path: root/69758-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 69758 ***

FOLLY CORNER


BY

MRS. H. DUDENEY

AUTHOR OF “THE MATERNITY OF HARRIOTT WICKEN”


[Illustration: Decorative Image]


NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1900




COPYRIGHT, 1900,

BY

HENRY HOLT & CO.


THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS

RAHWAY, N. J.




CONTENTS


PROLOGUE.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHAPTER XX.

CHAPTER XXI.

CHAPTER XXII.

CHAPTER XXIII.




PROLOGUE.


THE steam of that stifling London day rose up in a choking, enervating
haze from the hot grass. The shrill cries of children, loose from the
Board School, cut the thick air. A train rushed across the bridge. Two
or three cyclists tinkled their bells irritably as they spun down Wood
Lane to the Uxbridge Road, leaving a cloud of gray grit behind them.
Omnibuses pulled up at the corner of the short street near the few
newly-built shops. From Portobello Road came the heavy rumble of more
traffic, mixed with the nearer shout of costers vending dried fish and
over-ripe fruit.

She was a young woman. She stood still, in a limp, hopeless attitude,
her face turned on Wormwood Scrubbs, her strained eyes vacantly
fastened on the buildings, spires, and chimneys in the distance.

Some simple sound from the frowning prison on her left made her turn
her head with the swift, watching movement of a cat. But there was
nothing to see; no hint, no hope. Behind those walls! Her throat,
rising white and firm from the tumbled collar of the cotton blouse,
contracted. Those walls! those impenetrable walls! those relentless
walls!

She put out two hands in baggy gloves; she held them up, flat palms
upward, toward the speechless prison. Her attitude was one of strong
appeal, of hope, almost--as if she half expected that despair would
work a miracle. They stretched out, big, strong, shapeless in the old
gloves--those quivering, appealing hands of hers.

With a sharp agonized movement of the wrists she let her hands drop
nervelessly to her side. A sob was strangled in her throat; she turned
her head abruptly, so that her eyes no longer rested on the walls. With
a sudden impulse she started running across the grass; ran across the
road and under the bridge to the spot where an omnibus was waiting.

It grew dusk as she rattled back on the garden-seat to London. One by
one the lights of night gleamed out. The life of night began. She
looked down and saw the interior of smoothly rolling carriages, with
women in evening dress lying idly back inside. Women on foot, smartly
clad and with happy faces, flitted along the white pavements. Women
clambered to the top of the omnibus, chattering and tittering. The one
who sat next her glanced curiously at her grim mouth and shadowed eyes.

The lights grew thicker; fantastic chains of light--red and yellow.
London glittered like some fairy mine of jewels: jewels already cut and
polished, every facet gleaming. Words winked out letter by letter, then
vanished. She saw them come and go on the fronts of the houses. OX
FORCE--NINON SOAP--DUNN’S NOSTRUM. To her strained senses they lost
all common meaning and symbolized the weird, the threatening, the
unknown.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was blinding hot in the market town that Wednesday. Sheep straggled
into the pens; the drovers choked and cursed as the dust dried in their
throats. A smart trap, driven by a girl, with a groom behind, bowled
down the High Street, leaving behind an impression of coolness and
smartness. Now and again a sharp, imperious cycle-bell cut the air, and
as some female cyclist darted by pedestrians heard the soft flutter of
sleeves, like the flapping sails of a yacht.

A man came, with a slightly rolling walk, down the street. He made an
imperial progress, nodding his head bluffly to deferential shopkeepers
who stood at their doors, exchanging a jovial word or so with other
substantial yeomen. Everyone knew and respected Jethro Jayne--“Young
Jethro” of Folly Corner. Everyone in and around Liddleshorn knew that
there had been Jaynes at Folly in unbroken succession since before the
days of Cromwell.

He was a picturesque figure, with his open, weather-tanned face, his
clean-shaven lip, his buff breeches, and brown gaiters. He wore a linen
coat and a flapping white linen hat. His eyes were lazily merry and
roguish under the starched brim.

He turned in at the door of the inn, with the low-pitched, paneled
dining-room, where most of the farmers dined on market-day.

A round-faced, pretty girl brought him his plate of beef and his
two vegetables. Bread and cheese, and a jug of sweet cider, completed
the meal.

He looked at her thoughtfully whenever she approached: so very
blue-eyed and round; such a plump, neat figure in a black gown! He
looked at her through a strong cloud of smoke as he puffed at his pipe
and drank a last glass of the cider. She had suggested something. He
was thoughtfully asking himself, Why not?

Presently he took a pencil and a letter from his breeches pocket. He
began to write on the back of the envelope, making many erasions,
knitting his brows and pouting his lips like an anxious child.

The girl came softly to the table and took away the mustard for another
customer. Jethro never looked up at her. She had done her part. She had
suggested.

He paid the bill and emerged into High Street. He looked a trifle more
bluff and lurching than before. His face was red--with cider, with the
excitement of his daring plan.

For the first time in his life he was yielding to impulse. Already he
half regretted yielding. He was afraid of himself; he was more afraid
of Gainah.

Yet he bent his head and went down two steps into the editorial offices
of the _Liddleshorn Herald_. The place was empty save for a
sharp-featured youth who was lounging at the side of the counter. He
sharply asked the visitor what he wanted. He was a new importation, an
embryo journalist, with a London journal as his goal. He touched
the town side of things only. He had a smoldering contempt for
farmers, and knew nothing of the master of Folly Corner.

Jethro pushed his envelope across the counter with a sheepish gesture.

“How many insertions?” asked the youth laconically, yet throwing an
amused, curious glance at the big figure which stood near the door--an
unconscious, unappreciated color scheme--in white and russet, buff and
brown.

“How many times in?” The gentleman-farmer’s big, embarrassed laugh
seemed to shake the silent place. “Well--once.”

As he went slowly out of the town the tinkle of a piano came out
clearly from the front room of a little buff villa. There were rows of
these buff villas on the outskirts of the town. Some navvies were
putting down new drain-pipes. The notes of the piano and the reedy
voice of a girl came out slowly, each note isolated and mingled with
the nervous tap of the pickax. Jethro stood still and listened. It was
a song of Purcell’s:

    “To make us seek ruin, to make us seek ruin and love those that
    hate.”

He walked on, a queer stirring at his heart. The thin voice of the girl
in the villa had touched the romantic spot in him. He thought of that
other girl at the inn--plump, blue-eyed, smiling. He thought of his
carefully-worded advertisement which, by to-morrow, would be worming
its way through Sussex, through Surrey and Hampshire to London
perhaps.

It was a joke; he began to regret, to blame the cider, or the demure
little rings of light hair on the waitress’ unlined brow.

And yet he could still hear the piano. He still felt the slow,
wondering work of his heart.




FOLLY CORNER.




CHAPTER I.


THE story begins with the emotions of two women--the two women
principally concerned--on a morning ten days after Jethro Jayne had
imprudently indulged in sweet cider at the market dinner in
Liddleshorn.

One woman was young--twenty-five or less. She was a big, fair girl; a
handsome girl, in the elementary way that satisfies most men. She
looked well able to take care of herself; an up-to-date girl,
accustomed to fight her way alone, to meet men on their own ground, to
jealously look after her own interests. There was, however, an
occasional haggard line at her mouth, and in her well-opened, rather
prominent gray eyes was a hunted, hopeless look.

She wore a coat and skirt, with sleeves of last year’s cut. Her hat was
trimmed with strict attention to fashion, and yet bore the brand
“home-made.” There was a crisp new veil tied about the brim.

She smacked so of cities that the few people she met turned round to
slowly gape at her, and a couple of small girls coming home from the
village shop laughed aloud in her angry face.

She walked slowly along the white road, stopping now and then to lift
her veil and wipe her burning cheeks.

The scenery was beautiful--with the characteristic beauty of the Sussex
Weald. But she did not notice: she was too preoccupied. Her own affairs
were in a critical state, and when one is anxious there is small
consolation in undulating hills, long stretches of pasture, and
red-roofed farmhouses. Her attitude was quite cockney--prim regard
for her shoes and half-contemptuous admiration of her surroundings
predominated.

Once she stopped to rest. A thatched and plastered cottage stood empty
under the shadow of huge oaks. Wide green glades wound into the very
heart of a little wood. The turf, inch-deep in moss, yielded like down.
It was irresistible. She threw herself flat on her back, settling her
skirt smoothly under her, and looked lazily through the wide mesh of
the veil at the sky. The heat and the perfect silence almost made her
sleep. A trap went by full of gayly-dressed country girls; a young man,
hideous in his Sunday clothes, was driving. They were all off to some
festivity, and they looked curiously at the prone figure on the turf.
At first they thought it was some tramp, but the thin-soled morocco
shoes stuck out from the dusty skirt contradicted that assumption. Such
vagrant ways these town folk had! They laughed derisively, and the
sound roused her. She sat up and stared a trifle vaguely at the
watchful hills, the glades of the wood, the white, winding ribbon of
highroad. Then she rose and whisked her skirt and went on again.

Only once more was she tempted to stop--at a bramble bush where the
blackberries were loose and juicy. She drew up her veil to her nose and
drew them off the stalks with widely parted lips, because she was
anxious not to soil the fingers of her gloves. It was so necessary to
make a good impression: the woman who could always make a good
impression had the world at her feet.

She crossed a common; fowls were scratching and shaking their wings in
the mounds of dust; a long string of geese waddled by, conversing
volubly, and with evident arrogance. A man with a timber wagon came
toward her, and she stopped him to ask the way. He told her that she
had a mile or more to go.

She went on, her feet dragging at every step. At every step she grew
more nervous, more undecided. She took a letter from her pocket and
read it over twice. She stopped, half turned back. Her face was violent
red and chalk-white in turn. Still she went on, with lagging, heavy
feet and a queer, terrified shame and excitement at her heart: went on
over that open common which was just beginning to flush with heather.
Another man came by, driving a black pig. It grunted, and seemed to run
in every direction but the right one. He looked a stupid man; but,
then, they were all half-witted in the country. She said--very slowly
and deliberately, as if she were speaking to a small child--that she
wanted Folly Corner. He gave a vacillating grin, keeping one eye on the
pig, and pointed to a substantial stack of chimneys on the left.

“That be Folly,” he said laconically, and left her.

She could see the house through the dense leafage of three great elms.
She stood, with one hand firmly gripping her gay parasol, and the other
twitching at the crisp edge of her veil. She looked at the red gables,
at the spreading outbuildings, at the garden, at the yard; she looked
back at the hot road cutting across the common. Should she go back or
should she go on? For a moment she closed her eyes, and immediately the
dark, straight wall of the prison shot up slowly like a specter and
chilled her.

The prison! The prison and the one damned, dear soul beating within its
walls! But that was past. She had wrestled out that finally--at night,
in her London room, close beneath the slates; at night, in her bed, the
letter under her pillow, or twisting in her hot fingers.

The gate which led into the garden was a white wicket. At each side was
a poplar. These had grown so thick and tall that they met midway and
formed an arch. There was a path of red brick, a little raised, leading
up to the house door; it led up straight, between box edgings two feet
high. The garden-beds were rather neglected, but a great clump of
red-hot pokers pointed flame fingers to the sky, and a loose white
rose, like foam, clung to the walls and ran along the low roof. There
was a long window each side the door, and in front of the one on the
right was a yew-tree clipped into the shape of an umbrella. The
clipping had been neglected, and the tree had the dishevelled
appearance of a man who neglects to shave. There was an air of
indolence about the garden, but it did not seem the indolence of
poverty. A pond partly encircled the place. A red-and-white cow came
down to drink and to look at her reflectively with its big,
closely-veined eyes.

What sort of greeting was garnering for her beyond that door with the
wooden hood, the veil of white roses, and the rough iron knocker? She
looked at a Virginia creeper twisting among the roses. Autumn had
touched it. She looked at the red leaves, then at the white flowers.
They seemed flame and pale fire to strained eyes, short of sleep and
dazzled with the sun. The deep, haggard line curved round her mouth.
Within! What waited within?

       *       *       *       *       *

Within was the second woman, old Gainah Toat. She sat in a low-pitched
room--the room on the right, made dark by the umbrella yew. There was a
great open hearth. There were three doors: one led into a dairy; it was
open, and showed the bricked floor, the yellow and brown pans, the
thick cream and made-up butter; the second door opened into the
passage; the third into the garden.

She sat by the third door, which was thrown well back. She could see
the orchard strewn with mussel plums, ripe to rottenness, with little
yellow stewing pears and apples specked with black. She did not seem
to see anything; she had those eyes--cold blue with a dash of
gray--that are always dull; eyes that evade and puzzle. They were very
wide open, the lids rolled well back, and the lashes sparse.

She had a white face; there was a general appearance of wasting about
her. The fingers, holding a letter--the other woman had been influenced
by a letter too--were twisted and disfigured with rheumatism. Her body
was flat and square; her faded gown made no pretense of slurring the
defect. It went straight from her stringy throat to her hardly
perceptible hips without a break, without a kindly fold or ruck of the
stuff.

She was an odd-looking figure; a spectral woman almost--with her
bloodless skin, her dead eyes, her twisted, transparent hands. But the
people around Folly Corner were not given to fanciful imaginings; they
only knew that Gainah seemed made of iron, that she worked on the farm
without tiring from sunrise until night. Her life was spent in making
things for other people to eat. She belonged to a dying type: she was
one of those women who devote themselves to tickling the masculine
palate. Machine-made food did not enter into her economy. Her mushroom
ketchup, her marmalade, her blackberry jelly were renowned. She gave
them to anyone who asked, not because she was generous, but because she
was inordinately proud of her productions. She toyed with medicine too;
made balm tea, and, from a particular sort of nettle, green ointment
that would cure a gathering. She made herb beer and water cider to
save beer at harvest-time. She knew the effect of foxglove on the human
heart, and made a concoction of a certain herb which she gathered
secretly. With it she claimed to cure palsy. She was mistress at Folly
Corner. She had come to old Jethro Jayne when his wife died. She had
brought up the present master by hand; she ruled him still.

