted humorously. "I am quite aware that the--the advantages of a +country life include an early arrival at that kind of knowledge. +Besides, you were fortunate in your brothers. And then there were all +the books." + +"The books?" + +"The ones Rupert used to bring you." + +"So you knew about them." + +"I have had to remind you before, Helen, that I am not out of my mind." + +"What else do you know?" Helen asked with interest, and sat down on the +bed. + +This was Miriam's inquiry when the conversation was reported to her. + +"She didn't tell me anything else. I think she had said more than she +meant. She is like that sometimes, now. It's because she hasn't so much +strength." + +"I expect she knows everything we ever did." + +"Well, we never did much." + +"No. And everything we do now." + +"She didn't know about Zebedee." + +"Oh, she wouldn't suspect you." + +"Then don't do anything you shouldn't," Helen said mildly. + +"Her 'should' and my 'should' are very different members of the same +family, my dear." She peered into Helen's face and squeaked, "And what +the devil is there to do?" + +"Don't use words like that." + +"Wow! Wow! This is the devil's St. Helena, I imagine. There's nothing to +be done in it. I believe she has eyes all round her head." + +"He's a gentleman always, in pictures." + +"Are you really stupid?" + +"I think so." + +"I was talking about Notya." + +"Oh." + +"And I believe she can see with her ears and hear with her eyes. +Helen--Helen, you don't think she gets up sometimes in the night, and +prowls about, do you?" + +"I should hear her." + +"Oh. Are you sure?" + +"I sleep so lightly. The other night--" + +"Yes?" + +"I was waked by a sheep coughing outside the garden." + +Miriam burst out laughing. "Did you think it was Zebedee?" She laughed a +great deal more than was necessary. "Now she's putting on her +never-smiled-again expression! Will he be back before I go away?" + +Helen looked at her dumbly. She heard the garden gate shutting behind +John and Zebedee, Rupert and Miriam, with a clang which seemed to forbid +return, and her dread of Zebedee's going became sharper, though beneath +her dread there lay the courage she had promised him. + +"And there will be the dog," she found herself saying aloud. + +The animal, when he arrived, leapt from the dog-cart in which he had +been unwillingly conveyed and proved to be an Airedale, guaranteed to be +a perfect watch-dog and suspicious of all strangers. + +Proudly, Zebedee delivered himself of these recommendations. + +"He's trained, thoroughly trained to bite. And he's enormously strong. +Just look at his neck! Look at his teeth--get through anything." + +Helen was kneeling to the dog and asking, "Are you sure he'll bite +people? He seems to like me very much." + +"I've been telling him about you. My precious child, you can't have a +dog who leaps at people unprovoked. He'd be a public danger. You must +say 'Rats!' or something like that when you want him to attack." + +"Well--I love him," she said. + +"And I've something else for you." + +"Oh, no!" + +"Shut your eyes--" + +"And open my mouth?" + +"No, give me your hand. There! Will you wear that for me?" + +"Oh! Oh! It's the loveliest thing I've ever seen in my life! Much! Oh, +it's perfect. It's so white." + +"Tell me I'm rather a success today." + +"You're one all the time. Did you have it made for me?" + +"D'you think I'd get you something out of a shop window? I made it up. +And there's another thing--" + +"But you won't have any money left!" she cried. + +"Then I won't tell you about the third thing." + +She said solemnly, "You ought to have no secrets from me." + +"Have you none from me?" + +"Not one. Except--but that's so silly--except the tinker." + +"Tell me that one." + +She obeyed him, and she frowned a little, because she could not +understand why the thing should need telling. "And then I went on to the +moor, and George Halkett ran after me, and I thought it was the tinker." + +"Why," Zebedee asked, "did he run after you?" + +"He must have thought I was some one else." + +"Why does he run after anybody?" + +"Because he's George, I think, and if John were here he would tell you +the story of how he tried to kiss Lily Brent!" + +"That sort of animal oughtn't to be let loose." + +"I like him," Helen said. "I'm sorry for him." + +"H'm," said Zebedee. "Well, you have the dog." + +"Oh," she said, "he isn't like that with me. We've known each other all +our lives. And you don't mind about the tinker?" + +"I don't think so." + +"It's not nearly so bad," she persuaded him, "as the real woman you once +liked." + +He did not contradict her. "We're not going to argue about dreams and +the past. We haven't time for that." + +"And I haven't begun to thank you! I knew you were going to bring a +dog!" + +"Who told you?" + +"I just knew you'd think of it. But two lovely presents in one day, and +both from you! But I feel--I feel--" + +"I know. You want to drown the dog and throw the ring away as hostages +for my safety." + +"Yes, don't laugh." + +"My dear," he said wearily, "there are moments when one can do nothing +else." + +"I'm sorry. And don't be angry with me in case you make me love you too +much to let you go! And I'm brave, really. I promise to be good." + +He nodded in his quick way while he looked at her as though, in spite of +all he said, he feared he might never look at her again, and she was +proud of his firm lips and steady eyes in the moment of the passionate +admiration which lived with her like a presence while he was away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Helen passed into a pale windy world one February morning and walked +slowly down the track. There was no sharpness in the air and the colours +of approaching spring seemed to hover between earth and heaven, though +they promised soon to lay themselves down to make new green and splendid +purple and misty blue. Slow-moving clouds paced across the sky, and as +she looked at them Helen thought of Zebedee sailing under richer colour +and with white canvas in the place of clouds. She wondered if time crept +with him as slowly as it did with her; if he had as much faith in her +courage as she had in his return. She knew he would come back, and she +had trained herself to patience: indeed, it was no hard matter, for hers +had always been a world in which there was no haste. The seasons had +their leisured way; the people moved with heavy feet; the moor lay in +its wisdom, suffering decay and growth. Even the Brent Farm cattle made +bright but stationary patches in the field before the house, and as she +drew nearer she came upon John and Lily leaning on a fence. Their elbows +touched; their faces were content, as slowly they discussed the fate of +the cow they contemplated, and Helen sat down to await their leisure. + +Before her, the moor sloped to the road and rose again, lifting +Pinderwell House on its bosom, and to her right, from the hidden +chimneys of Halkett's Farm, she could see smoke rising as though it were +the easy breath of some monster lying snug among the trees. There was no +other movement, though the sober front of Pinderwell House was animated +for an instant by the shaking of some white substance from a window. +Miriam was at her household tasks, and Helen waved a hand to the dark +being who had made life smoother for her since her night of stormy +weeping. She waved a hand of gratitude and friendship, but the signal +was not noticed, the house returned to its discretion, John and Lily +talked sparsely but with complete understanding, and Helen grew drowsy +in the sunshine. She was happier than she had ever been, for Zebedee had +laid peace on her, like a spell, and the warmth of that happiness stole +up from her feet and spread over her breast; it curled the corners of +her mouth so that John, turning to look at her, asked her why she +smiled. + +"I'm comfortable," she said. + +"Never been comfortable before?" + +She gave him the clear depths of her eyes. "Not often." + +He went away, driving the cow before him, and Lily stood looking after +him. + +"He's wonderful," she said. "He comes along and takes hold of things and +begins to teach me my own business." + +"So you're pleased with him?" Helen said demurely. + +"Yes," the other answered with twitching lips, "he's doing very well." +Her laughter faded, and she said softly, "I wonder if they often +happen--marriages like ours." + +"Tell me about it." + +"Nothing to tell. It's just as if it's always been, and every minute it +seems fresh." + +"No," Helen said consideringly, "I shouldn't think it often happens. +I've come for a pound of butter, please." + +"How's Mrs. Caniper?" + +"She's better, but I think she would be rather glad to die. I let her +make a cake yesterday, and it did her good. Come and see her soon." + +"I will. Let's go to the dairy. Will you have it in halves or quarters? +Look at my new stamp!" + +"What is it meant to be?" + +"Well! It's a Shetland pony, of course." + +"I like the pineapple better. I don't think a pony seems right on +butter. I'll have the pineapple." + +"John says there's as much sense in one as in the other, because we +don't get butter from either of them." + +"The pineapple is food, though." + +"So's the pony, by some accounts!" She leaned in her old attitude +against a shelf, and eyed Helen nervously. "Talking of ponies, have you +seen anything of these ghostly riders?" + +"I don't know what they are." + +"That's what my--our--shepherd calls them. He saw them late one night, a +while back. One was a woman, he said, and the air was cold with them and +set him sneezing. That's what he says." + +"It was some of the wild ponies, I suppose." + +"Maybe." + +"You don't think it was really ghosts?" + +"No, for I've seen them myself." She paused. "I haven't said anything to +John, but I'm wondering if I ought." + +"Why not?" + +Lily's gaze widened in her attempt to see what Helen's point of view +would be and she spoke slowly, that, if possible, she might not offend. + +"It was George Halkett I saw. There was no woman, but he was leading one +horse and riding another. It was one night when John was late on the +moor and I went to look for him. George didn't see me. I kept quiet till +he'd gone by. There was a side saddle on the led horse." + +"Well?" Helen said. + +"That's all. I thought you ought to know." + +In that moment Helen hated Lily. "Is it Miriam you're hinting at?" she +asked on a high note. + +"Yes, it is. You're making me feel mean, but I'm glad I've told you. +It's worried me, and John--I didn't like to tell John, for he has a +grudge against the man, and he might have made trouble before he need." + +"I think that's what you're doing," Helen said. + +"That may be. I took the risk. I know George Halkett. Miriam, having a +bit of fun, might find herself landed in a mess. I'm sorry, Helen. I +hope I'm wrong." + +Helen was half ashamed to hear herself asking, "How late was it?" + +"About twelve." + +"But I'm awake half the night. I should have heard. Besides--would there +be any harm?" + +"Just as much as there is in playing with fire," Lily said. + +"'Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth,'" Helen said, +looking at the ground. + +"Yes, but there's more than a little fire in Miriam, and George +Halkett's a man, you know." + +Helen raised her head and said, "We've lived here all our lives, and we +have been very lonely, but I have hardly spoken to a man who was not +gentle. John and Rupert and Zebedee and Daniel, all these--no one has +spoken roughly to us. It makes one trustful. And George is always kind, +Lily." + +"Yes, but Miriam--she's not like you." + +"She's much more beautiful." + +Lily's laughter was half a groan. "That won't make George any gentler, +my dear." + +"Won't it?" + +Lily shook her head. "But perhaps there's nothing in it. I'm sorry to +have added to your worries, but Miriam's so restless and discontented, +and I thought--" + +"Ah," Helen interrupted gladly, "but lately she has been different. +Lately she has been happier. Oh!" She saw where her words had led her, +and with a little gesture of bewilderment she turned and walked away. + +Perhaps, after all, the things that happened were not necessarily best, +and for the first time Helen felt a blind anger against the unknown. In +a moment of sharp vision, she saw what this vaguely concentrated life +had done for her and Miriam, and she wondered by whose law it had been +decreed that no human being could have a destiny unconditioned by some +one else, and though she also saw that this law was the glory as well as +the tragedy of life, she rebelled against it now, lest the radiant being +whom she loved should be dishonoured or disillusioned. + +Helen's firm curved lips took a harder line as she went slowly home, for +it seemed to her that in an active world the principle of just going on +left all the foes unconquered and ready for the next victim who should +pass that way. + +She slept fitfully that night, and once she woke to a sound of galloping +on the moor. She knew it was made by more animals than two, yet her +heart beat quickly, and her thoughts sprang together to make a picture +of George Halkett leading a horse without a rider through the night, +waiting in the darkness with his ears stretched for the sound of one +coming through the heather. + +She started up in bed, for the mysterious allurement of George's image +was strong enough to make her understand what it might be for Miriam, +and she held herself to the bed lest she should be tempted to play the +spy; yet, had she brought herself to open her sister's door, she would +have been shamed and gladdened by the sight of that pretty sleeper lying +athwart her bed in profound unconsciousness. + +Miriam, whose heart was still untouched by God or man, could lie and +sleep soundly, though she knew George waited for her on the moor. The +restlessness that had first driven her there had sent her home again, +that, by a timely abstention, she might recover the full taste of +adventure, and that, by the same means, George might learn her worth. +She was a little puzzled by his behaviour, and she began to find +monotony in its decorum. According to his promise, he had taught her to +ride, and while all her faculties were bent on that business, she hardly +noticed him, but with confidence in her own seat and Charlie's +steadiness, there came freedom to look at George, and with it the desire +to rule the expression of his face and the modulations of his voice. + +He would not be beguiled. "I'm teaching you to ride," he said, and +though she mocked him he was not stirred to quarrel. She was temporarily +incapable of realizing that while she learnt to ride, he learnt to +honour her, and found safety for himself and her in silence; nor, had +she realized it, would she have welcomed it. What she wanted was the +pleasure of being hunted and seeing the hunter discomfited, and though +she could not get that from him, she had a new joy when Charlie carried +her strongly and safely across the moor; again she knew the feeling of +passing through a void, of sailing on a thunder-cloud without hope of +rescue and careless of it, and she paid a heavy price when she decided +that it would do George good to wait in vain for her. She would not have +him disrespectful, but she desired him ardent; she wished to see that +stubbornly set mouth open to utter longings, and, when she went to bed +after a dull day, she laughed to think of how he waited and stared into +the gloom. + +A fortnight passed before she stole out on a misty night and at the +appointed place found him like a grey carved figure on a grey carved +horse. Only his lips moved when she peered at him through the mist. He +said, "This is the fifteenth night. If you'd waited till tomorrow, you +wouldn't have found me here." + +"George," she said, with her face close to his knee, "how unkind you are +to me. And, oh, George, do you really think I should have cared?" + +In the mist, she, too, had the look of one not made of flesh and blood, +but she had no likeness to some figure carved: she was the spirit of the +mist with its drops on her hair, a thing intangible, yet dowered with +power to make herself a torment. So she looked, but Halkett had felt the +touch of her, and taking her by the wrist, he dragged her upwards while +he bent down to her. + +"You--you--!" he panted. + +"You're hurting, George!" + +"What do I care? I haven't seen you for two weeks. I've been--been +starving for you." + +She spoke coolly, with a ringing quality in her tones. "You would see me +better if you didn't come so near." + +Immediately he loosened her without looking at her, and she stood +chafing her hands, hating his indifference, though she knew it was +assumed, uncertain how to regain her supremacy. Then she let instinct +guide her, and she looked a little piteous. + +"Don't be rough with me. I didn't mean--I don't like you to be rough +with me." + +He was off his horse and standing by her at those words, and, still +watchful for rebuffs, he took her hand and stroked it gently. + +"Did I hurt you, then?" he said. + +"Yes. Why are you like that?" She lifted her head and gave him the oval +face, the dark, reproachful eyes like night. + +"Because I'm mad for you--mad for you. Little one--you make me mad. And +you'll never marry me. I know that. And I'm a fool to let you play the +devil with me. I know that, too. A mad fool. But you--you're in my +blood." + +Softly she said, "You never told me that before. You needn't scold me +so. How should I know you wanted that?" + +"You knew I loved you." + +"No. I knew you liked me and I hoped--" + +He bent his head to listen. + +"I hoped you loved me." + +His words came thickly, a muddy torrent. "Then marry me, marry me, +Miriam. Marry me. I want--I can't--You must say you'll marry me." + +Keeping her eyes on him, she moved slowly away, and from behind +Charlie's back she laughed with a genuine merriment that wounded +inexpressibly. + +"You're funny, George," she said. "Very funny. At present I have no +intention of doing anything but riding Charlie." + +Through a mist doubled and coloured by his red rage, he watched her +climb into the saddle and, before she was fairly settled in it, he gave +the horse a blow that sent him galloping indignantly out of sight. + +Halkett did not care if she were thrown, for his anger and his passion +were confounded into one emotion, and he would have rejoiced to see her +on the ground, her little figure twisted with her fall, but he did not +follow her. He went home in the rain that was now falling fast, and when +the mare was stabled he brewed himself a drink that brought oblivion. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Helen waked, that night, from a short deep sleep, to hear the falling of +heavy rain and sharp gusts of wind that bowed the poplars. As the storm +strengthened, raindrops were blown on to her pillow, and she could hear +the wind gathering itself up before it swept moaning across the moor and +broke with a miserable cry against the walls. She hoped Mildred Caniper +slept through a wailing that might have a personal note for her, and as +she prepared to leave the room and listen on the landing, she thought +she heard a new sound cutting through the swish of the rainfall and the +shriek of wind. It was a smaller sound, as though a child were alone and +crying in the night, and she leaned from her window to look into the +garden. The rain wetted her hair and hands and neck, while she stared +into varying depths of blackness--the poplars against the sky, the lawn, +like water, the close trees by the wall--and as she told herself that +the wind had many voices, she heard a loud, unwary sob and the impact of +one hard substance on another. + +Some one was climbing the garden wall, and a minute later a head rose +above the scullery roof. It was Miriam, crying, with wet clothes +clinging to her, and Helen called out softly. + +"Oh, is that you?" she answered, and laughed through a tangled breath. +"I'm drenched." + +"Wait! I'll go into Phoebe and help you through." + +"There's a chair here. I left it. I'm afraid it's ruined!" + +Helen entered the other room as Miriam dropped from the window-ledge to +the floor. + +"Don't make a noise. We mustn't wake her. Oh, oh, you look--you look +like rags!" + +Miriam sat limply; she shook with cold and sobs and laughter. Water +dripped from every part of her, and when Helen helped her up, all the +streams became one river. + +Helen let go of the cold hands and sank to the bed. "There must be +gallons of it! And you--!" + +"I'm frozen. Mop it up. Towels--anything. I'll fling my clothes out of +the window. They are quite used to the scullery roof." + +"Speak quietly. Whisper. She may hear you!" + +"That would be--the devil, wouldn't it? Good thing Rupert isn't here! +Put something at the bottom of the door. Lock it. My fingers are numb. +Oh, dear, oh, dear, I can't undo my things." + +"Let me. You ought to have hot water, and there's no fire. I'll rub you +down. And your hair! Wring it out, child. What were you doing on the +moor?" + +"Just amusing myself." + +"With George Halkett?" + +"We-ell, I was with him in the spirit, oh, yes, I was; but in the flesh, +only for a very little while. What made you think I was with him?" + +"Something I heard. Are you warmer now?" + +"Much warmer. Give me my nightgown, please. Oh, it's comfortable, and +out there I was so cold, so cold. Oh," she cried out, "I should love to +set his farm on fire!" + +"Hush!" + +"But I would! If I'd had matches, and if it hadn't been raining, and if +I'd thought about it, I would have done it then." + +"But what did he do to you?" Helen's eyes were sombre. "He surely didn't +touch you?" + +Miriam's arrested laughter marked their differences. She remembered +George Halkett's hand on hers and the wilder, more distant passion of +his arms clasping her among the larches. + +"It wasn't that," she said. "He asked me to marry him--and it wasn't +that. I met him to go riding, and I think I must have teased him. Yes, I +did, because he hit my horse, and I couldn't hold him, and I fell off at +last. I lay in the heather for a long time. It was wet, Helen, and I was +all alone. I cried at first. I would have killed him if he had come +near. I would, somehow, but he never came. He didn't care, and I might +have been killed, just because I teased him. Then I cried again. Would +you mind coming into bed with me to keep me warm? I'm glad I'm here. I +lost my way. I thought I should be out there all night. It was dark, and +the wind howled like demons, and the rain, the rain--! Closer, Helen." + +"Did he frighten you?" + +"Of course he didn't. I was angry. Oh"--the small teeth gritted on each +other--"angry! But I'll pay him out. I swear I will." + +"Don't swear it. Don't do it. I wish Rupert were here. I'm glad Zebedee +gave me Jim." + +"Pooh! Do you think George will break into the house? Jim would fly at +him. I'd like that. He's got to be paid out." + +Helen moved in the bed. "What's the good of doing that?" + +"The good! He made me bite the earth. I joggled and joggled, and at last +I went over with a bump, and when I bumped I vowed I'd hurt him." + +"You needn't keep that kind of vow." + +"Then what was the good of making it? We always keep our promises." + +"Promise not to see him any more." + +"Don't worry. I've finished with him--very nearly. Will you stay with me +all night? There's not much room, but I want you to keep hold of me. I'm +warm now, and so beautifully sleepy." + +Her breathing became even, but once it halted to let her say, "He's a +beast, but I can't help rather liking him." + +She slept soon afterwards, but Helen lay awake with her arm growing +stiff under Miriam's body, and her mind wondering if that pain were +symbolic of what wild folly might inflict. + +It was noticeable that Miriam did not venture on the moor in the days +that followed, but every day Helen went there with Jim, who needed +exercise and was only restrained from chasing sheep by timely employment +of his energy, and every day Halkett, watching the house, saw these two +sally forth together. They went at an easy pace, the woman with her +skirt outblown, her breast fronting the wind, her head thrown back, her +hands behind her, the dog marching by her side, and in their clearness +of cut, their pale colour, for which the moor was dado and the sky +frieze, he found some memory of sculptures he had seen and hardly +heeded, ancient things with the eternity of youth on them, the captured +splendour of moving limb and passionate brain. Then he was aware of +fresh wind and fruitful earth, but as she passed out of sight, he was +imprisoned again by stifling furies. He had begun to love Miriam with a +sincerity that wished to win and not to force her; he had controlled the +wild heritage of his fathers and tried to forget the sweetness of her +body in the larch-wood; he was determined not to take what she would not +give him gladly; and now, by her own act, she had changed his striving +love into desire--desire to hurt, to feel her struggling in his arms, +hating his kisses, paying a bitter price for her misuse of him. He had a +vicious pleasure in waiting for the hour when he should feel her body +straining away from his, and each night, as he sat drinking, he lived +through that ecstasy; each day, as he went about his work, he kept an +eye on the comings and goings of the Canipers, waiting for his chance. +Miriam did not appear, and that sign of fear inflamed him; but on Sunday +morning she walked on the moor with Rupert, holding him by the arm and +making a parade of happiness, and in the afternoon, Daniel was added to +the train. + +Monday came, and no small, black-haired figure darted from the house: +only Helen and the majestic dog walked together like some memory of a +younger world. + +His mind held two pictures as he sat alone at night, and, corresponding +to them, two natures had command of him. He saw Helen like dawn and +Miriam like night, and as one irritated him with her calm, the other +roused him with her fire, and he came to watch for Helen that he might +sneer inwardly at her, with almost as much eagerness as he watched for +Miriam that he might mutter foul language, like loathed caresses. + +Drink and desire and craving for peace were all at work in him. The +dreams he had been building were broken by a callous hand, and he sat +among the ruins. He could laugh, now, at his fair hopes, but they had +had their part in him, and he could never go back to the days when he +rode and drank and loved promiscuously, with a light heart. She had +robbed, too, when she cast down his house, but there was no end to her +offence, for when, out of coarser things, this timid love had begun to +creep, it had been thrown back at him with a gibe. + +He was in a state when the strongest suggestion would have its way with +him. He wanted to make Miriam suffer; he wanted to be dealt with kindly, +and he had a pitiful and unconscious willingness to take another's +mould. So, when he saw Helen on the moor, the sneering born of her +distance from him changed slowly to a desire for nearness, and he +remembered with what friendliness they had sat together in the heather +one autumn night, and how peace had seemed to lie upon them both. A +woman like that might keep a man straight, he thought, and when she +stopped to speak to him one morning, her smile was balm to his hurts. + +She looked at him in her frank way. "You don't look well, George." + +"Oh--I'm all right," he said, hitting his gaiters with his stick. + +"It's a lovely day," she said, "and you have some lambs already. I hope +the snow won't come and kill them." + +"Hope not. We're bound to lose some of them, though." + +Why, he asked himself angrily, was she not afraid of him who was +planning injury to her sister? She made him feel as though he could +never injure any one. + +"You haven't noticed my dog," she said. + +"Yes--" he began. He had been noticing him for days, marching beside her +against the sky. "He's a fine beast." + +"Isn't he?" Her finger-tips were on Jim's head. + +"You want a dog now there's no man in your house." + +She laughed a little as she said, "And he feels his responsibility, +don't you, Jim?" + +"Come here, lad," Halkett called to him. "Come on. That's right!" + +"He seems to like you." + +"I never knew the dog that didn't; but don't make him too soft, or he'll +be no good to you." + +"Well," she said gaily, "you are not likely to break into our house!" + +His flush alarmed her, for it told her that she had happened on the +neighbourhood of his thoughts, and her mind was in a flurry to assert +her innocence and engender his, but no words came to her, and her hand +joined his in fondling the dog's head. + +"Well, I must be going on," George said, and after an uncertain instant +he walked away, impoverished and enriched. + +Helen sat down heavily, as though one of her own heart-beats had pushed +her there, and putting her arm round Jim's neck, she leaned her head on +him. + +"Jim," she said, "don't you wish Zebedee would come back? If I hadn't +promised--" She looked about her. George had disappeared, and near by +grey sheep were eating with a concentration that disdained her and the +dog. It was a peaceful scene, and a few early lambs dotted it with +white. "It's silly to feel like this," she said. "Let's go and find +Miriam." + +She was discovered in the garden, digging. + +"But why?" Helen asked. + +"I must have exercise." Her hair was loosened, her teeth worked on her +under-lip as her foot worked on the spade. "You don't know how I miss my +riding!" + +"I've just seen George." + +"Have you?" + +"I spoke to him." + +"How brave! How did he look?" + +"Horrid. His eyes were bloodshot." + +"Ah! He has been drinking. That's despair. Perhaps it's time I tried to +cheer him up." + +"Don't make him angry." + +"I'm not going to. I'm not vindictive. I'm rather nice. I've recovered +from my rage, and now I wouldn't set his farm on fire for worlds. Why, +if I saw it blazing, I should run to help! But I'd like to tease him +just a little bit." + +"I wish you wouldn't. I think it's rather mean, he looks so miserable. +And I'm sure it isn't safe. Please, Miriam." + +"I can take care of myself, my dear." + +"I'm not so sure." + +"Oh, yes, I can. I'm going to make it up with him. I must, or I shall +never be able to walk about the moor again." + +"I wish you didn't live here," Helen said. + +"Well, so do I. But it's not for long." She was working vigorously, and, +with her peculiar faculty for fitting her surroundings, she looked as +though she had been begotten of sun and rain and soil. Helen took +delight in her bright colour, strong hands and ready foot. + +"I wonder," Helen said thoughtfully, "if Uncle Alfred would take you +now." + +"Do you want to save me from George's clutches?" + +"Yes, I do." + +Miriam threw back her head and laughed. "You funny little thing! You're +rather sweet. George hasn't a clutch strong enough to hold me. You can +be sure of that." + +She was herself so certain that she waylaid him on the moor next day, +but to her amazement he did not answer her smile of greeting and passed +on without a word. + +"George!" she called after him. + +"Well?" He looked beyond her at the place where green moor met blue sky: +he felt he had done with her, and Helen's trust had taken all the +sweetness from revenge. + +"Aren't you going to say good-morning? I came on purpose to see you." + +"You needn't trouble," he said and, stealing a look at her, he weakened. + +"But I need." He was wavering, she knew, and her mouth and eyes promised +laughter, her body seemed to sway towards him. + +"I want--I want to forgive you, George." + +"Well, I'm--" + +"Yes, you are, no doubt, but I don't want to be, so I forgive my +trespassers, and I've come to make friends." + +"You've said that before." + +"I've always meant it. Must I hold out my arm any longer?" + +"No." She was too tempting for his strength. He took her by the +shoulders, looked greedily at her, saw the shrinking he had longed for +and pressed his mouth on hers. She gave a cry that made a bird start +from the heather, but he held her to him and felt her struggling with a +force that could not last, and in a minute she dropped against him as +helplessly as if she had been broken. + +He turned her over on his arm. "You little devil!" he said, and kissed +her lips again. + +Her face was white and still: she did not move and he could not guess +that behind the brows gathered as if she were in pain, her mind +ransacked her home for a weapon that might kill him, and saw the +carving-knife worn to a slip of steel that would glide into a man's body +without a sound. She meant to use it: she was kept quiet by that +determination, by the intensity of her horror for caresses that, unlike +those first ones in the larch-wood, marked her as a thing to be used and +thrown away. + +She knew his thoughts of her, but she had her own amid a delirium of +hate, and when he released her, she was shaking from the effort of her +control. + +"Now I've done with you," he said, and she heard him laugh as he went +away. + +She longed to scream until the sky cracked with the noise, and she had +no knowledge of her journey home. She found herself sitting at the +dinner-table with Helen, and heard her ask, "Don't you feel well?" + +"No. I'm--rather giddy." + +She watched the knife as Helen carved, and the beauty of its slimness +gave her joy; but suddenly the blade slipped, and she saw blood on +Helen's hand and, rushing from the table to the garden, she stood there +panting. + +"It's nothing," Helen shouted through the window. "Just a scratch." + +"Oh, blood! It's awful!" She leaned on the gate and sobbed feebly, +expecting to be sick. She could not make anybody bleed: it was terrible +to see red blood. + +Trembling and holding to the banisters, she went upstairs and lay down +on her bed, and presently, through her subsiding sobs, there came a +trickle of laughter born of the elfish humour which would not be +suppressed. She could not kill George, but she must pay him out, and she +was laughing at herself because she had discovered his real offence. It +was not his kisses, not even his disdain of what he took, though that +enraged her: it was his words as he cast her off and left her. She sat +up on the bed, clenching her small hands. How dared he? How dared he? +She could not ignore those words and she would let him know that he had +been her plaything all the time. + +"All the time, George, my dear," she muttered, nodding her black head. +"I'll just write you a little letter, telling you!" + +Kneeling before the table by her window, she wrote her foolish message +and slipped it inside her dress: then, with a satisfaction which brought +peace, she lay down again and slept. + +She waked to find Helen at her bedside, a cup of tea in her hand. + +"Oh--I've been to sleep?" + +"Yes. It's four o'clock. Are you better?" + +"Yes." + +"Lily is here. John's gone to town. It's market-day." + +"Market-day!" She laughed. "George will get drunk. Perhaps he'll fall +off his horse and be killed. But I'd rather he was killed tomorrow. +Perhaps a wild bull will gore him--right horn, left horn, right +horn--Oh, my head aches!" + +"Don't waggle it about." + +"I was just showing you what the bull would do to George." + +"Leave the poor man alone." + +But that was what Miriam could not do, and she waited eagerly for the +dark. + +The new green of the larches was absorbed into the blackness of night +when she went through them silently. She had no fear of meeting George, +but she must wait an opportunity of stealing across the courtyard and +throwing the letter through the open door, so she paused cautiously at +the edge of the wood and saw the parlour lights turning the cobbles of +the yard to lumps of gold. There was no sign of Mrs. Biggs, but about +the place there was a vague stir made up of the small movements and +breathings of the horses in the stable, the hens shut up for the night, +the cows in their distant byres. Branches of trees fretted against each +other and the stream sang, out of sight. + +The parlour light burned steadily, no figure came into view, and, +lifting her feet from her slippers, Miriam went silently towards the +door. She had thrown in the letter and was turning back, when she heard +nailed boots on the stones, a voice singing, a little thickly, in an +undertone. She caught her breath and ran, but as she fumbled for her +slippers in the dark, she knew she was discovered. He had uttered a +loud, "Ha!" of triumph, his feet were after her, and she squealed like a +hunted rabbit when he pounced on her. + +It was very dark within the wood. His face was no more than a blur, and +her unseen beauty was powerless to help her. She was desperate, and she +laughed. + +"George, you'll spoil my little joke. I've left a letter for you. It's a +shame to spoil it, Georgie, Porgie." + +His grasp was hurting her. "Where is the letter?" he asked in a curious, +restrained voice. + +"In the doorway. Let me go, George. I'll see you tomorrow. +George--please!" + +"No," he said thoughtfully, carefully, "I don't think I shall let you +go. Come with me--come with me, pretty one, and we'll read your +love-letter together." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +While these things happened at Halkett's Farm, Helen sat sewing in the +schoolroom. Mildred Caniper had been in bed all day, as often happened +now, and there Miriam was supposed to be, on account of that strange +giddiness of hers. + +Helen worked at the fashioning of a dress in which Zebedee should think +her fair and the lamplight shone on the pale grey stuff strewing the +table and brought sparks from the diamonds on her hand: the clipping of +the scissors made a cheerful sound, and Jim, as he sat before the fire, +looked up at her sometimes with wise and friendly eyes. + +It was late when she began to be oppressed by the quiet of the house. It +was as though some one had just stopped whispering and would begin +again. She felt that she was watched by the unseen, and the loudness of +her own movements shocked her, but she worked on, using the scissors +stealthily and starting if a coal fell in the grate. + +Surely there was some one standing outside the door? She changed her +seat to face it. Surely eyes were peering through the window? She rose +and drew the curtains with a suddenness that made Jim growl. + +"Be quiet, dog!" She stood and listened. The night held its breath, the +stored impressions of the old house took shape and drew close and, +though they did not speak, their silent pressure was full of urging, +ominous and discreet. + +She folded her work and put out the light, told Jim to follow her up the +stairs, and trod them quietly. It was comforting to see the Pinderwells +on the landing, but she had no time for speech with them. She was +wondering if death had come and filled the house with this sense of +presences, but when she bent over Mildred Caniper's bed she found her +sleeping steadily. + +On the landing, she let out a long breath. "Oh, Jane, I'm thankful." + +She went into Miriam's room and saw that the bed was empty and the +window wide. She looked out, and there was a chair on the scullery roof +and, as she leant, trembling, against the sill, she heard the note of +the hall clock striking eleven. That was a late hour for the people of +the moor, and she must hasten. She was sure that the house had warned +her, and, gathering her wits, she posted Jim at the bottom of the stairs +and ran out, calling as she ran. She had no answer. The lights of Brent +Farm were all out and she went in a dark, immobile world. There was no +wind to stir the branches of the thorn-bushes, the heather did not move +unless she pressed it, and her voice floated to the sky where there were +no stars. Then the heavier shade of the larches closed on her, and when +she left them and fronted Halkett's Farm, there was one square of light, +high up, at the further end, to splash a drop of gold into the hollow. + +Towards that light Helen moved as through thick black water. She carried +her slippers in her hand and felt her feet moulded to the cobbles as she +crossed the yard and stood below the open window. She listened there, +and for a little while she thought her fears were foolish: she heard no +more than slight human stirrings and the sound of liquid falling into a +glass. Then there came Miriam's voice, loud and high, cutting the +stillness. + +"I'll never promise!" + +There was another silence that held hours in its black hands. + +"No? Well, I don't know that I care. But you're not going home. When the +morning comes perhaps it'll be you begging me for a promise! Think it +over. No hurry. There's all night." George was speaking slowly, saying +each word as if he loved it. "And you're going to sit on my knee, now, +and read this letter to me. Come." + +Helen heard no more. She rushed to the front door and found it locked, +and wasted precious seconds in shaking it before she abandoned caution +and rushed noisily round the house where the kitchen door luckily +yielded to her hand. Through a narrow passage and up narrow stairs she +blundered, involved in ignorance and darkness, until a streak of light +ran across her path and she almost fell into a room where Miriam stood +with her back against the wall. She had the look of one who has been +tortured without uttering a sound and, in the strain of her dark head +against the flowered wall, there was a determination not to plead. + +Her face crumpled like paper at the sight of Helen. + +"Oh," she said, smiling foolishly, "what--a good thing--you came." + +She slipped as a picture falls, close to the wall, and there was hardly +a thud as her body met the floor. + +Helen did not stir: she looked at Miriam and at Halkett, who was sitting +on the bed, and on him her gaze rested. His answered it, and while, for +a moment, she saw the man beyond the beast, his life was enlightened by +what was rare in her, and his mind, softened by passion to the +consistency of clay, was stamped with the picture of her as she stood +and looked at him. Vaguely, with uneasiness and dislike, he understood +her value; it was something remote as heaven and less desired, yet it +strengthened his sensual scorn of Miriam, and rising, he went and made a +hateful gesture over her. Some exclamation came from him, and he stooped +to pick her up and slake his thirst for kisses. He wanted to beat her +about the face before he cast her out. + +"Don't touch her!" Helen said in tones so quiet that he hesitated. "She +has only fainted." + +He laughed at that. "Don't think I'm worrying, but she's mine, and I'll +do what I like with her." + +He drew up her limp body and held it until it seemed to be merged into +his own, and though his mouth was close on hers, he did not kiss it. His +lips moved fast, but no words came, and he lowered her slowly and +shakily to the floor. He turned to Helen, and she saw that all the +colour had left his face. + +"Go out!" he said, and pointed. + +The clasp of her hands tightened, and while she looked up at him, she +prayed vehemently. "O God, God," she thought, "let me save her. O God, +what shall I do? O God, God, God!" + +"Go out," he said. "I'm going to keep her here till she'll be glad to be +my wife, and then it'll be my turn to laugh. She can go home in the +morning." + +"I want to sit down," Helen said. + +She looked for a chair and sat on it, and he dropped to the bed, which +gave out a loud groaning sound. He hid his face in his hands and rocked +himself to and fro. + +"She's tortured me," he muttered, and glared angrily at Helen. + +She rose and went to him, saying, "Yes, but she's only a little girl. +You must remember that. And you're a man." + +"Yes, by God!" he swore. + +He raised both hands. "Get out of this!" he shouted. "She shall stay +here tonight." The hands went to Helen's shoulders and forced her to her +knees. "D'ye hear? I tell you she's made me mad!" + +Helen was more pitiful than afraid. She hardly knew what she did, but +she thought God was in the room. + +"George, I'll do anything in the world for you if you'll give her up. +Anything. You couldn't be so wicked. George, be quick. Before she wakes. +Shan't we carry her out now? Shan't we?" She forgot his manhood, and saw +him only as a big animal that might spring and must be soothed. "Let us +do that before she knows. George--" + +He looked half stupefied as he said childishly, "But I swore I'd have +her, and I want her." + +"But you don't love her. No, no, you don't." She laid a hand on his +knee. "Why, you've known us all our lives." + +"Ah!" He sprang up and past her and the spell of the soft hands and +voice was broken. He sneered at her. "You thought you'd done it that +time!" + +"Yes," she said sadly, and put herself between him and Miriam. With her +chin on her clasped hands, and her steady eyes, she seemed to be the +thing he had always wanted, for the lack of which he had suffered, been +tormented. + +"George," she said, "I'll give you everything I have--" + +He caught his breath. "Yourself?" he asked on an inspiration that held +him astonished, eager and translated. + +She looked up as if she had been blinded, then stiffly she moved her +head. "What do you mean?" + +"Give me yourself. Oh, I've been mad tonight--for days--she made me." He +pointed to the limp and gracious figure on the floor and leaned against +the bed-rail. "Mad! And you, all the time, out there on the moor against +the sky. Helen, promise!" + +Her voice had no expression when she said, "I promised anything you +asked for. Bring some water." + +But he still stood, dazed and trembling. + +"Bring some water," she said again. + +He spilt it as he carried it. "Why didn't I see before? I did see +before. On the moor, I watched for you You're beautiful." His voice +sank. "You're good." + +She was not listening to him. She dabbled water on Miriam's brow and +lips and chafed her hands, but still she lay as if she were glad to +sleep. + +"Poor little thing!" Helen said deeply and half turned her head. "Some +of your brandy," she commanded. "She is so cold." + +"I'll take her to the kitchen." + +"Is that woman in the house?" she asked sharply. + +"She's in bed, I suppose." + +"She must have heard--she must have known--and she didn't help!" + +He put a hand to his forehead. "No, she didn't help. I'd meant to give +her up, and then--I found her here, and I'd been drinking." + +"Don't tell me! Don't tell me!" She twisted her hands together. "George, +don't make me hate you." + +"No," he said with a strange meekness. "Shall I take her to the kitchen? +It'll be warm there, and the fire won't be out. I'll carry her." + +"But I don't like you to touch her," Helen stated with a simplicity that +had its fierceness. + +"It's just as if she's dead," he said in a low voice, and at Helen's +frightened gasp, he added--"I mean for me." + +"Take her," she said, and when he had obeyed she sat on her heels and +stared at nothing. For her, a mist was in the room, but through it there +loomed the horrid familiarity of Halkett's bed, his washstand and a row +of boots. Why was she here? What had she done? She heard him asking +gently, "Aren't you coming?" and she remembered. She had promised to +marry George because Miriam had been lying on the floor, because, years +ago, the woman lying alone in Pinderwell House had brought the Canipers +to the moor where George lived and was brutal and was going to marry +her. But it could not be true, for, in some golden past, before this +ugliness fell between her and beauty, she had promised to marry Zebedee. +She held her head to think. No, of course she had given him no promise. +They had come together like birds, like bees to flowers-- + +"Aren't you coming?" Halkett asked again. + +She rose. Yes, here was her promised man. She had bought Miriam with a +price. She stumbled after him down the stairs. + +In the warmth of the kitchen, by the light of a glowing fire and a +single candle, Miriam's eyelids fluttered and lay back. + +"It's all right, darling," Helen said. "You're quite safe. You're with +Helen, with Helen, dear." + +Behind Miriam's eyes, thoughts like butterflies with wet wings were +struggling to be free. + +"Something happened. It was George. Has he gone away?" + +"He isn't going to hurt you. He wants to take you home." + +"Don't let him. We'll go together, Helen. Soon. Not yet. Take care of +me. Don't leave me." She started up. "Helen! I didn't say I'd marry him. +I wouldn't. Helen, I know I didn't!" + +"You didn't, you didn't. He knows. He frightened you because you teased +him so. He just frightened you. He's here--not angry. Look!" + +He nodded at her clumsily. + +"You see?" + +"Yes. I'm glad. I'm sorry, George." + +"It doesn't matter," he said. + +He looked at Helen and she looked full at him and she knew, when he +turned to Miriam, that he still watched over herself. She could +recognize the tenderness and wonder in his eyes, but she could not +understand how they had found a place there, ousting greed and anger +for her sake, how his molten senses had taken an imprint of her to +instruct his mind. + +"Can you come now?" she said. + +"Yes." Miriam stood up and laughed unsteadily. "How queer I feel! +George--" + +"It's all right," he said. "I'll take you home." + +"But we're not afraid," Helen said. "There's nothing to be afraid of on +the moor." All possibility of fear had gone: her dread had been for some +uncertain thing that was to come, and now she knew the evil and found in +it something almost as still as rest. + +In the passage, he separated her from Miriam. "I want to speak to you." + +"Yes. Be careful." + +"Tonight. In your garden. I'll wait there. Come to me. Promise that, +too." + +"Oh, yes, yes," she said. "That, too." + +He watched them go across the yard, their heads bent towards each other, +and Helen's pale arm like a streak on Miriam's dress. He heard their +footsteps and the shifting of a horse in the stables, and a mingled +smell of manure and early flowers crept up to him. The slim figures were +now hardly separable from the wood, and they were frail and young and +touching. He looked at them, and he was sorry for all the unworthy +things he had ever done. It was Helen who made him feel like that, Helen +who shone like a star, very far off, but not quite out of reach. She was +the only star that night. Not one showed its face among the clouds, and +there was no moon to wrinkle her droll features at the little men on +earth. Helen was the star, shining in the larch-wood. He called her +name, but she did not hear, and he seemed to be caught up by the sound +and to float among the clouds. + +"It's like being converted," he told himself, and he followed slowly +across the moor. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +As the girls passed under the trees, Miriam began to cry. + +"Helen, if you hadn't come!" + +"But I did." + +"Yes, yes. To see you there! It was--oh! And then I fainted. What did +you do to him?" + +"We needn't talk about it. And don't cry." She was afraid of having to +hate this daring, helpless being who clung to her; yet she could hate no +one who needed her, and she said tenderly, "Don't cry. It's over now." + +"Yes. I've lost my handkerchief." + +"Here's mine." + +"You're not angry with me, are you? How did you know I'd gone?" + +"I think the house told me. Oh, here's the moor. How good to get to it +out of that pit. Come quickly. Notya--" + +"I can't come faster. Tell me what you said to him. Nothing I said was +any good." + +"I managed him." + +"And I couldn't. Suppose he catches me again." + +"He won't. Can't you understand that he may not want you any more? Let +us get home." + +"I'm doing my best. I wish I were a man. A woman can't have fun." + +"Fun!" + +"Oh, you're so good! I meant it for fun, and now he'll come after me +again. Of course he wants me. He's in love with me." + +"There's love and love," Helen said. + +"And if you subtract one from the other--I don't know what I'm +saying--there may be nothing left. If George does that little sum in the +morning--" + +"I think it's done already." + +"I hope so. I'm miserable. I wish the sea would come up and wash me and +make me forget. You're not holding me so lovingly as you did. In the +kitchen you were sweet." + +"Is that better? I think the moor is like the sea. It's a great, clean +bath to plunge into. And here's the garden. That's another bath, a +little one, so dark and cold and peaceful. And the poplars. Soon there +will be leaves on them." She stopped with a thin cry. "What has +happened? I left the house in darkness, and look now!" Every window gave +out light that fell in differing patterns on the grass. "Oh! what is +it?" For an instant she thought the whole night's work must be some evil +fancy, this brilliance as well as the sordid horror at the farm, and +then, as Miriam cried, "Is it the house on fire?" the other rushed +across the lawn, leaping the golden patches as though, indeed, they +might have burned her. + +Miriam tried to follow, but, weakness overcoming her, she sat down on +the lawn. Half drowsily, she was interested in the windows, for their +brightness promised gaiety within the house and she bent her ear +expectantly for music. There ought to have been music, sweet and +tinkling, and people dancing delicately, but the lights were not +darkened by moving figures, and the only sound was Helen's voice +anxiously calling her in. + +Miriam was indifferent to the anxiety, and she did not want to rise: she +was comfortable on the soft, damp earth, and the night had been so long +that the morning must be near. If she stayed there, she would be spared +the trouble of going to bed and getting up again, and when Helen called +once more, she heard the voice as from a great way off, and answered +sleepily, "Yes, I'm coming," but the next minute she was annoyed to find +Helen standing over her. + +"Why didn't you come in? It's Notya. She has put lights in every room. +She was afraid of the dark, she says. She couldn't find us. She has been +talking--oh, talking. Come and let her see you." + +"I wish things wouldn't go round and round." + +"You must go to bed, but first you must let her see you. She thinks you +are not coming back." + +"And I nearly didn't. I won't see her if she's ill." + +"You must. She isn't--green, or anything." + +"I'm ill, too. I'm giddy." + +"Oh, can't you do this to help me? Haven't I helped you?" + +"Oh, yes, you have! I'll come, but help me up." Her laughter bubbled +out. "I'm afraid you're having rather a busy night!" + +Mildred Caniper was sitting on the edge of the bed. Swinging a foot, and +with her curly hair hanging to her shoulders, she had a very youthful +look. + +"So she has come back," she said. Her voice was small and secret. "I +thought she wouldn't. She is like Edith. Edith went. And I was glad. +Yes, for a little while." Her tones grew mournful and she looked at the +floor. "But it hasn't been a happy thing for me. No. I have been very +unhappy." + +Miriam stood at the door and, holding on to it, she stared with fear and +fascination at the strange woman on the bed, and from her throat there +came a tiny sound, like the beating of a little animal's heart. "Oh, oh, +oh! Oh, oh, oh!" + +Helen was murmuring to her stepmother: "Yes, dear, yes. Get into bed. +It's late, and we are all going to bed. You are getting cold, you know. +Let me lift your feet up. There! That's better." + +"Yes." Mildred lay passive. She seemed to think and, in the pause, +Miriam's ejaculations changed to sighs that ceased as Mildred said in +the sharp tones they welcomed now, "What are you both doing here? Go to +bed. Helen, don't fuss. And let us have no more of this wandering about +at night." + +They left the room like threatened children, and on the landing they +took each other's hands. + +"Is she mad?" Miriam whispered. "Are we all mad? What's happening to us +all?" + +"I think she was just--dazed. Come to bed. I'll help you to undress." + +"Once before you did. That night it rained--" + +"Yes. Don't talk." + +"But if she goes out of her mind, will it be my fault? Because of not +finding us, and the house all dark? Will that be my fault, too?" + +Helen was busy with strings and buttons. "How can we tell who does +things?" + +"She was talking about Mother. I wish I had a real, comfortable mother +now. It was horrible, but I wanted to hear more. I did, Helen. Didn't +you?" + +"No. I don't like seeing souls if there are spots on them. Shall I put +out the light?" + +"Yes. Now the darkness is going round. It will whirl me to sleep. I want +to go away. Do you think Uncle Alfred--? I'm frightened of this house. +And there's George. I think I'd better go away in case he comes after me +again." + +A whistle like the awakening chirrup of a bird sounded from the garden, +and Helen's voice quavered as she said, "We'll talk about it in the +morning." + +Quietly she shut the door and went downstairs. She had a lighted candle +in one hand, and a great shadow moved beside her--went with her to the +drawing-room, and stayed there while she wrote a letter to the +accompaniment of George's persistent whistling. She hardly needed it, +and it stopped abruptly as she passed through the long window to the +garden. + +Among the poplars she found him waiting and at once she was aware of +some change in him. His head was thrust forward from his shoulders, and +he searched greedily for her face. + +"I thought you'd given me the slip," he muttered. + +She frowned a little at his use of words, yet what had he to do with +her? She looked up at the bare branches and thought of Zebedee and the +masts of ships. + +"This must be a secret," she said through stiffening lips. "Come further +from the house." She led him to the garden door and opened it. "Out +here," she whispered. + +The moor was like a tired, simple man asleep, yet it still kept its +quality of water, buoyant, moving and impetuous, and she felt that it +had swung her here and there amid its waves for many hours, and now had +left her on a little shore, battered and bereft, but safe. + +"I can't stay," she said softly. + +"I thought you wouldn't come," he answered. He did not understand her: +she gave no sign of pleading or withdrawal: he was sure she had no fear, +and another certainty was born in him. + +"I can trust you," he said with a sigh of peace. + +"Yes." + +"I thought you wouldn't come," he said again. + +"But I'm here, you see." + +His voice rose. "I'd have got in." + +"It would have been quite easy." + +"Weren't you afraid?" he asked, and he found a memory of Miriam in her +laughter. "No, I wasn't afraid." + +"But you're going to marry me." + +"That was the bargain." + +Her passivity angered him. This dignity of submission put him in the +wrong. She seemed to be waiting patiently and without anxiety for her +release. Why should he give it? How could he give it? Would he deny God +in God's own presence? + +He turned to look at her, and as they stood side by side, a foot of +earth between them, he could almost hear her breathing. Her +smoothly-banded hair and the clear line of brow and nose and chin mocked +him with their calm. He spoke loudly, but his voice dropped as the star +to which he likened her might shoot across the heavens and disappear. + +"You make me think--of stars," he said. + +Again she looked upward, and her tilted face was like a waning moon. +"There are no stars tonight. I must go in." + +"But--tomorrow?" he said. + +"Tomorrow?" + +"I shall see you tomorrow?" + +The repetition of the word gave her its meaning. She took the letter +from her belt and held it out to him. + +"No, no," he said. + +"Won't you have it posted for me?" + +"I--I thought it was for me," he stammered. "Yes, I'll have it posted." + +"Will it go early?" she asked earnestly. + +"I'll take it down tonight." + +"Oh, there's no need of that." + +"I'd like to do it," and touching his forehead with a childish gesture, +he added, "I couldn't sleep." + +"It's morning already," Helen said. + +He looked eastward. "Hours of darkness yet." + +"And you'll go down the road and back, before it's light. You needn't, +George." + +"I want to think of you," he answered simply, turning the letter in his +hands. + +She moved to the door and stood against it. "George--" she said. She had +an impulse to tell him that his bargain was useless to him because she +was a woman no longer. She had been changed from living flesh and blood +to something more impalpable than air. She had promised to marry him, +and she remained indifferent because, being no woman, she could not +suffer a woman's pain; because, by her metamorphosis, there was no fear +of that promise's fulfilment. It seemed only fair to tell him, but when +he came to her, she shook her head. + +"It was nothing," she murmured. Bulky of body, virile of sense, he was +immature in mind, and she knew he would not understand. + +"I must go now. Good-night." + +"Don't go," he muttered. + +She stood still, waiting for the words that laboured in him. + +"I was mad," he said at last. "She makes me feel like that. You--you're +different." + +He wanted help from her, but she gave him none, and again there was a +silence in which Jim came through the door and put his head into Helen's +hand. + +"Jim!" she said, "Jim!" Her thoughts went across a continent to blue +water. + +"I'd begun to love her," he explained, and moved from one foot to the +other. + +"George, I must go in." + +"But I don't love her now," he added fiercely, with pride, almost with +reassurance. + +She would have laughed if she had heard him, but her numbness had passed +by and all her powers were given to resisting the conviction that she +was indeed Helen Caniper, born, to die, a woman; that Zebedee was on the +sea, and had not ceased to love her, that she would have a tale to tell +him on his return, and a dishonoured body to elude his arms, but she +could not resist the knowledge, and under its gathering strength she +cried out in a fury of pain that drove Halkett back a step. + +"What is it?" he asked. + +She did not answer. Her rage and misery left her weak and hopeless and +though for a bright, flaming instant she had loathed him, she was now +careless of him and of herself because nothing mattered any more. + +She drooped against the door, and he approached her nervously, saying as +he went, "You're tired. You ought to go to bed. I'll take you to the +house." + +That roused her and she looked at him. "No. Some one might hear." + +"I can tread softly." + +"Very well." She halted him among the poplars. "No further." + +"I'll come tomorrow," he whispered. + +"No, not tomorrow. Not until I tell you. I don't want any one to know. +Don't come tomorrow." + +"Then come to me," he said. "I wish you'd come to me. I'd like to see +you coming through our wood and across the cobbles. And in the morning, +the sun's on that side of the house. Helen," he pleaded, "will you +come?" It was Miriam who had come before, a dark sprite, making and +loving mischief, lowering him in his own regard until he had a longing +to touch bottom and make her touch it, too; but if Helen came in her +grey frock, slipping among the trees like silver light, he knew she +would bring healing to his home and to his heart. + +"Will you?" he begged. "Will you, Miss Helen? D'you remember how I used +to call you that? Will you?" + +"I don't know." + +"But I want you so," he said; and when he would have touched her he +found her gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Her bargain had been made and must be kept and Zebedee would understand. +He would not be angry with her: he had only been angry with her once, +and he had always understood. He would feel her agony in that room at +Halkett's Farm, with Miriam, white and stricken, on the floor, and +George Halkett, hot and maddened, on the bed, and he would know that +hers had been the only way. + +These were her thoughts as she went about the house, hasping windows and +bolting doors, with a dreary sense of the futility of caution. + +"For you see, Jim, the horse is stolen already," she said. + +She did not forget to bid Jane good-night; she undressed and laid her +clothes neatly in their place, and without difficulty she dropped into a +sleep as deep as her own trouble. + +She had the virtues of her defects, a stoicism to match her resolutions, +and she was angered when she rose and saw the reflection of eyes that +had looked on sorrow. She shook her head at the person in the glass and, +leaning from the window and finding the garden no less lovely