Every master of Folly Corner had been a Jayne, and every male Jayne had
been a Jethro since the first farmer had hidden his pet mare for ten
days in a cellar so that Cromwell’s Ironsides should not steal her.

The room was always cool because the yew threw a continual shadow.
Gainah, sitting without a glint of sun in her chilly blue gown and with
her feet flat on the stone floor, seemed to have no part with the hot,
throbbing world outside.

They were threshing on the farm; the whirring sound hummed in and the
smell from the engine hung on the air. On the south wall a man, by her
orders, was cutting back the foliage from the vine so that the sun
might get freely at the Sweet-water grapes. In a few weeks it would be
time to think about wine-making. The busiest time of the year was
coming on. She hadn’t a moment to waste. She should at that moment have
been straining the mushroom-juice from the salt and boiling it with
spices. But the letter, fluttering in her veined, gnarled hand, had
made her an idle woman before noon. She read it again with the weighty
deliberation of an almost illiterate person. It was written in a
dashing but undecided hand, and the words were stilted. Evidently the
writer had been ill at ease.

She got up stiffly at last and moved about the room, flicking a duster
over the ancient furniture. There was an oak cupboard reaching to the
ceiling--a double corner cupboard with delicate brass escutcheons and
an inlaid border of boxwood.

She ran the duster down the dark panels and breathed softly on the
brass. Then she took out her keys from her apron pocket and opened the
doors of the upper half. There were three shelves, the edge of each
scalloped out. On every shelf were bottles and jars full of preserves
and pickles. She touched them quite tenderly, looking at the faintly
written labels, pursing up her colorless lips and moving her head
spasmodically.

She shut the cupboard at last and went slowly on her journey round the
room. She dusted the oak sideboard, the long oak table, with the form
against the wall and the carved joint stools--the high one for the
master, the low one for the dame--at each end. She dusted the chairs,
some of solid oak, some of golden beech with rush seats. She dusted the
clock; its hand pointed ominously to twelve.

It was about time then. In a few minutes she should be here. Gainah
chuckled a little, remembering that she had purposely neglected to send
the trap to the station. All the men were at harvest, and she had
wanted old Chalcraft to trim the vine. She sat down by the door again,
looking out blankly at the warmth and life. There were thick
parchment-like mushrooms dotted over the meadow beyond the quickset
hedge, and in the orchard fruit kept thudding softly from the trees. It
was the beginning of rich autumn, when one makes provision for winter.
She was always so busy through August and September; on her feet until
late at night--late for Folly Corner--straining and boiling, and
pulping and stirring; scolding the two maids and tyrannizing over
Jethro.

Those mushrooms had been in salt too long; the wind-fall apples were
almost past preserving. It was washing-day, too--they had washed on the
first Monday in the month for thirty years. The soapy smell floated
into the dining-parlor; she could hear the rasping sound of the brush
and the gurgling swill of suds. She heard also the cackle of the two
maids and the mellow voice of the elderly washerwoman. They were
wasting their time. Yet she didn’t move. Her eyes fell to the letter
which she had taken out of her pocket again. Her lips mumbled the
signature--“PAMELA CRISP.”

After thirty-three years! And she had served his father before him! It
was very hard! She wouldn’t give up her keys--he wouldn’t expect that.
She smiled dryly. He wouldn’t expect that--he was a Jayne and he knew
when he was well off. He would never get anyone else to slave so. Even
the green tomatoes were pickled--with onions and apples and mysterious
spices. She was the only woman for miles round who had the recipe, and
before she died she meant to burn it, having no daughter to bequeath it
to. And scarlet runners put down every year for winter eating. Her
butter had never been known to have a twang. She could make cakes
without fat and used snow for puddings when eggs were scarce.

The bed in the best room had been made under her eye from the feathers
of birds killed on the farm.

Birds! It was not many henwives who could manage to hatch a full
sitting. She never thought fifteen eggs too many to put under a hen;
the Dorking might manage even more. The gray-and-white hen--didn’t it
steal a nest of twenty-two and come clucking home at the end of three
weeks with nineteen chicks, most of them pullets, too! A young, flighty
woman would have spoilt everything by poking about and interfering with
the bird. She had known all along that it was sitting in the barn, but
she wasn’t going to let it know she knew. Young women spoilt their
lives by haste. They spoilt the lives of other people too. Her eye
dropped again to the dashing signature--“PAMELA CRISP.”

She sat brooding by the door, thinking proudly of all her domestic
achievements and telling herself piteously that Jethro would never
allow her to be displaced. Of course, she had known that he would marry
some day, but then, in her own mind, she had picked him out a wife:
pretty, soft-looking Nancy from Turle House. A wife--pliable and a
little foolish, like Nancy--would not have mattered. But a cousin on
the mother’s side! An unknown girl from London! A girl whose capital
“P” trailed to the edge of the envelope!

She got up again and went round the dull room in her halting way,
dusting and tidying mechanically. Then all at once she straightened
her back and listened. There were light steps on the brick path which
led round to the garden door. The clip-clip of the shears ceased. There
were two voices--a young feminine one and the hoarse croak of old
Chalcraft, who was past work, and lived out his life of long service
like an ancient horse, doing light jobs, so that he might still believe
himself useful and independent.

Gainah went out, the sun on her uncovered head, with its wide parting
and gray-brown hair. She went round the corner. Chalcraft was on the
ladder still. The shears yawned in his tremulous hand; he had clipped
to the wall, and the Sweet-waters hung close to it and stripped of
foliage, pale green and luscious. The long trails of grayish leaves
were on the path; the girl trod them down. When she saw the elder woman
she made a step forward. She seemed half defiant, half ashamed. Her hat
was on one side; it gave her a rakish air of towns. Such a slight thing
may imperil a woman’s reputation--in prejudiced eyes. Gainah’s cold
eyes contracted, and her brows drew over them a harsh ridge.

Pamela put out her hand--in a new glove. A slim gold bracelet, from
which dangled a green charm, swung on her wrist.

“You must be Gainah,” she said in a conciliating way, and smiling.

Then she added, with a faint touch of injury, “I wrote to say I was
coming this morning. I hoped that you would send to meet me. It’s a
long walk.”

Gainah gave her a sharp look; she thought that this was the first
indication of authority.

“It’s harvest-time,” she said curtly; “the best harvest for seventeen
years. Come inside.”

They both slipped over the threshold of that dim gray room with the
stone floor and the solid family furniture. Pamela gave a swift glance
round to see if the room was empty. There was a flaming spot on each
cheek, and her glittering eyes moved uneasily behind her loose veil.

“I’d like to put myself tidy,” she said in the confiding whisper of one
woman to another, “before I go in to him.”

“To your Cousin Jethro?” Gainah’s dull eyes fastened on the hectic
face.

“To my Cousin Jethro--yes,” she laughed nervously; then added quickly,
“It seems strange to call him ‘cousin.’ We’ve--we’ve never met. You got
my letter? Yes. I--I want to be friends.”

Gainah didn’t answer. She only opened the door leading to the stairs.
The two went up together. There was a high window halfway up, with a
lattice of thick oak bars.

“No glass,” said Pamela in astonishment.

“They didn’t use glass in the days when that was cut,” Gainah said,
“and the Jaynes are not people to go with new-fangled ways. Every Jayne
says that what was good enough for his father is good enough for him.
It’s a family not given to changing. You ought to know that; you belong
to it.”

“On the mother’s side--yes,” returned the girl in a half-hearted way.

Gainah opened the door of her own bedroom. It was poorly furnished with
her own furniture, which she had brought with her to Folly Corner.
There was a wooden bedstead, painted clay color and touched with lines
of apple-green. The washstand and drawers matched it. There was a strip
or so of shabby felt carpet, and on the shelf a pair of brass
candlesticks and a red china cow milked by a diminutive woman. The girl
looked about her disdainfully, assertiveness getting the better of
nervousness. She took off her hat and veil before the murky glass,
splashed water over her face, patted her hair caressingly, arranged
again the smart hat and veil. Gainah watched this pretty toying of
youth with grim disapproval; even the girl’s big arms lifted to her
head were an offense.

“Like a brass button in a sweep’s eye, all glitter,” the old woman
mumbled to herself, as the yellow and green bracelet swung on the round
wrist and the jet buckles flashed in the elaborate hat.

On the way downstairs she was afforded a peep into other bedrooms.

“I can’t let you have the best spare room,” she declared
autocratically. “This is it. It’s never used, except for layin’s out
and weddin’ nights, and layin’s in. All the Jaynes, right back to King
Charles, have been born in that bed--and died in it afterward.”

Pamela looked at the ponderous piece of furniture and shuddered.

“I wouldn’t sleep there for worlds,” she said.

Gainah, her claw-like hand caught stiffly round the banisters to
help her progress, went slowly down, stair by stair. Pamela, close
behind her, looked contemptuous--of everything: the old-fashioned
place, the odd old woman.

They crossed the room which the yew made so dark. Gainah opened the
door into the narrow corridor. Pamela followed. There was a window
looking out at the garden. On the ledge were blood-red geraniums, and
on the distempered walls queer prints in black frames.

She didn’t approve of those crinkled, brownish prints; they were hardly
decent.

Gainah flung open the door of the other room.

“Jethro,” she said in her high, grating voice, “here’s your Cousin
Pamela--on the mother’s side.”




CHAPTER II.


THE girl winced and hung back, as one does at physic or a possible
blow. She looked along the narrow passage, as if for the support of
another woman. But Gainah had hobbled away, shutting the door behind
her. Pamela stood alone. She looked round her--at the oak table strewn
with papers--old copies of the _Field_ and _Farm and Home_.

There were a pair of driving-gloves thrown down, and a whip with a
broken thong. There was a great blue bowl half full of waste paper and
ends of string. A pair of brass candlesticks winked on the ledge beside
the vivid geraniums. She gave a second nervous look at the colored
prints in black frames, prints of which she did not quite approve. A
full voice from inside the room said impatiently, “Come in.”

She didn’t advance, so the voice added, with a mellow laugh in it,
“Come in. Why did Gainah go away? Come in, Cousin Pamela. I cannot move
from this confounded sofa.”

So he was crippled! Her wild gray eyes darted across the garden and
along the hot road. If she could only just softly open that door and
slip out without seeing him! A cripple! She might have known that there
was something.

“Come in.”

She made a desperate step forward: it was so like a fool to stay
outside. She had come to the house on certain business, and she must go
through with it. Her foot in the arched morocco shoe tapped on the bare
oak floor. Then it sunk into a thick carpet. She could not see the
occupant of the room yet; he was on a couch in the bay window which
looked across the harvest fields. All that she could see was a wall
hung with gorgeous flowered paper, a carpet with a green ground and
bunches of Provence roses, a round walnut table, and a piano with a
closed lid.

It was like coming from December to June at a breath--this transit from
the dim ancestral living-room to the parlor with the walnut and velvet
suite from the best shop in Liddleshorn. Yet Pamela hardly noticed. The
only thing that mattered was the sofa in the bay window. Would that
man, that cripple on the sofa, be favorably impressed with her?

She was sick and hot with apprehension. Had any girl been in such a
position before? She began to think dimly of early tales that she had
read of slave markets, of a poem learnt and recited at school about a
quadroon girl.

Of course old Gainah didn’t know all--didn’t know anything that was
truth. What an odd old woman! Not pleasant to live with. Not a cheerful
house in which to spend the winter! She went slowly over that thick
carpet to the bay window, her head down, her upper lip caught fiercely
over her lower. When she reached the sofa she was in an agony of shame,
and hardly lifted her eyes.

Jethro said, almost tenderly:

“Do sit down.”

The words were simple, but she liked him from that moment. She felt
sure of him. He wouldn’t be--coarse. She sat down. There was a low
walnut chair with a green cover drawn into the bay all ready. Then she
dared to look up.

Jethro was flat on his back. He was so spare that his body seemed to
curve inward; but it was the spareness of a tough, muscular man. His
upper lip was bare and his eyes were keen, merry blue. A life of
sunshine and wind and rain had tanned his skin. The backs of his hairy
hands looked as if they had been steeped in tobacco juice; beyond his
wrist, where his coat sleeve pushed up, his skin was milky. He wore an
Oxford shirt with an unstarched collar. She saw a ring of milk-white
skin when he turned his head to look at her, and immediately above it
he was the color of delicate old leather.

She looked at his handsome face and muscular body with interest. Well!
It might be worse--or better. A little round table with a red and gold
cloth was within touch. He put out his hand and touched a toppling pile
of letters.

“These were all answers,” he said, smiling drolly. “I had them
addressed to Liddleshorn post-office, as you know. Three hundred and
fifty. I shall get some more to-morrow morning, no doubt.”

“Don’t!” she cried out sharply, “oh, don’t! It--it--it--a man doesn’t
know.... A woman has little secret shames--you won’t understand.... I
wish I hadn’t come. Three hundred and fifty girls! Oh! They are not
coming here, too?”

She stopped, panting. Her eyes were on those letters, letters in every
shape and color, some with gilt monograms on the back, one with a gilt
“Nell.” She looked at the handwriting, some blotted and some scrawling,
some neatly masculine and clerk-like. Her face looked old, her eyes
blistered with tears.

Jethro struggled to rise. Then with a groan of pain and sharp twist of
his injured leg he fell back on the cushions.

Her back was firm against the carved walnut of the green-seated chair,
as they sat in such strange conference in the deep shadow of the bay.
Through the hot mist of her tears she saw the harvest field, half
clipped, like the shorn head of beauty. A big brown fellow of a humble
bee came through the open casement and settled on her. She flinched.
Jethro regarded it as an omen.