for the +traffic of the night, she was enspirited by that example, and ran +downstairs to open the front door and let in the morning. Then she +turned to face the business of another day. + +She was amazed to find her stepmother in the kitchen, making pastry by +the window, to see the fire burning heartily and the breakfast-things +ready on a tray. + +"What are you doing?" she demanded from the doorway. + +Mildred Caniper looked round. Her eyes were very bright and Helen waited +in dread of the garrulousness of last night, but Mildred spoke with the +old incisive tongue, though it moved slowly. + +"You can see what I am doing." + +"But you ought not to do it." + +"I refuse to be an invalid any longer." + +"And all yesterday you were in bed." + +"Yesterday is not today, and you may consider yourself second in command +again. It is time I was about the house when you and Miriam choose to +spend half the night on the moor. I was left in bed with a house +unlocked." + +"But Jim was there." + +"Jim! Although Dr. Mackenzie gave you the dog, Helen, I have not all +that faith in his invincibility." + +Helen smiled her appreciation of that sentence, though she did not like +her stepmother's looks. + +"I would rather trust Jim's teeth than our bolts and locks, and I told +him to take care of you." + +"That was thoughtful of you!" Mildred said. She rolled her pastry, but +it did not please her, and she squeezed the dough into a ball as she +turned with unusual haste to Helen. + +"You must not wander about at night alone." + +"But on the moor--!" Helen protested. + +"It's Miriam--Miriam--" the word came vaguely. "You must look after +her." + +"I do try," Helen said, and hearing the strangeness of her own voice she +coughed and choked to cover it. + +"What does that mean?" + +"What?" Helen's hand was at her throat. + +"You are trying to deceive me. Something has happened. Tell me at once!" + +"I swallowed the wrong way," Helen said. "It's hurting still." + +"I do not believe you." + +"Oh, but, Notya, you must. You know I don't tell lies. Why should you +be so much afraid for Miriam?" + +"Because--Did I say anything? My head aches a little. In fact, I don't +feel well." The rolling-pin fell noisily to the floor. "Tiresome!" she +said, and sank into a chair. + +When Helen returned with the medicine which Zebedee had left for such +emergencies, she found her stepmother beside the rolling-pin. Her mouth +was open and a little twisted, and she was heavy and unwieldy when Helen +raised her body and made it lean against the wall. + +"But she won't stay there," Helen murmured, looking at her. She was like +a great doll with a distorted face, and while Helen watched her she +slipped to the floor with the obstinacy of the inanimate. + +Some one would have to go to Halkett's Farm. Helen stared at the +rolling-pin and she thought her whole life had passed in tending Mildred +Caniper and sending some one to Halkett's Farm. Yesterday she had done +it, and the day before; today and tomorrow and all the days to come she +would find her stepmother with this open, twisted mouth. + +She forced her way out of this maze of thought and rushed out to see if +George, by chance, were already on the moor, but he was not in sight, +and she ran back again, through the kitchen, with a shirked glance for +Mildred Caniper, and up the stairs to Miriam. + +"I can't go!" Miriam cried. "I'll go for John, but I daren't go to +Halkett's." + +"John and Lily went with the milk this morning. You'll have to go for +George. Be quick! She's lying there--" + +"Nothing will make me go! How can you ask it?" + +Helen longed to strike her. "Then I shall go, and you must stay with +Notya," she said and, half-dressed, Miriam was hurried down the stairs. +"And if you dare to leave her--!" + +"I won't leave her," Miriam moaned, and sat with averted face. + +Thus it was that George Halkett had his wish as the sun cleared blue +mist from the larches, but Helen did not come stealing, shy and +virginal, as he had pictured her; she bounded towards him like a hunted +thing and stood and panted, struggling for her words. + +He steadied himself against attack. No persuasion and no abuse would +make him let her go. The road he had trodden in the night knew his great +need of her and now she caught his senses, for her eyes had darkened, +colour was in her cheeks, and she glowed as woman where she had shone as +saint. + +She did not see his offered hands. "It's Notya, again, George, please." +She had a glimpse of Mrs. Biggs peering between window curtains, and her +tongue tripped over the next words. "S-so will you--can you be very +quick?" + +"The doctor?" + +"Yes. Dr. Mackenzie is away, but there's another there, and he must +come." + +He nodded, and he did not see her go, for he was in the stable +harnessing the horse and shouting to a man to get the cart. + +"You've got to drive to town like hell, William, and the sooner you +bring the doctor the better for you." + +"I'll have to change my clothes." + +"You'll go as you are, God damn you, and you'll go now." + +He waited until the cart was bowling towards the road before he followed +Helen so swiftly that he saw her dress whisk through the garden door. He +used no ceremony and he found her in the kitchen, where Miriam was +sitting stiffly on a chair, her feet on one of its rungs, her neck and +shoulders cream-coloured above the whiteness of her under-linen. He +hardly looked at her and he did not know whether she went or stayed. He +spoke to Helen: + +"Do you want me to carry her upstairs? William's gone to town. I've come +to help you." + +"Then you've spoilt the game, George. It's always you who go to town and +bring the doctor. Never mind. Yes. Carry her up. Don't step on the +rolling-pin." She looked at it again. "She's not dead, is she?" + +"No." + +"What is it, then?" + +He stooped to lift the heavy burden, and she heard him say a word +mumblingly, as though ashamed of it. + +She moved about the room, crying, "A stroke! It's ugly. It's horrid. A +stroke! Why can't they say a blow?" + +He could not bear the bitterness of her distress. "Don't, don't, my +dear," he said, and startled her into quiet. + + * * * * * + +The doctor came and went, promising to return, and a nurse with large +crowded teeth assumed control over the sick-room. There was little to be +done; she sat on a chair by the window and, because of those excessive +teeth, she seemed to smile continually at Mildred Caniper's mockery of +death. + +Outside, a cold rain was falling: it splashed on the laurel leaves by +the gate and threw a shifting curtain across the moor. The fire in the +room made small noises, as though it tried to talk; the nurse bent over +her patient now and then, but Mildred Caniper did not move. + +Downstairs, in the kitchen, Miriam sat on her feet in the big armchair: +she was almost motionless, like one who has been startled into a posture +and dare not move lest her fear should take shape. The rain darkened +the room and filled it with a sound of hissing; a kettle whistled on the +fire, and there was a smell of airing linen. + +Helen turned a sheet. "The nurse must have Christopher's bed," she said +at last. "We must carry it in." + +"Who?" + +"You and I." + +"I can't! I can't go in. I should--I should be sick! I can't. Helen, +after last night--" + +"Very well. Can you manage to go to Brent Farm and tell John? They ought +to be at home now." + +"But there's George." + +"He won't hurt you." + +"He'd speak to me if he saw me." + +"No. He took no notice of you this morning." + +"That was because I wasn't dressed." + +Helen laughed rather weakly and for a long time. + +"You're not really laughing!" Miriam cried. "This house is horrible. You +making that noise, and Notya upstairs, and that hideous nurse grinning, +and George prowling about outside. I can't stay here." + +"Go to Brent Farm, then. You can tell John and stay there. Lily won't +mind." + +"Shall I? John would be angry." + +Helen made no reply as she moved quietly and efficiently about the +kitchen, preparing food, setting things on a tray, turning the linen, +working quickly but with no sign of haste. The rain splattered on the +gravel path outside and clicked sharply into some vessel which stood by +the scullery door. + +A voice came unhappily from the pale face blotted against the chair. + +"Helen, what are you going to do about me?" + +She turned in astonishment and stared at Miriam. + +"You said we were to talk about it." + +"I know." What held her silent was the realization that while she felt +herself helpless, under the control of some omnipotent will, here was +one who cried out to her as arbiter. It was strange and she wanted to +laugh again but, refusing that easy comment, she came upon a thought +which terrified and comforted her together. She was responsible for what +she had done; Zebedee would know that, and he would have the right, if +he had the heart, to blame her. A faint sound was caught in her throat +and driven back. She had to be prepared for blame and for the anger +which so endeared him, but the belief that she was not the plaything of +malevolence gave her the dignity of courage. + +"Helen," said the voice again. + +"Yes. I wrote to Uncle Alfred yesterday--this morning. I shouldn't think +he could be here tomorrow, but the next day, if he comes--" + +But blame or anger, how small they were in the face of this common +gash--this hurt! She shut a door in her brain, the one which led into +that chamber where all lovely things bloomed among the horrors. And +Zebedee, as she had always told him, was just herself: they shared. + +"Oh, you've done that? How wonderful! But--it's like running away." + +"I don't want you here." + +There was an exclamation and a protest. + +"Only because I couldn't be happy about you." + +"Because of George? No, I don't see how I can stay here, but there's +Notya." + +"You're no use, you see." + +"Oh--" + +"If you can't even carry in that bed." + +"I'll try to go in," she said, in a muffled voice. + +"I can ask the nurse. I don't want you to stay, but try," she went on +dispassionately, "try not to be silly any more. I shan't always be there +to--save you." + +"It was very dramatic." + +"Yes; just like a story, wasn't it?" + +"Don't be so unpleasant. I still feel ill. It was horrid to faint. I +can't make out why Mrs. Biggs didn't stop you." + +"Do you want to talk about it?" + +"N-no--" + +"Neither do I." + +"But I can't make out--" + +"Never mind. What does it matter? It's over. For you it's over. But +don't play with people's lives any more, and ruin them." + +There was a pause, in which the room grew darker. + +"Do you think," Miriam asked in an awed voice, "he minds so much?" + +Helen moved the little clothes-horse and knelt before the fire and its +heat burnt her face while her body shivered under a sudden cold. She +thought of George, but not as an actor in last night's scenes; her +memory swung back, as his had often done, to the autumn night when they +sat together in the heather, and his figure and hers became huge with +portent. She had thought he was the tinker, and so, indeed, he was, and +he no doubt had mistaken her for Miriam, as latterly he had mistaken his +own needs. No, she was not altogether responsible. And why had Rupert +told her that tale? And why, if she must have a tinker, could she not +desire him as Eliza had desired hers? + +"Oh, no, no!" she said aloud and very quickly, and she folded her arms +across her breast and held her shoulders, shrinking. + +"I don't think so either," Miriam said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +Uncle Alfred in a trap and Rupert on foot arrived at the same moment on +Saturday, and while Rupert asked quick questions about Mildred Caniper, +the other listened in alarm. + +He was astonished to feel Helen's light touch leading him to the corner +where the hats were hanging, to hear her low voice in his ear. + +"Pretend that's why you've come!" + +He whispered back, "Where is she?" + +"In bed." + +"Miriam?" + +"No, no. Dressing up for you!" + +"Ah," he said, relieved, but he felt he was plunged into melodrama. +Nothing else could be expected of a family which had exiled itself +mysteriously in such a wilderness, but he felt himself uncomfortably out +of place and he straightened his tie and gave his coat a correcting pull +before he went into the schoolroom, where John and Lily were sitting by +the fire. + +"We're all waiting for the doctor," Helen explained. + +"Ah!" Uncle Alfred said again, on a different note. He clasped his hands +behind his back and nodded, and in spite of this inadequate contribution +he conveyed an impression of stiff sympathy, and gave the youthful +gathering the reassurance of his age as they made a place for him by the +fire. + +"I'm jolly glad you're here," Rupert said cordially, and Uncle Alfred, +not used to a conspirator's part, stole a glance at Helen. She was +standing near him; her stillness was broken by constant tiny movements, +like ripples on a lake; she looked from one face to another as though +she anticipated and watched the thoughts behind, and was prepared to +combat them. + +"I wish you'd sit down," Lily said, as Helen went to the window and +looked out. + +"Yes, sit down, sit down," said Uncle Alfred, and he stood up, pointing +to his chair. + +"No; I'm listening, thank you," Helen said. + +The nurse's heavy tramp thudded across the room above, and her steps had +something in them of finality, of the closing of doors, the shutting +down of lids, the impenetrability of earth. + +Sitting next to John, with her arm in his, Lily moved a little. Her eyes +were full of pity, not so much for the woman upstairs, or for the +Canipers, as because the emotions of these people were not the heartily +unmixed ones which she had suffered when her own mother died. + +"He's a long time," Helen said. She went into the hall and passed +Miriam, in a black dress, with her hair piled high and a flush of colour +on her cheeks. + +"He's in there," Helen said with a wave of her hand, and speaking this +time of Uncle Alfred. + +The front door stood open, and she passed through it, but she did not go +beyond the gate. The moor was changelessly her friend, yet George was on +it, and perhaps he, too, called it by that name. She was jealous that he +should, and she did not like to think that the earth under her feet +stretched to the earth under his, that the same sky covered them, that +they were fed by the same air; yet this was not on account of any +enmity, but because the immaterial distance between them was so great +that a material union mocked it. + +Evening was slipping into night: there was no more rain, but the ground +smelt richly damp, and seemed to heave a little with life eager to be +free; a cloud, paler than the night, dipped upon the moor above Brent +Farm and rose again, like the sail of a ship seen on a dark sea. Then a +light moving on the road caught back Helen's thoughts and she went into +the house. + +"He's coming," she said listlessly, careless of the use of pronouns. +There was a pronoun on a ship, one on the moor, another driving up the +road, and each had an importance and a supremacy that derided a mere +name. + +She shut the schoolroom door and waited in the hall, but half an hour +later, she opened the door again. + +"It's good news," she said breathlessly. "Do you want to speak to him, +Rupert? She's going to live!" + +She could not see her own happiness reflected. + +"Like that?" John asked roughly. + +"No, better, better. Always in bed, perhaps, but able to speak and +understand." + +He lifted his big shoulders; Uncle Alfred flicked something from his +knee and, in the silence, Helen felt forlorn; her brightness faded. + +"And you'll be left here with her, alone!" Miriam wailed, at last. + +"Alone?" asked John. + +"Uncle Alfred's going to take me away," Miriam said, yet she was not +sure of that, and she looked curiously at him. + +"I want her to go," Helen said quickly. + +John was still glowering at Miriam. "Take you away! You talk as if you +were a parcel!" + +"I knew you would be angry," she said. "You've always been hard on me, +and you don't understand." + +"Well, it's Helen's affair." + +"You don't understand," Miriam said again. She sat close to Uncle +Alfred, and he patted her. + +"Helen knows best," Lily said cheerfully, for she suspected what she did +not know. "And we'll look after her. Come along, John. It's time we all +went to bed." + +"He'll grumble all the way home," Miriam said with a pout. + +Rupert was still talking to the doctor: they had found some subject to +their taste, and their voices sounded loudly in the quiet house. Helen +had gone out to speak to Zebedee's old horse. + +"Now, tell me what's the matter," Uncle Alfred said. + +"Didn't Helen tell you?" + +"No." + +"Well," she swayed towards him, "the fact is, I'm too fascinating, Uncle +Alfred. It's only fair to warn you." + +All the strain had left her face, and she was more beautiful than he had +remembered, but he now looked at her with the practical as well as the +romantic eye, for his middle-aged happiness was to depend largely on +this capricious creature, and for an instant he wondered if he had not +endangered it. + +"Probably," he said aloud. + +"Aren't you sure of it?" + +"Er--I was thinking of something else." + +"That," she said emphatically, "is what I don't allow." + +He looked at her rather sternly, bending his head so that the eye behind +the monocle was full on her. She would never be as charming as her +mother, he reflected, and with a start, he straightened himself on the +thought, for he seemed to hear that remark being uttered by dull old +gentlemen at their clubs. It was a thing not to be said: it dated one +unmistakably, though in this case it was true. + +"We must have a talk." + +"A serious one?" + +"Yes." + +She looked at him nervously, regardless of her effect. "Will you mind +taking care of me?" she asked in a low voice. + +"My dear child--no." + +"What is it, then?" + +"I am trying to frame a piece of good advice. Well--er--this is the kind +of thing." He was swinging the eyeglass by its string. "Don't go out +into the world thinking you can conquer it: go out meaning to learn." + +"Oh," Miriam said drearily. This meant that he was not entirely pleased +with her. She wondered which of them had changed during these months, +and characteristically she decided that it was he. + +"Are you certain you want me?" she asked sadly. + +"Quite certain, but you're not going to object to criticism, are you?" +he asked. + +She shook her head. + +"Well then--" he began and they both smiled, simultaneously reassured +about each other. + +"And will you take me with you when you go back? Perhaps on Monday?" + +"If the mistress of the house approves." This was addressed to Helen, +who had entered. + +"On Monday, Helen, may I go?" + +"Yes. But then we ought to have told the trap to come for you." + +"There's always George," Miriam said with innocence. + +"Yes, he's always there. That's quite true," Helen said, and she spoke +hollowly, as though she were indeed the shell she felt herself to be. + +"But," Miriam went on, "it would be unkind to ask him." + +To Uncle Alfred's concern, Helen leaned towards her sister, and spoke +rapidly, in a hard, angry voice. + +"Stop saying things like that! They're not funny. They make you +ridiculous. And they're cruel. You've no respect--no respect for people. +And George is better than you. He's sorry. That's something--a great +deal. I'm not going to have him laughed at." + +"Now, now," Uncle Alfred said feebly, but Helen had stopped, amazed at +herself and at the loyalty which George evoked already. She knew, +unwillingly, that it was a loyalty of more than words, for in her heart +she felt that, in truth, she could not have him mocked. She stared +before her, realizing herself and looking into a future blocked by +George's bulk. She could not remember what she had been saying to +Miriam; she looked at her, huddled in her chair against the storm, and +at Uncle Alfred, standing with his back to the fire, jauntily swinging +his eyeglass to seem at ease. + +"Was I rude?" she asked. + +"No, just horrid." + +She went from the room slowly, through the passage and the kitchen into +the garden, and George's figure went before her. She looked up at the +poplars and saw that they would soon have their leaves to peep into the +windows and whisper secrets of the Canipers. + +"They knew," she said solemnly, "they always knew what was to happen." + +Beyond the garden door she walked into a dark, damp world: mist was +settling on the moor; drops spangled her dress and rested softly on her +face and hands. She shut her eyes and seemed to be walking through +emptiness, a place unencumbered by thoughts and people; yet she was not +surprised when she was caught and held. + +"Let go!" she said, without opening her eyes, and she was obeyed. + +"I've been waiting for you," George said in a husky whisper. + +"But I didn't say I would come." + +She could hear him breathing close to her. "I can't see your eyes. +You've got them shut. What's the matter? You're not crying?" + +She opened them, and they were the colour of the night, grey and yet +black, but they were not wet. + +"I've been waiting for you," he said again, and once more she answered, +"I didn't say I would come." + +"I was coming to the door to ask about Mrs. Caniper," he went on, still +speaking huskily and very low. + +"Were you?" + +"You wouldn't have liked that!" + +"She is better." Emptiness was becoming peopled, and she remembered +Mildred Caniper in bed, and the nurse smiling when she meant to be +sympathetically sad, and Miriam, pitiful under scolding, but George was +only the large figure that blocked the future: he was not real, though +he talked and must be answered. + +"I was coming to ask: do you hear?" + +"You know now." + +"But there's more. Who's the old chap who drove up tonight? Your uncle, +isn't it?" + +Her mind, which had lain securely in her body out of reach of hurt, was +slowly being drawn into full consciousness; but he had to repeat his +words before she answered them, and then she spoke with a haughtiness to +which Miriam had accustomed him. + +"So you have been watching?" + +"Why not?" he asked defiantly. "I've got to watch. Besides," he became +clumsy, shy, and humble, "I was waiting to see you." + +"I'm here." + +"But you're--you're like a dead thing. That night, in my room, you were +alive enough. You sat there, with your mouth open, a little--I could see +your teeth, and your eyes--they shone." + +His words were like touches, and they distressed her into movement, into +a desire to run from him. + +"I'm going in," she said. + +"Not yet." + +"I must." + +He was hovering on the edge of sentences which had their risk: she could +feel that he wished to claim her but dared not, lest she should refuse +his claim. He found a miserable kind of safety in staying on the brink, +yet he made one venture. + +"There are things we've got to talk about." + +"But not tonight." + +"You'll say that every night." + +"There's never really any need to talk about anything," she said. + +He stammered, "But--you're going to marry me. I must make--make +arrangements." + +She had her first real scorn of him. He was afraid of her, and she +despised him for it, yet she saw that she must keep him so. She could +hardly bring herself to say, "Do what you like," but having said it, she +could add, with vehemence, "Don't bother me! I'm busy." + +"But--" he said, and looked down: and now she seemed to be caught in his +shame, a partner, and she had to wait for what he tried to say. + +He looked up, saying, "You promised." + +"Oh, I know." + +She did not go. Perhaps people lying side by side in their graves would +talk to each other like this, in voices muffled by their coffins and +inarticulate because of fleshless lips, with words that had no meaning +now that life, which made them, was done. And again she felt that she +and George were moles, burrowing in the earth, scratching, groping for +something blindly. + +She brought her hands together and shook them. + +"If only one could see!" she said aloud. + +"What is it?" + +"I feel as if I'm in a dark room." + +"It's a dark night," he said, and touched her wrist. "When shall I see +you again? Tomorrow?" + +"You can't see me now." + +"I can. Your hair has drops on it, and your face--" + +"No!" she cried. "Don't tell me. Don't come with me." + +She ran from him at last, and he did not follow her. Like her, he was +bewildered, but for him she was a light he could not put out: for her he +was the symbol of that darkness which had fallen on life. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +The next day had its own bewilderment and confusion, and Helen learnt +that high tragedy is not blackest gloom but a thing patched and streaked +with painful brightness, and she found herself capable of a gaiety which +made Miriam doubly reproachful. + +"You've never been like this before," she said, "and we might have had +such fun. And you shouldn't be like it now, when I'm going away +tomorrow." She sat in her empty box, with her legs dangling over the +side. "I'm not sure that I shall go." + +"You've only two pairs of stockings without holes in them," Helen said. +She was kneeling before Miriam's chest of drawers. + +"Doesn't matter. I shall have to buy heaps of things. D'you know, I'm +afraid he's going to be strict." + +"Poor little man!" + +"And when one begins to think about it seriously, Helen, will one like +it very much? Who's going to play with me? There'll be Uncle Alfred and +a housekeeper woman. And do you know what he said?" She struggled from +the box, shut down the lid and sat on it. "He said I must think I'm +going into the world to learn. Learn!" + +"I expect you'll want to. You won't like yourself so much when you meet +other people." + +"And shan't I hate my clothes! And I have visions, sister Helen, of four +elderly gentlemen sitting round a whist-table, and me reading a book in +a corner. So you see--no, I don't want to take that: give it to +Samson--so you see, I'm a little damped. Well, if I don't like it, I +shall come back. After all, there's Daniel." + +"He's tired of you." + +She showed her bright, sharp teeth, and said, "He'll recover after a +rest. Oh, dear! I find I'm not so young and trustful as I was, and I'm +expecting to be disappointed." + +"The best thing," Helen said slowly, sitting down with a lapful of +clothes, "is for the worst to happen. Then you needn't be troubled any +more." She took a breath. "It's almost a relief." + +"Oh, I don't feel so bad as that," Miriam explained, and Helen fell back +laughing loudly. + +"You've spilt all my clothes," Miriam said, and began to pick them up. +"And don't make such a noise. Remember Notya!" + +Helen was on her side, her head rested on her outstretched arm, and her +face was puckered, her mouth widened with the noise she made. + +"Oh," she said, "you always think of Notya at such funny times." + +"Somebody has to," Miriam replied severely, and Helen laughed again, and +beat her toes against the ground. Over her, Miriam stood, stern and +disgusted, clasping linen to her breast. + +"You're hysterical. Nurse will come in. In fact, I'll go and fetch her. +She'll grin at you!" + +"Is this hysterical? It's rather nice," Helen giggled. "Let me laugh +while I can. There'll be no one to say such things when you are gone." +She sat up with a start, and seemed to instruct herself. "You're going," +she said, and faced the fact. + +Miriam threw her bundle on the bed and stood irresolute. For once, the +thoughts of the two had kinship, and they saw the days before them +deprived of the companionship which had been, as it were, abortive, yet +dear to both; necessary, it seemed now; but the future had new things in +it for Miriam, and for Helen it had fear. Nevertheless, it was Miriam +who cried through quivering lips, "Helen, I won't go!" + +"You must," she said practically. + +"Because of George?" + +She nodded: it was indeed because of George, for how could she keep her +promise with Miriam in the house? + +"And, after all," Miriam said brightly, "there's Zebedee. I'm not +leaving you quite alone. He'll be back soon. But--it's that I don't want +to do without you. I can't think how to do it." + +"I know," Helen said, and added, "but you'll find out." + +"And John--" + +"Never mind. John doesn't know about--things. Let's pack." + +And while Mildred Caniper lay on one side of the landing where the +Pinderwells were playing quietly, Helen and Miriam, on the other, +laughed at the prospect before them and made foolish jokes as they +filled the trunk. + +It was harder, next day, than Helen had guessed to hold Miriam's hand in +good-bye, to kiss her with a fragile, short-lived kiss, to watch her +climb into the trap and to hear her box banged into its place by the +driver's seat, with an emphatic noise that settled the question of her +going. + +It was a cold morning and the wind bustled as though it had an interest +in this affair; it caught Miriam's skirt as she stood on the trap step, +and lifted the veil floating from her hat, fluttered the horse's mane +and disordered Helen's hair. It was like a great cold broom trying to +sweep these aliens off the moor, and, for a moment, Helen had more pity +for Miriam than for herself. Miriam was exiled, while she stayed at +home. + +She looked up at the house front and heard the laurels rattling, and +round her she saw the moor spread clear-coloured under the east wind. +Halkett's high wood stood up like ranks of giants set to guard her and, +though she saw them now as George's men, she had no fear of them. + +"Helen!" Miriam called to her. + +She went forward and stood at the carriage door. "Yes?" + +"Helen--we're going. Do you remember the first time we bathed in the +sea? The wind was so cold, like this, before we went into the water. We +nearly ran back. That's how I feel now." + +"But we didn't go back." + +"Oh! here's Uncle Alfred." + +"And we learnt to swim." + +"Yes. Good-bye. Kiss me again." + +Helen stood quite still with her hands by her sides, while the carriage +bumped over the track, stopped on the road that John and Lily might say +their farewells, and slowly went on again until it was out of sight and +she saw the road left empty. It looked callous, too, as though it did +not care what came or went on it, and as she looked about her, Helen +discovered that she was in a desert world, a wilderness of wind and +dead, rustling heather and angry laurel leaves, of empty houses and +women whose breath whistled through their distorted mouths. And the +giants, standing so great and black against the sky, were less to guard +her than to keep a friend from attempted rescue. + +She raised her arms and opened her hands in a gesture of avowal. No one +would ever rescue her, for, by her own act, she would be chained more +firmly than Andromeda when Zebedee next came up the road. + +"I must get it over," she whispered quickly, and she sat down where she +had stood. She had to keep her promise, and now that there was no one in +the way, the thing must be done before Zebedee could come and fight for +her, lest people should be hurt and precious things broken: her word, +and peace, and the beauty of the moor. Yet things were broken already: +life limped; it would never go quite smoothly again. + +She wondered what God was doing in His own place; it seemed that He had +too much to do, or had He been careless at the beginning of things and +let them get out of hand? She was sorry for Him. It must be dreary to +look down on His work and see it going wrong. He was probably looking at +her now and clicking His tongue in vexation. "There's Helen Caniper. She +ought to have married the doctor. That's what I meant her to do. What's +gone wrong? Miriam? I ought to have watched her. Dear, dear, dear! I +oughtn't to have set them going at all if I couldn't keep them +straight." So her thoughts ran as she sat with her head bowed to her +knees, but she remembered how, in George's room that night, with Miriam +on the floor, she had called to God without premeditation, with the +naturalness of any cry for help, and in a fashion, He had heard her. No +one had taught her to pray and until then she had called on no god but +the one behind the smoke. Perhaps this other one had a power which she +could not understand. + +She looked up, and saw a sky miraculously arched and stretching beyond +sight and imagination, and she thought, simply enough, that, having made +the sky, God might be tired. And surely He had proved Himself: a being +who had created this did not make small mistakes with men. It was some +human creature who had failed, and though it seemed like Miriam, might +it not be herself? Or Mildred Caniper, or some cause beyond Mildred +Caniper, going back and back, like the waves of the sea? It was +impossible to fix the blame, foolish to try, unnecessary to know it. The +thing had happened: it might be good, yet when she heard Halkett's voice +behind her, she was only conscious of bitter evil. + +"I want to talk to you," he said. + +"Yes?" + +He came into her view and looked down scowlingly. "I don't know what +you've been up to, but I'd better tell you to begin with that I'm not a +fool." + +She frowned at his manner, but she said patiently, "I don't know what +you mean." + +"You're clever." + +"No." + +"Then why have you got rid of her like that?" + +"Are you speaking of my sister?" + +"Yes, I am. I want to know why you've sent her off." + +"I don't think it's your affair, but I will tell you. She was not happy +here. If she had been happy, she would not have behaved foolishly with +you." + +"Ah! I thought you'd come to that. I see." + +"What do you see?" + +"Why you've got rid of her." + +"I suppose you are hinting something," she said wearily. "Please don't +do it. I cannot--I cannot possibly be polite, if you are not +straightforward. And please be quick, because I have a lot to do." + +He flushed at this gentle hectoring, but he could not still his +curiosity. + +"I want to know," he said slowly, "what your little idea is about +me--about me--and you. Are you going to try backing out of it, now that +you have her safe?" + +She had not thought of it; her face showed that, and he did not need the +assurance of her quiet words. + +"I was afraid," he muttered, half abashed. "I thought you'd take a +chance." + +"I couldn't take one unless you offered it," she said. + +There were thoughts behind his eyes; he seemed to waver, and she +steadied her own face for fear of doing the one thing that would not +move him. Now she did not pray: she had a dread of asking for herself, +lest God, in punishment, should grant the prayer and let worse follow. +Escape was only to be made through a door of George's opening, and she +knew he would never let her through, but she looked at the clouds and +waited for him to speak. + +His words were heralded by guttural noises in his throat. + +"I want you," he said at last, with the simplicity of a desire for +bread. "And there isn't any need to wait. I'm going to town today. I'll +see about it. In three weeks--" + +She said nothing; she was still watching the clouds; they were like +baskets overbrimming with heaped snow. + +He came nearer. "I'm going to get a ring. And, after all, we needn't +wait three weeks. I'll get a licence. What kind of ring?" + +Zebedee's ring was hanging on a ribbon round her neck, and she put a +hand to her throat and pressed the hard stones against her skin. + +"I suppose one has to have a wedding ring." + +"I meant--another kind," he said. + +"Is it worth while for such a little time?" she asked and did not look +at him. + +"There's afterwards." + +"Yes. There's afterwards." She might have been lingering on the words +with love, but suddenly she rose and stamped a foot as though to crush +them, and cried out, "I will have no ring at all! Neither one nor the +other!" + +"You can't get married without a ring," he said stupidly. It pleased him +to see her thus: she was less distant from him. + +"Very well. Marry me with one. I will not wear it afterwards." + +"I don't care about that," he muttered. He was looking at her, peering +in the half-blind fashion he used towards her. "Helen--I was awake half +the night." + +She stared at him. It would not have troubled her if he had never slept +again. It was absurd of him to think she cared whether he slept or +waked. + +"Thinking of you--" he added, and seemed to wait for some reward. + +"I am going in," was all she said. + +"Not yet. That's all you ever say to me. I wish you'd have a ring." + +"But I will not!" + +"Something, then," he begged. + +"What do such things matter?" she cried, and hated her ungraciousness as +she heard it. "If it will make you happy," she conceded. "Good-bye, +George. The doctor will soon be here, and there is everything to do." + +"Aren't you going to let me in?" + +"Oh, yes." She passed into the house and up the stairs, and she did not +look back to see if he had followed. + +He found himself at a loss in the big house which seemed very empty. +There was not a sound in it but the ticking of the clock and, upstairs, +Helen's movements, which were few and quiet. He realized that he was +practically alone with her, and though he listened earnestly, he could +not tell exactly where she was, and at any moment she might come +slipping down the stairs before he knew she was at the head of them. The +fancy pleased him; it kept him poised for her; it would be fine, he +thought, to play at hide-and-seek with her, to search the old house +while she ran from him, to hear the clicking of a door or an unwary +step, and at last to catch her in his arms, in the dark of a winter +night. + +He waited, but she did not come, and, understanding that his presence in +the hall might well keep her upstairs, he wandered into the kitchen. + +The room was neat, but a pile of dirty plates and dishes awaited +washing, and having looked at them thoughtfully, he took off his coat, +and he was working in the scullery when Helen appeared. Already he had +filled the scuttles and the kettles. + +"Thank you very much," she said, in a kind of wonder. He was a different +person now, and she was touched by the sight of this careful dealing +with mop and plates, by his puckered brow and lips. He was like a child, +and she did not wish to see him so. If he continued simple, she might +grow fond of him, and that, she thought, would be disloyalty to Zebedee. +To marry George without love, affection, friendship or respect was only +to pay the price he had demanded; but to feel kindness for him, even +that human kindness she could seldom refuse to any one, was to make the +sacrifice less complete, to cloud, in some way, the honesty of the eyes +which would have to look at Zebedee when he learnt what she had done. + +"It's kind, George, but don't do it." + +"I'm slow, but I can manage." + +"Splendidly, but I can do it." + +"You can't do everything." + +Her face was pinched as she said, "I'm glad to do it." + +He straightened the big back he was bending in her service. "Let me +help. I'll be here to light the kitchen fire tomorrow." + +"There's no need: Mrs. Samson is coming, I've promised to have her every +day." + +"Samson is my man." + +"I know." Lines were beginning to show between her brows. "George, +nobody need be told." + +Again he straightened himself, but now he seemed to threaten with his +bulk. "I'd feel safer if you weren't so secret." + +"Can't you trust me?" she said. "How often must I ask you that?" + +He had a slow way of flushing to the eyes. "I'm sorry," he said humbly, +as he used his thumb nail on a plate. + +She was irritated by his meekness, for now he was not childlike. She +felt his thoughts circling round her in a stubborn determination to +possess, even, if it must be, through his own submission, but she hated +him less for that than for his looks, which, at that moment, were +without definite sex. He looked neither man nor woman: his knees were +slightly bent; his face was red, and his nail still scraped patiently on +the plate. Since she must marry him, she would have him as masculine as +he could be, so that therein she might find shelter from the shame of +being yoked to him. + +Her cheeks grew cold in amazement at her own thought, and her mind +shrank from it. She felt that all the blood in her body was dropping to +her feet, and they were heavy as she moved towards the door. + +"Are you going?" he asked her. + +"I must watch for the doctor." + +She had the mind of a slave, she told herself, the mind of a slave, and +she deserved no better than to be one. + +She wrapped a grey cape about her and sat outside the garden gate. The +wind was strong enough to lean against, stronger than man or anything he +had made. Its freshness seemed to get beneath her skin, into her mind, +to clean every part of her. Its action had a swiftness that prevented +thought, and she was content to sit there till the doctor came, though +the nurse had gone to bed in Christopher, and Mildred Caniper was +alone. If she could see through those closed lids, she would not mind: +she must know how terrible it was to sit and watch her immobility. + +The postman came before the doctor and brought a letter with a foreign +stamp, and for a long time she held the envelope unopened between her +palms. Her body felt like a great heart beating, and she was afraid to +read what Zebedee had written, but at last she split the envelope and +spread the sheets, and forgot George Halkett in the scullery and Mildred +Caniper in bed: she did not hear the calling of the peewits or the +melancholy of the sheep; she heard Zebedee's voice, clear-cut and quick, +saying perfect things in ordinary tones. He told her of the sea that +sometimes seemed to change into the moor, and of the sails that swelled +into the big clouds they knew; he told her that though there was never +any one who could claim likeness to her, it did not matter because she +never left him, and that, in spite of her continuing presence, and +because he was well again, he thought he would come home by land to +reach her sooner. + +She spoke aloud, but her forehead was on the letter on her knee. + +"No, don't, Zebedee--darling--dearest--lover. Don't come any sooner. I +don't want you to have more days of knowing than you need." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +The days of that week were marked by little changes for the better in +Mildred Caniper's condition, by little scenes with George. Helen never +went on to the moor without finding him in wait for her, and always she +went as to some unworthy tryst, despising herself for the appeasement +she meted out to him, daring to do nothing else. Once more, she saw him +as some animal that might be soothed with petting, but, thwarted, would +turn fierce and do as he would with her. Her dignity and friendship kept +him off; he did not know how to pass the barrier, and to lock material +doors against him would have been to tempt him to force the house. She +knew that in this matter cowardice was safety, but as the days crept +forward, she wondered how long the weapon would serve her. + +Rupert came on Saturday and brought sanity into a disordered world, and +when he entered the house she caught his arm and held to it. + +"Have you been as lonely as all that?" he asked. + +"Not a bit lonely, but you're so nice-looking," she explained, "and so +alive. And Notya is only coming alive slowly. It's like watching +something being born. You're whole." + +"And you're rather embarrassing." + +"I want you to talk to me all the time you're here. Tell me things that +have nothing to do with us. Rupert, I'm sick of us." She dropped on to a +chair and whispered, "It's an enchanted house!" + +"Are you the princess?" + +"Yes. Be careful! I don't want Jane to know." + +He glanced up the stairs. "The prince is coming soon." + +She ignored that and went on: "Nurse is an ogress." + +"By Jove, yes! Why couldn't they send some one who looks like a +Christian?" + +"I believe she'll eat me. But I shouldn't see that, and I can't bear to +see her eating anything else. D'you know?" + +"Rather. That kind of thing oughtn't to be allowed." + +"She's very kind. She calls me 'dear' all the time, but Notya will hate +her when she notices the teeth. Will you go up to her now? I have to--I +want to go out for a little while. Then we can have the rest of the day +to ourselves." + +He lifted his eyebrows oddly. "Why not?" + +"I mean I needn't go out again." + +"Where are you going now?" + +"Just for a walk. I must have a walk." + +"Good girl. I'll look after the family." + +She took her cloak from its peg and slipped through the garden. "I don't +tell the truth. I'm deceitful," she said to herself, and when she saw +George, she hated him. + +"I've been here for hours," he said as she approached. + +"There was no need to wait." + +"I'm not grudging the time." + +"Why speak of it then?" + +"I was afraid you wouldn't come. I brought a coat for you to sit on. The +ground's wet." + +"I don't want to sit. I want to walk and walk into something soft--soft +and oblivious." + +"But sit down, just a minute. I want to show you something." His hand +shook as he put something into hers and, clearing his throat, said +shyly, "It's a swallow." + +"A swallow?" + +"A brooch." + +"It's pretty." + +"Let me pin it on for you." + +"No, no, I can't--it's much too good for this plain frock, and I might +lose it. Haven't you a case for it? There. Put it in your pocket, +please. Thank you very much." + +"I don't believe you like it." + +"Yes, I do." + +"Then let me put it on. I'd like to see you wearing it." + +"Oh, if you must," she said. + +He took it from its place; his fingers were slow and clumsy, his face +close to hers, and with the brooch pinned to her, she hated him more +than she had done when he held Miriam in his mad arms. + +"I've the ring in my pocket, too," he said. "Next week--Did you hear me? +Sometimes--sometimes you look deaf." + +"Yes, I did hear." + +She shook herself and rose, but he caught a hand. "I want to take you +right away. You look so tired." + +"I am not tired." + +"I shall take care of you." + +The limp hand stiffened. "You know, don't you, that I'm not going to +leave my stepmother? You are not thinking--?" + +"No, no," he said gently, but the mildness in his voice promised himself +possession of her, and she snatched away her hand. + +"I must have exercise. I'm going to run." + +"Give me your hand again." + +"There is no need." + +"You'll stumble." He did not wait for her assent, and for that and for +the strength of his hold she liked him, and, as she ran, and her blood +quickened, she liked him better. She did not understand herself, for she +had imagined horror at his nearness, but not horror pierced through with +a delight that shrank. She thought there must be something vile in her, +and while she ran she felt, in her desperate youth, that she was +altogether worthless since she could not control her pleasure to this +swift movement supported by his hand. She ran, leaping over stones and +heather and, for a short time that seemed endless, her senses had their +way. She was a woman, young and full of life, and the moor was wide and +dark, great-bosomed, and beside her there ran a man who held her firmly +and tightened, ever and again, his grasp of her slipping fingers. Soon +it was no effort not to think and to feel recklessly was to escape. +Their going made a wind to fan their faces; there was a smell of damp +earth and dusty heather, of Halkett's tweeds and his tobacco; the wind +had a faint smell of frost; there was one star in a greenish sky. + +She stopped when she could go no further, and she heard his hurried +breathing and her own. + +"How you can run!" he said. "Like a hare! And jump!" + +"No! Don't!" She could not bear his personalities: she wished she were +still running, free and careless, running from the shame that now came +creeping on her. "No, no!" she cried again, but this time it was to her +own thoughts. + +"What have I done?" he asked. + +"Nothing. I was speaking to myself." + +He never could be sure of her, and he searched for words while he +watched the face she had turned skywards. + +"Helen, you're different now." + +"And you like me less." + +"I always love you." + +She looked at him and smiled, and very slowly shook her head. + +"Oh, no," she said pleasantly. "Oh, no, George." + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"Perhaps it's a riddle. You can think about it." + +"Ah--you--you make me want to shake you!" He gripped her shoulders and +saw her firm lips loosened, a pale colour in her cheeks, but something +in her look forced him to let her go. + +"I can't hurt you," he said. + +She smiled again, in a queer way, he thought, but she was always queer: +she looked as if she knew a joke she would not tell him, and, in +revenge, he had a quick impulse to remind her of his rights. + +"Next week," he said, and saw the pretty colour fading. + +No one could save the captive princess now. Sunday came and Rupert went; +Monday came and Mildred Caniper spoke to Helen; Tuesday was Helen's +birthday: she was twenty-one. No one could save her now. On Wednesday +she was to meet George in the town. + +She had asked Lily to stay with Mildred Caniper. + +"I have some shopping to do," she said, and though her words were true, +she frowned at them. + +Lily came, and her skirts were blown about as she ran up the track. + +"It's a bitter wind," she said. "We've had a bad winter, and we're going +to have a wicked spring." + +"I think we are," Helen said as she fastened on her hat. + +"You'll be fighting the wind all the way into town. Need you go today?" + +"I'm afraid I must," Helen said gravely. + +"Well, perhaps the change will do you good," Lily said, and Helen smiled +at her reflection in the mirror. "Don't hurry back." + +The smile stayed on Helen's lips, and it was frozen there when, having +forced her way against a wind that had no pity and no scorn, she did her +shopping methodically and met George Halkett at the appointed place. + +"You've come!" he said, and seized her hand. "You're late." + +"I had to do some shopping," she said, putting back a blown strand of +hair. + +"You're tired. You should have let me drive you down." In the shadows of +the doorway, his eyes were quick on every part of her. "I wish I'd made +you. And you're late. Shall we--hadn't we better go upstairs?" + +"There's nothing to wait for, is there?" + +Their footsteps made a loud noise on the stairs, and in a few minutes +Helen found herself on them again. George had her by the arm, but he +loosed her when she put the ring into his hand. + +"Helen--" He checked himself, accepting her decree with a patience that +made her sorry for him. + +"You're going to drive back with me?" His anxiety to please her +controlled his eagerness: his wish to tend her was like a warm but +stifling cloak, and she could not refuse him. + +"They'll think we've met by chance," he said. + +"Who will?" + +"Any one that sees us." + +"I'm not concerned with what people think." + +"That's all right then. Nor am I. Will you wait here or come with me to +the stable?" + +"I'll wait," she said. + +People with blue faces and red-rimmed eyes went past her, and there was +not one of them she did not envy, for of all the people in that town, +she alone was waiting for George Halkett. He came too soon, and held out +a helping hand which she disdained. + +"My word!" he said, "the wind is cold. Keep the rug round you." + +"No, I don't like it." She pushed it off. "I can't bear the smell of +it." + +"I'm sorry," he said. "It's clean enough." + +"I didn't think it was dirty," she explained, and a few minutes +afterwards, she added, "I'm sorry I was rude, George." + +"You're tired," he said again. + +"Drive quickly, won't you?" + +He whipped up the horse, and the wind roared behind them; they passed +men and women staggering against it. + +"Will there be snow?" she asked him. + +He bent his ear to her, and again she shouted, "Will there be snow?" + +"Feels--rather like it," he boomed back. "I never knew such a year. And +they'd begun burning the heather!" + +"Had they? Did you say burning heather? Then the fires will be put out. +George, they'll be put out!" + +He nodded, thinking this a small thing to shout about, in such a wind. + +She had forgotten about the fires, but now she looked at the grey sky +and hoped the snow would come. She imagined the first flake hissing on +the fire, and more flakes, and more and more, until there was no smoke +to veil the god, only a thick wet blanket for his burial. She had loved +his moor, yet he had forsaken her; she had been afraid to hope, she had +gone humbly and she had prayed, but now she need pay him no more homage, +for she had nothing more to fear, and she whispered to the snow to hurry +and avenge her. + +When they were nearly home, George spoke again. "Are you very cold?" + +"I'm warmer now." + +"I'll drive you up the track." + +"I'd rather get out here. Stop, George, please." + +"Wait till I help you down," he said, and jumped off on the other side. + +"My feet are numb," she said, looking at the arms he held for her. + +"I'll catch you." + +"I'm not so bad as that." She climbed down stiffly while he watched her, +and in some way she felt herself more injured by the quality of his gaze +than she would have been by his clasp. Without looking at him, she said +good-bye and made a step or two. + +"But I shall see you again." + +"One--one supposes so!" + +"I mean tonight." + +"I--don't know." + +"Leave the blind up so that I can see if you're alone." + +She made no answer, and when she had run lamely up the track, she turned +at the door to see her husband still standing in the road. + +Lily met her in the hall and said, "Mrs. Caniper's asleep, and she's +better, my dear. She seems happier, somehow. So George Halkett brought +you home. A good thing, too. Come into the kitchen and get warm. I'll +make some tea and toast for you. You're frozen. Here, let me take off +your boots. Sit down." + +"I can do it, thank you." + +"But you're going to let me, just to please me." + +Helen submitted and lay back. "You look nice with the firelight on you." + +"Hadn't that man a rug?" + +"What? Oh, yes, yes." The warmth and peace of the kitchen were almost +stupefying. She shut her eyes and felt soft slippers being pushed on to +her feet; the singing of the kettle became one sound with the howling of +the wind, and Lily's voice dragged her from the very brim of sleep. + +"Here's a slice, and the kettle's boiling. A good thing John isn't here! +He says it's the water, not the kettle." + +"How fussy of him!" + +"But he's right." + +"Always?" + +"Not a bit of it." + +"I'm glad of that. Would it have made much difference to you if you +hadn't married him?" + +"D'you think I don't care enough for him?" + +"Of course I don't." + +"Now look, you've made me burn the toast." + +"Scrape it. I wanted to know--how much he filled of you." + +"I don't know. I never thought about it. I wouldn't have been lovesick, +anyway. I had my work to do." + +"I expect that's how men feel. I sometimes think nothing's worth +struggling for." + +"Oh, but it is. I'm always fighting. I saved two lambs last week." + +"That's different. I meant--for happiness. People struggle and get +nothing. It's such a little life. Seventy years, perhaps. They +pass--somehow." + +"But if you've ever had the toothache, you know how long an hour can be. +What's the matter with you?" + +"I'm just thinking." + +"Unhappy?" + +"No." + +"When will Zebedee be back?" + +"In about ten days." + +"Are you feeling he'll never come?" + +"I'm sure he'll come." + +"Well then--" + +"Perhaps it's the wind," Helen said. "You're very good to me." + +"Oh, I'm fond of you," Lily said. + +"Are you fond enough to kiss me?" Helen asked. She wanted a touch at +which she need not shudder, and surely it was fitting that some one +should kiss her on her wedding-day. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +Soon after nine o'clock, Helen bade Mildred Caniper and the nurse +good-night and went downstairs with Jim close at her heels. + +"We're going to sit in the kitchen, James. I'll get my sewing." + +She hesitated at the window: the night was very dark, but she could see +the violent swaying of the poplars, and she thought the thickening of +their twigs was plain and, though it was April already, it was going to +snow. She touched the tassel of the blind, but she did not pull on it, +for she would not anger George with little things, and she left the +window bare for his eyes and the night's. + +"Keep close to me, Jim," she said as she sat and sewed, and she stroked +him with a foot. She could hear no sound but the raging wind, and when +the back door was opened she was startled. + +"It's me," George said as he entered. + +"I didn't hear you coming." + +"I've been looking through the window for a long time." He went to the +fireside. "Didn't you know? I hoped you'd be looking out for me, but you +weren't anxious enough for that." + +"Anxious?" + +"Well--eager." + +"Of course I wasn't. Why should I be?" + +"You're my wife--and wives--" + +"You know why I married you, George." + +"You're married, none the less." + +"I'm not disputing that." + +"I suppose you despise me for--getting what I wanted." + +"I only wonder if it was worth while." + +"I'll make it that." + +"But you won't know until your life is over, until lots of lives are +over." + +"I'll get what I can now." + +She nodded lightly, and her coolness warmed him. + +"Helen--" + +"Why don't you sit down?" + +"I don't know. I wish you wouldn't sew." + +Without a word, she folded her work and gave it to him, and when he had +put it down he knelt beside her, holding the arms of the chair so that +he fenced her in. + +"You don't understand, you can't understand that night's work," he said. +"I want to tell you. You--you were like an angel coming down into the +racket. You took away my strength. I wanted you. I forgot about Miriam. +If I'd only known it, I'd been forgetting her every day when I saw you +walking with the dog. You think I was just a beast, but I tell you--" + +"I don't think that. I can't explain unless you give me room. Thank you. +You were a beast with Miriam, not with me." + +He sat stiffly on his chair and murmured, "That's just it. And now, you +see--" + +"Yes, I do." + +"But you don't like me." + +"I might." + +"You shall, by God!" He seemed to smoulder. + +"I hope so," she said quietly, and damped the glow. + +"You'll let me come here every night and sit with you?" + +"Yes." + +"And Mrs. Caniper, can she hear?" + +"No, she is in the front of the house." + +"And Jim won't mind?" + +"Oh, no, Jim won't." + +"Nor you?" + +"You can get the big old chair from the schoolroom and bring it here. +That shall be yours." + +He sat there for an hour, and while he smoked she was idle. His eyes +hardly left her face, but hers were for the fire, though sometimes she +looked at him, and then she saw him behind tobacco smoke, and once she +smiled. + +"What's that for?" he asked. + +"I was thinking of the fires on the moor--the heather burning." + +"What made you think of that?" + +"You--behind the smoke. If the snow comes, the fires will be put out, +but there will still be your smoke." + +"I don't know what you're talking about," he said. + +"I like to see you--behind the smoke." + +"I'm glad you're pleased with something." + +"I like a fair exchange," she said, and laughed at him, "but I shall +offer up no more prayers." + +"I don't understand this joke, but I like to see you laugh." Possession +had emboldened him. "Helen, you're pretty." + +"I'm sleepy. It's after ten. Good-night." + +"I'll come tomorrow." + +"But not on Saturday. Rupert comes home then." + +"He goes on Sunday night?" + +"Yes." She locked the door on him, blew out the light, and ran upstairs. +She thought Mr. Pinderwell passed her with no new sorrow on his face. +"It's worse for me," she said to him. "Jane, it's worse for me." + +She went cautiously to her window and peeped through. She saw George +standing on the lawn, and tremblingly she undressed in darkness. + +The next day, Mildred Caniper called Helen to her side. + +"I feel--rested," she said. Her voice had for ever lost its crispness, +and she spoke with a slovenly tongue. "I don't like strangers--looking +at me. And she--she--" + +"I know. She shall go. Tomorrow I'll sleep with you." + +Her heart lightened a little, and through the day she thought of Mildred +Caniper's room as of a hermitage, but without the nurse the house was so +much emptier of human life that it became peopled with the thoughts of +all who had lived in it; and while Helen waited for George's coming, she +felt them moving round her. + +There were the thoughts of the people who had lived in the house before +Mr. Pinderwell, and these were massed and indistinct, yet the more +troubled; they were too old for form, too young for indifference, and +they thronged about her, asking for deliverance. She could not give it, +and she was jostled by a crowd that came closer than any one of flesh +and blood: it got inside her brain and frightened her. The thoughts of +Mr. Pinderwell were familiar, but now she could better understand his +wild young despair, the pain of his lonely manhood, the madness of his +old age. Yet, when she thought of him, she said again, "It's worse for +me." Mr. Pinderwell had not been obliged to marry some one else, and, +though he did not know it, his children lived. Nearer than his thoughts, +but less insistent than the formless ones that pressed about her, +begging shamelessly, were those of Mildred Caniper. Helen saw them in +the dining-room where they had been made, and they were rigid under +suffering, dignified, but not quite lost to humour, and because she did +not know their cause, because their creator lay upstairs, dead to such +activities, Helen had a horror of them that made her watch the clock for +George's hour. She was less afraid of George than of these shapeless, +powerful things, this accumulated evidence of what life did with its +own; and until he came she talked to Jim, quickly and incessantly, +careless of what she said, if words could calm her. + +"Jim, Jim, Jim! I must say something, so I'll say your name, and then +other things will come. I do not intend to be silly. I won't let you be +silly, Helen. You mustn't spoil things. It's absurd--and wicked! And +there's snow outside. It's so deep that I shan't hear him come. And I +wish he'd come, Jim. Funny to wish that. Jim, I'm afraid to turn my +head. It feels stiff. And I ought to go upstairs and look at Notya's +fire, but I don't like the hall. That's where they all meet. And I don't +know how I dare say these things aloud. I'll talk about something else. +Suppose I hadn't you? What shall we have for dinner tomorrow? There's a +bone for you, and the jelly for Notya, and for me--an egg, perhaps. +Boiled, baked, fried, poached, scrambled, omeletted? Somehow, somehow. +What shall I say next? Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, and +all that kind of thing. That will take a long time. I know I sound mad, +but I'm not. And this isn't me: not our me, James. Dickory, dickory, +dock--But this is worse than before. I wonder why God thought of men and +women--and snow--and sheep--and dogs. Dogs--" Her words stopped; she +heard the little noises of the fire. She found that this was not the way +in which to combat terrors. She knew how Zebedee would look if he saw +her now, and she stood up slowly. The muscles in his cheek would twitch, +and the queer flecks in his eyes would chase each other as he watched +her anxiously and sadly. She could not let him look like that. + +She walked into the middle of the room and looked about her. She opened +the door and stood in the dark hall and refused the company of the +thronging thoughts. Up the stairs she went, seeing nothing more alarming +than poor Mr. Pinderwell, and on the landing she found the friendly +children whom she loved. Jim followed her, and he seemed to share her +views; he paused when she did and stood, sturdily defying the unknown; +and so they went together into every room, and mended Mildred Caniper's +fire, and returned freely to the kitchen. + +"We've conquered that," Helen said. "We'll conquer everything. Fear +is--terrible. It's ugly. I think only the beautiful can be good." + +She held to the high mantelshelf and looked at the fire from between her +arms. A few minutes ago, life had been some mighty and incalculable +force which flung its victims where it chose, and now she found it could +be tamed by so slight a thing as a human girl. She had been blinded, +deafened, half stupefied, tossed in the whirlpool, and behold, with the +remembrance that Zebedee believed in her, she was able to steer her +course and guide her craft through shallows and over rapids with a +steady hand. + +"There now!" she exclaimed aloud, and turned a radiant face as Halkett +entered. + +For an instant, he thought it was his welcome, and his glow answered +hers before both faded. + +"Good-evening, George." + +"Good-evening, Helen," he answered, and there was a little mockery in +his tone. + +He stood close to her, and the frosty air was still about him. A fine +mist and a smell of peat came from his clothes as the fire warmed them. +She did not look at him, and when she would have done so, his gaze +weighted her eyelids so that she could not lift them; and again, as on +that first occasion in the hollow, but ten times more strongly, she was +conscious of his appreciation and her sex. There was peril here, and +with shame she liked it, while, mentally at first, and then physically, +she shrank from it. She dropped into the chair beside her, and with an +artifice of which she was no mistress, she yawned, laughed in apology, +and looked at him. + +"I believe you were awake half the night," he grumbled. "I won't have +you tired. You shouldn't have sent the nurse away." He sat down and +pulled out his pipe, and filled it while he watched her. "But I'm glad +she's gone," he said softly. + +She did not answer. She had a gripping hand on each arm of the chair: +she wanted to run away, and she hated George; she wanted to stay, and +then she hated herself. + +"I shan't get tired," she said weakly. "Mrs. Samson stays till six +o'clock. I only look after Notya." + +"And you sleep with her?" + +"Yes," she said and, picking a spill of paper from the hearth, she +lighted it and held it out to him. He put his hand round hers and did +not let it go until his pipe was lit, and then he puffed thoughtfully +for a time. + +"I've never been up your stairs except when I carried her to bed," he +said, and every muscle in her body contracted sharply. She flogged her +mind to start her tongue on a light word. + +"Not--not when you were little? Before we came here?" + +He laughed. "I wouldn't go near the place. We were all scared of old +Pinderwell. They used to say he walked. I was on the moor the night you +came, I remember, and saw the house all lighted up, and I ran home, +saying he'd set the place on fire. I was supposed to be in my bed, and I +had my ears well boxed." + +"Who boxed them?" + +"Mrs. Biggs, of course. She has hands like flails. I--What's the +matter?" + +"Is she at the farm still?" + +"Mrs. Biggs?" + +"Yes." + +"D'you want her to go?" + +"I should have thought you did." + +"Well--" He spoke awkwardly. "She's been there nearly all my life. You +can't turn people off like that, but if you want it, she shall go." + +"No, it's not my affair," she told him. + +"It will be," he said sharply. + +"Of course," she said in a high voice, "I should never dream of living +in the same house with her, but then," she went on, and her tones +loosened, there was an irritating kind of humour in them, "I don't +suppose I shall ever live there at all." + +She did not know why she spoke so; her wish to hurt him was hardly +recognizable by herself, but when she saw him stung, she was delighted. + +The colour rushed up to his eyes. "What d'you mean by that? What d'you +think you're going to do?" + +She raised her eyebrows, and answered lightly, "I'm sure I don't know." + +He put a heavy hand on her knee. "But I do," he said, and her mouth +drooped and quivered. She knew she had laid herself open to an attack +she could not repel. + +"He'll get me this way," she found herself almost whispering, and aloud +she said, "George, let's wait and see. Tell me some more about when you +were little." + +Things went smoothly after that, and when she went to bed, she talked to +Jane. + +"We mustn't have any pauses," she said. "We can feel each other then. We +must talk all the time, and, oh, Jane, I'm so fond of silence!" + +That night a voice waked her from a dreamless sleep. + +"Helen, are you there?" + +"Yes. Do you want something?" + +"I have been thinking." Her tongue seemed too thick for her mouth. "Is +the dog on the landing?" + +"Yes. He's always there. You haven't been afraid?" + +"No. It's a big house for two women." + +Helen sat up and, putting her feet into her slippers, she opened the +door. Jim was sleeping in the darkness: he woke, looked up and slept +again. It was a quiet night and not a door or window shook. + +"I didn't say I heard anything. Go back to bed." + +Helen obeyed, and she was falling softly into sleep when the voice, like +a plucked wire, snatched her back. + +"Helen! I want to tell you something." + +"I'm listening." She stared at the corner whence the voice was +struggling, and gradually the bed and Mildred's body freed themselves +from the gloom. + +By a supreme effort, the next words were uttered without a blur and with +a loudness that chased itself about the room. + +"I am to blame." + +"To blame?" Helen questioned softly. + +"It was my fault, not Edith's--not your mother's." + +"I don't know what you're talking about, Notya dear." + +"Your mother." The voice was querulous. "I was--unkind to your mother. +Oh--worse than that!" The bed creaked, and a long sigh gave place to the +halting speech in which the sibilants were thickened into lisping +sounds. + +"She was my friend. She was beautiful. You are all like her. Miriam and +Rupert--" The voice dropped like a stone falling into a well without a +bottom, and Helen, listening for the sound of it, seemed to hear only +the echoes of Mildred Caniper's memory, coming fainter and fainter from +the past where the other woman made a gleam. + +"Miriam--" she began again. "I haven't seen her." + +"No. Uncle Alfred has taken her away." + +"Ah!" Mildred said, and there was a silence. + +After a time, her voice came back, thin and vague, a ghostly voice, +speaking the thoughts of a mind that had lost its vigour. + +"Alfred was in love with Edith. They all were. She was so pretty and so +gay. But she was not unfaithful. No. I knew that. She told me and she +trusted me, but I said nothing. That's what has worried me--all the +time." Heavily she sighed again, and Helen drew herself to a sitting +posture in her bed. She dared not ask the questions which tramped over +each other in her mind; she hardly drew a breath lest the sound should +change the current of the other's thought. + +"She did silly things. They vexed me. I was jealous, I suppose. Take +care of Miriam. Oh--but she's gone. Edith--she made men love her, and +she couldn't help it, and then one night--but it's too long to tell. +Philip thought she wasn't faithful, but I knew. She wouldn't tell him. +She was angry, she wouldn't say a word, but she trusted me to tell him. +And you see, I--didn't. He wouldn't go and see her. If he had seen her +he would have found out. And soon she died--of measles." The woman in +the bed laughed softly. + +"That was so foolish! And then I married him. I got w-what I wanted. But +there's a verse about leanness in the soul, isn't there? That's what I +had. He wanted some one to look after the children, and I looked after +you--no more. The struggling hasn't been worth while." + +"No." The word came from Helen like a lost puff of wind. + +"And then Philip went away, and I came here. That's all. I wanted to +tell somebody. Now perhaps I can have peace. I meant to tell him, too, +but I was too late. That worried me. All these years--" + +Leaning on her elbow, Helen looked at the narrow bed. It had some aspect +of a coffin, and the strangely indifferent voice was still. She felt an +intolerable pity for the woman, and the pain overcame her bewilderment +and surprise, yet she knew she need not suffer, for Mildred Caniper had +slipped her burden of confession and lay at rest. + +Beyond the relief of tears, Helen slid into her place. The dead, distant +mother was not real to her: she was like the gay shadow of a butterfly +that must soon die, and Philip Caniper was no more than a name. Their +fate could hardly stir her, and their personal tragedy was done; but now +she thought she could interpret the thoughts which clustered in the +dining-room. This was Mildred Caniper's secret, and it had been told +without shame. The irony of that made her laugh silently to the shaking +of her bed. She had no words with which to clothe her feelings, the +sense of her own smallness, of unhappiness so much the common lot that +it could almost pass unheeded. There was some comfort in the mingling of +her own misery with all that had been and was to be, but she felt +herself in the very presence of disintegration: the room was stirring +with fragments of the life which Mildred Caniper could not hold +together: mind and matter, they floated from the tired body in the +corner and came between Helen and the sleep that would have kept her +from thinking of the morrow, from her nightly vision of Zebedee's face +changing from that of happy lover to poor, stricken man. Turning in the +bed, she left him for the past of which Mildred Caniper had told her, +yet that past, as parent of the present, looked anxiously and not +without malice towards its grandchildren. What further tragedy would the +present procreate? + +Answers to that question were still trooping past Helen when dawn came +through the windows, and some of them had the faces of children born to +an unwilling mother. Her mind cried out in protest: she could not be +held responsible; and because she felt the pull of future generations +that might blame her, she released the past from any responsibility +towards herself. No, she would not be held responsible: she had bought +Miriam, and the price must be paid: she and Miriam and all mankind were +bound by shackles forged unskilfully long ago, and the moor, +understanding them, had warned her. She could remember no day when the +moor had not foretold her suffering. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +A person less simple than Helen would have readjusted her conception of +herself, her character and circumstances, in the light of her new +knowledge; but with the passionate assertion that she could not be held +altogether responsible for what her own children might have to suffer, +Helen had made her final personal comment. For a day, her thoughts +hovered about the distant drama of which Mildred Caniper was the +memento, like a dusty programme found when the play itself is half +forgotten, and Helen's love grew with her added pity; but more urgent +matters were knocking at her mind, and every morning, when she woke, two +facts had forced an entrance. She was nearer to Zebedee by a night, and +only the daylight separated her from George and what he might demand +and, outside, the moor was covered with thick snow, as cold as her own +mind. + +A great fire burned in Mildred Caniper's room, another in the kitchen; +the only buds on the poplars were frozen white ones, and the whiteness +of the lawn was pitted with Halkett's footsteps. Since the first day of +snow he had climbed the garden wall close to the kitchen door so that he +should not make another trail, but the original one still gaped there, +and Helen wished more snow would fall and hide the tracks. She saw them +every morning when she went into her own room to dress, and they were +deep and black, like open mouths begging the clouds for food. + +One day, John, looking from the kitchen window, asked who had been +tramping about the garden. + +"Doesn't it look ugly?" Helen said. "I can't bear snow when it's +blotched with black. Is there going to be more of it?" + +"I think so." + +"Are your lambs all right?" + +"We haven't lost one. Lily's a wonder with them. We've a nursery in our +kitchen. Come and see it." He went out, and she heard him on the crisp +snow. + +"Now he'll mix the trail," she thought happily. "And I might have done +it myself. I think I'm growing stupid. But it will be John and George +when I get up in the morning: that's better than George and me." + +John came back and spoke gravely. "I find those footsteps go right +across the moor towards Halkett's Farm." + +"Of course! George made them." + +"Oh, you knew?" + +"Yes. I couldn't imagine Jim had done it, could I?" + +"What did he come for?" + +"He sat by the fire and smoked." + +"You'd better not encourage him." + +"I don't." + +"Be careful!--What are you laughing at?" + +"That old story of the kiss!" + +"It makes me mad." + +"He doesn't try to kiss me, John. I shouldn't be horrified if he did. +You needn't be afraid for me." + +"All right. It's your affair. Want any wood chopped?" + +"Rupert did a stack for me." + +"This is pretty dull for you, isn't it? When does--" + +She interrupted. "At the end of next week, I think." She was somewhat +tired of answering the question. + +That night, as she sat with George, he said, "When we're like this, I +wish you'd wear your wedding-ring." + +"I said I wouldn't." + +"It couldn't do any harm." + +"It could--to me." + +"You talk as if it's dirt," he said. + +"Oh, no, I know it's gold! Let's keep our bargains and talk of +something else. Tell me what you have been doing today." + +His face reddened to a colour that obscured his comeliness. "You can't +get round me like that." + +"What do you mean?" She lifted her head so that he saw her round white +throat. "Why should I condescend to get round you, as you call it?" + +"That's it!" he shouted angrily. "That's the word!" He rose and knocked +his pipe against the stove. "You're too damned free with your +condescension, and I'm sick of it." He left the kitchen angrily, and two +minutes later she heard the distant banging of the garden door. + +She wanted to run after him, for she was afraid of the impulses of his +anger. She felt a dreadful need to conciliate, for no other reason than +his body's greater strength, but she let him go, and though for several +days she did not see him, she had no sense of liberty. He would come +back, she knew, and she found herself planning unworthy little shifts, +arranging how she would manage him if he did this or that, losing her +birthright of belief that man and woman could meet and traffic honestly +together. They could not do it, she found, when either used base +weapons: she, her guile, or he, his strength; but if he used his +strength, how could she save herself from using guile? She had to use +it, and she clung fiercely to it, though she knew that, at last, it +would be wrested from her. + + * * * * * + +In these days of his absence, there were hours when she wandered +ceaselessly through the house, urged by the pride which refused +allegiance to this man, tortured by her love for Zebedee and the pain +she had to give him, hunted by the thought that George was making for +himself a place in the circle where she kept her pensioners. Each time +that he looked at her with longing, though she shrank, she gave her +ready pity, and when he walked away into the night, her heart went after +him unwillingly. Worse than all, she knew she would not always see him +as a pensioner. Far off and indistinct, like a gallows seen on a distant +hill, she spied the day when she might own a kind of need of him; she +had to love those who loved her enough, and his strength, the very +limits of his mind, would some day hold her. But she would not let these +thoughts properly take shape: they were vague menaces, and they chased +her through Mr. Pinderwell's sparsely-furnished rooms. She was glad that +Zebedee had never been a pensioner; he had always given more than he had +asked. His had not been an attitude of pleading, and she could not +remember once seeing an appeal in his eyes. They had always been quick +on her face and busy with herself, and her pride in him was mixed with +anger that he had not bound her to him by his need. He would manage +without her very well, she thought, and hardened herself a little; but +hard or soft, the result of her fierce thinking was the same. She had +the picture of Miriam like a broken flower, lying limp and crumpled on +the floor, and she believed she had done well in selling herself to save +that beauty. It was the only thing to do, and Zebedee would know. These +words she repeated many times. + +But she went beyond that conclusion on her own path. She had married +George, and that was ugly, but life had to be lived and it must be +beautiful; it could not be so long that she should fail to make it +beautiful: fifty years, perhaps. She beat her hands together. She could +surely make it beautiful for fifty years. + +But at night, when she waited for George, she trembled, for she knew +that her determination meant ultimate surrender. + +He came on the fourth night. She gave him half a smile, and with a thin +foot she pushed his chair into its place, but he did not sit down. He +stood with his hands clasped behind him, his head thrust forward, and +having glanced at him in that somewhat sulky pose, she was shaken by +inward laughter. Men and women, she reflected, were such foolish things: +they troubled over the little matters of a day, a year, or a decade, and +could not see how small a mark their happiness or sorrow made in the +history of a world that went on marching. + +She bent over her sewing while she thought, and she might have forgotten +his presence if a movement had not blocked the light. + +"George, please, I can't see." + +"I beg your pardon." + +"I wish you would sit down. It isn't comfortable like this." + +"All right." He sank down heavily and sighed. + +She lifted her head quickly and showed him her puckered face. "Are you +still so cross?" + +"I--don't know. I've been miserable enough," he said, but he had to +smile on her. + +She was astonished that he should have no difficulty in speaking of +himself, and she looked at him in this surprised consideration before +she tempted him to say more. + +"Why?" she asked. + +"You wouldn't understand." + +"I might." + +"How much I wanted you." + +She tapped her thimble against her teeth. "It's so absurd," she said +softly. + +"Eh?" + +She hated him to say that, and she frowned a little as he asked, "Why is +it absurd?" + +"Because you don't know me at all." + +"That's nothing to do with it." He stood up and kicked a protruding +coal. "Nothing to do with it. I know I--want you." He turned sharply +towards her. "I was half drunk that night." + +"I wish you wouldn't talk about it." + +He added abruptly, "I've had nothing since." + +Her silence implied that this was only what she had expected and, +feeling baulked of his effect, he sighed again. + +"Oh, you are so pathetic! Why don't you smile?" He did it, and she +nodded her applause, while he, appeased and daring, asked her, "Well, +did you miss me?" + +"Yes. A little." + +"Are you glad I'm here?" + +"I think so." + +"When will you be sure?" + +"Ah, that depends on you. I hate you to be rough." + +"God knows I've had enough to make me. You wear me out, you're so damned +superior." + +"I'm afraid that's not my fault!" + +He swore under his breath. "At it again!" + +"Oh, dear!" she cried, "that was meant to be a joke! I thought it rather +good! Shall I make some coffee? They say a wise woman always has good +things for her--for a man to eat and drink. I'm going to try it." + +They drank in silence, but as he put down his cup, she said, twinkling +over hers, "Was I a wise woman?" and suddenly she felt the great +loneliness of the house, and remembered that she was a woman, and this +man's wife. She looked down that he might see no change. He did not +answer, and the coals, dropping in the grate, were like little tongues +clicking in distress. She wondered if he were ever going to speak. + +"Give me your cup," she heard him say, and his voice was confident. She +felt a hand put firmly on her shoulder, and she saw him bending over +her. + +"Good-night," he said, "I'm going," and still with that hand on her, he +kissed her mouth. + +She did not move when the door was shut behind him: she leaned back in +the chair, pressed there by his kiss, her hands limp in her lap. She +respected him at last. There had been dignity in that kiss, and she +thought it better that he should take what he desired than sit too +humble under her gaze, but she knew she was no longer what she had been. +He had, in some manner, made her partly his: not by the spirit, not by +her will, but by taking something from her: there was more to take, and +she was sure now that he would take it. She was not angry, but for a +long time she cried quietly in her chair. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +Snow was falling when Zebedee at last drove up the road, and from the +window of Mildred Caniper's bedroom Helen watched his huddled figure and +the striving horse. She saw him look for the obliterated track and then +turn towards the shelter of Brent Farm. + +"Is he coming?" Mildred asked. She was childishly interested in his +return. + +"Yes. He has gone to put the horse up at the farm." + +"He will be cold." + +"Yes." Helen was cold, too. + +"It is a dreadful day for driving." + +"I don't think he minds that," she said in a dead voice. + +"No. You had better go downstairs." + +"When I see him starting back. He'll have to talk to Lily. No, he's +coming now." + +She stood at the window while she slowly counted twenty, and then she +warmed her hands before she went. + +She was irritated by the memory of him running across the road with his +hands in his pockets, his head butting against the storm, his eager feet +sinking into the snow and dragging themselves out again. She had a crazy +wish that he would fall. Why could he not walk? she asked herself. It +was absurd to be in such a hurry. There was plenty of time, more than +enough, if he but knew it! She laughed, and hated the false, cruel +sound, and looked round the hall to see if there were any one to hear; +but in the snow, as she opened the gate to him, there was a moment in +which she knew nothing but joy. He had come back, he was close to her, +and evil had passed away. + +"Oh, my darling--" he said. "Let me get off my coat!" + +He took her hands, and unsmilingly he scanned her, from her smooth hair +to her mouth, from her hands to her feet. + +"What is it?" he asked. + +She gave him her clear regard. "All the things that have mattered most +to me have been comings and goings through this gate and the garden +door." + +"Well, dearest one--" + +"You've come again." + +"And I shall come tomorrow." + +"Will you?" She closed her eyelids on what he might see, and he kissed +her between the eyes. "I have stayed away too long," he said. + +"Yes. I want to talk to you. Come and see Notya first." + +"Things have been happening, Daniel tells me." + +"Oh, yes, they have." + +"And if your letters had shown me your face, I shouldn't have stayed +away another day." + +"Isn't it so nice, Zebedee?" + +"It's lovelier than it ever was, but there's a line here, and here, and +here. And your eyes--" + +Again she shut them, but she held up her face. "I want you to kiss my +mouth." + +"Helen," he said, when he had slowly done her bidding, "let us sit on +the stairs and think about each other. Yes, there's room for Jim, but, +oh, my blessed one, he ought to have a bath. No, you can stay down +there, my boy. Are you comfortable, little heart? Let me look at you +again. You are just like a pale flower in a wood. Here, in the darkness, +there might be trees and you gleaming up, a flower--" + +She dropped her forehead to his knees. "I wish--I were--that flower." + +She felt his body tighten. "What has happened?" + +"I'll tell you soon." + +"No, now." + +"When you have seen Notya. She might notice if we looked--queer." + +"Then let us go to her at once." + + * * * * * + +Mildred Caniper cut short the interview, saying, "Take him away, Helen. +I'm tired. I'm always tired now." + +"Come into Jane," Helen said when they were on the landing. "No one will +disturb us there. Let Jim come, too." + +"He isn't fit to be in your bedroom, dear. Neither am I. And how like +you it is!" + +"It's cold," she said. Through the window she saw that the new snow had +covered George's tracks. "Cold--cold." + +He put his arms round her. "I'm back again, and I can only believe it +when I'm holding you. Now tell me what's the matter." + +"Shall I? Shall I? Don't hold me, or I can't. It's--oh, you have to +know. I'm married, Zebedee." + +Plainly he did not think her sane. "This can't be true," he said in a +voice that seemed to drop from a great height. + +"Yes, it's true. I can show you the thing--the paper. Here it is. Do you +want to read it? Oh, yes, it's true." + +"But it can't be! I don't understand! I don't understand it. Who--For +God's sake, tell me the whole tale." + +She told it quickly, in dull tones, and as she watched his face she saw +a sickly grey colour invade his tan. + +"Don't, don't look like that!" she cried. + +"Are you quite sure you're married?" he asked in his new voice. "Let me +look at this thing." + +Outside, the snow fell thicker, darkening the room, and as she took a +step nearer, she saw the muscles twitching in his cheeks. He laid the +paper on her dressing-table. + +"May his soul rot!" he whispered. He did not look at her. Darkness and +distance lay between them, but fearfully she crept up to him and touched +his arm. + +"Zebedee--" + +He turned swiftly, and his face made her shrink back. + +"You--you dare to tell me this! And you said you loved me. I thought you +loved me." + +"I did. I do," she moaned, and her hands fluttered. "Zebedee," she +begged. + +"Oh--did you think I was going to wish you happiness? I'd rather see you +dead. I could have gone on loving you if you were dead, believing you +had loved me." + +"And do you think I want to be alive?" she asked him, and slipped to her +knees beside the bed. "I didn't want to die until just now. All the +time, I said, Zebedee will understand. He'll know I did my best. He'll +be so sorry for me--" + +"So sorry for you that he couldn't think about himself! Sorry for +you--yes! But can't you see what you have done for me? You never thought +of that! It's like a woman. If you'd killed me--but you have killed me. +And you did it lightly. You let me come here, you gave me your mouth to +kiss, and then you tell me this! This! Oh, it's nothing! You've married +some one else! You couldn't help it! Ah--!" He shook with a rage that +terrified her, and having held out disregarded arms to him, she let her +trembling mouth droop shapelessly, and made no effort to control her +heavy tears, the sobs rushing up and out with ugly, tortured sounds. She +spoke between them. + +"I never thought you would be angry. But I dreamt about you angry. +Oh"--she spoke now only to herself--"he doesn't understand. If I hadn't +loved him truly, I needn't have kept my word, but I had to be honest, or +I wouldn't have been worthy." She dropped her face against the bed and +mumbled there. "Nothing matters, then. Not even being honest. I--I--Oh! +Angry--Zebedee darling, I can't bear it. Tell me you won't be angry any +more." + +"Dearest--" He sat on the bed and pulled her wet face to his knee. +"Dearest--" + +She took his hands and pressed them against her eyes. "Forgive me, +Zebedee." + +"I can't forgive you. I can only love you. For ever and ever--I want to +think, Helen." + +"You're shaking so." + +"And you are shivering. Come downstairs beside a fire." + +"No; we are safer here." Her arms went round him, beneath his coat, and +she leaned her head against his breast. "I wish we could go to sleep and +never wake." + +"I ought never to have left you." + +She looked up. "Zebedee, he hasn't worried me. He kissed me once. That's +all. That's why I made you kiss my mouth." + +"He shall never worry you. I'm going to see him now, and I shall come +back soon. Let me go, sweetheart." + +"No, I can't let you go. It isn't that I'm afraid for you. I--I don't +mind if you hurt each other, but if you killed him--if he killed you--! +But you won't do that. You'll just say dreadful things, and then he'll +come to me and take me all. Don't you see? He could. He would. In my own +way, I can--I can keep him off, but if you went to him and claimed +me--No, Zebedee, there would be no hope for me." + +"I'll shoot him, if you like, without giving him a chance. The man +ought to be shot. He takes advantage of his own beastliness--" He broke +off. "If I talk about it I shall choke." + +"But he doesn't know about you." + +"You didn't tell him that?" + +"I couldn't. I couldn't beg. I didn't want to say your name to him, to +bring you into it." + +"Yes, I was left out of your calculations pretty thoroughly." + +"Zebedee--!" + +"Ah, but you expect me to take this very calmly. You keep your promise +to a drunken brute, but what of one to me?" + +"There wasn't one between us two. We just belonged, as we do now and +always shall. You're me and I am you. When I was thinking of myself, I +was thinking of you, too. And all the time I thought you'd understand." + +"I do--begin to understand. But what about Miriam? Little fool, little +fool! Does she know what she's done?" + +"No one knows but you. You see, she fainted. I always thought she'd come +between us, but what queer things God does!" + +His voice rose suddenly, saying, "Helen, it's unbearable. But you shall +not stay here. I shall take you away." + +"There's Notya." + +"Yes." + +"Do you mean--Is she going to die?" + +"I don't know. She may not live for long. And if she dies, you shall +come away with me. We can go together anywhere in the world. There's no +morality and no sense and no justice in such a sacrifice." + +"Oh," she sighed, "what peace, if I could go with you!" + +"You shall go with me." + +She felt his heart ticking away the seconds. "But I can't," she said +softly. "You see, I've married him." + +"Great God--!" + +"I know. But I can't help it. I knew what I was doing. And he needs me." + +"Ah! If he's going to need you--And again, what of my need of you?" + +"You're a better man than he is." + +He pushed her from him and went to the window, and she dared not ask him +for his thoughts. Perhaps he had none: perhaps, in the waste of snow +from which the black trunks of trees stood up, he saw a likeness to his +life. + +He turned to ask, "How often does that beast get washed?" + +She looked at him vaguely. "Who?" + +"That dog." + +"Oh--once a fortnight." + +"Who does it?" + +"John or I." + +"You let him sleep with you?" + +"Outside my door." + +"I think he ought to be inside. I'm going over to see John. You can't +live here alone. And, Helen, I've not given up my right to you. You +shall come to me when Mrs. Caniper sets you free." + +She was standing now, and she answered through stiff lips, "You mustn't +hope for that. You know I told you long ago the kind of woman I am." + +"And you can't change yourself for my sake?" + +She moved uneasily. "I would, so gladly, if I could," she said, and he +shook his head as though he did not believe her. + +"But I will not have you and John trying to arrange my life. I choose to +be alone. If you interfere--" His look reproached her. "I'm sorry, +Zebedee, but I'm suffering, too, and I know best about George, about +myself. After all"--her voice rose and broke--"after all, I've married +him! Oh, what a fuss, what a fuss! We make too much of it. We have to +bear it. We are not willing to bear anything. Other women, other men, +have lost what they loved best. We want too much. We were not meant for +happiness." + +His hand was on the door, but he came back and stood close to her. "Do +you think you have been talking to a stone? What do you expect of me? +I"--he held his head--"I am trying to keep sane. To you, this may be a +small thing among greater ones, but to me--it's the only one." + +"To me, too. But if I made a mistake in promising, I should make another +in running away now. One has to do one's best." + +"And this is a woman's best!" he said in a voice she did not know. + +"Is that so bad?" She was looking at a stranger: she was in an empty +world, a black, wild place, and in it she could not find Zebedee. + +"There is no logic in it," she heard him say, and she was in her room +once more, holding to the bed-rail, standing near this haggard travesty +of her man. + +"Oh! What have I done to you?" she cried out. + +He followed his own thought. "If your sense of duty is greater towards +him than towards me, why don't you go to him and give him all he wants?" + +"He has not asked for it." + +"And I do. If he has no rights, remember mine; but if he has them--" + +"Yes, it may come to that," she said, and he saw her lined, white face. + +"No, no, Helen! Not for my sake this time, but for yours! No! I didn't +mean it. Believe me, I could be glad if you were happy." + +"I shan't be happy without you, but if I can't have you, why shouldn't I +do my best for him?" + +He looked at the floor and said, "Helen, I can't let him touch you." He +looked up. "Have you thought of everything?" + +"There have been days and days to think in." + +"My dear, it isn't possible! To give you into his hands!" + +"I shall keep out of them if I can, and no one else can do it for me. +Remember that, or you will push me into them. But I'm trying to make my +body a little thing. It's only a body, after all. Zebedee, will you let +me sit on your knee? Just this once more. Oh, how your arms know how to +hold me! I hope--I hope you'll never have to marry any one for Daniel's +sake." + +He rested his cheek on hers. "Daniel will have to look after himself. +Men don't hurt the people they love best for the sake of some one else. +That's a woman's trick." + +"You never talked like this before." + +"Because, you see, no woman had ever hurt me so much." + +"And now she has." + +"Oh, yes, she has." + +"And you love me less?" + +"Come with me and see! Helen, Helen, darling, come with me. I want you +so. We'll make life beautiful together. Sweetheart, if you needn't +suffer, I could bear it for myself, I could manage to bear it for +myself." + +"I should suffer if I came with you. I should always feel George wanting +me." + +"And you won't feel me?" + +"You are just like myself. You will always be there. No one can come +between. George can't." + +"But his children will." He set her on her feet and began to walk up and +down the room. "Had you thought of that?" + +She covered her face and whispered, "I can't talk about it yet. And, +oh!" she went on, "I wanted ours. Did you?" + +"You know I did." + +"And even if I went with you, we couldn't have them. That's gone--just +slipped away. They were so clear to me, so beautiful." + +"In that house of ours," he said. "Helen, I bought that house before I +went away." + +"Our house?" + +"Our square house--with the trees." + +She broke into another storm of sobbing, and he took her on his knee +again. He knew that Halkett's children would come and stifle pain and, +as he tried to think he would not hate them, her voice came softly +through those thoughts. + +"Zebedee, I want to tell you something." + +"Go on, dear." + +"I want to tell you--I--He's not repellent. Don't think that. I didn't +want you to think that. I suppose one can forget. And I shall always +think, 'It's Zebedee who has the rest, who has all the best of me.'" + +"I know you, dear. You'll be giving him all you have." + +"Oughtn't I to?" + +"Oh, my darling, God only knows. Don't ask me. To me there seems only +one thing to do--to smite him in the mouth--and you whom I worship have +tied my hands. And I sit here! What do you think is happening to me +inside? I'm mad! I can promise nothing. I need time to think. Helen, if +you would hate him always, I could bear it better. But you won't, +you'll grow fond of him--and I suppose I should be glad; but I can't +stand that." He put her down roughly and stood over her. "I can't endure +this any longer," he said under his breath, and went. + +Then she realized what she had done to him, and with how much gentleness +he had used her. She ran after him and called from the stairhead: + +"Zebedee! Wait for me. Kiss me once more. I'll never ask again. It isn't +easy for me, either, Zebedee." + +He stood, helpless, enraged at destiny, aware that any weapon he might +lift in her defence would fall on her and wound her. He could do nothing +but swear his lasting love, his ready service. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +She thought Zebedee would come to her on the next day, or the next, but +she watched in vain for him. Though she had sent him from her, she +longed for him to be back, and at night, when George entered the +kitchen, she hardly looked up to welcome him. Her mind was more +concerned with Zebedee's absence than with George's presence, but in her +white face and tired eyes he fancied resentment for the kiss that still +burned on his own mouth. + +"You haven't much to say," he told her, after an hour of silence. He did +not know if he most hated or adored the smooth head turned sideways, the +small ear and the fine eyebrow, the aloofness that kept him off and drew +him on; but he knew he was the victim of a glorious kind of torment of +which she was the pain and the delight. + +"I have been thinking," she explained. + +"Then why don't you tell me what you think about?" + +"Would you be interested?" She smiled at the thought of telling him with +what anxiety she looked for Zebedee, with what anger she blamed him for +neglect, with what increase she loved him. + +"Yes, I would. Now you're laughing. D'you think it funny? D'you think I +can't read or write, or understand the way you speak?" + +"George," she said, "I wish you wouldn't get so cross. I don't think any +of those things." + +"Never think about me at all, I suppose. Not worth it." + +She answered slowly, "Yes, you are," and he grunted a mockery of thanks. + +It was some time before he threw out two words of accusation. "You're +different." + +"Different?" + +"That's what I said. You never answer straight." + +"Don't I?" + +"There you are again!" + +"What do you want me to say? Shall I ask you how I'm different? Well, +I've asked, George. Won't you answer?" + +"I can't. I can't explain. But a few nights back--well--all tonight +you've been sitting as if I wasn't here. I don't know why I stand it. +Look here! You married me." + +"So you are always telling me; but no one can buy the things you want." + +"I'll get them somehow." He used the tones that made her shrink, but +tonight she was unmoved, and he saw that her womanhood was crushed by +the heaviness of her fatigue, and she was no more than a human being who +needed rest. + +"I think you ought to go to bed," he said. "I'm going. Good-night." He +kissed her hand, but he did not let it fall. "You're not to look so +white tomorrow night," he said. + +She did not know why she went to the kitchen door and stood by it while +he climbed the wall and dropped to the crisp snow on the further side. +He called out another low good-night and had her answer before she heard +his boots crunching the frozen crust. No stars and no moon shone on the +white garden, and to her it was like a place of death. The deep black of +the trees against the wall made a mourning border, and the poplars +lifted their heads in questioning of fate, but they had no leaves to +make the question audible, and no wind stirred their branches. +Everything was silent; it seemed as if everything had died, and Helen +was envious of the dead. She wished she might curl herself up at a +poplar's foot and sleep there until the frost tightened on her heart and +stopped its beating. + +"It is so hard," she said aloud, and shut the door and locked it with +limp hands. + +The kitchen's warmth gave back her sanity and humour, and she laughed as +she sat before the fire again, but when she spoke to Jim, it was in +whispers, because of the emptiness of the old house. + +"We shall manage if only we can see Zebedee sometimes. Other women have +worse things to bear. And George likes me. I can't help liking people +when they like me. And there'll be Zebedee sometimes. We'll try to keep +things beautiful, and we'll be strong and very courageous, and now we'll +go to bed." + +The next morning Zebedee appeared, and in the hall of their many +greetings, she slipped her hand into his. + +"What have you been doing, Zebedee?" + +"Working." + +"Is that all?" + +He laughed, and asked, "Isn't that enough?" + +"No; not enough to keep you from me. I thought you would come yesterday +and the day before." + +He looked at her with an astonishment that was near scorn, for she had +driven him from her and now reproached him when he did not run back. She +put her hand on his and looked at him with shadowless grey eyes, and +showed him a mouth that tempted, as she had done before she married this +other man to whom she was determined to be faithful. His thoughts were +momentarily bitter, but his words were gentle. + +"I told you I wanted time to think." He pressed her hand and gave it +back to her. "And I have thought, and, since you are what you are, I +see, at present, no other way but yours." + +"Oh." She was daunted by his formality. + +"Shall I go up to Mrs. Caniper?" + +"Yes," she said, puzzled. "But aren't you cold? Come into the kitchen +and you shall have some coffee. I had it ready in case you came. Your +hands--your cheeks--" She touched him lightly and led him to the kitchen +fire. + +"I think we shall have more snow," he said, and his manner was snow +against her heart. + +"Do you?" she said politely, but her anger dropped away as she saw his +face more clearly and knew he had not slept. She knew, too, that his +mind was as firmly fixed as hers, and she felt as if the whole world +were sliding from her, for this was not her lover: this was some ascetic +who had not yet forgotten his desires. He looked haggard, fierce with +renunciation and restraint, and she cried out, "Zebedee, darling, don't +look like that!" + +He laughed a little, moved, and passed his hands over his face. "No," he +said sensibly. + +He killed the words she had ready for him: she felt them fall, dead +things, into her throat, and hang helplessly in her breast. She handed +him the cup, and while he drank she stood beside the table and watched +him with despair and indignation. She had not imagined him thus changed: +she had expected the old adoring looks, the loving words, everything but +his caresses and his claims, and he treated her as though she were no +more to him than any other woman. She knew him to be just and honest, +but she thought him cruel and, aghast at the prospect of endless days +wherein he would not smile at her nor praise her, she doubted her +ability to live without him. She caught her breath in fear that his +habit of indifference would change to indifference indeed; and without +shame, she confessed that she would rather have him suffering through +love of her than living happily through lack of it. + +Mechanically, she moved after him up the stairs, played her part, and +followed him down again; but when next he came, she had stiffened in +emulation of him, and they talked together like people who had known +each other for many years, but never known each other well. + +Once he trespassed, but that was not to please himself. + +"If you need me, you'll still use me?" he said hurriedly, and she +answered, "Yes, of course." + +He added, "I can't keep it from Daniel for ever." + +"No. It need not be a secret now, except from Notya. And if she lives--" + +"She may live for a long time if she has no shock." + +"Ah, then," Helen said calmly, "she must not know." + +He found her more beautiful than she had been, for now her serenity was +by conquest, not by nature, and her head was carried with a freer grace. +It might have been the freedom of one who had gained through loss and +had the less weight to carry, but he tortured himself with wondering +what fuller knowledge had given her maturer grace. Of this he gave no +sign, and the attitude he maintained had its merciful result on Helen, +for if he pretended not to need her, she had a nightly visitor who told +her dumbly of his longing. Love bred liking, as she had prophesied, and, +because life was lonely, she came to listen for his step. She was born +to minister to people, and the more securely Zebedee shut her out, the +more she was inclined to slip into the place that George had ready for +her. And with George the spring was in conspiracy. The thaw came in a +night, and the next morning's sun began its work of changing a white +country into one of wet and glistening green. Snow lingered and grew +dirty in the hollows, and became marked with the tiny feet of sheep, but +elsewhere the brilliance of the moor was like a cry. It was spring +shouting its release from bonds. Buds leapt on the trees, the melted +snow flooded the streams, tributary ones bubbled and tinkled in +unexpected places. + +"Now," Helen said, leaning from the window of Mildred Caniper's room, +"you can't help getting well. Oh, how it smells and looks and feels! +When the ground is drier, you shall go for a walk, but you must practise +up here first. Then John shall carry you downstairs." + +But Mildred Caniper did not want to be energetic: she sat by the fire in +a cushioned wicker chair, and when Helen looked at the lax figure and +the loosened lines of the face she recognized the woman who had made +confession to relieve a mind that had finished with all struggling. It +was not the real Mildred Caniper who had told that story in the night; +it was the one who, weakened by illness, was content to sit with folded +hands by the fireside. + +She dimmed the sun for Helen and robbed the spring of hope. This glory +would not last: colours would fade and flowers die, and so human life +itself would slip into a mingling of light and shadow, a pale confluence +of the two by which a man could see to dig a grave. + +Helen leaned out again, trying to recover the sense of youth, of +boundless possibilities of happiness that should have been her sure +possession. + +"Are you looking for Zebedee?" Mildred asked. "He doesn't come so +often." + +"You don't need him. And he is busy. He isn't likely to come today." + +Yet she wished ardently that he might, for though he would have no +tenderness to give her, he would revivify her by the vigour of his +being: she would see a man who had refused to let one misfortune cripple +him, and as though he had divined her need, he came. + +"I had to go to Halkett's Farm," he explained. + +"Who's ill there?" she asked sharply. + +"The housekeeper." + +"I hadn't heard. Is she very ill?" + +"She may be." + +"Then I hope she'll die," she said in a low voice. + +"My dear!" He was startled into the words, and they made her laugh +openly for joy of knowing they were ready on his tongue. Lightly she +swayed towards him, but he held her off. + +"No, no, my heart." He turned deliberately from her. "Why do you wish +that?" + +"Because of Miriam. She ought to die." + +"I'm afraid she won't. She's pretty tough." + +"Is there anybody to look after her? I could go sometimes, if you like." + +He smiled at this confusion of ministering and avenging angel. + +"There's a servant there who seems capable enough." + +"I wonder why George didn't tell me." + +"She was all right yesterday." + +"You'll have to see her tomorrow. Then you'll come here, too." + +"There isn't any need." + +"But Notya likes to see you. Come and see her now." + +She sighed when they walked downstairs together as though things had +never changed. "Oh, Zebedee, I wanted you to come today. You have made +me feel clean again. Notya--oh--!" She shuddered. "She looks like some +fruit just hanging to a tree. Soon she will slip, and she doesn't care. +She doesn't think. And once she was like a blade, so bright and edged. +And when I looked at her this morning, I felt as if I were fattening +and rotting, too, and it wasn't spring any longer. It was autumn, and +everything was over-ripe." + +"You don't take enough exercise," he said briskly. "Walk on the moor +every day. It's only fair to Jim. Read something stiff--philosophy, for +instance. It doesn't matter whether you understand it or not, so long as +you try. Promise you'll do that. I'll bring some books tomorrow. Take +them as medicine and you'll find they're food. And, Helen"--he was at +the gate and he looked back at her--"you are rather like a blade +yourself." + +He knew the curing properties of praise. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +When evening came, the blue colour of the sky had changed to one that +was a memory of the earth's new green. Helen went through the garden to +the moor and sat there on a grey rock out of which her own grey figure +might have been carved. She watched the stars blink forth and stare; she +saw the gradual darkening of the world, and then Halkett's moving shape +came towards her. Out here, he was in his proper place: the kitchen made +him clumsy, but wide places set him off, and she felt a kind of pride in +his quickness and his strength. + +"George," she said softly as he would have passed her, and he swung +round and bent and took her in his arms, without hesitation or mistake. + +"Were you waiting for me?" he whispered, and felt her nod against his +coat. She freed herself very gently. "Shall we stay out here?" he said. + +"No. I have left Notya long enough." + +"What made you wait for me?" + +"I--don't know," she said. She had not asked herself the question, and +now the unspoken answer shocked her with its significance. She had gone +to wait for him without any thought. It might have been the night that +drew her out, but she knew it was not that. Once before, she had called +herself a slave, and so she labelled herself again, but now she did it +tremulously, without fierceness, aware that it was her own nature to +which she was chiefly bound. + +"Are you going to wait for me every night?" she heard him say. "Give me +your hand, Helen. It is so small. Will you go over the wall or through +the door? I'd like to lift you over." + +"No. I want to go through the garden. There are primroses there. Big +ones, like stars." + +"It's you that are a star." + +"I think they liked the snow. And the poplars are all buds. I wish I +could sit in the tree-tops and look right across the moor." + +"And wait for me. And when I came I'd hold my arms out and you'd jump +into them." + +"If I didn't fly away." + +"Ay, I expect you would do that." + +They did not speak again until they reached the house, and when she had +lighted the kitchen lamp she saw him looking moodily into the fire. + +"Is Mrs. Biggs better?" she asked smoothly. + +"What do you know about her?" + +"I heard she was ill." + +"Who told you?" + +"Dr. Mackenzie." + +"Oh, he's been again, has he?" + +"Yes." Her voice had a ring in it. "And he will come tomorrow." + +"And the next day, I suppose, and the next. I should have thought he'd +spare that old nag of his; but no, up he comes, and I want to know why." + +She did not answer immediately because she feared to betray the +indignation that moved in her like a living thing. She found her sewing +and signed to him to put her chair into its place, and when she had +stitched steadily for a time she said in pleasant tones, "George, you +are like a bad person in a book." + +"I'm not up to this kind of talk. You told me yourself that Mrs. Caniper +hardly needs a doctor. What does he come for, then? Is it for you?" + +"No, it is not." + +"Do you like the man?" + +She opened her lips and shut them several times before she spoke. "I'm +very fond of him--and of Daniel." + +"Oh, leave Daniel alone. No woman would look at him." + +She gave him a considering gaze for which he could have struck her, +because it put him further from her than he had ever been. + +"It's no good staring at me like that. I've seen you with him before +now." + +"Everybody on the moor must have seen me with him." + +"Yes, and walking pretty close. I remember that." + +"Very likely you will see me walking with him again." + +"No, by God!" + +"Oh," she said, wearily, "how often you call on God's name." + +"No wife of mine--" + +She laughed. "You talk like Bluebeard. How many wives have you?" + +"I've none," he cried in an extremity of bitterness. "But I'll have one +yet, and I'll keep her fast!" + +She lifted her head in the haughty way he dreaded. "I will not endure +suspicions," she said clearly, but she flushed at her own words, for she +remembered that she had been willing to give Zebedee the lesser tokens +of her love, and it was only by his sternness that she could look George +in the eyes. Zebedee would have taken her boldly and completely, +believing his action justified, but he would have no little secret +dealings, and she was abashed by the realization of her willingness to +deceive. She was the nearer to George by that discovery, and the one +shame made her readier to suffer more. + +"It's because I want you," he said, shading his eyes; and for the first +time she had no resentment for his desires. + +"Oh, George, don't you think you had better go home?" she said. + +"Why?" he asked her. + +"Because--because I want to read." + +"Well, I can watch you." + +"And you won't think it rude?" + +He shook his head. There was a rare joy in sitting within reach of her +and honouring her with his restraint. + +Her slim feet were crossed on the dog's back, and she hardly stirred +except to turn a page: the firelight threw colours on her dress, behind +her there was a dark dresser where china gleamed, and sitting there, she +made a little picture of home for a man who could remember none but +hired women in his house. + +"I wish you'd talk to me," he said, and at once she shut her book with a +charming air of willingness. + +"Do you know what you've been reading about?" he dared to ask her slyly, +for surely she had been conscious of his thoughts of her. + +She would not be fluttered. "Yes. Shall I tell you?" + +"No," he said. + +Her voice was influenced by the quick beating of her heart. + +"Do you never read anything?" + +"I gave it up long ago." + +"Why? What did you do at night before you--" + +"Before I married you? I used to smoke and wish it was time to go to +bed, and look at the newspaper sometimes." + +"That must have been very dull." + +"I used to watch the clock," he said. He leaned towards her and spoke +quickly, softly. "And I watch it still! From waking till dusk I watch it +and think of you, sitting and waiting for me. Oh, what's the good of +talking to me of books? You're here--and you're my wife, and I'll talk +to you of nothing but yourself." He knelt, and his hands were on her +waist. "Yourself--my beauty--my little saint--your little hands and +feet--your cheeks I want to kiss--your hair--" He drew her to his breast +and whispered, "How long is it--your hair?" + +There was no resistance in her, and her neck could not hold up the head +that drooped over his shoulder when he kissed her ear and spoke in it. + +"Helen--Helen--I love you. Tell me you love me. You've got to kiss +me--Yes--" + +She answered in a quiet voice, but she stopped for breath between the +words. "I think--there's some one--in the hall. It must be John." + +Reluctantly he loosed her, and she left him quickly for the dark passage +which covered and yet cooled her as she called out, "John! Is that you?" + +"Both of us," Rupert answered. + +"But it's Friday." + +"Yes. Won't you let me have a whole holiday tomorrow?" + +She looked back into the kitchen and saw George prepared to meet her +brothers. Never before had she seen him with so fine a manner, and, +smiling at him, she felt like a conspirator, leagued with this man who +was liberated by possession of her, against the two who would feel +horror when they learnt she was possessed. + +John's jaw tightened as he saw George and nodded to him, but Rupert's +greeting had its usual friendliness. + +"Hullo, here's George!" They shook hands. "I've not seen you for months. +What's the weather going to be tomorrow? It's starlight tonight." + +"It'll be fine, I think." + +"That's good. Helen, you've hidden my slippers again, and I told you +not to. What a fiend for tidiness you are!" + +"I couldn't leave them in the dust." She was half enjoying her +self-consciousness. "They're in the cupboard." + +"Find them, there's a dear." + +She brought the slippers and went back to her chair. The three men +seemed to fill the kitchen. John was silent and, leaning against the +table, he filled his pipe and looked up sometimes as the others talked. +Rupert, slim against Halkett's bulk, alert and straight, was thinking +faster than he spoke, and while he reminded George of this and that, how +they had gone ratting once together, how George had let him try a colt +that he was breaking, Helen knew there were subtle questions in his +brain, but if George suspected them, he gave no sign. He was at his +ease, for with men he had neither diffidence nor surliness, and Helen +remembered that she had hardly seen him except in the presence of Miriam +or herself, two women who, in different ways, had teased him into +sulkiness. + +Her heart lightened and, when he chanced to look at her, she smiled +again. A few seconds later, Rupert followed Helen's glance and learnt +what had caused the slight confusion of George's speech. She was looking +at him with an absorbed and hopeful interest. She was like a child +attracted by some new and changeful thing, and her beauty had an +animation it often lacked. + +"Can't we all sit down?" Rupert said. He promised himself a pleasant +evening of speculation. + +John handed his tobacco pouch to George and, having exchanged a few +remarks about the frost, the snow, the lambing season, they seemed to +consider that courtesy's demands had been fulfilled; but Rupert talked +to hide the curiosity which could have little satisfaction until Halkett +took his leave. + +When he rose to go, he stood before Helen's chair and looked down at +her. He was so near that she had to throw back her head before she could +see his face. + +"Good-night, George." + +"Good-night." He took her hand and kissed it, nodded to the others, and +went out. + +Imperceptibly, Helen straightened herself and took a breath. There was a +vague stir in the room. + +"Well! I've never been more damned," John said. + +"Why?" Helen asked. + +"That salute. Is it his usual manner?" + +"He has done it before. I liked it." + +"He did it very well," said Rupert. "Inspired, I should think. Will you +have a cigarette?" + +"Will it make me sick?" + +"Try it. But why do we find you entertaining the moorland rake?" + +She was absurd with the cigarette between her lips, and she asked +mumblingly as Rupert held the match, "Why do you call him that?" + +Rupert spread his hands. "He has a reputation." + +"And he deserves it," said John. + +She took the cigarette and many little pieces of tobacco from her mouth. +"Before you go any further, I think I had better tell you that I am +married to him." + +"Good God!" John said, in a conversational tone. + +There was a pause that threatened to be everlasting. + +"Helen, dear, did you say 'married to him'?" + +"Yes, I did." + +Rupert lighted one cigarette from another and carefully threw the old +one into the fire. + +"When?" John asked. He was still staring at her. + +"I forget the date." + +"Won't you tell us about it?" Rupert said. He leaned against the +mantelpiece and puffed quickly. + +"There's nothing more to tell." + +"But when was it?" John persisted. + +"Oh--about a month, six weeks, ago. The paper is upstairs, but one +forgets." + +"Wants to?" + +"I didn't say so, did I? Notya is not to know." + +"And Zebedee?" + +"Of course he knows." + +Rupert was frowning on her with a troubled look, and she knew he was +trying to understand, that he was anxious not to hurt her. + +"I'm damned if I understand it," John muttered. + +Her lips had a set smile. "I'm sure," she said lightly, "you'll never be +damned for that. I'm afraid I can't explain, but Zebedee knows +everything." + +They found nothing else to say: John turned away, at last, and busied +himself uneasily with his pipe: Rupert's cigarette became distasteful, +and, throwing it after the other, he drove his hands into his pockets +and watched it burn. + +"I suppose we ought to have congratulated George," he said, and looked +grieved at the omission. + +Helen laughed on a high note, and though she knew she was disclosing her +own trouble by that laughter, she could not stay it. + +"Oh, Rupert, don't!" + +"My dear, I know it's funny, but I meant it. I wish I could marry you +myself." + +She laughed again and waved them both away. "Go and see Notya. She may +not be asleep." + +When John came downstairs, he looked through the kitchen door and said +good-night; then he advanced and kissed her. She could not remember when +he had last done that, and it was, she thought, as though he kissed the +dead. He patted her arm awkwardly. + +"Good-night, child." + +"Don't worry," she said, steadying her lips. + +"Is there anything we can do?" + +"Be nice to George." + +"Oh, I've got to be." + +"John, I wish you wouldn't talk as if he's--bad." + +"I didn't mean to set myself up as judge, but I never liked him." + +"But I like him," she said. "Go home and tell Lily. I'm afraid she'll +lie awake all night!" + +"What a family this is!" + +"Once, I might have said that to you. I didn't, John." + +"But we are a success." + +"And why should we not be? We shall be! We--we are. Go home. +Good-night." + +She waited for Rupert, dreading his quick eyes. + +"Notya seems better," he said easily. "Well, did you finish the +cigarette?" + +"I didn't like it." + +"And it looked wrong. A piece of fine sewing suits you better." + +She smiled. "Does it? Have you had supper?" + +"Lily fed me. I like that girl. The only people I ever want to marry are +the ones that some one else has chosen. It's contrariness, I suppose." +He looked round. "Two arm-chairs? Do you always sit here?" + +"Yes. Notya can't hear us." + +"I see." + +"And you want to see the rest?" + +"I do." + +"I shall show you nothing." + +"I'd rather find it out." + +"Tomorrow," she said, "you will see Daniel and Zebedee. I know you'll be +curious about him. I don't mind, but don't let him notice it, please, +Rupert." + +He marked her little tremor. "Trust me. I'm wasted on the bank." + +"You and Daniel will have a fine talk, I suppose. The walls of that +house are very thin. Be careful." + +"Yes, my dear. I can't help wishing I had not left home." + +She stood up. "I don't wish anything undone. If you begin undoing, you +find yourself in a worse tangle." + +"You're not unhappy?" + +"Do I look it?" + +"You always answer one question with another. You didn't look it. You do +now." + +She sighed. "I almost wish you hadn't come, Rupert. You made beauty seem +so near." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +She had another reason for her wish. She knew that Rupert had but +delayed what was inevitable, and when it came one night, a few weeks +later, she had no feeling beyond relief that the fight was over, that +she need no longer scheme to outwit George with her advances and +retreats. Afterwards, she suffered from a black anger that she must +serve the man she did not love, a dull despair from the knowledge that, +while both lived, the tie would hold. Her mind tried, and failed, to +make nothing of it; by nature she was bound to him who took most from +her, and when George had played the husband, he left her destitute. That +Zebedee would always have the best of her had been her boast, but for a +time, there was nothing he could have. She was George Halkett's woman. +The day was fogged with memories of the night, yet through that fog she +looked for his return. She was glad when she heard his step outside and, +going to the kitchen door, felt herself lifted off her feet. She did not +try to analyze the strange mingling of willingness and shrinking that +made up her feeling for him, but she found mental safety in abandoning +herself to what must be, a primitive pleasure in the fact of being +possessed, a shameful happiness in submission. + +Nevertheless, it was only in his presence that she lost her red sense of +shame, and though she still walked nobly, looked with clear eyes, and +carried a high head, she fancied herself bent by broken pride, blinded +and dusty-haired. Zebedee's books helped her to blot out that vision of +herself and the other of Mildred Caniper still sitting by the fire and +refusing the fulness of the sun. What she read amazed her with its +profundity and amused her with its inconclusiveness. She had an awed +pity for men whose lives were occupied in these endless questionings, +and while Mildred idly turned the pages of periodicals she once had +scorned, Helen frowned and bit her lips over the problems of the ages. + +They gave her and Zebedee something impersonal to talk of when he came +on his weekly visit. + +"It's no good telling me," she warned him firmly, "that my poplars are +not really there. I can feel them and see them and hear them--always +hear them. If they weren't there, they would be! If I exist, so do +they." + +"Quite so. You're doing very well. I told you the medicine would turn to +food." + +"It's not food. What is it that nasty people chew? Gum? Yes, +chewing-gum. It keeps me going. I mean--" + +He helped her over that abyss. "It's a most improper name for wisdom." + +"This isn't wisdom. Wisdom is just going on--and--keeping the world +clean." + +"Then," he said slowly, "you may count among the sages." + +They stood together by the schoolroom window and watched the windy +sunshine darting among the laurel bushes and brightening the brass on +the harness of the patient horse outside the gate. + +"I wonder," Helen said, speaking as if she were not quite awake, +"whether Mr. Pinderwell ever read philosophy." + +"No," Zebedee answered in the same tones; "he took to wood-carving." + +This time she leapt the abyss unaided and with a laugh. + +"But then, he never had a stepmother nodding beside the fire. What is +going to happen to her?" + +"She has very little strength." + +"But she isn't going to die?" + +"Not yet, I think, dear." The word slipped from him, and they both +listened to its echoes. + +"I wish you'd go," she whispered. + +"I'm going." He did not hesitate at the door or he would have seen her +drop into a chair and let her limp arms slide across the table as she +let out a noisy sob of happiness because his friendliness was still only +a cloak that could sometimes be lifted to show the man beneath. + +Almost gaily, she went to Mildred Caniper's room. + +"Zebedee stayed a long time today. I could hear you talking." + +"Yes." + +"Isn't he busy now?" + +"He works all day and half the night." + +"Oh." Mildred's twisted face regained a semblance of its old expression +and her voice some of its precision. "Then you ought to be looking after +him." + +"I can't manage both of you." + +"No, but Mrs. Samson could look after me." The words were slovenly +again; the face changed subtly as sand changes under water. It became +soft and indefinite and yielding, betraying the slackening of the mind. + +"Mrs. Samson is a nice woman--very kind. She knows what I want. I must +have a good fire. I don't need very much. She doesn't bother me--or +talk. I don't want to be bothered--about anything. I'm still--rather +tired. I like to sit here and be warm. Give me that magazine, Helen. +There's a story--" She found the place and seemed to forget all she had +said. + +Helen left the room and, as she sat on the topmost stair, she wished Mr. +Pinderwell would stop and speak to her, but he hurried up and down as he +had always done, intent on his own sad business of seeking what he had +lost. It was strange that he could not see the children who were so +plain to Helen. She turned to speak to them, but she had outgrown them +in these days, and even Jane was puzzled by her grief that Mildred +Caniper wanted to be kept warm, and, with some lingering faculty, wished +Helen to be happy, but needed her no longer. + +Helen whispered into the dimness because her thoughts were unwholesome +and must be cast forth. + +"She only wants to be kept warm! It was sweet of her to try to think of +me, but she couldn't go on thinking. Oh, Jane, Mrs. Samson and I are +just the same. She doesn't mind who puts coals on the fire. I wish she'd +die. I always loved her very much, and she loved me, but now she +doesn't. She's just a--bundle. It's ugly. If I stay here and look at +her, I shall get like her. Oh--she wants me to go and live with Zebedee. +Zebedee! He wouldn't like me to go on like this. The philosophers--but +that old bishop can't make me think that Notya isn't dying. That's what +she's doing, Jane--dying. But no, dying is good and death is splendid. +This is decay." She stood up and shuddered. "I mustn't stay here," she +murmured sensibly. + +She called to Jim in a loud voice that attempted cheerfulness and +alarmed her with its noise in the silent house of sorrow and disease. + +"The moor, Jim!" she said, and when she had passed through the garden +with the dog leaping round her, she shook her skirts and held up her +palms to get the freshness of the wind on them. + +"We'll find water," she said, but she would not go to the stream that +ran into the larch-wood. Today, the taint of evil was about Halkett's +Farm, as that of decay was in Mildred Caniper's room. + +"We'll go to the pool where the rushes are, Jim, and wash our hands and +face." + +They ran fleetly, and as they went she saw George at a distance on his +horse. He waved his hat, and, before she knew what she was doing, she +answered with a grimace that mocked him viciously and horrified her with +its spontaneity. She cried aloud, and, sinking to the ground, she hid +her dishonoured face. + +"No, no," she moaned. She hated that action like an obscenity. Surely +she was tainted, too. + +Jim licked her covering hands, and whined when she paid no heed. + +"Hateful! hateful!" were the words he heard and tried to understand. He +sat, alert and troubled, while clouds rolled across the sky, and dark +reflections of them made stately progress on the moor. Sheep, absorbed +in feeding, drew near, looked up and darted off with foolish, warning +bleats, but still his mistress kept her face hidden, and did not move +until he barked loudly at the sight of Halkett riding towards them. + +"I couldn't keep away," the man said, bending from his saddle. + +She rose and leaned against his knee. "George, what do I look like?" + +His fervent answer was not the one she wanted. + +"But do I look the same?" + +He held her by the chin. "Have you been crying?" + +"No." + +"What is it then?" + +She looked beyond him at the magnificence of the clouds and her troubles +dwindled. "I felt miserable. I was worried." + +"And you're happier now?" + +She nodded. + +"Then give me a kiss." + +She turned her cheek to him. + +"No. I said, give me one." + +"I can't reach you." + +"You don't want to." + +"I never want to kiss people." + +"People! Then do it to please me." + +His cheek hardly felt her pressure. + +"It's the way a ghost would kiss," he said. + +"That's how I shall haunt you when I'm dead." + +"Nay, we'll have to die together." + +She wrinkled her face. "But we can't do that without a lot of practice." + +"What? Oh!" Her jokes made him uneasy. "I must go on. Helen, I'll see +you tonight." + +"Yes, you'll see the ghost who gives the little kisses." + +"Don't say it!" + +"But it's nice to be a ghost, you feel so light and free. There isn't +any flesh to be corrupted. I'm glad I thought of that, George. +Good-bye." + +"No. Come here again. Stand on my foot." He clinched her waist and +kissed her on the mouth and let her drop. "You are no ghost," he said, +and rode away. + +She was indeed no ghost. Some instinct told him how to deal with her, +and when he insisted on her humanity, her body thrilled in answer and +agreement, and with each kiss and each insistence she became more his +own; yet she was thrall less to the impulses of her youth than to some +age-old willingness to serve him who possessed her. But her life had +mental complications, for she dreaded in Zebedee the disloyalty which +she reluctantly meted out to him when George had her in his arms. She +would not have Zebedee love another woman, and she longed for assurance +of his devotion, but she could not pass the barrier he had set up; she +could not try to pass it without another and crueller disloyalty to both +men. Her body was faithful to George and her mind to Zebedee, and the +two fought against each other and wearied her. + +The signs of strain were only in her eyes; her body had grown more +beautiful, and when Miriam arrived on a short visit to the moor, she +stopped in the doorway to exclaim, "But you're different! Why are you +different?" + +"It is a long time since you went away," Helen said slowly. "Centuries." + +"Not to me! The time has flown." She laughed at her recollections. "And, +anyhow, it's only a few months, and you have changed." + +"I expect it is my clothes," Helen said calmly. "They must look queer to +you." + +"They do. But nice. I've brought some new ones for you. I think you'll +soon be prettier than I am. Think of that!" + +They had each other by the hand and looked admiringly in each other's +face, remembering small peculiarities they had half forgotten: there was +the soft hair on Helen's temples, trying, as Zebedee said, to curl; +there was the little tilt to Miriam's eyebrows, giving her that look of +some one not quite human, more readily moved to mischief than to +kindness, and never to be held at fault. + +"Yes, it's centuries," Helen said. + +"It's only a day!" + +"Then you have been happy," Helen said, letting out a light sigh of +content. + +"Yes, but I'm glad to be here again, so long as I needn't stay. I've +heaps to tell you." She stretched herself, like a cat. "I knew there was +fun in the world. I had faith, my dear, and I found it." + +Helen was looking at her with her usual confusion of feelings: she +wanted to shake off Miriam's complacence roughly, while she was fondly +glad that she should have it, but this remark would not pass without a +word, and Helen shook her head. + +"No; you didn't find it. Uncle Alfred gave it to you--he and I." + +"You? Oh--yes, I suppose you did. Well--thank you very much, and don't +let us talk about it any more. You're like a drag-net, bringing up the +unpleasant. Don't let us quarrel." + +"Quarrel! I couldn't," Helen said simply. + +"Are you so pleased to see me?" + +Helen's reluctant smile expanded. "I suppose it's that." + +"Aha! It's lovely to be me! People go down like ninepins! Why?" Piously, +she appealed to Heaven. "Why?" + +"They get up again, though," Helen said with a chuckle. + +"For instance?" Miriam demanded truculently. + +"Oh, I'm not going to be hard on you," Helen said, and though she spoke +with genuine amusement, she felt a little seed of anger germinating in +her breast. That was what George had done to her: he had made her heart +a fertile place for passions which her mind disdained. + +"And I'm so glad to have you here," she added, defying harsh emotions. + +"Ah! You're rather nice--and, yes, you are much prettier. How have you +done it? I should like to kiss you." + +"Well, you may." She put her face close to Miriam's, and enjoyed the +coolness of that sisterly salute. + +"But," Miriam said, startled by a thought, "need I kiss--her?" + +"No. You won't want to do that. She isn't very nice to look at." + +Miriam shrank against the wall. "Not ugly?" + +"You must come and see," Helen said. She was shaken again by a moment's +anger as she looked on Miriam's lovely elegance and remembered the price +that had been paid for it. "You must come and see her," she repeated. +"Do you think you are the only one who hates deformity?" + +"Deformity?" Miriam whispered. + +"Her face is twisted. Oh--I see it every day!" + +"Helen, don't! I'll go, but don't make me stay long. I'll go now," she +said, and went on timid feet. + +Helen stayed outside the door, for she could not bring herself to +witness Mildred Caniper's betrayal of her decay to one who had never +loved her: there was an indecency in allowing Miriam to see it. Helen +leaned against the door and heard faint sounds of voices, and in +imagination she saw the scene. Mildred Caniper sat in her comfortable +chair by a bright fire, though it was now late June of a triumphant +summer, and Miriam stood near, answering questions quickly, her feet +light on the ground and ready to bear her off. + +Very soon the door was opened and Miriam caught Helen's arm. + +"I didn't think she would be like that," she whispered. "Helen, +she's--she's--" + +"I know she is," Helen said deeply. + +"But I can't bear it!" + +"You don't have to." + +They went into Phoebe's room and shut the door, and it was a comfort +to Miriam to have two solid blocks of wood between her and the +deterioration in the chair. + +"I know I ought to stay with you--all alone in this house--no one to +talk to--and at night--Are you afraid? Do you have to sleep with her?" + +"Sometimes," Helen said, and drew both hands down her face. + +"She might get up and walk about and say things. It isn't right for you, +or for me and you, to have to live here. Why doesn't Zebedee do +something? Why doesn't he take you away?" + +"And leave her? I wouldn't go. The moor has hold of me, and it will keep +me always. I'm rooted here, and I shall tell George to bury me on a dark +night in some marshy place that's always green. And I shall make it +greener. You're frightened of me! Don't be silly! I'm saner than most +people, I think, but living alone makes one different, perhaps. Don't +look like that. I'm the same Helen." + +"Yes. I won't be frightened. But why did you say 'George'?" + +Helen took a breath as though she lifted something heavy. + +"Because he is my husband," she said clearly. She had never used the +word before, and she enjoyed the pain it gave her. + +There were no merciful shadows in the room: daylight poured in at the +windows and revealed Helen standing with hands clasped before her and +gazing with wide eyes at Miriam's pale face, her parted lips, her +horrified amazement. + +"George?" she asked huskily. + +"Yes." + +"But why?" + +"Why does one marry?" + +"Oh, tell me, Helen! You can't have loved him." + +"Perhaps he loved me." + +"But--that night! Have you forgotten it?" + +"No. I remember." + +"So do I! I dream about it! Helen, tell me. What was it? There's +Zebedee. And it was me that George loved." + +Helen spoke sharply. "He didn't love you. You bewitched him. He loves +me." + +"You haven't told me everything." + +"There is no reason why I should." + +Miriam spoke on a sob. "You needn't be unkind. And where's your ring? +You haven't said you love him. You're not really married, are you?" + +"Yes, I am." + +Crying without stint, Miriam went blindly to the window. + +"I wish I hadn't come--!" + +"You mustn't be unhappy. I'm not. It isn't very polite to George--or +me." + +"But when--when you think of that night--Oh! You must be miserable." + +"Then you should be." + +"I?" + +"It was your doing. You tormented him. You played with him. You liked to +draw him on and push him back. You turned a man into a--into what we saw +that night. George isn't the only man who can be changed into a beast +when--when he meets Circe! With me--" Her voice broke with her quickened +breathing. Her indignation was no longer for her own maimed life: it was +for George, who had been used lightly as a plaything, broken, and given +to her for mending. + +For a long time Miriam cried, and did not speak, and when she turned to +ask a question Helen had almost forgotten her; for all her pity had gone +out to George and beautified him and made him dear. + +"Tell me one thing," Miriam said earnestly. "It hadn't anything to do +with me?" + +"What?" + +"Marrying him. You see, I fainted, didn't I?" + +"Yes." + +"Something might have happened then." + +"It did." + +"What was it?" + +"He fell in love with me!" She laughed. "It's possible, because it +happened! Otherwise, of course, neither of us could believe it! Oh, +don't be silly. Don't look miserable." + +"I can't help it. It's my fault. It's my fault if Zebedee is unhappy and +if you are. Yes, it is, because if I hadn't--Still, I don't know why you +married him." + +"I think it was meant to be. If we look back it seems as if it must have +been." It was not Helen who looked through the window. "Yes," she said +softly, "it is all working to one end. It had to be. Don't talk about it +any more." + +Wide-eyed above her tear-stained cheeks, her throat working piteously, +Miriam stared at this strange sister. "But tell me if you are happy," +she said in a breaking voice. + +"Yes, I am. I love him," she said softly. Now, she did not lie. The pity +that had taught her to love Mildred Caniper had the same lesson in +regard to George, and that night, when she looked into the garden and +saw him standing there, because he had been forbidden the house, she +leaned from her bedroom window and held out her hands and ran downstairs +to speak to him. + +"You looked so lonely," she told him. + +"Didn't you want me a little?" he asked. He looked down, big and gentle, +and she felt her heart flutter as with wings. She nodded, and leaned +against him. It was the truth: she did want him a little. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +Miriam had the evidence of her own eyes to assure her that Helen was not +unhappy. The strangely united bride and bridegroom were seen on the moor +together, and they looked like lovers. Moreover, Helen stole out to meet +him at odd hours, and, on the day before Miriam went away, she surprised +them in a heathery dip of ground where Helen sewed and George read +monotonously from a book. + +"I--didn't know you were here," Miriam stammered. + +"Well, we're not conspirators," Helen said. "Come and sit down. George +is reading to me." + +"No, I don't think I will, thank you." Until now, she had succeeded in +avoiding George, but there was no escape from his courteous greeting and +outstretched hand. His manners had improved, she thought: he had no +trace of awkwardness; he was cool and friendly, and, with the folly of +the enamoured, he could no longer find her beautiful. She was at once +aware of that, and she knew the meaning of his glance at Helen, who bent +over her work and did not look at them. + +"How are you?" Halkett said. + +She found it difficult to answer him, and while she told herself she did +not want his admiration, she felt that some show of embarrassment was +her due. + +"I'm very well. No; I won't stay. Helen, may I take Jim?" + +"If he will go with you." + +Jim refused to stir, and with the burden of that added insult, Miriam +went on her way. It seemed to her that, in the end, Helen had +everything. + +Helen believed that the wisdom of her childhood had returned to her to +teach her the true cause of happiness. For her it was born of the act of +giving, and her knowledge of George's need was changed into a feeling +that, in its turn, transformed existence. Her mental confusion cleared +itself and, concentrating her powers on him, she tried not to think of +Zebedee. She would not dwell on the little, familiar things she loved in +him, nor would she speculate on his faithfulness or his pain, for his +exile was the one means of George's homecoming. And, though she did not +know it, Zebedee, loving her truly, understood the workings of her mind, +and his double misery lessened to a single one when he saw her growing +more content. + +He went to Pinderwell House one fine evening, for there were few days +when he could find time to drive up the long road, and though Mildred +Caniper did not need his care, she looked for his coming every week. + +It was a placid evening after a day of heat, and he could see the smoke +from the kitchen chimney going straight and delicately towards the sky. +The moor was one sheet of purple at this season, and it had a look of +fulfilment and of peace. It had brought forth life and had yet to see it +die, and it seemed to lie with its hands folded on its broad breast and +to wait tranquilly for what might come. + +Zebedee tried to imitate that tranquillity as the old horse jogged up +the road, but he had not yet arrived at such perfection of control that +his heart did not beat faster as he knocked at Helen's door. + +Tonight there was no answer, and having knocked three times he went into +the hall, looked into each room and found all empty. He called her name +and had silence for response. He went through the kitchen to seek her in +the garden, and there, under the poplars, he saw her sitting and looking +at the tree-tops, while George smoked beside her and Jim lay at her +feet. + +It was a scene to stamp itself on the mind of a discarded lover, and +while he took the impress he stood stonily in the doorway. He saw +Halkett say a word to Helen, and she sprang up and ran across the lawn. + +"I never thought you'd come," she said, breathing quickly. + +He moved aside so that her body should not hide him from Halkett's +careful eyes. + +"Has something happened?" she asked. "You look so white." + +"The day has been very hot." + +"Yes; up here, even, and in that dreadful little town--Are you working +hard?" + +"I think so." + +"And getting rich?" + +"Not a bit." + +"I don't suppose you charge them half enough," she said, and made him +laugh. "Come and see Notya before she goes to sleep." + +"Mayn't I speak to Mr. Halkett?" he asked. + +She did not look at the two men as they stood together. Again she +watched the twinkling poplar leaves and listened to their voices +rustling between the human ones, and when she seemed to have been +listening for hours, she said, "Zebedee, you ought to come. It's time +Notya went to sleep." + +She led him through the house, and neither spoke as they went upstairs +and down again, but at the door, she said, "I'll see you drive away," +and followed him to the gate. + +She stood there until he was out of sight, and then she went slowly to +the kitchen where George was waiting for her. + +"You've been a long time." + +"Have I? I mean, yes, I have." + +"What have you been doing?" + +"Standing at the gate." + +"Talking?" + +"Thinking." + +"Was he thinking too?" + +"I expect so." + +"H'm. Do you like him to come marching through your house?" + +"Why not? He's an old friend of ours." + +"He seems to be! You were in a hurry to get away from me, I noticed, and +then you have to waste time mooning with him in the twilight." + +"He wasn't there, George." She laid the back of her hand against her +forehead. "I watched him out of sight." + +"What for?" + +"He looked so lonely, going home to--that. Are you always going to be +jealous of any one who speaks to me? It's rather tiring." + +"Are you tired?" + +"Yes," she said with a jerk, and pressed her lips together. He pulled +her to his knee, and she put her face against his strong, tanned neck. + +"Well," he said, "what's this for?" + +"Don't tease me." + +"I'm not so bad, then, am I?" + +"Not so bad," she answered. "You have been smoking one of those cigars." + +"Yes. D'you mind?" + +"I love the smell of them," she said, and he laid his cheek heavily on +hers. + +"George!" + +"U-um?" he said, drowsing over her. + +"I think the rest of the summer is going to be happy." + +"Yes, but how long's this to last? I want you in my house." + +"I wish it wasn't in a hollow." + +"What difference does that make? We're sheltered from the wind. We lie +snug on winter nights." + +"I don't want to. I like to hear the wind come howling across the moor +and beat against the walls as if it had great wings. It does one's +crying for one." + +"Do you want to cry?" + +"Yes." + +"Now?" + +"No." + +"When, then?" + +"Don't you?" + +"Of course not. I swear instead." He shook her gently. "Tell me when you +want to cry." + +"Oh, just when the wind does it for me," she said sleepily. + +"I'll never understand you." + +"Yes, you will. I'm very simple, and now I'm half asleep." + +"Shall I carry you upstairs?" + +She shook her head. + +"Helen, come to my house. Bring Mrs. Caniper. I want you. And the whole +moor's talking about the way we live." + +"Oh, let the moor talk! Don't you love to hear it? It's the voice I love +best. I shan't like living in your house while this one stands." + +"But you'll have to." + +She put up a finger. "I didn't say I wouldn't. Will you never learn to +trust me?" + +"I am learning," he said. + +"And you must be patient. Most people are engaged before they marry. You +married me at once." + +"Hush!" he said. "I don't like thinking about that." + +After this confession, her mind crept a step forward, and she dared to +look towards a time when Mildred Caniper would be dead and she at +Halkett's Farm. The larch-lined hollow would half suffocate her, she +believed, but she would grow accustomed to its closeness as she would +grow used to George and George to her. Soon he would completely trust +her. He would learn to ask her counsel, and, at night, she would sit and +sew and listen to his talk of crops and cattle, and the doings and +misdoings of his men. He would have no more shyness of her, but +sometimes she would startle him into a memory of how he had wooed her in +the kitchen and seen her as a star. And she would have children: not +those shining ones who were to have lived in the beautiful bare house +with her and Zebedee, but sturdy creatures with George's mark on them. +She would become middle-aged and lose her slenderness, and half forget +she had ever been Helen Caniper; yet George and the children would +always be a little strange to her, and only when she was alone and on +the moor would she renew her sense of self and be afraid of it. + +The prospect did not daunt her, for she had faith in her capacity to +bear anything except the love of Zebedee for another woman. She ignored +her selfishness towards him because the need to keep him was as strong +as any other instinct: he was hers, and she had the right to make him +suffer, and, though she honestly tried to shut her thoughts against him, +when she did think of him it was to own him, to feel a dangerous joy in +the memory of his thin face and tightened lips. + +On the moor, harvests were always late, and George was gathering hay in +August when richer country was ready to deliver up its corn, and one +afternoon when he was carting hay from the fields beyond the farm, Helen +walked into the town, leaving Lily Brent in charge of Mildred Caniper. + +Helen had seldom been into the town since the day when she had married +George, and the wind, trying to force her back, had beaten the body +that was of no more value to her. Things were better now, and she had +avenged herself gaily on the god behind the smoke. He had heard few +sounds of weeping and he had not driven her from the moor: he had merely +lost a suppliant and changed a girl into a woman, and today, in her +independence of fate, she would walk down the long road and plant a +pleasant thought at every step, and she need not look at the square +house which Zebedee had bought for her. + +She had told George to meet her at the side road if he had any errands +for her in the town, and though he had none, he was there before her. +Watching her approach, he thought he had never seen her lovelier. She +wore a dress and hat of Miriam's choosing, the one of cream colour and +the other black, and the beauty of their simple lines added to the grace +that could still awe him. + +"You look--like a swan," he said. + +"Oh, George, a horrid bird!" She came close and looked up, for she liked +to see him puzzled and adoring. + +"It's the way you walk--and the white. And that little black hat for a +beak." + +"Well, swan or not," she said, and laughed, "you think I look nice, +don't you?" + +"I should think I do!" He stepped back to gaze at her. "You must always +have clothes like that. There's no need for you to make your own." + +"But I like my funny little dresses! Don't I generally please you? Have +you been thinking me ugly all this time?" + +He did not answer that. "I wish I was coming with you." + +"You mustn't. There are hay-seeds on you everywhere. Is the field nearly +finished? George, you are not answering questions!" + +"I'm thinking about you. Helen, you needn't go just yet. Sit down under +this tree. You're lovely. And I love you. Helen, you love me! You're +different now. Will you wear that ring?" + +Her mind could not refuse it; she was willing to wear the badge of her +submission and so make it complete, and she gave a shuddering sigh. "Oh, +George--" + +"Yes, yes, you will. Look, here it is. I always have it with me. Give me +your little hand. Isn't it bright and heavy? Do you like it?" He held +her closely. "And my working clothes against your pretty frock! D'you +mind?" + +"No." She was looking at the gold band on her finger. "It's heavy, +George." + +"I chose a heavy one." + +"Have you had it in your pocket all the time?" + +"All the time." + +He and she had been alike in cherishing a ring, but when she reached +home she would take Zebedee's from its place and hide it safely. She +could not give it back to him: she could not wear it now. + +"I must go," she said, and freed herself. + +He kissed the banded finger. "Be quick and come back and let me see you +wearing it again." + +It weighted her, and she went more slowly down the road, feeling that +the new weight was a symbol, and when she looked back and saw George +standing where she had left him, she uttered a small cry he could not +hear and ran to him. + +"George, you must always love me now. You--I--" + +"What is it, love?" + +"Nothing. Let me go. Good-bye," she said, and walked on at her slow +pace. Light winds brought summer smells to her, clouds made lakes of +shadow on the moor, and here, where few trees grew and little traffic +passed, there were no dusty leaves to tell of summer's age; yet, in the +air, there was a smell of flowers changing to fruit. + +She passed the gorse bushes in their second blossoming, and the moor, +stretched before her, was as her life promised to be: it was monotonous +in its bright colouring, quiet and serene, broad-bosomed for its +children. Old sheep looked up at her as she went by, and she saw herself +in some relationship to them. They were the sport of men, and so was +she, yet perhaps God had some care of them and her. It was she and the +great God of whose existence she was dimly sure who had to contrive +honourable life for her, and the one to whom she had yearly prayed must +remain in his own place, veiled by the smoke of the red fires, a +survival and a link like the remembrance of her virginity. + +So young in years, so wise in experience of the soul, she thought there +was little more for her to learn, but acquaintance with birth and death +awaited her: they were like beacons to be lighted on her path, and she +had no fear of them. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +She did her shopping in her unhurried, careful way, and went on to the +outfitter who made John's corduroy trousers. Clothes that looked as if +they were made of cardboard hung outside the shop; unyielding coats, +waistcoats and trousers seemed to be glued against the door: stockings, +suspended by their gaudy tops, flaunted stiff toes in the breeze, and +piles of more manageable garments were massed on chairs inside, and +Helen was aghast at the presence of so many semblances of man. + +It was dark in the shop, and the smell of fustian absorbed the air. The +owner, who wore an intricately-patterned tie, stood on the pavement and +talked to a friend, while a youth, pale through living in obscurity, +lured Helen in. + +She gave her order: two pairs of corduroy trousers to be made for Mr. +Caniper of Brent Farm, to the same measurements as before: she wished to +see the stuff. + +"If you'll take a seat, miss--" + +She would rather stand outside the door, she said, and he agreed that +the day was warm. + +The narrow street was thronged with people who were neither of the town +nor of the country, and suffered the disabilities of the hybrid. There +were few keen or beautiful faces, and if there were fine bodies they +were hidden under clumsy clothes. Helen wanted to strip them all, and +straighten them, and force them into health and comeliness, and though +she would not have her moor peopled by them, she wished they might all +have moors of their own. + +The young man was very slow. She could hear him struggling with bales of +cloth and breathing heavily. It was much hotter here than on the moor, +and she supposed that human beings could grow accustomed to any smell, +but she stepped further towards the kerbstone and drew in what air the +street could spare to her. + +Quite unconscious of her fairness against the dingy background, she +watched the moving people and heard the talk of the two men near her. +They spoke of the hay crop, the price of bacon, the mismanagement of the +gas company, and the words fell among the footsteps of the passers-by, +and the noise of wheels, and became one dull confusion of sound to her; +but all sounds fainted and most sights grew misty when she saw Zebedee +walking on the other side of the street, looking down as he went, but +bending an ear to the girl beside him. + +Men and women flitted like shadows between him and Helen, but she saw +plainly enough. Zebedee was interested: he nodded twice, looked at the +girl and laughed, while she walked sideways in her eagerness. She was +young and pretty: no one, Helen thought, had ever married her. + +The noise of the street rushed on her again, and she heard the shopman +say, "That's a case, I think. I've seen that couple about before. Time +he was married, too." + +Slowly Helen turned a head, which felt stiff and swollen, to look at the +person who could say so. She restrained a desire to hold it, and, +stepping to the threshold of the shop, she called into the depths that +she would soon return. + +Without any attempt at secrecy she followed that pair absorbed in one +another. She went because there was no choice, she was impelled by her +necessity to know and unhindered by any scruples, and when she had seen +the two pass down the quiet road leading to his house, with his hand on +her elbow and her face turned to his, Helen went back to the young man +and the bales of cloth. + +She chose the corduroy and left the shop, and it was not long before she +found herself outside the town, but she could remember nothing of her +passage. She came to a standstill where the moor road stretched before +her, and there she suffered realization to fall on her with the weight +of many waters. She cried out under the shock, and, turning, she ran +without stopping until she came to Zebedee's door. + +An astonished maid tried not to stare at this flushed and elegant lady. + +"The doctor is engaged, miss," she said. + +"I shall wait. Please tell him that I must see him." + +"What name shall I say?" + +"Miss Caniper. Miss Helen Caniper." She had no memory of any other. + +She sat on one of the hard leather chairs and looked at a fern that died +reluctantly in the middle of the table. Her eyes burned and would not be +eased by tears, her heart leapt erratically in her breast, yet the one +grievance of which she was exactly conscious was that Zebedee had a new +servant and had not told her. If she had to have her tinker, surely +Zebedee might have kept Eliza. She was invaded by a cruel feeling of his +injustice; but her thoughts grew vague as she sat there, and her dry +lips parted and closed, as though they tried to frame words and could +not. For what seemed a long, long time, she could hear the sound of +voices through the wall: then the study door was opened, a girl laughed, +Zebedee spoke; another door was opened, there were steps on the path and +the gate clicked. She sat motionless, still staring at the fern, but +when Zebedee entered she looked up at him and spoke. + +"Zebedee," she said miserably. + +"Come into my room," he said. + +The door was shut on them, and she dropped against it. + +"Zebedee, I can't bear it." + +"My little life!" + +"I was so happy," she said piteously, "and, in the street, I saw you +with that girl. You held her arm, and I had to come to you. I had, +Zebedee." + +"Had you, dear?" he said. He was pulling off her gloves, gently and +quickly, holding each wrist in turn, and together they looked at the +broad band of gold. Their eyes met in a pain beyond the reach of words. + +She bowed her head, but not in shame. + +"My hat, too," she said, and he found the pins and took it from her. + +"Your ring is here," she said, and touched herself. Her lips trembled. +"I can't go back." + +"You need not, dearest one. Sit down. I must go and speak to Mary." + +"She is better than Eliza," Helen said when he returned. + +"Yes, better than Eliza." He spoke soothingly. "Are you comfortable +there? Tell me about it, dear." He folded his arms and leaned against +his desk, and as he watched her he saw the look of strain pass from her +face. + +She smiled at him. "Your cheeks are twitching." + +"Are they?" + +"They always do when you think hard." + +"You are sitting where you sat when you first came here." + +"And there were no cakes." + +"Only buns." + +"And they were stale." + +"You said you liked them." + +"I liked--everything--that day." + +"I think," he said, jerking his chin upwards, "we won't have any +reminiscences." + +"Why not?" she asked softly. She went to him and put her arms round his +neck. "It's no good, Zebedee. I've tried. I really loved him--but it's +you--I belong to you." He could hardly hear what she said. "Can you love +me any longer? I've been--his. I've liked it. I was ready to do +anything--like that--for him." + +"Speak a little louder, dear." + +"You see, one could forget. And I did think about children, Zebedee, I +couldn't help it." + +"Precious, of course you couldn't." + +"But you were always mine. And when I saw you this afternoon, there was +no one else. And no one else can have you. You don't love any one but +me. How could you? She can't have you. I want you. And you're mine. Your +hands--and eyes--and face--this cheek--You--you--I can't--I don't know +what I'm saying. I can't go back! He'll--he put this ring on me today. I +let him. I was glad--somehow. Glad!" She broke away from him and burst +into a fit of weeping. + +He knew the properties of her tears, and he had no hope of any gain but +what could come to him by way of her renewed serenity; he made shift to +be content with that, and though the sound of her crying hurt him +violently, he smiled at her insistence on possessing him. She had +married another man, but she would not resign her rights to the one she +had deserted, though he, poor soul, must claim none. It was one of the +inconsistencies he loved in her, and he was still smiling when she +raised her head from the arm of the chair where she had laid it. + +"I'm sorry, Zebedee. I'm better now. I'm--all right." + +"Wipe your eyes, Best of all. We're going to have some tea. Can you look +like some one with a--with a nervous breakdown?" + +"Quite easily. Isn't that just what I have had?" + +Mary was defter than Eliza and apparently less curious, and while she +came and went they talked, like the outfitter and his friend, about the +crops; but when she had gone Zebedee moved the table to the side of +Helen's chair, so that, as long ago, no part of her should be concealed. + +"Yes," he said, looking down, "but I like you better in your grey +frocks." + +"Do you? Do you? I'm glad," she said, but she did not tell him why. Her +eyes were shining, and he found her no less beautiful for their reddened +rims. "You are the most wonderful person in the world," she said. "It +was unkind of me to come, wasn't it?" + +"No, dear. Nothing is unkind when you do it." + +"But it was, Zebedee. Because I'm going back, after all." + +"I knew you would." + +"Did you? I must, you know." + +"Yes," he said, "I know. Helen, that girl--Daniel's in love with her." + +"Oh, poor Miriam! Another renegade! But I'm not jealous any more, so +don't explain." + +"But I want to tell you about her. He pursues and she wearies of him. +I'm afraid he's a dreadful bore." + +"But that's no reason why you should take her arm." + +"Did I take it? I like her. I wish she would marry Daniel, but he is +instructive in his love-making. He has no perceptions. I'm doing my best +for him, but he won't take my advice. Yes, I like her, but I shall never +love any one but you." + +"Oh, no, you couldn't really. But see what I have had to do!" Her eyes +were tired with crying. "And have to do," she added in a lower tone. "It +makes one think anything might happen. One loses faith. But now, here +with you, I could laugh at having doubted. Yes, I can laugh at that, and +more. That's the best of crying. It makes one laugh afterwards and see +clearly. I can be amused at my struggles now and see how small they +were." + +"But what of mine?" he asked. + +"I meant yours, too. We are not separate. No. Even now that I--that I +have a little love for George. He's rather like a baby, Zebedee. And he +doesn't come between. Be sure of that; always, always!" + +"Dearest, Loveliest, if you will stay with me--Well, I'm here when you +need me, and you know that." + +"Yes." She looked beyond him. "Coming here, this afternoon, I saw the +way. I made it beautiful. And then I saw you, and the mists came down +and I saw nothing else. But now I see everything by the light of you." +There was a pause. "I've never loved you more," she said. "And I want to +tell you something." She spoke on a rising note. "To me you are +everything that is good and true--and kind and loving. There is no limit +to your goodness. You never scold me, you don't complain, you still wait +in case I need you. I ought not to allow you to do that, but some day, +some day, perhaps I'll be as good as you are. I want you to remember +that you have been perfect to me." She said the word again and lingered +on it. "Perfect. If I have a son, I hope he'll be like you. I'll try to +make him." + +"Helen--" + +"Wait a minute. I want to say some more. I'm not going back because I am +afraid of breaking rules. I don't know anything about them, but I know +about myself, and I'm going back because, for me, it's the only thing to +do; and you see," she looked imploringly at him, "George needs me now +more than he did before. He trusts to me." + +"It is for you to choose, Beloved." + +"Yes," she said. "There's nothing splendid about me. I'm just--tame. I +wish I were different, Zebedee." + +"Then you are the only one who wishes it." + +She laughed a little and stood close to him. + +"Bless me before I go, for now I have to learn it all again." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +Helen had a greeting ready for each turn of the road, but George did not +appear. She looked for him at the side road to the farm, and she waited +there for a while. She had thought he would be on the watch for her, and +she had hoped for him. Since they had to meet, let it be soon: let her +heart learn to beat submissively again, and the mouth kissed by Zebedee +to take kisses from another. But he did not come, and later, when she +had helped Mildred Caniper to bed, Helen sat on the moor to waylay and +welcome him, and make amends for her unfaithfulness. + +The night was beautiful; the light wind had dropped, the sky was set +with stars, and small, pale moths made clouds above the heather. When +she shook a tuft of it, there came forth a sweet, dry smell. She looked +in wonder on the beauty of the world. Here, on the moor, there were such +things to see and hear and smell that it would be strange if she could +not find peace. In the town, it would be harder: it would be harder for +Zebedee, though he had his work and loved it as she loved the moor, and +she caught her breath sharply as she remembered his white face. There +were matters of which it was not wise to think too much, and what need +was there when he wanted her to be content, when the stars and a slip of +a new moon shone in a tender sky, and birds made stealthy noises, not to +wake the world? + +Once more it seemed to her that men and women saw happiness and sorrow +in a view too personal, and each individual too much isolated from the +rest. Here she sat, a tiny creature on the greatness of the moor, a mere +heartbeat in a vast life. If the heart missed a beat, the life would +still go on, yet it was her part to make the beat a strong and steady +one. + +She wanted George to come, but she had a new fear of him. She might have +lived a thousand years since she had parted from him a few hours back, +and her instinct was to run away as from a stranger, but she would sit +there until he was quite close, and then she would call his name and put +out her hand, the one that wore his ring, and he would pull her up and +take her home. She bowed her head to her knees. Well, already she had +much that other people missed: that young man in the shop had not these +little moths and the springing heather with purple flowers and the star +that shone like a friend above her home. + +The night grew darker: colour was sucked from the moor, and it lay as +black as deep lake water, blacker than the sky. It was time that country +folks were in their beds, and the Brent Farm lights went out as at a +signal. + +Helen went slowly through the garden and up the stairs, and when she had +undressed she sat beside her window, wondering why George had not come. +Surely she would have heard if any accident had befallen him? + +The quiet of the night assured her that all was well: the poplars were +concerned with their enduring effort to reach the sky; a cat went like a +moving drop of ink across the lawn. She stretched out for her dressing +gown and put it round her shoulders, and she sat there, leaning on the +window ledge and looking into the garden until her eyelids dropped and +resisted when she tried to raise them. + +She had almost fallen asleep when she heard a familiar noise outside her +door. She stood up and met George as he entered. + +"I'm glad you've come." She put out a timid hand to touch him and had it +brushed aside. + +"Out of my way!" he said, pushing past her. + +She saw he had been drinking though he was not drunk. His eyes were +red, and he looked at her as though he priced her, with such an +expression of disdaining a cheap thing that she learnt, in that moment, +the pain of all poor women dishonoured. Yet she followed him and made +him turn to her. + +"What have you been doing?" she said. "I have been waiting for so long." + +There came on his face the sneering look she had not lately seen, and in +his throat he made noises that for a little while did not come to words. + +"Ah! I've been into town, too; you little devil, pranking yourself out, +coming to me so soft and gentle--kissing--Here!" He took her by the +wrist and dragged the ring from her and made to throw it into the night. +"But no," he said slowly. "No. I think not. Come here again. You shall +wear it; you shall wear it to your dying day." + +"I'm willing to," she said. His arm was round her, hurting her. "Tell me +what's the matter, George." + +He gripped her fiercely and let her go so that she staggered. + +"Get back! I don't want to touch you!" Then he mimicked her. "'Won't you +ever learn to trust me?' I'd learnt. I'd have given you my soul to care +for. I--I'd done it--and you took it to the doctor!" + +"No," she said. "I took my own." She was shaking; her bare feet were ice +cold. "George--" + +"You lied about him! Yes, you did! You who are forever talking about +honesty!" + +"I didn't lie. I didn't tell you the whole truth, but now I will, though +I've never asked for any of your confessions. I shouldn't like to hear +them. I suppose you saw me this afternoon?" + +"Ay, I did. I saw you turn and run like a rabbit to that man's house. +I'd come to meet you, my God! I was happy. You'd my ring at last. I +followed you. I waited. I saw you come out, white, shaking, the way +you're shaking now." He dropped into a chair. "Dirt! Dirt!" he moaned. + +She made a sad little gesture at that word and began to walk up and down +the room. The grey dressing gown was slung about her shoulders like a +shawl, and he watched the moving feet. + +"And then you went and had a drink," she said. "Yes. I don't blame you. +That's what I was having, too. And my thirst is quenched. I'm not going +to be thirsty any more. I had a long drink of the freshest, loveliest +water, but I'll never taste it again. I'll never forget it either." For +a time there was no sound but that of her bare feet on the bare floor. +"What did you think I was doing there?" she whispered, and her pace grew +faster. + +His tone insulted her. "God knows!" + +"Oh, yes." + +"Kissing--I don't know. I don't know what you're equal to, with that +smooth face of yours." + +She halted in her march and stood before him. "I did kiss him. I'm glad. +There is no one so good in the whole world." + +She pressed her clasped hands against her throat. "I love him. I loved +him before I promised to marry you. I love him still. No one could help +doing that, I think. But it's different now. It has to be. I'm not his +wife. I went to say--I went there, and I said good-bye to all that. I +came back to you. You needn't be afraid--or jealous any more. I'm your +wife, George, and I'll do my share. I promise." She started on her walk +again, and still he watched the small, white feet. + +"And I'm not outraged by what you've said," she went on in a voice he +had not heard so coldly clear. "Men like you are so ready with abuse. +Have you always been virtuous? You ask what you would never allow me to +claim." + +He looked up. "Since I married you--since I loved you--And I never +will." + +She laughed a little. "And I won't either. That's another bargain, but I +know--I know too much about temptation, about love, to call lovers by +bad names. And if you don't, it's your misfortune, George. I think you'd +better go home and think about it." + +He made an uncertain movement. He was like a child, she thought; he had +to be commanded or cajoled, and her heart softened towards him because +he was dumb and helpless. + +"Let us be honest friends," she pleaded. "Yes, honest, George. I know +I've talked a lot of honesty, and I had no right; but now I think I +have, because I've told you everything and we can start afresh. I +thought I was better than you, but now I know I'm not, and I'm sorry, +George." + +He looked up. "Helen--" + +"Well?" She was on her knees before him, and her hands were persuading +his to hold them. + +He muttered something. + +"I didn't hear." + +"I beg your pardon," he said again, and, as she heard the words, she +laughed and cried out, "No, no! I don't want you to say that! You've to +possess me. Honour me, too, but always possess me!" She leaned back to +look at him. "That's what you must do. You are that kind of man, so big +and strong and--and stupid, George! Love me enough, and it will be like +being buried in good earth. Can't you love me enough?" Her eyes were +luminous and tender. She was fighting for two lives, for more that might +be born. + +"Buried? I don't know what you mean," he said; "but come you here!" + +Her face was crushed against him, and it was indeed as though she were +covered by something dark and warm and heavy. She might hear beloved +footsteps, now and then, but they would not trouble her. Down there, she +knew too much to be disturbed, too much to be hurt for ever by her +lover's pain: he, too, would know a blessed burying. + +It was not she who heard the opening of the bedroom door, but she felt +herself being gently pushed from George's breast, and she had a strange +feeling that some one was shovelling away the earth which she had found +so merciful. + +"No," she said. "Don't. I like it." + +"Helen!" she heard George say, and she turned to see Mildred Caniper on +the threshold. + +"I heard voices," she said, looking a little dazed, but standing with +her old straightness. "Who is here? It's Helen! It's--Helen! Oh, +Helen--you!" Her face hardened, and her voice was the one of Helen's +childhood. "I am afraid I must ask for an explanation of this +extraordinary conduct." + +The words were hardly done before she fell heavily to the floor. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + +Mildred Caniper died two days afterwards, without opening her eyes. Day +and night, Helen watched and wondered whether, behind that mask, the +mind was moving to acquaintance with the truth. Between life and death, +she imagined a grey land where things were naked, neither clothed in +disguising garments nor in glory. It might be that, for the first time, +Mildred saw herself, looked into her own life and all the lives she +knew, and gained a wider knowledge for the next. Nevertheless, it was +horrible to Helen that Mildred Caniper had finally shut her eyes on the +scene that killed her, and, for her last impression, had one of falsity +and licence. Helen prayed that it might be removed, and, as she kept +watch that first night, she told her all. There might be a little cranny +through which the words could go, and she longed for a look or touch of +forgiveness and farewell. She loved this woman whom she had served, but +there were to be no more messages between them, and Mildred Caniper died +with no other sound than the lessening of the sighing breaths she drew. + +Zebedee guessed the nature of the shock that killed her, but only George +and Helen knew, and for them it was another bond; they saw each other +now with the eyes of those who have looked together on something never +to be spoken of and never to be forgotten. She liked to have him with +her, and he was dumb with pity for her and with regrets. To Miriam, when +she arrived, it was an astonishment to find them sitting in the +schoolroom, hand in hand, so much absorbed in their common knowledge +that they did not loose their grasp at her approach, but sat on like +lost, bewildered children in a wood. + +Wherever Helen went, he followed, clumsy but protective, peering at her +anxiously as though he feared something terrible would happen to her, +too. + +"You don't mind, do you?" he asked her. + +"What?" + +"Having me." + +"I like it--but there's your hay." + +"There's hay every year," he answered. + + * * * * * + +Uncle Alfred moved quietly about the house, stood uneasily at a window, +or drifted into the garden, swinging his eyeglass, his expression +troubled, his whole being puzzled by the capacity of his relatives to be +dramatic, without apparent realization of their gift. Here was a sister +suddenly dead, a niece wandering hand in hand with the man from whom +another niece had fled, while the discarded lover acted the part of +family friend; and that family preserved its admirable trick of asking +no question, of accepting each member's right to its own actions. Only +Miriam, now and then catching his eye in the friendly understanding they +had established, seemed to make a criticism without a comment, and to +promise him that, foolish as she was, he need not fear results on +Helen's colossal scale. + +It was Rupert who could best appreciate Helen's attitude, and when he +was not thinking of the things he might have done for a woman he could +help no longer, he was watching his sister and her impassivity, her +unfailing gentleness to George, the perfection of her manner to Zebedee. +She satisfied his sense of what was fitting, and gave him the kind of +pleasure to be derived from the simple and candid handiwork of a master. + +"If tragedy produces this kind of thing," he said to John with a +gesture, "the suffering is much more than worth while--from the +spectator's point of view." + +"I don't know what you are talking about," John said. + +"The way she manages those two." + +"Who? And which?" + +"Good Lord, man! Haven't you seen it? Helen and the two suitors." + +John grunted. "Oh--that!" He had not yet learnt to speak of the affair +with any patience. + + * * * * * + +Mildred Caniper had left the house and all it held to Helen. + +"I suppose you'll try to let it," Rupert said. "I don't like to think of +that, though. Helen, I wish she hadn't died. Do you think we were more +unpleasant than we need have been?" + +"Not much. She was unpleasanter than we were, really, but then--" + +"Heavens, yes. What a life!" + +Her lips framed the words in echo, but she did not utter them, though +she alone had the right. + +"So perhaps I am not sorry she is dead," Rupert said. + +Helen's lips tilted in a smile. "I don't think you need ever be sorry +that any one is dead," she said, and before she could hear what her +words told him, he spoke quickly. + +"Well, what about this house?" + +"I shan't let it." + +"Will you live here?" + +"No. I'm going to George, but no one else shall have it. I don't think +the Pinderwells would be happy. Is there any furniture you want? You can +have anything except what's in the dining-room. That's for Zebedee. His +own is hideous." + +To Zebedee she said, "You'll take it, won't you?" + +"I've always taken everything you've given me," he said, and with the +words they seemed to look at each other fairly for the last time. + +"And don't have any more dead ferns," she told him. "There was one in +the dining-room the other day. You must keep fresh flowers on Mr. +Pinderwell's table." + +"I shall remember." + +Nothing was left in the house except the picture of Mr. Pinderwell's +bride, who smiled as prettily on the empty room as on the furnished one. + +"She must stay with Mr. Pinderwell," Helen said. "What would he do if he +found her gone? I wonder if they'll miss us." + +She refused to leave the house until the last cart had gone down the +road at which Helen must no longer look in hope. She watched the slow +departure of the cart and held to the garden gate, rubbing it with her +hands. She looked up at the long house with its wise, unblinking eyes. +She had to leave it: George was waiting for her at the farm, but the +house was like a part of her, and she was not complete when she turned +away from it. + +There was daylight on the moor, but when she dipped into the larch-wood +she found it was already night, and night lay on the cobbled courtyard, +on the farmhouse, and on George, who waited in the doorway. + +"You're like you were before," he said. "A silver star coming through +the trees--coming to me." He took her hand. "I don't know why you do +it," he murmured, and led her in. + +They slept in a room papered with a pattern of roses and furnished with +a great fourposted bed. It was the room in which George Halkett and his +father had been born, the best bedroom for many generations. The china +on the heavy washstand had pink roses on it, too, and the house was +fragrant with real roses, burning wood, clean, scented linen. Jasmine +grew round the window and nodded in. + +"Are you going to be happy?" George asked her, when the warm darkness +dropped on them like another coverlet, and she hardly knew that it was +she who reassured him. Could it be Helen Caniper in this room with the +low ceiling and farmhouse smells, this bridal chamber of the Halketts? +Helen Caniper seemed to have disappeared. + +She woke when she had been asleep for a little while, and at first she +could not remember where she was; then the window darted out of the +darkness and the furniture took on shapes. She looked up and saw the +looming canopy of the bed, she heard George breathing beside her, and +suddenly she felt suffocated by the draperies and the low ceiling and +the remembrance of the big pink roses growing on the wall. + +She slid to the edge of the bed and out of it. The carpet was harsh to +her feet, but, by the window, the bare boards soothed them. + +There were dark clouds floating against the sky, and the larches looked +like another cloud dropped down until she saw their crests, spear-like +and piercing: they hid the moor in its livery of night. + +She turned her head and listened to the sleeper, who did not stir except +to breathe. She wanted to see her moor and the house where the +Pinderwells were walking and wondering at its emptiness. George would +not hear her if she dressed and left the room, and, having done so, she +stood outside the door and listened before she fumbled her way along the +passages. + +She sped through the larches, but when her feet touched the heather they +went more slowly, and now it was she who might have been a cloud, +trailing across the moor. So she went until she saw the house, and then +she ran towards it, startling the rabbits, hearing the blur of wings, +and feeling the ping or flutter of insects against her face. + +The doors were locked, but the kitchen window was not hasped, and +through it she climbed. The room had an unfamiliar look: it was +dismantled, and ghostly heaps of straw and paper lay where the men had +left them, yet this was still her home: nothing could exile her. + +She went into the hall and into each bare room, but she could not go +upstairs. It was bad enough to see Mr. Pinderwell walking up and down, +and she could not face the children whom she had deserted. She sat on +the stairs, and the darkness seemed to shift about her. She thought of +the bedroom she had left, and it seemed to her that there would never be +a night when she would not leave it to find her own, nor a day when, as +she worked in the hollow, her heart would not be here. Yet she was Helen +Halkett, and she belonged to Halkett's Farm. + +She rose and walked into the kitchen and slipped her hand along the +mantelshelf to find a box of matches she had left there. + +She was going to end the struggle. She could not burn Zebedee, but she +could burn the house. The rooms where he had made love to her should +stand no longer, and so her spirit might find a habitation where her +body lived. + +She piled paper and straw against the windows and the doors, and set a +lighted match to them; then she went to the moor and waited. She might +have done it in a dream, for her indifference: it was no more to her +than having lighted a few twigs in the heather; but when she saw the +flames climbing up like red and yellow giants, she was afraid. There +were hundreds of giants, throwing up hands and arms and trying to reach +the roof. They fought with each other as they struggled, and the dark +sky made a mirror for their fights. + +The poplars were being scorched, and she cried out at that discovery. +Oh, the poplars! the poplars! How they must suffer! And how their leaves +would drop, black and shrivelled, a black harvest to strew the lawn. She +thought she heard the shouting of the Pinderwells, but she knew their +agony would be short, and already they were silent. The poplars were +still in pain, and she ran to the front of the house that she might not +see them. + +There was a figure coming up the track. It was John, with his trousers +pulled over his night things. + +"God! What's up?" he cried. + +"It's the house--only the house burning. There's no one there." + +He looked into the face that was all black and white, like cinders; then +at the flames, red and yellow, like live coals, and he held her by the +arm because he did not like the look of her. + +A man came running up. It was Halkett's William. + +"Have you seen the master? He went round by the back." + +"Go and look for him. Tell him his wife's here. I'll search the front." + +Both men ran, shouting, but it was Helen who saw George at the window of +Mildred Caniper's room. + +She rushed into the garden where the heat was scorching, she heard his +joyful "Helen!" as he saw her, and she held out her arms to him and +called his name. + +She saw him look back. + +"I'll have to jump!" he shouted. + +"Oh, George, come quickly!" + +There were flames all round him as he leapt, and there were small ones +licking his clothes when he fell at her feet. + +"His neck's broke," William said. + +They carried him on to the moor, and there he lay in the heather. She +would not have him touched. She crouched beside him, watching the flames +grow and lessen, and when only smoke rose from the blackened heap, she +still sat on. + +"I'm waiting for Zebedee," she said. + +John sent for him, and he came, flogging his horse as a merciful man +may, and when she saw him on the road, she went to meet him. + +She put both hands on the shaft. "I set the house on fire," she said, +looking up. "I didn't think of George. He was asleep. I had to burn it. +But I've killed him, too. First there was Notya, and now George. I've +killed them both. His neck is broken. William said, 'His neck's broke,' +that's all, but he cried. Come and see him. He hasn't moved, but he was +too big to die. I've killed him, but I held my arms out to him when he +jumped." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOOR FIRES*** + + +******* This file should be named 23990.txt or 23990.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/9/9/23990 + + + +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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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