“When a humble bee flies in at the open window and lights on a stranger
and flies out again, it’s a sign the stranger will not stay long,” he
said, looking quite disturbed as the insect droned out into the sun
again.

She looked at him with mild contempt, thinking it most extraordinary
that a big fellow such as he was should entertain such notions.

There were the usual sounds of fully blown summer; petulant buzz of
overworked insects, voices of harvesters, the whirr of the engine. Taps
from the smithy at the corner intensified in Pamela’s aching head;
ever afterward she regarded smithy sounds as indispensable to the
perfection of an August day.

Suddenly she broke out passionately:

“I can’t stay. I shouldn’t have come. It is the sort of thing that a
barmaid, a shop girl--someone a little reckless--would do. I am
different.” She stretched her hand and directed it haughtily toward the
letters. “I am not like these others. But it was a temptation: such a
rest, such a certainty for the future. And ... it was half a joke,
too.”

Jethro put out his immense brown hand and gripped her by the forefinger
and thumb round the wrist. She looked fully at him for the first time,
and, in spite of herself, she liked his face. It was handsome. The thin
high nose and beautifully curved lips made it even aristocratic. She
was a shallow town product, and had a flimsy horror of anything that
she considered coarse. Yet she admitted that on this man’s face was no
touch of boorishness. He looked, so she thought, like a patrician who
was masquerading in queer clothes. Her idea of masculine raiment was
confined to black cloth, with tweeds for the seaside and flannel for
tennis.

“I like you,” he said simply. “You are a nice-minded girl. It was a
joke with me, too--half a joke. I did it on market day; a fellow gets a
bit jolly then, perhaps. I shouldn’t have gone any further with these.”
He touched the letters with his free hand, and the touch was enough to
scatter them rudely on the floor. “But your name took my fancy. PAMELA
CRISP! Now, my mother was a Crisp.”

“Yes, so you told me in your letter,” she said faintly, and gently
fluttering her white, veined wrist in its handcuff. “You told me to
write and tell Miss Toat that we were cousins--on the mother’s side. I
did it--as a joke. Oh! a joke--you believe me?”

“Of course--a joke. It is nothing more--not yet.” His clear, blue eyes
were on her pastel-like face. Then he added ponderingly: “But we may be
cousins, after all. It wouldn’t make any difference--in the end. You
understand?”

She showed how fully she understood by the quick wave of color on her
cheek.

“My mother’s name was Lilith,” he went on.

“The name of my little sister who died.”

“My mother had a brother who ran away--some boy’s scrape at home. He
was never heard of afterward. His name was John.”

“My father’s name.” She became suddenly confidential. “He was a
contractor; plenty of money while he lived. We had a house a little way
out of London. He drove to his office every day. Two servants, a
governess for me, a dinner party now and then. When I grew up, a little
shopping, a little housework in an elegant way--arranging flowers,
setting the maids by the ears. You know. Thousands of girls live like
that and are bored to death. He died bankrupt; mother died of a broken
heart, or broken fortunes, poor dear. I was thrown on the world--the
creditors took everything. That is five years ago.”

He had been listening attentively, watching every shade and shine
upon her face, admiring her vivacious, half tragic gestures--not
understanding her in the least. The genteel life she so scornfully
sketched was unknown to him.

“You were the only one?”

“What?”

She lifted her head, rearing it almost, like an aggressive serpent.

“You were my Uncle John’s only child?”

“No.” The word came full and rounded from her mouth, and the eyes
behind the curtaining lashes were somber. “There was a--a brother. He
has gone away, a long voyage. He has a passion for the sea.”

“That settles it. Another brother of my mother’s, Uncle Thomas, was a
captain in the navy. He ran away before he was sixteen; nothing would
stop him. Every Crisp has a salt drop in his veins.”

“Father, in his most prosperous days, had a little yacht.”

“There you are again! The Crisp love for water. Well! I believe from my
heart that we really are cousins--Cousin Pamela. I shall tell the folk
hereabout that I advertised for my kin--Uncle John or his children--and
that you, seeing the advertisement, answered. That will make things
easy for us both. And now, cousin”--his voice was meaning, and his
handsome open face became roguish and bold--“I ought to kiss you.”

She slipped her wrist from his finger and thumb and fell back.

She looked at his face--handsome, thin, almost ascetic if it had not
been for the tan--with distaste.

“A kiss!” she murmured, with a quick, startled breath. “No, no; I
couldn’t dream of it.”

He seemed pleased at what he assumed to be her modesty. There was a
quaint pause, during which he thoughtfully examined her face, picking
feature from feature and dwelling most on the downcast lids. Then he
said, almost tenderly:

“What have you been doing these five years for a living? Cousin Pamela!
if only I had known that Uncle John’s child----”

“Don’t talk like that. We are not sure. What did I do?” She gave a
short, rather grating laugh. “Anything--short of scrubbing floors. I’ve
been a governess. I’ve tried to draw fashion-plates--but my drawing was
against me there. I’ve collected money for charitable institutions--on
commission. I was a companion. She was a publican’s widow with heaps of
money--one dare not be too particular. She was queer--a secret drinker
I always thought. I had twenty-five pounds a year. She liked me so much
that she raised my money at one bound to forty; money was only dirt to
her. Forty pounds a year--and she died before the first quarter was
due. I have always been unlucky.”

“And then?”

She shrugged with an artificial callousness.

“Looking out. Answering advertisements--until I answered yours.”

Directly she mentioned his the shame and outraged modesty in her surged
up again.

“I’ve never answered an advertisement like that before,” she burst out.
“But--it was fun, as you say. And I had put three advertisements in a
paper for a situation--at three-and-sixpence for forty words. Three
three-and-sixpences! Not a single answer! Something made me look at the
_Liddleshorn Herald_. It was in the stationer’s shop--ordered specially
for some customer. When I was a little thing I seem to remember that
paper about at home. The name, Liddleshorn, was familiar. Something
made me touch it, look down the advertisements. Then! You know!”

She put out her hands with a dramatic gesture. Jethro appeared to think
that it was time he made his explanations of the situation.

“I did it for fun--at first,” he said. “Afterward I was rather taken
with the idea. But not with the girls,” seeing her glance vindictively
at the scattered letters. “I wanted to marry; Gainah’s getting too
tight a hold on the place. And there is no one to entertain lady
visitors--no mistress. It isn’t natural. I wanted a wife. I advertised
for one. I wanted a change, too--a change of blood. It’s good for
stock, why not for us? That’s the way I argued it out with myself.”

Her chin was sunk in the puffs of her white muslin blouse and the color
was in her cheeks again. But he went on, apparently not noticing her
confusion.

“For generations back every Jayne has married in the neighborhood. We
are all related in some way; you meet the Jayne nose on a Crisp
face--you have the Crisp chin--and a Furlonger little finger,” he
crooked out his own, “on a Jayne hand. Nancy Turle has my father’s
waving red hair, and I’ve got the Turles’ white skin.”

He tucked up the sleeve of his coat to show her his smooth, milky skin.

“I thought,” he continued, as she neither looked nor spoke, “that a
change would be good. Change! You see it in stock; you see it in
flowers. Those crimson phloxes,” he pointed through the window, “are
twice as high this year because last autumn they were shifted in the
border. And Gainah, who knows all about flowers, says she can’t grow
heartsease three years running without lifting. They dwindle to
farthing-faces. Even cabbage mustn’t follow cabbage. I said to myself
that I’d graft new blood on the old Jayne stock.”

Pamela lifted her flaming face, and, putting out her thin foot,
contemptuously kicked the nearest letter.

“Then you had better take one of these,” she said, with temper, “if, as
you seem to think, I am a Crisp and your cousin.”

He looked at the foot which darted from her skirt.

“It’s a Furlonger foot,” he said simply. “Cousins! There isn’t a doubt.
But I’m content to take the way of my fathers.”

“I--I don’t know. It is early. You’d better let me go back.”

As she spoke she fleetly shut her eyes, so that she could see neither
the golden wheat-field nor the handsome face. At once the steep
wall of the prison ran up, and above it, searing her eyes, was the
blinding dome of sky. Beyond she saw the railway line, the dreary waste
land, a solitary old cottage, a tethered goat; on the edge of the
earth, meeting the sky, the bristling chimneys of the distant suburb
beyond the Scrubbs.

The prison! That chapter of her life was nearly ended. She knew that
she was weak; knew that she would yield to Jethro. Already she almost
felt as if that golden field of wheat half belonged to her. She would
yield. Why not? It was so simple, so idle. How she had longed for rest,
and more--for freedom! The heel of another woman had been very hard on
her neck. Just to go back to London, pack her boxes, take a cab, bid
her landlady farewell--and leave no trace. When _he_ came out from
prison he would not find her--that was all.

“I might stay--and see,” she said faintly, opening her gray eyes.

“Very well. You want a situation; I offer you one. I pay you
thirty-five pounds a year for gowns and things. That between ourselves.
At the end of the year--we’ll see. To the world, to Gainah, you are my
Cousin Pamela.”

“I’d like to earn my thirty-five pounds,” she said sturdily.

“Of course. You’ll make the place pretty, as young women can. You’ll
entertain all your distant relations--the Turles and Crisps and
Furlongers. You can write letters for me until I get about again. I’m
like a log just now. Look here!” He rolled down the covering and
showed his bandaged limb. “I got a fork run into my leg in the harvest
field, and it turned to a nasty wound. But I shall be about again
soon.”

“That is all?” She breathed relief, and the glint of distaste in her
eyes faded out.

“That is all. You didn’t think I was a cripple?”

“I didn’t know.”

“You really do favor my Uncle John,” Jethro said, after a pause. “Do
you mind--it will be your first duty--getting a leather case from that
top, left-hand drawer? Yes, that’s it,” when she brought it back. “See!
Here he is. Now, isn’t the mouth the same?”

He held before her the faded likeness, taken on silver, of a young man
in staid black clothes, and with straggling side whiskers.

“Taken just before he ran away. Is it anything like your father?”

She stared at the dim old portrait for a long time before she answered.
Her eyes took in every detail--the doubled fist on a bulky book, the
vapid smile, the too apparent watch-chain with its bunch of seals.

“I can’t say,” she returned faintly at last. “This is a young man.
Father was gray when I remember him. He married late in life. He had a
white beard. But I think,” she held the portrait thoughtfully sideways,
“that the mouth is something like. Father had a bare lip to the end of
his days.”

She shut the case and laid it on the table. Another bee came in and
darted at the nodding cherries in her hat. The metallic clink from the
smithy became more persistent. Jethro said gently at last, putting out
the big brown hand which was so dry and yielding:

“Then it is settled?”

Pamela, her head down, the long, haggard line deep on her lips, said
almost inaudibly:

“Yes.”

The word had hardly died away before Gainah, in her dim blue cotton
gown with the skimped skirt and straight bodice, put her head in at the
door and asked harshly if the newly-found cousin meant to stay to
dinner.




CHAPTER III.


HER past was tightly packed away behind her--packed as remorselessly,
as perfectly, as she had corded her boxes; with much effort and
expenditure of strength, but with a perfect regard to safety. She was
out of London. Never again would she let her eyes of anguish light on
the prison.

She was driving with Jasper along the dusty Sussex road, which barely a
week before she had trudged wearily and with many misgivings. The
prosperity and ease and promise of her new life struck at her, soothed
her, with many minute details--the soft carriage-rug, the sleek coat of
the mare, the polished harness. She had a passion for ease, for pretty
things, for worldly status.

Folly Corner became her home--her sheltered home. Time passed. As the
weeks wore on her face grew mobile and careless, dull pink begun to
timidly bloom on her skin, her eyes brightened. She was happy,
occupied, free from anxiety. Above all, she had plenty of pence, need
never deny herself a penny pleasure--and she was one of those mercurial
women who can be made happy by a bar of French chocolate, and miserable
by a shabby hat. Once she said, with a bitter-sweet laugh, to Jethro:

“I was never made for responsibility. I ought to live in a harem. A
bon-bon, a pat on the head from my master, would make me absolutely
content.”

He seemed amused at first, then he looked puzzled, and then displeased.
He had decided already in his serious, practical way, that she was to
be his wife, and whimsicality struck him as unorthodox--nearly as bad
as dissent. The Jaynes had always been stanch churchmen, and never
spoke without first weighing every word.

Sometimes, in spite of herself, she gave a backward thought. Sometimes
the hunted, tragic gleam lighted its taper in her happy eyes. Some
shadow of the old grief, some touch of the old delirious joy and
misery, stirred her. Rain against the window, a rumble of thunder, a
shrieking wind, or a harsh voice was enough to frighten her. She felt a
gnawing uncertainty. Would this peace, this ease, continue?

When these uncomfortable thoughts assailed her she plunged fiercely
into work, clicking her needle and thimble through new calico, or
darting about the rambling house with a duster. She was pathetically
anxious to earn her salary, to be absolutely independent of Jethro’s
charity. She had not yet decided whether her torn heart would allow her
to marry him when the time came.

One morning he strolled down the weedy gravel path of the oblong
kitchen-garden, with the holly hedge as wall on all four sides, and the
holly arch as postern at the entrance. There were grass paths between
the beds: they wanted mowing and leveling. The wide herbaceous borders
were full of weeds. The gravel path going straight from one end to the
other was a harmony in green and yellow.

There was a gardener at Folly Corner, but Gainah made him clean boots,
chop wood, and carry buckets; while Jethro made him drive and groom the
horses, and pressed him into service when he was short of hands on the
farm. Consequently the garden was unattended. Scarlet pimpernel was
vivid on the dry ground, bindweed bound round the cabbage-stalks, and
wild clumps of blazing corn marigold bloomed unheeded.

Pamela was loitering in an archway of dead scarlet-runners, collecting
seed, by Gainah’s orders. Gainah was mistress of the garden. Jethro
came along the alley in his thick brown boots. His hands were in his
breeches pockets; a Michaelmas daisy, which he had pulled from the
border as he strolled, was in his mouth. He looked at Pamela, half
tenderly, half quizzically--a look which always set her pulses
throbbing. She could never forget, when she was alone with him, the
piquant circumstances which had brought her under his roof. Sometimes
when Gainah imposed distasteful tasks her neck would swell, and she
told herself proudly that by next autumn she could, if she chose, be
mistress of Folly Corner.

Her basket was three parts full of seed-pods--like the fingers of
dainty gloves stretched over bones. As she moved the seeds made a
dice-like rattle. Jethro took the basket from her and begun to pull the
pods off the dry yellow stalks himself.

“You shouldn’t be at this work,” he said, lifting her white hand with
his free one. “Why can’t Daborn do it?”

“Gainah likes to see to these things herself.”

“You must be mistress over Gainah.”

“Not yet,” she broke out involuntarily, and then flushed.

Jethro laughed.

“I’m glad you put it that way. Evidently we are of the same mind.
Suppose we say six months instead of a year, Cousin Pamela.”

“No, no! A year, as we decided.”

She looked vaguely through the wasted tendrils of the dead beans as
they clung to the sticks--looked in the direction of London. Jethro had
once said carelessly London was that way, jerking his broad brown thumb
widely. After that, she looked across the common whenever that chill
thought of the prison stole in and numbed her brain.

“Come a little way along the road. If Gainah sees us she’ll call you
in,” he said almost pleadingly. “I never get you to myself.”

He pulled out his turnip-like silver watch, which had been his
grandfather’s, and added that he had ten minutes. Daborn was grooming
the roan mare, ready to drive him in the dogcart to Liddleshorn.

“You might come too,” he said.

“No. Gainah would be angry.”

“You mustn’t think too much of her. After all, she’s a paid servant.”

“So am I.”

Her face, under the brim of her Panama hat, was arch and mournful at
the same moment.

They went along the gravel path. Jethro took out his pocket-knife and
cut off the head of a great plantain.

“The place wants seeing to,” he said with dissatisfaction, looking at
the weeds in the bed. “It wants a mistress. You should see the garden
at Turle House. Nancy manages that. Nancy in some sort of way must be
your cousin. We are all relations.”

It was the last day of September, and there had been a frost early in
the morning. The blackened marrow plants straggled on their mound.
Daborn had clamped the beet the day before, and the broken leaves, with
their wine-colored stems, were scattered. The plumy foliage of the
carrots had died down. The sparkling parsnip leaves were yellow, and
dew glittered on the crinkled, bluish leaves of the savoys with their
tight hearts. The sun shone brightly, but the air was crisp. Everything
was ominous of winter. Pamela shivered as she looked at the solid
chimney stacks of Folly Corner, and pictured an iron winter in the
fastness of that old house, with Gainah as grim companion.

They went through the yard into the road. Daborn had the dogcart out.
Pamela stopped by the wall of the granary, her foot twined in a bit of
trailing periwinkle.

“Give me the basket,” she said, “and good-by.”

Jethro looked at her.

“You’d better come too,” he said. “Jump in.”

“No. My dress; no gloves.”

“Tuck your hands under the rug. At Liddleshorn we’ll buy gloves. Jump
up. We shan’t want you, Daborn. Here’s the basket. Miss Crisp will hold
the reins.”

Pamela still hesitated, looking back at the house, and remembering she
had promised Gainah that she would mark some pillow-slips. But it was
such a magic morning, with an intensely blue sky--a March sky almost,
with a spice of frost lurking behind the hot sun. There were long
trails of red bryony berries on the hedges; glittering gossamer webs
were woven across the clumps of broom on the common. Jethro looked so
strong and masterful--such a man! She believed that in the end she
would marry him whether she wanted to or not. He had a rough manner of
command with women--savage, yet tender. Pamela, like a woman, loved it.
She lifted her foot, swung up to the blue cushion, and a moment later
they were bowling smoothly along the road.

He didn’t speak. He flicked at the mare with a tinge of pettishness.
Pamela sat well back. She felt a person of some importance; every small
girl they met bobbed her little skirts into the dust, and the
heavy-footed laboring men lifted a finger to their hair as Jethro
bowled by in the flashing sunshine.

He pulled up at the gate of a small farm, and asked Pamela to hold the
mare while he went in. The farmer had a farrowing sow for sale.

She just clasped the slack reins. The farmhouse was so overgrown with
fruit-trees and ivy that the mellow bricks were shrouded. By and by
Jethro came swinging down the path, with a weak old man hobbling
behind him. They went and leaned over the piggeries, which were on the
left of the gate. She caught a word or two here and there; it was Greek
to her. Jethro surveyed the huge black sow keenly before he closed the
bargain. Then he swung open the gate in his familiar impetuous way, and
just before he got up into the cart he turned to the old man and said
with a kind of careless authority:

“You ought to get out of this. Sell up and go into lodgings. It isn’t
good for a man to live alone.”

To Pamela he added in a bluff aside:

“Mansell has lost his missus.”

She leaned toward the straggling, shambling figure, and threw a faint
smile of sympathy. He was a foolish-looking old man, with a face made
more imbecile by a loose, slobbering lip and the short silvery spikes
of a week-old beard. He began to pour out his misery and loneliness,
perhaps because she, like his dead wife, was a woman.

“Missis died six months ago,” he said tremulously, as he twisted his
dirty hands and gave his watery smile. “She was a good missis. But,”
with a crowing cackle of laughter, “I was good, too. I never knocked
her down, nor give her a black eye. I didn’t offen even scold her. Step
inside.” His face and voice were eager. “I’d like you to have a look
round.”

Pamela, oddly touched, said gently to Jethro:

“Let me go. You come too.”

They tied the mare to the gatepost, and went up the path to the
brooding house in its tangle of ivy and its unpruned jungle of ancient
plum-trees. The widower went first, chattering volubly all the time,
his back bent, his hand heavy on the polished knob of his stick.

They went into the low-pitched living-room. The fusty smell turned
Pamela faint. The old man seemed to divine her nausea.

“You should ha’ seen how missis kept it,” he said deprecatingly. “But,
Lord bless you, I am a helpless old man, seventy-nine come October, and
I can’t clean. I’m alone. Missis and the children dead. But I aint
afraid.” He gave an apprehensive glance at the shadows of the murky
room. “Why should I be? What I always says is this”--he kept peppering
his platitudes with the silly laugh that went to the girl’s
heart--“God, who made me, aint a-goin’ to kill me.”

Pamela looked round the room. Everything, inside and out of the farm,
had gone to pieces for the lack of a capable woman.

“I did used to keep the garden terrible nice,” the old man said, seeing
her gray eyes look through the door into the sunny wilderness. “But
there! missis is gone! I’ll show you her earrings.”

He hobbled away into the adjoining room. Pamela heard him jingling
metal and scrooping wooden furniture over the flag floor. Presently he
came out with a card-board box shaking in his hand. He took the lid off
reverently and held out the open box. A pair of earrings, of very pale
gold, such as you can buy at fairs for a trifle, were on a bed of
tissue paper.

“Very pretty,” the girl said lamely.

Jethro had gone outside. He was viewing the neglected fruit-trees
severely.

“And there’s one more thing I must show you.”

Mansell hobbled away, up the crazy stairs this time, and came back with
a snow-white smock, which he thrust into her hands.

“Missis made this for me to be married in.” He stuck his foolish red
face forward and grinned more widely. “She put her best work into it.
Lord bless you, when I was but a boy--I’m seventy-nine come October--we
used to go to church on Sundays, every man in his clean smock. Missis
did it. She was a rare one at her needle.”

Pamela looked at the exquisite, delicate stitching. The whole heart of
that dead woman was woven into the diamonds and honeycombs and lattices
of the wedding smock.

“Very pretty,” she said lamely again.

“I must get to Liddleshorn before ten,” Jethro cried out from the
garden.

She stepped into the sun, Mansell behind her. He followed them to the
gate, seeming pathetically anxious to hold on to human companionship as
long as he could. A sheep-dog came running out from the barn. Pamela,
who was distrustful of dogs, felt glad that she was in the cart.

“He won’t bite, bless you; he’s too old. But when he was young he _was_
s’ savage. Missis used to set one side of the fire winter nights, and I
used to set the other. And she, just for fun, used to say to me, ‘Oh,
dear,’ and I used to say, ‘Oh, dear.’ You should have heard him growl.
He was s’ savage you durstn’t move or speak.”

Jethro gathered the reins with an air of business.

“You must get out of this,” he advised, with curt good nature.

“I suppose I must. Yet I’d like to stop on. Yet since missis died
everything’s gone to pieces. I used to get such good living--fresh
butter and new-laid eggs. I can churn myself, but no one seems to care
for my butter. Don’t know why; there was a great call for missis’s.”

“Well, good-by to you,” said Jethro, with masculine intolerance of his
whimpering garrulity.

“Good-by and God bless you. Take care of yourselves. Come and see me
again.” His bleared blue eyes were turned pleadingly on Pamela. “And,
Master Jayne”--he looked from one to the other, and his shrill voice
quavered childishly--“when you gets a missis may you never lose her. A
man’s no good without a missis.”

The cart moved on. Presently Pamela said softly, “Poor old thing! he
made me feel quite miserable.”

“He’s not quite right in his head. But--you heard what he said, Cousin
Pamela? A man’s no good without a missis.”

The strong brown hand in the worn driving-glove plunged under the
holland carriage-rug and took her bare fingers significantly.

“It’s true enough,” Jethro said thoughtfully, after a bit. “I’m worried
about Folly Corner. Something’s wanting. The food’s all right----”

“Now, the food isn’t right,” she put in briskly. “Plenty of it--yes.
But the serving! Who ever heard of a meat pudding brought to table in
its basin! Fancy cheese on the breakfast-table! White sugar should be
grated over the tarts and--oh, many things. Some of them I couldn’t
mention to you: it wouldn’t be nice.”

She was thinking of a thrifty trick of Gainah’s: the unhatched eggs
found in a hen that had been killed were used for cakes. She thought it
perfectly horrid, and her town squeamishness made her feel that there
was a certain indelicacy involved in the proceeding. At all events she
couldn’t mention such a thing to Jethro.

“And the other day,” she continued, broodingly, “a pig was killed.
Gainah was in the kitchen all day. She made me go out, too. The things
they did with that pig! The savory horrors she turned out!”

Jethro gave a great jolly laugh.

“Chitterling and fagots and scraps,” he cried. “I like them. You are
not a farmer’s wife--yet. Gainah is a splendid housekeeper. It isn’t
the housekeeping. It is the--the--difference. You know what I mean.
Flowers in the vases; the dinner-table dainty, not solid. Foolish
things--but they make a difference.”

“They are important things. They certainly make a difference--all the
difference. You’ve been dominated too long by that old woman. The place
has the wrong tone. Do you understand what I mean? It looks a farmer’s
house. It ought to look a gentleman’s.”

“But I _am_ a farmer--and proud of it.”

“Of course. It is the fashion to farm nowadays. It is quite genteel
if--if you lose money over it.”

He seemed puzzled at her pert extravagance, and said stolidly that he
was glad that his farming paid--every Jayne was a good farmer; it was
in the blood.

“Well,” said Pamela, with a shrug and a droll smile, “you can get the
effect anyhow. We must put up with prosperity. There are many things
I’ll do, if you’ll let me. The housemaid must wear a cap with lappets
in the afternoons. She should wait at table, and bring your newspaper
in on a tray; letters, too, when there are any. I’ll train her. Of
course, Gainah does not know how; she will be grateful to me for hints.
You are very slow down here in Sussex. Did I tell you that I lived for
six months in a boarding-house?” There was the faintest quiver of her
heavy lids. “I carved and kept accounts. Things were done very well
there. I have moved about the world and kept my eyes open.”

While she was making this smug little speech Jethro looked at her with
satisfaction. She was a woman of wit, of knowledge. Her glib tongue was
refreshing and piquant after the demure monosyllables and faint
opinions--always watered by Mamma--of the Liddleshorn damsels.

They were smoothly clattering down the High Street.

“Furniture.” Pamela pointed to the upholsterer’s. “There should be oak
in the dining-room.”

“There is oak at Folly Corner.”

“Is that oak?” She opened her big eyes and arched her faint dun brows.
“Then it is different. We had a beautiful carved dinner-wagon at the
boarding-house.”

“It was my father’s grandfather’s furniture, and his grandfather’s
before him,” Jethro said conservatively.

Pamela ran on:

“And cushions. There should be lots of cushions with frills.” She threw
a longing glance at the draper’s.

Jethro looked too. One window was full of down cushions--big, square,
and with frills deeper than the cushions themselves.

“They would look lovely on the settle,” Pamela said gloatingly.

Every woman has her pet weakness. Hers had always been _carte blanche_
at the Oriental shop. There was a spatter of Oriental fripperies in a
side window at the Liddleshorn draper’s; it was an up-to-date shop.

“And embroidered mats,” she added, “and big bowls to stand flower-pots
in; and those green specimen glasses for the table; and a bit or two of
that Benares brass; and--it’s really a very good assortment--one of
those guitars to hang on the wall with ribbons. You should have
fretwork ornaments and some lacquered brackets, on which to stand
plates or little blue tear-bottles.”

Jethro beckoned to a small boy on the curb, and threw him the reins.

“We’ll go in,” he said, jumping down and holding out his hand to
Pamela.

“I must get some gloves first of all,” she said, as her foot touched
the pavement.

When she had bought them, she led Jethro captive through the Oriental
department. He told her carelessly to buy what she chose, and she moved
eagerly from one counter to another. She chose some gaudy rugs to toss
about the oak floors. She bought brass bowls and trays, a few grotesque
ornaments for the shelves, mats, a guitar, a Chinese woman’s shoe, a
mandarin’s petticoat to throw over an armchair, a bundle of peacock’s
feathers, a few bits of coarsely-printed china, various embroidered
table-covers--all the vividly-colored, alluring rubbish that she
fancied.

They had it packed up and stowed in the dogcart. She carried the china
gingerly on her knee for fear of breakage. Her eyes danced. After years
of poverty, this careless throwing away of money was delightful.

When they reached home she made Daborn take everything out and carry it
into the dining-room--the dining-parlor, as Gainah persisted in calling
it. There was a strong smell of raw onion from the kitchen; it was
being packed away in wide-mouthed bottles, with alternate slices of
beet and a savory bath of spiced vinegar. Gainah came in, her hands
dyed with onion juice.

Pamela was excitedly unswathing her treasures from yards of tissue
paper.

“We’ve bought a few things,” she said pleasantly. “Sit down and look
at them. That is an Indian god.” She held out an abominable brown
figure. “Jethro was saying that the place wanted improving--bringing up
to date. Of course, you never hear of the newest things down here. How
should you? I got these cushions for the settle, and this--isn’t the
embroidery lovely?--for the piano. A piano should never have its back
against the wall. It is an ugly piece of furniture; its form is all
against it. I told Jethro that there should have been a grand in that
big room. That is the only endurable form of piano.”

She was chattering the artistic jargon of a belated æsthete who had
boarded at the house in Bloomsbury. Gainah hardly seemed to hear her.
She had toppled down into one of the high-backed, rush-seated chairs,
and was nervously moving her stained hands on her lap.

“Don’t you like these rugs?” Pamela cut the string with one of the
heavy buck-handled knives which was on the dinner-table. “They are to
be thrown down in odd corners--anywhere. You can’t have too much color
in a room. I must go and take my hat off.” She glanced at the waiting
dinner-table and stacked her purchases carefully on the horsehair sofa.
“I’ll arrange everything this afternoon. By tea-time you will hardly
recognize the place. Cousin Jethro is so kind; he says that if I
haven’t thought of everything he will drive me into Liddleshorn again
to-morrow. These green glasses are for flowers. I must arrange them
every day for dinner in schemes of color. There! That is one thing I
forgot--an embroidered centerpiece. And we might have candle-shades,
too. Those candlesticks,” she glanced at some heavy ones of Sheffield
plate on the oak sideboard, “are the rage in London just now.”

She ran out of the room. Gainah did not stir from her chair by the
yawning hearth on which the first fire of the season smoldered. She
gazed fixedly in her vacant way at the trash on the sofa. Only one
thing that Pamela had said worked in her slow brain: “Jethro was saying
that the place wanted improving.”

She looked at the gaudy plates and jars; then thought of the delicate
family china which was locked away in the little closet leading out of
the keeping-room. She looked at the red and yellow brackets, the
ornaments, and then looked round at the distempered walls, against
which stood the beautiful golden oak, every piece of which she had
tended as if it were a child. Every week she had rubbed that oak with
beeswax and turpentine. Every week she had washed the china bowls and
figures on the shelf. Every week for more than thirty years! She knew
now that the landmarks of those years were going to be swept away. Her
face grew harsh and vindictive--the face of a worn old panther--worn,
old, feeble, but still with claws. Pamela, who meant everything in the
kindest spirit possible, and who never doubted that her efforts would
be received with gratitude, was breeding tragedy. Gainah, in the
upright chair, her mournful eyes roving sluggishly round the
ancestral furniture that she loved, was working up to a climax.

Why should this girl--this pert jade, this strange cousin on the
mother’s side--ruin the lives of her elders? Why should she sneer at
rustic customs which were old enough to be as sacred as the Bible?

Gainah’s mental attitude changed from injury to rebellion. She began to
ask herself stupidly, with an agonized questioning of her slow brain,
if Pamela could not be got rid of, banished from Folly Corner. How
should she lift from the farm the shadow thrown across it? She only
wanted to serve her master in her old faithful way, according to her
own lights. She had brought him up from his birth. She almost believed
that she was his mother. She had even chosen his wife for him. Nancy
Turle wouldn’t have taken the housekeeping keys. She clutched at them
as they weighed down her apron pocket. Pamela should never take them
either. Nancy Turle would never have spent money like water at
Liddleshorn. She glowered at the brightly colored stuffs and crockery.

Only to go on serving him until the end. Wasn’t that a simple thing to
ask? Just to be allowed to save and screw, to manage the farmhouse and
to manage him in her hectoring way, which was all tenderness and
devotion at bottom. She got up, turned her back on the new purchases,
and ran her hand along the heavy sideboard lovingly, as if it were
alive.




CHAPTER IV.


WHEN the purchases from the Oriental department were finally arranged,
Pamela retreated to the door of the keeping-room--the drawing-room as
she had privately determined to call it--and shut her eyes; then,
opening them quickly and glancing comprehensively round, she tried to
imagine what the effect of the room would be on a stranger. The round
walnut table was pushed into a corner and covered with a red and yellow
cloth, on which storks were painted. The piano cut across a corner, and
had its back draped. The brackets were fixed on the wall and upheld
Kaga plates. The mandarin’s petticoat, that had cost a great deal,
nearly covered the green chair, and the green sofa was piled with
cushions. The gaudy rugs did their best to cover up the bunches of pink
Provence roses on the carpet.

Things really made a very good show. The place looked almost civilized.
These were her complacent thoughts as she stood at the door with her
head on one side. Instinctively she went upstairs and put on her best
gown, and arranged her hair in the elaborate way which she reserved for
special occasions. When she came downstairs she shut her eyes again,
then opened them spasmodically. Yes, it would do.

She felt quite excited. Anyone could see that the hand of a person of
taste had touched everything.

A feeling of towns came over her. She looked through the diamond panes
of the long window as if she expected to see hansoms bowling along the
road. Then she sighed and glanced in the mirror again. What was the
good of dressing one’s hair and wearing one’s best gown? Nobody would
call.

Gainah was still in the kitchen. She could hear her grating voice and
slow step. Jethro was tramping over the stubble, his Irish terrier,
Rob, at his heels. She put her softly-puffed head out of the bay window
and called out pleadingly:

“Oh! do come in and look.”

He came across the field--came tolerantly, leisurely, as if he were
good-humoredly indulging the whim of a child. When he opened the door
he seemed too heavy for the transformed room, with its elegant tags of
foreign frippery. He seemed to put it to shame; he brought an
intangible, sterling feeling with him. Pamela, without knowing why,
felt a little less satisfied.

“Do you like it?” she asked nervously.

He dropped into the green chair, his broad hands gripped round the
petticoat, and looked about him with amusement.

“Everything’s crooked,” he said lazily, at last, his mouth drolly
curved and his eyes merry. They were such keen, outdoor eyes; they
seemed to pierce through shams. She was afraid that he saw the pins in
the piano back. She had been obliged to join two lengths of silk
together, and had been too eager to stay and sew it.

“Yes, everything is crooked; that is one of the fundamental rules
of modern decoration,” she told him flippantly. “Piano across one
corner, table across the other; nothing stiff, nothing solid.”

“Umph!”

He was not impressed. He was certainly laughing at the single
knickerbocker of silk into which she had stuck a pot of late musk.

“You’ve blocked the door of the china closet with that jar of
feathers.”

“The china closet! How delightful. It never occurred to me to ask what
was beyond that door.” She tried the handle, then asked him for the
key.

“Gainah has it.”

“I’ll get her to give it me.”

She dashed out into the corridor and met the housekeeper midway.

“I was coming to look for you,” she said, with her unfailing good
temper and self-satisfaction. “I want your opinion on the drawing-room.
There! Isn’t that pretty? Cousin Jethro doesn’t care a bit; but, then,
men are no good at decoration.

“And I want you to give me the key of the china closet,” she added.

A queer flush stole over Gainah’s cheeks, and her distorted hand went
involuntarily to her apron pocket, and her cold eyes sought Jethro’s
beseechingly. Pamela had her palm outspread.

“Yes, we’ll have a look in the closet,” Jethro said easily. “Don’t know
when I went in last. There is a lot of stuff that was my mother’s and
your aunt’s.” As he put in this touch, he glanced meaningly at Gainah,
with the half-timid assertion of a big, kindly man who has been
subjugated by a mean woman.

He wanted her to remember, without troubling him to hurt her by putting
it into words, that Pamela was one of the family, and had a close
interest in the family crockery.

“The closet is only opened once a year, when we clean in spring,”
Gainah said grudgingly. “I don’t want strange fingers handling the
china.”

But she opened the door. Pamela, quite as a matter of course, took the
key off the ring and slipped it into her own pocket.

“It is a mistake to hide old china. The room won’t want locking again,”
she said, gliding over the bare, dusty floor. “What a lovely
collection! I wish I had known, then I need not have wasted money on
Kaga. Anyone can buy that for so much three farthings--farthings play a
most important part in modern decorations, Cousin Jethro.”

She dimpled round at his puzzled face, and threw a conciliatory glance
at Gainah, who had taken up a canary-colored jug with uneven black
lettering straggling round its bulging middle. They were all three in
the tiny room, lighted by one high window, across which the foamy white
rose crept.

“May I look?” Pamela took the canary jug.

    “‘Long may we leve.
      Happy may we be,
    Blest with content,
      And from misfortin’ free.’

“Most delightful sentiments, and equally delightful spelling,” she
commented lightly, while Jethro watched her with a growing admiration,
and the cold light slanted through the window on Gainah’s worn,
malevolent face.

“What blue bowls and dishes! What luster! I think they call that
coppery stuff luster.”

“My mother’s best tea set.” Jethro took up a tiny handleless cup with
purplish-pink trails of flowers painted on it.

“Lowestoft, I think.” Pamela cocked her head on one side. “But I know
nothing of china. Therefore I admire it all--that is a very safe rule
in art. Now you and Gainah must run away.” She made a feint of pushing
him toward the door. “I’m going to be busier than ever. All this must
be arranged to the best advantage. Then the door will be left open, and
when next we go to Liddleshorn you must buy a portière.”

She jumped upon a chair, and lifted bowls and dishes from the top
shelf, making a running comment as she did so.

“I wish I knew printed from painted. This dish is either very valuable
or utterly worthless; some things are just on the borderland. You two
must really go away.” She put out one hand deprecatingly. “There ought
to be some tin tacks, or a ledge, in front of the shelves, so that the
plates could stand up.”

Gainah looked at her, a brilliant, dainty, voluble creature, high up on
a mahogany chair whose back was carved in wheat-ears. She had all the
color and pertness of a bullfinch. She looked at her, this dangerous
republican; looked at white fingers carelessly handling china which
for over thirty years only her own hands had touched. She had grown to
believe that it was hers, that Jethro himself was hers, and the farm
too, with its fat acres and its ripe family tradition. She had been
undisputed queen at Folly Corner the best part of her life. All the
family connections, when they paid Jethro a rare visit, had deferred to
her. Yet not one of them knew the truth--that Jethro’s father had
almost married her.

She thought of that as she watched Pamela standing radiant on the
chair. A horrible pang for the muddles, incomplete past, and a still
more set feeling of bitterest, merciless revenge contracted her heart.
She turned away without a word, leaving the cousins in the china
closet. She sat herself down in the ruins of her temple, and looked
blankly at the devastation wrought by Pamela’s active fingers in two
short hours.

She knew for whom this room had been refurnished more than thirty years
before. Not for Jethro’s mother. She, after the fashion of frugal first
wives, had saved and gone short of household elaborations. The room had
been furnished for _her_. She, Gainah Toat, had been the elder Jethro’s
second fancy. She had been a good-looking woman well within thirty in
those days; while he had been nearer sixty, having married a
middle-aged cousin--of the plain variety of women, warranted to wear
well--when he was fifty or more. But she, Gainah, had inspired him with
positive passion. Bah! She knew what a man’s passion was, and how far
it led him. She knew that it made even a miser like the elder Jethro
dip deeply into his pocket.

She remembered driving with him into Liddleshorn, just as Pamela had
to-day driven in with his son, and choosing the flowery carpet, the
round table, the piano--on which she could never hope to play a note.
Neighbors had condoled with her on the prospect of a new wife at Folly
Corner. She had said nothing, by his wish--he was a taciturn man. But
she remembered the flutter of triumph which had worked behind her dry
lips all the time. She knew that _she_ was to be the bride of whom they
gossiped and about whose appearance they speculated.

What might have been! He had been dead more than thirty years, and she
had dutifully kept the secret of his weakness. Not even Jethro knew
that there had been love passages, of a fairly practical sort--on one
side at least--between Gainah and his father. Her courting scenes had
been seasoned with matter-of-fact reference to the crops or the
prospects of early ducklings. She had always been grim and unbending.

What might have been! If only the master of Folly Corner had not been
pitched out of the high gig. His head had cracked on a heap of big
stones by the road, piled high all ready for autumn breaking.

She remembered so well the day they brought him home. It was on a
Monday, and she had, for once, managed to cut her nails without
thinking of a fox’s tail--sure sign of a present.

That was the present they brought her--the dying body of the
substantial man, who loved her in his common-sense way, who would have
redeemed her from service.

She remembered the day of the funeral. It was a cold day. The bereft
house had seemed to rock and moan with every wail of the agonized wind
outside. The front door, through which they carried the long, wide
coffin, was flung widely back by her orders until the burial service
had been read at the church. If that had not been done there would have
been another death within the year. Bitterly as she had been
disappointed and foiled, she did not want to die. Neither did she want
baby Jethro to die; she loved him a great deal better than she had
loved his father--there was no ulterior motive mixed up with her regard
for the child.

The farmer had not even made a will in her favor. He had not left her
one penny. She stayed on as paid housekeeper, the conclave of relatives
deciding that it would be best. Mrs. Turle, the dead man’s sister, paid
her quarterly. She stayed on. She managed the farm until Jethro grew
up. She managed Jethro--had never left off managing him. She was a
masterful woman.

And now she was to be put aside, like the pair of china figures which
had lost an arm apiece, and which stared at each other hopelessly on
their dim attic shelf.

Jethro came out from the closet, looking handsome and happy. Pamela,
still on the chair, was softly humming a gay little air.

Gainah struggled up from the sofa. She looked at Jethro. She moved her
dry pale lips, and moved her oddly-dressed brown head too. She wanted
to speak to him--to implore, to insist. But the words strangled in
her throat at the sight of his exultant face and shining eyes.

It was useless for age to pit itself against youth. Her time was past.
She knew, although it was gall to admit it, that the girl she hated had
Nature on her side. All her comparisons were drawn from Nature; her
untiring energy of pickle and preserve making had gone hand-in-hand
with Nature.

Didn’t the old potatoes rot off to make room for the new? Wasn’t it
natural?

Her feet moved slowly over the carpet. It had been her choice nearly
thirty-five years before. But it was hardly worn; they rarely used the
keeping-room.

She went into the garden. She looked at the brown stalks of the
summer’s annuals in her borders. They were dead, dry--only fit for the
waste-heap. Yet their young seedlings were green and vigorous. It was
all so simple, so natural. Yet--yet! She was far too practical, too
mentally sluggish, to put the half-formed thought into clear shape.
They were only fit for the waste-heap--but did they want to go there?
Wasn’t there some dumb, desperate struggle against extinction going on
between those brown, sadly swaying stalks?

Then she saw a wagonette pull up at the white gate, saw a head of rich
red hair between the poplars, and hurried indoors to put on her black
silk gown.




CHAPTER V.


PAMELA saw the wagonette, too, as she perched on the chair, her head
level with the high window. She was so surprised and fluttered that the
Oriental bowl she was lifting down nearly dropped from her fingers. She
called through the open door to Jethro:

“Here’s a carriage at the gate. Inside, an elderly lady and a girl with
red hair. They are coming up the path.”

“Aunt Sophy--Mrs. Turle, of Turle House--and Nancy.”

“They have come to call on me.”

She gave a soft breath of satisfaction as she jumped from the chair;
her best gown, her waved hair, were justified. She had only just time
to add, “What a pity I hadn’t finished the china closet!” before they
were announced, in rustic, familiar fashion, by the red-armed
housemaid, who hadn’t yet changed her cotton gown for her afternoon
stuff one.

Mrs. Turle was a big woman with a stately carriage. Nancy was slim, and
either shy or stupid. She had a very white skin--the Turle skin, as
Jethro had said. Whenever she spoke or was spoken to, a silly pink
flooded her face. Her dress was precise and perfect in detail; the
very best that the best shop in Liddleshorn could supply. Mrs. Turle,
too, wore a stiff silk, and the set of golden sable which had been part
of her wedding outfit, and was only just beginning to look damaged by
moth. This was evidently a state call. Pamela saw her look swiftly
round the room, as she threw back her net veil with the deep hem.

Jethro, after a few awkward words--he never excelled in the presence of
women--went back to his stubble and his dog. Pamela was left alone with
these two--evidently bent on criticism--who might or might not be of
her blood. Mrs. Turle said, looking at her steadfastly:

“My dear, you are like Jethro’s mother. She died when he was born, you
know. Always weak here.” She laid her plump hand on the sable that
crossed her ample bosom. “I hope your chest is not weak. You don’t look
very strong.”

“I am quite strong, thank you,” the new cousin returned rather
awkwardly, conscious that Nancy was trying to puzzle out the
construction of her _coiffure_.

“You may think so”--Mrs. Turle dealt out the sweet, maternal smile for
which she was famous,--“but one can never be sure of one’s own
constitution. I must send you down a large bottle of the cough syrup I
make for Nancy every autumn.”

She kept looking round the room. Pamela felt sure that she resented
everything--the tablecloth with storks, the winking brass bowls, the
very petticoat, which her portly shoulders crushed.

“I should have called before,” she continued apologetically, “but I
couldn’t have the horse. We only keep one since Mr. Turle died, and my
man, Evergreen, like all old servants, must be indulged. He doesn’t
care to drive in bad weather, and we have had so many mists lately.
Besides”--there was a tinge of reproach in her purring voice--“I hadn’t
seen you at church. I didn’t know if you were ready for callers.”

“Church! Oh, I haven’t been yet. It seemed such a pity to waste half a
beautiful day indoors,” said Pamela innocently. She saw timid Nancy
glance at her mother and smile. They were very tepid people. She
already felt as if little cascades of lukewarm water played on her.

“In London,” she added, in extenuation, “so few people go to church.”

Mrs. Turle looked grave.

“I must say,” she said softly--and Pamela soon learnt that “I must say”
was her favorite formula--“that people in towns are very lax. You can’t
bring up a large family--I’ve had fifteen--without method. When my
children were little they went to church twice on Sunday--what else
could you do with boys? They would only loaf about. Next Sunday, dear,
Nancy and I will call for you. We always drive.”

“Thank you very much.”

“And you have always lived in London? Your mother and father are dead,
so Jethro told us. I knew your father. He was a very handsome young
man. I must say,” her scintillating eyes were full on the girl’s face,
“that I should never have known you for his daughter. There is no
resemblance; poor John had such regular features.”

Pamela looked a little awkward. Nancy said kindly in her weak, sweet
voice, and with her languishing smile:

“Do you ride a bicycle?”

“No. I--I’ve never had the chance.”

“Oh! you must get one. Mustn’t she, mamma? It is such fun. In the
summer we have picnics, and in the winter paper chases.”

“That would be nice.”

The cascades of tepid water were growing in volume. She was new to this
class of caller. Her London experience was pretty large; she had
knocked about in her search for bread. She knew the art jargon of
Hampstead, the conscientious struggle for intellect and high purpose
which distinguishes the prosperous quarter of Bloomsbury. She could
talk shops with a feather-headed woman, babies, even, with a bovine
one, or the divine duties of sex with the serious. But with these
people there was no give-and-take, no merry tossing with the ball, no
brightening of the wits.

“And I suppose you were living with some other relations in London?”

“No,” she said curtly, “I was working for my living. Jethro is my only
relation.”

“We are all kin, are we not, mamma?”

“Of course. So you had a career, dear? Yes. Art? So many girls go in
for that. Nancy attended the Liddleshorn school for a time. But I
don’t think the influence is good for a young woman. I must say that
drawing from a model is not _my_ idea of delicacy.”

“Never from the nude, mamma.”

“Oh! never from the nude, of course. Unless it was a foot. I think you
drew from a foot once, Nancy, love.”

“Oh, yes, mamma; but the model only came once. She hadn’t understood
that she must take her stockings off.”

Pamela was yawning. “I haven’t studied art,” she said curtly.

“Literature? A great many girls go in for that. We had an author at
Mere Cottage. A most extraordinary person. He put a Latin text over his
door. What was it, Nancy?”

“_Parva domus magna quies_, mamma.”

“Yes, something like that. I’m not quite sure that your Latin is right.
But Egbert would know. He is my son at Cambridge.”

“The people were so puzzled,” said Nancy. “Old Mrs. Chalcraft declared
it meant knock and ring. But one of the other old women said it was a
spell to keep witches away.”

“It was a stupid thing to put,” Mrs. Turle broke in with impatience.
“‘A little house for great quiet.’ That is how my son translated it--my
youngest son at Cambridge. That is absurd, of course; little houses
never _are_ quiet.”

“But he meant, mamma, that he didn’t want people to call.”

“Then he need not have troubled to put such a sentence over his door,
dear. Old Timms, who is a painter by trade, was half afraid to do it.”

“His wife made him give up the job when he got to _magna_, mamma. Some
of the old people are so superstitious. She was afraid he might be
signing some compact about his soul with the devil.”

Pamela laughed. The conversation was waking up, she thought, but Mrs.
Turle looked grave.

“It was in very bad taste,” she said, “and he need not have troubled.
No one meant to call on such people.”

“And was it literature, dear?” she continued, more genially. “We are
quite literary down here.” She laughed pleasantly, as if introducing
Pamela to a congenial atmosphere. “What is the name of that person at
the new house on the Liddleshorn Road, Nancy? She keeps a poultry farm
and takes in type-writing.”

“Samuels, mamma.”

“Yes, Mrs. Samuels. And there is Mrs. Clutton at the Buttery. Her
husband is a journalist--so she says.”

The last three words were spoken impressively. Pamela immediately
divined that Mrs. Clutton, of the Buttery, was not a local favorite.

“Nancy has a great taste for literature,” Mrs. Turle continued, with a
fond glance at her daughter, who immediately blushed. “I think that if
there had ever been any question of her going out into the world she
would have chosen literature.”

“Only I can never think of a subject,” Nancy said pathetically. “If
only I could think of a subject and get somebody else to begin!”

“We subscribe to Smith’s,” Mrs. Turle said, smiling sweetly. “We like
to keep abreast with the times. Nancy goes in for serious subjects; she
is halfway through Ruskin’s----”

“Huxley’s, mamma.”

“There is very little difference, dear. But I confine myself to current
fiction. I’m just reading Kingsley’s ‘Westward Ho!’”

“I’m not at all literary,” said Pamela. “I was governess for a time.
Then I was a companion. And--and I managed a boarding-house.”

“Really! Then you understand housekeeping. That will be a help to
Gainah, who is growing old. Ah! here she is. I suppose you have made
your elderberry wine, Gainah? I only got a cask and a half this year.”

Pamela opened her gray eyes when Mrs. Turle of Turle affectionately
greeted the housekeeper. She was astounded to see Gainah, in her black
silk, and with a worn gold chain round her scraggy neck, sit down with
the easy air of an equal on the sofa. She couldn’t understand her
position. She derided the idea of her importance--an ignorant old woman
who was always cooking. Gainah in her eyes was a servant--nothing more.
But in local opinion she was entitled to much deference. The laborers
regarded her as even more important than “young Jethro,” who was only a
stripling.

Nancy took Pamela’s hand.

“Come out in the garden,” she said. “I so love a garden. Do you?”

“I don’t know anything about it,” said Pamela, as they strolled about
in the sun, and the other girl made little gurgling comments.

“How sweet those stocks are! What a show of asters! Ours were a
failure. Evergreen doesn’t care for asters. He likes carpet-bedding and
I bought him a half-crown packet of petunia seed; so I did hope he
would succeed with the asters. You must get Jethro to build you a
little greenhouse. I could give you plenty of geranium cuttings next
spring. It is a little late to take them now. I think it is a little
late; but I must ask Evergreen. You should have a bicycle.” She was
evidently anxious to be friendly. “Would you like to join our Shakspere
class? It is quite proper, you know.”

“Perhaps,” said Pamela vaguely.

Directly she heard the tea bell she hastened her steps almost rudely.
She was determined that Gainah should not take the head of the table,
and she managed to slip on to the oak stool behind the urn just as the
two elder women came along the corridor.

Gainah sat down at the side, shaking her hands and vibrating her head
with anger. But Mrs. Turle smiled approval.

“You must find a young lady in the house a great help,” she said
innocently, as she sat down, spreading her thick silk skirt flat
beneath her. “Nancy always pours out for me.”

Pamela was sulky. She hated what she called a “sit-down” tea. Tea was
not a meal; it was an interlude, a good way of helping out an idle
afternoon.

Jethro on the high stool at the end was hospitably carving a ham. The
smiling housemaid kept coming with fresh plates of toasted tea-cake,
preserve, or buns.

“You must give me the recipe for these rice cakes,” Mrs. Turle said.

“Two cups of rice flour,” returned Gainah solemnly.

“You beat your butter to a cream, of course?”

“Yes. Two eggs.”

“That is very economical. We have hardly any eggs. The hens are all
getting broody again, and I must say an October brood is not worth
hatching. I wish Evergreen would let me have a non-setting breed.”

“Nothing better than Leghorns,” said Jethro.

“Tch!” interrupted Gainah, with her air of absolutism, “Langshans are
better.”

“But they are not nice table birds.” Mrs. Turle smiled on them both and
took another cake. “Now, I must say I like the Plymouth Rock--only its
legs are yellow.”

Pamela, with the superior air of a being on a higher plane, poured out
her newly-found aunt a third cup of tea.

The talk went on. She heard Gainah and Mrs. Turle talk of wine-making,
cider-making, apple-storing.

“Our Blenheims,” Gainah complained, “have all gone a-bitel.”

“They will go mildewed some years. I don’t know why,” returned Mrs.
Turle sympathetically; “ours have kept beautifully so far. I’ll ask
Evergreen if we can spare you some.”

It was a very long meal. The dying sun straggled round the house and
filled the dull room with yellow light. Through the latticed window
they could see the mist rising like a huge bridal wreath from the wet
grass. Mrs. Turle got up hurriedly when the housemaid came in to say
that her carriage had come round.

“You must spend a long afternoon with us soon,” she said, kissing
Pamela. “What are we doing on Wednesday, Nancy?”

“It’s the Shakspere class, mamma.”

“Of course. Pamela must join the Shakspere class. Mrs. McAlpine, my
dear, who started it, is extremely clever--she reads German novels in
the original. And she is very particular--they only read the _nice_
parts of the plays. I inquired into that when Nancy joined. For
although one admires and loves dear Shakspere, I must say one is never
sure of him. It seems such a pity. Are we free on Thursday, Nancy?”

“I usually go round with the _Parish Magazines_, mamma--it is the third
Thursday in the month.”

“So it is. And Friday is unlucky. I don’t believe in such nonsense, of
course, but it is as well not to run unnecessary risk. And Saturday,
that is no day at all.”

“I usually give out stores on Saturday, mamma.”

“Then we’ll say Monday. No, Tuesday--that will give us time to make a
cake. I must ask some more of your relations to meet you, dear. And,
Nancy, we must be careful with the cake; Maria’s are always so
excellent, and she is so critical. And now run out, dear, and tell
Evergreen I’ll come in a moment. I’m afraid he won’t like being kept in
the mist.”


On Tuesday Jethro, who was driving into Liddleshorn, dropped Pamela at
Turle. She stood and watched him out of sight, admiring the smartly
turned-out trap and his broad back in the light covert coat. Then she
went, with lagging feet, up the drive.

Turle was an old house which had been improved into an appearance of
juvenility. Mr. Turle bought it when he retired with a comfortable
fortune from the milling--a comfortable fortune, and a determination on
the part of his wife--to end his days as a gentleman. He spent so much
money that people forgot that he had been a miller. When he died his
widow was actually on the skirts of small gentrydom. She was a
diplomatic woman, and managed to steer fairly clear of family
connections who were still in superior family trade. She drove her
social four-in-hand skillfully, and kept several distinct sets in
perfect balance, smiling on them all with the same motherly, expansive
sweetness, yet never offending the aristocratic susceptibilities of
Mrs. Sugden, the Paper King’s wife, who called on her twice a year,
nor hurting the feelings of the Jeremy Crisp girls, whose father still
carried on the family grocer’s business in Liddleshorn.

Pamela liked Turle. The farm-buildings were hidden, the surrounding
meadows had been knocked into a miniature park and planted with trees.
They were young trees, but everything must have a beginning.

When she was announced she saw that the big drawing-room was full of
strange women. She looked hurriedly from one face to another, finding
family characteristics everywhere. Mrs. Turle kissed her.

“You don’t look quite up to the mark,” she said affectionately. “A
touch of bile?”

She was introduced to all of them; handed over from one to another,
like a bale of samples. They had been engrossed at her entrance over a
big box of fancy work. One of the Jeremy Crisp girls--who was only a
girl by courtesy--went into elderly raptures over a woolwork jacket,
which looked a capital fit for an organ-grinder’s monkey, and was
intended for a baby.

“The box comes round to us once a quarter,” Mrs. Turle explained. “It
goes round to all members. Every member works something, prices it,
puts it in the box, and sends it on to another member. If we see
anything we like we buy it.”

Pamela was beginning to find out that her new cousins and aunts were
tremendously busy women--over nothing at all; that they had a frenzy
for belonging to classes and societies; that they took themselves and
their efforts very seriously.

The cheerful coal fire winked on the foolish satisfied faces with their
ridiculous monotony of outline and color. A crunching on the gravel
made everybody glance out of the window. Mrs. Turle seemed a little
frightened and annoyed. She looked deprecatingly at Cousin Maria
Furlonger, from the “Warren,” who was so very exclusive, who moved in
such a good set, and habitually went up to help Mrs. Sugden when she
gave a charitable entertainment.

“It’s Mrs. Clutton, my dear. You didn’t want to meet her, did you?”

“Oh, never mind, Aunt Sophy. I needn’t know her if I meet her again.”

“I wish she wouldn’t drop in so unceremoniously,” poor Mrs. Turle said
in a hurried whisper. “Mrs. Sugden was here the other day. She begged
me to let her out of the back door because Mrs. Clutton was coming in
at the front. Of course a woman in her position couldn’t possibly meet
anybody like that.

“My dear,” she swept her ample skirts across the room, “this is a
pleasure. Nancy and I were wondering what had happened to you. We’ve
seen nothing of you for at least three days. You’re a little pale. The
weather is trying, and makes one look so fagged and worn.”

It was a trick of Aunt Sophy’s to compassionate everyone and comment on
the fragility of their appearance. Pamela, when she grew to know
her better, was never sure whether it was a feline trick or a
sympathetic one.

The new-comer was dark and lean. She was a young woman, whose face
looked as if it had weathered storms. She was carelessly dressed in
perfectly cut clothes, rather worn. She carried a damp, loosely-tied
parcel, which she handed to Nancy.

“Here are your pinks and white phloxes. Put the roots in soon.”

“If Evergreen has time to-morrow----”

“Don’t wait for him; he’ll kill them. Gardeners have a knack of
sticking their spades through the things they dislike. Do it yourself.
I am so glad I can’t afford a gardener--to give me a plant for the
table when he chooses.” Her eye fell on a melancholy petunia.

“Have you been to any more sales, dear?” asked Mrs. Turle. “Have you
added to your interesting collection of nice old things?”

“Oh, yes!” Mrs. Clutton’s voice became enthusiastic. “I went to such a
delightful sale at Carrsland. I bought a little oak table. A dealer ran
it up to thirty shillings--the wretch! He passed me on the road! I was
walking, as usual; he was cycling. I instantly smelt him out as a
dealer, and I was half inclined to tip him off the bicycle with the
point of my umbrella, gag him, bind him to a tree until the sale was
over. I wish I had; it would have been so deliciously simple.”

There was an awkward silence; then Nancy said, in her gently gushing
way:

“I wish you’d ride a bicycle. It’s such fun.”

Maria Furlonger, of the “Warren,” added politely:

“Yes. You should ride; it’s so good for the brain; and I’ve heard you
write--or something of the sort.”

“Bicycling’s very bad for one’s logic; you can’t imagine a logician on
a bicycle. I don’t write; my husband does.”

Mrs. Turle, anxious for perfect harmony, and knowing--also sharing--the
local skepticism regarding Mrs. Clutton’s husband, put in blandly:

“Mr. Clutton is a journalist. He has gone for a tour round the world.”

“Oh!”

Maria Furlonger’s wide smile full in Mrs. Clutton’s face was a little
dangerous.

Mrs. Turle added quite irrelevantly:

“Poor Mrs. Peter Hone has another baby. That’s twelve.”

“Sympathy is wasted on the poorer classes,” Mrs. Clutton put in, with
her calm, dogmatic air. “You pet them too much. Once it was lap-dogs;
now it’s paupers. Any old dame with a clean apron and a courtesy, any
old man with his trousers tied round the calf and his chin like
stubble, can take you in. Merely a question of livery! Now, it is the
man in the top hat who wants petting--the man who is at his wits’ end
to keep up his insurance payments.”

The tea bell rang. They all filed solemnly into the dining-room.

Maria Furlonger, who was rather taken with Pamela’s silence, which, of
course, meant modesty, began to tell her graciously about the old Manor
House at Carrsland, where her father, Jethro’s mother’s brother, had
been born.

“It’s a very old place. There is a moat all round. It has been filled
up.”

“I am so glad it has been filled,” cried another cousin. “It was so
awkward, so dangerous. You see”--addressing herself to Pamela--“it was
just under the drawing-room window, and a lady might so easily have
fallen out. What a terrible thing it would be for a lady to fall out of
her own drawing-room window--into a moat!”

“When ladies have a tendency that way they should sign the pledge,”
said Mrs. Clutton tersely.

Nancy, meeting her mother’s diplomatic eye, rushed into the breach:

“Have you heard about the nice butcher boy?”

“That boy at Churnside’s?”

“Yes. He has stolen ten pounds. They have arrested him.”

“Dishonesty on a small scale never pays,” said Mrs. Clutton. “Honesty
is really the best policy--now that we have such an excellent police
force.”

She was putting on her gloves, and they looked at each other with
secret satisfaction. She seemed anxious to go. She looked as if the
double row of placid faces irritated her. Mrs. Turle and Nancy kissed
her. The former said:

“Come in again soon; we see so little of you. And take a tonic,
dear--you’re really looking run down.”

“What a vulgar person!” said Maria Furlonger, when the place was clear
of her.

Annie Jayne--the Jaynes of the “Mount”--said:

“She struck me as being a little weak--mentally. Dear mother used to
say that no properly-balanced woman should have opinions of her
own--outside the domestic circle.”

“I must say that some of her remarks are in bad taste,” Mrs. Turle
admitted gently. It was her policy to offend nobody, to speak ill of
nobody; ill-natured remarks never helped your social ascent.

“She’s quite incorrigible,” one of the Jeremy Crisps said. “Do you know
that she cut Mr. Meadows?”

“She didn’t!”

“She _did!_”

“The clergyman of the parish! A rural dean!”

“He called on her--merely a parochial call. He said that he liked to be
identified with all his parishioners--whatever their views. Could
anything be more broad, more generous?”

“Well?”

The Jeremy Crisp girl continued:

“She actually laughed in his face, and said she had not any views;
didn’t he consider views narrow?”

“She’s not a lady.”

“That’s not all. He met her in the lane next day. He nodded most
affably; you know his rule: a nod to people who walk, a bow to those
who keep a carriage. It is a wise rule--it defines the classes so
well, which is absolutely necessary, or where should we be?”

One or two superior cousins sneered at each other across the teacups.
The airs of these Jeremy Crisps!

“_She cut him dead!_”

“I spoke to her about _that_,” Mrs. Turle said gently.

“Well! What did she say? Short sight? She wears glasses for effect, no
doubt.”

“Those eye-glasses make one look so intelligent, they really do,” put
in a quiet cousin, who had scarcely spoken all the afternoon; “I
thought of getting some.”

“She said that the men of her acquaintance might touch their hats or
raise them--which they choose. If none of us would put that
insufferable Mr. Meadows in his place, she must.”

“You never should have called on her, Aunt Sophy.”

“My dear Maria, she is a neighbor. And you never know how these queer
people from London may turn out. Sometimes they prove desirable. I
hesitated a long time, though, when I heard her husband was a
journalist: very often journalist means swindler.”

“She looks to me like a woman who drinks,” Maria Furlonger said. “Drink
makes people talk at random; drink makes people forget their duty to
their superiors in the parish.”

“Dear mother always said that a drunken woman was such a much more
painful sight than a drunken man,” Annie Jayne said. “Oh! I can’t
believe it of her, Maria. She was quite nice to Baby the other day.”

Annie had her first baby, and thought of very little else besides. If
anyone admired Baby she concluded, in her simple, ardently maternal
way, that such admiration was a moral certificate.

“Drink! Nonsense!” said Mrs. Turle, quite sharply for her. “I must say
she has very clever ideas. She told me the other day that she was
thinking of patenting an automatic arrangement for making cyclists
swallow their own dust--though it would never do for you, Nancy, with
your chest. Why, here is Jethro. I suppose he has come to take you
away, Pamela?”




CHAPTER VI.


THE autumn rains set in early that year. Every night when Pamela fell
asleep in her bedstead with the fluted posts and hangings of chintz,
having a fearful pattern of black roses, she heard the murmuring rush
of rain down the pipes and into the soft-water tubs. Every morning she
was awakened by the swish of rain against the casement and the clatter
of the maidservant’s clogs on the stones in the yard.

She spent long afternoons in the drawing-room staring dismally out at
the sodden fields and the hills beyond, which shed sad mist. She was
left very much to her own resources; her new relations rarely visited
in bad weather.

She gave the house the benefit of her active brain, instituting all
sorts of changes which she honestly believed to be reforms. She flung a
modern, flimsy feeling of culture about the staid old place--a feeling
expressed by current magazines, superficial opinions, shallow daring.

Jethro was pleased and invigorated by her reckless dogmatic opinions,
by her dainty domestic ways. He used to watch her graceful figure flit
from room to room, used to listen to her high young voice giving
peremptory orders. She fascinated him. She was always changing, and the
women to whom he had been accustomed all his life never changed. Each
one said and did exactly what her mother had said and done before her:
to be original was to break the fifth commandment.

They sat round the great open hearth on wet, wild evenings. Gainah
would be sewing or painfully writing out recipes in a dirty copy-book.
Pamela generally had a catalogue of bulbs, a sheet of paper, and a
pencil. Nancy’s gushing, incapable enthusiasm, and Mrs. Clutton’s
practical knowledge of flower gardening had infected her. She already
knew them well enough for that. She was full of ideas for spring
bedding.

“I must have a hundred early tulips,” she would say coaxingly.

When Jethro, looking up from the local paper, returned indulgently,
“Order what you please,” she added the hundred tulips to her list with
the glee of a child.

Gainah seldom said anything. She had always been a silent woman, and
Pamela’s whirling, modern influence had petrified her altogether. The
thin white lips hardly opened except to timidly rate the two maids, who
now tossed their heads at their former tyrant. She took Pamela’s
presence passively, never commenting on anything she did. But
sometimes, when the girl looked up suddenly from the fascinating bulb
catalogue, and found those odd eyes on her, she shivered. They were so
dead--those eyes. Yet such a secret, such a terrible soul seemed to
play and lurk behind them.

Gainah never protested. Little by little she felt the scepter slip
from her powerless hand. Little by little her life lost color. Pamela
laughed at her methods, was often disgusted by her thrifty, traditional
economies. She had a superior trick of saying, “My way is the correct
one.” Or she would quote the domestic routine of her father’s house, in
the prosperous time when they lived in a detached house with a carriage
drive and stabling. She was more than a bit of snob, but Jethro knew
nothing of snobbery. He approved of all she did.

She gabbled on hygiene. She took tickets for a course of lectures on
domestic economy, driving into Liddleshorn every alternate Friday. When
she returned, she was more ardent than ever for reform. She penetrated
to the scullery, and examined the dishcloth--with a scared murmur of
microbes, because it had not been scalded in soda water and hung up in
the air to dry. She insisted on making the tea herself in a patent pot.
Once she said lightly that Gainah was trying to poison them all because
she told the cook to boil halfpence with the cabbage to make it green.
The flash in Gainah’s eye had been sinister, but Pamela did not see it.
She laughed Jethro out of his favorite supper--a loaf hot from the oven
and soaked in cider. She tried very hard to abolish supper as a
meal--wishing to call the eight-o’clock meal dinner. But here she was
stopped by the opposition of every member of the family; even Aunt
Sophy entered a diplomatic protest.

She begged Jethro to make Chalcraft wring the necks of the poultry. She
couldn’t bear the slow sounds of death. It was barbarous--the slight,
skillful slit of the knife, the long bleeding, the fluttering
“glug-glug” in the throat, growing fainter and fainter. Gainah had
always insisted on that method; she said it made the flesh white.
Gainah shut the doomed birds for twenty-four hours before death in a
coop, and made them fast, so that they might be more easily got ready
for table: Pamela went surreptitiously to the corn sack, and gave them
an extra feed before the ordeal. Gainah, in hot weather, hung meat down
the well to keep it fresh; she buried sour milk in the earth, tied up
in a muslin bag, and dug it up cream cheese. She had a theory about leg
of mutton: it should be buried in the earth for three days to make it
tender; the same might be done with an old hen. She did not approve of
eggs in a milk pudding, and never used butter in white sauce if the
milk was new and not skimmed. To waste nothing, to be lavish with
nothing--that had been her religion. The hygiene lecturer--through
Pamela, who conscientiously took notes--told her that some of her
antique tricks were not only dirty, but dangerous.

Pamela taught the cook to make bread without touching it with the hand.
She told Boyce how to milk the cows, washing his hands in an antiseptic
first. She had chemical tests for the milk, and made a rigorous
inspection of the dairy each morning. Gainah was calmly put aside as a
domestic fossil. She was openly flouted. She was told to sit by the
fire, to do nothing. Even needlework was not necessary--things could
be bought so cheaply ready-made, ready-marked even.

She was pushed aside. She must do nothing. Yet for over thirty years
she had done everything. Her life had been one long fury of immaculate
housekeeping according to her lights. She had thrown all the fierce
energy of a naturally passionate woman into her dairy and her
store-room. Love had just brushed her, then slipped away; maternity had
never been hers. Religion she regarded as a respectable duty, varied by
the clergyman coming to tea, which was a nervous trial, and meant
getting out the best china. She couldn’t write poems, or lecture, or be
an athlete; every outlet of the emotional woman was denied her by
circumstance or temperament. She had flung herself upon the altar of
good management, and now she was told that good management was not an
art--it was the merest detail in the day’s work of a truly capable
woman.

She said nothing. But there was a constant throbbing and seething in
her aching head, above the turgid eyes. If Pamela could have foreseen,
could have guessed, she might have been more temperate, more gradual.
But she was sublimely unconscious.

On those autumn nights the heavy rain drove down from the hills and
swept the sad common and beat against the thick walls of the farm. The
wind skirled across space, and the cider-press creaked and moaned.
Gainah let the press out to the villagers if they cared to make cider.
They paid her so much an hour for the use of it. This was one of her
economies.

Jethro would sit and sprawl and blink at the fire like a well-fed,
thoroughly satisfied, and sleepy dog after a day in the covers. Now and
again in the course of the evening he would get up, stretch his arms,
shake himself, fling back the doors, and look deep into the black
night. He was such a hearty, open-air being that he seemed to pant at
intervals for draughts of that strong wind down his throat, for an
angry splutter of the shot-like rain in his eyes.

When the wind blew in, Gainah, her back creaking and cold with
rheumatism at the merest draught, would say with acerbity:

“You come from Hartin’, where they have no doors.”

The rustic sarcasm was quite lost on Pamela. She regarded the old woman
as antiquated, dirty, and even slightly half-witted. All her attention
centered on Jethro.

When he walked across the room she watched him slyly. She admired him
very much. He was so big and strong; so independent. The men of her
acquaintance had always been under orders--Government clerks, and so
on. Here was a man, savage in his strength, who had never been in
bondage except to the great Earth. She admired him, but she didn’t love
him yet.

Love! She would never love him; never. She didn’t want to. She prayed
that the acrid taste of Love might never sear her lips again. And
then she thought of the prison. And the cruel wall rose up before her
blinding eyes, and her quick fingers dropped the pencil and caught
nervously at her side.

Jethro would come back to the fire and sink luxuriously into the big
horsehair-covered chair with the protecting ears. He would put out his
foot in the thick boot and touch the glowing logs. His gun was in the
corner just as he had left it when he came in tired and muddy from
pheasant shooting. Pamela was afraid of the gun, but it pleased her. It
was part of Jethro’s strength and masculinity. So were his careless
clothes, and so was his blunt Shaksperean tongue. She liked a man to be
frank, a little coarse even, when the man was Jethro. She once thought
fancifully that she wouldn’t mind being beaten by a man like that.

She already began to regard him as her own possession. She felt a
personal pride in him; the very hang of his homespun tweeds on his
tough, spare body seemed eloquent of sturdy independence.

The yellow firelight glided across the brass rosette-like heads of the
fire-dogs. They seemed to wink knowingly at every flicker. Now and
again the two hounds in the barn snarled as an infrequent foot came
slouching along the wet road, for it was always raining and blowing.
Rain, mist, and wind! These were the elements which watched over the
slow, reluctant growth of Pamela’s love for big Jethro.

Sometimes he read a paragraph from the paper to Gainah--about local
doings or people. Sometimes he would ask her advice--about a sale of
underwood or the fate of a cow. Sometimes he and Pamela would be left
alone for a moment, and then they were both shy. Neither of them forgot
that this was a time of probation. Who knew? When the rain and wind and
mist of next autumn came they might be man and wife.

Autumn grew to winter. She was happy--with a hushed dull happiness that
she wished would last forever. No anxieties, no fierce, tearing burst
of emotion, gay or sad. She was happy; satisfied with the mild
amusements of the simple family connections. They no longer irritated
her--these placid, narrow women--slow and heavy, but very useful and
harmless. She laughed at Mrs. Clutton’s extravagances, but did not
indorse them. She had become very intimate with the dark, sarcastic
woman whose husband was abroad.

She had her little excitements--skating parties, small dances,
occasionally the visit of a dramatic company to Liddleshorn. In this
way winter went. The last snow melted into a puddle; the first flowers
of March came. She was delighted with the dazzling white of the arabis.
Gainah called it snow-on-the-mountains; but Annie Jayne, who brought
her baby round in the mail-cart on sunny mornings, said that “dear
mother” had always called it March-pride.

She ran out frequently to look at the thin green spears which begun to
bristle in the borders: these were her bulbs. She spent long hours in
her new greenhouse, giving Daborn orders. He was retained exclusively
for the garden now, at her wish. There wasn’t a weed to be seen, and
every bed was raked and cleaned.

As the sun strengthened in the sky Gainah grew more silent than ever.
Spring was here, summer on the way, and she had nothing to do. Pamela
had taken the keys. The maids went to her for orders. She paid them
their wages and gave them each an evening out during the week--an
indulgence which until her coming had never been dreamt of.

Nothing to do! Not wanted! In her idle hours Gainah wandered over the
rambling house alone, going from room to room, touching things without
meaning, taking up and putting down; mumbling vaguely to herself. One
morning she put on her shabby cloth cap--an old one of Jethro’s--and
went into the garden. It was raining--a soft, warm rain, with the sun
behind it.

“Good growing weather,” she said to herself with satisfaction--and
then remembered that the garden had been taken from her.

Winter storms had made the borders draggled in spite of Daborn’s labor
and Pamela’s enthusiasm. Gainah felt, in a fumbling, wordless way, that
this garden was like the devastation of her own life. She carried a
little fork; force of habit had made her get it from the tool-shed. Now
and then, again from habit, she bent her stiff back to dig out a weed;
but there were no weeds.

The stalks of the Michaelmas daisies had been left--by Pamela’s orders,
so that the frost might not get down to the roots. Gainah viewed the
stiff clumps of brown wood with injury; _her_ rule had been to cut down
everything in November. She remembered that she had promised a bit of
white daisy to Chalcraft’s “missus” in exchange for a deep purple one
with a golden eye--her generosity took the form of barter.

She went round and round in the spraying rain. There was no wind,
simply a feeling of soft, patient dampness and melancholy in the
garden. Over the wall was the sodden, empty road, and on the horizon
the streaming, formless hills.

Her eyes spied out a few self-sown hardy plants in the neatly-raked
beds. She dropped little fragments of criticism as she went.

“The slugs have been at the ‘reckless’ plants,” she murmured
regretfully, stooping to look more closely at a clump of sickly
auricula, which seemed mostly thick stalk.

“There’s a Glory in bud already. I remember old Jethro budding the
brier. He was a good hand at budding, and it was a wet season, with the
sap running well, that year. Ah! the Glory Die! John makes a fine head
on a standard.”

She touched the yellow bud--a little pinched and small--with tender
fingers. A faint touch of red rushed into her white face.

“That green Yule when she was taken,”--she was thinking of Jethro’s
mother--“I picked a Glory full out on Christmas morning, and kept it in
water for more ’n a week. The hard frost came soon after--the hardest
for forty years. The old sow was frozen stiff in the sty, and Joan
Wadey’s boy was out digging swedes for old Farmer Scotter, and he set
down and his breeches turned into ice and burned into his flesh. I mind
that--and the Glory blooming on the shelf.”

Perhaps it was the memory of the frost and the sow who fell a victim to
it; at all events, she went round to the piggeries, taking a stick from
the bristling fagot stack on the way. It had always been one of her
recreations to stand over the sty and scratch the great rough backs of
the animals. She did it now, rubbing the stick insinuatingly up and
down, across and across, and almost fancying that the thick grunts held
meaning, and that there were appreciation, friendliness, and compassion
in the small, slitlike eyes that looked up at her.

Then, restless and idle, she went round again to the garden and stood
staring stupidly at the red, newly graveled paths and the glass of the
new greenhouse. She could see Daborn inside pricking out seedlings into
boxes.

There was a weedy patch--the one weedy patch--in a corner of the
garden. She fetched the spud and began to dig for dandelion-roots. She
had almost forgotten that she made dandelion-tea every spring and
insisted on Jethro taking a cup in the morning to clear his liver. She
took them up, transferring them from her knotted, earth-caked hand to
her apron. She meant to take them back to the house, wash them, cut
them up, and infuse them in water for a certain number of hours. But
halfway along the path she stopped blankly, a sudden thought dismaying
her. Pamela would not let her make the tea. Scalding childish tears
rose in her eyes. She felt sure she would not be allowed to make the
dandelion-tea. She went stumblingly back to the weed-grown patch and
let the roots drop in a little hill from her apron to the ground. Then
she looked up, and saw old Chalcraft, who was beginning to trench up
the farther end. He was leaning idly on his spade, watching her with
affectionate solicitude. There was a little suspicion mixed with his
compassion; your true rustic is always distrustful of what he doesn’t
understand. She, standing there idle, vacant, with a still tongue, was
a mystery. He didn’t know what blighting thing had touched and turned
her.

She stood there stupidly, dead to the familiar sounds on the farm--the
excited cluck of laying hens, two cocks crowing in rivalry, the weak
bleat of very early lambs in the fold, and the yapping of puppies in
the barn. She didn’t hear the steady break of stones in the road, nor
the song of a lark as it rose from the neighboring field.

The weedy patch had last year been sown with beet. Sparrows had eaten
it--beet on that soil being, with carrots and spinach, a chance crop.
Chalcraft was digging the weeds in and preparing to make a second
sowing of broad beans. Pamela had not yet brought her reforming
intellect to bear on the kitchen-garden; she thought vegetables very
uninteresting.

The spade was deep in the stiff soil. The piece that Chalcraft had
already turned up was wet and yellow in contrast to the hard gray of
the untouched piece. Gainah watched him closely, as if he had been a
stranger and digging was to her a new and intricate performance. She
saw his bald head: there was a red, shining wen on one side. There were
two careful patches, side by side and of a different color and stuff,
on the back of his waistcoat.

“You’ve got another patch on the back of your waistcoat, Master
Chalcraft,” she said childishly.

He spat thoughtfully, first on the palms of his hands and then into the
trench where the weeds were buried. He looked at her--looked with the
slow wonder of the aged, to whom nothing matters very much. Then he
said, with a chuckle:

“Aye! so there be! Patch side by side look neighborly, but patch upon
patch be beggarly, Mis’ Toat.”

She didn’t answer. She still stood in that wavering, uncertain way on
the other side of the trench.

“The worms in this ’ere patch is past believin’,” he said, with an
infantile slobber and chuckle, at last, stolidly chopping through the
writhing bunches.

“It must be nearly dinner-time, Master Chalcraft,” said Gainah
mechanically, with a steady glare across the trench with her pale eyes.

“Aye, that it be,” he returned rather nervously; “I’ve had mine.”

She turned and went back to the path. He stood and watched her. He was
conscious, in his slow-witted way, that some queer change had come to
her. The sun broke through the rain-cloud and touched the silver tip of
his spade and the hard red lump on his head. He bent his back again and
turned up slab after slab of sticky ground.

Gainah went round to the front of the house. She had a bed of lilies of
the valley beneath the umbrella yew. She stooped down behind the wall
of somber green and saw the tender leaves uncurling. One root already
had a cluster of snowy buds. Then, as she stooped, she heard a
voice--the high, imperious voice of Pamela. Looking through the yew,
she saw her standing by the wall with Jethro. She was talking very
fast, moving impetuously now and then, throwing out her firm white
hands, and pointing eagerly.

“It would be the simplest thing in the world. Oh, you must do
it--_please_. Then the house would look like Turle. You take away the
gate and build the wall along--so. Then you take up those horrid
cabbages.” She threw a look of intolerance at the leggy stalks of
Brussels sprouts which were thickly covered with widely opened
miniature cabbages.

“Chalcraft likes this patch. It is the richest in the garden, so he
says. In June the old man will dibble in his cauliflowers; they want a
rich soil.”

“They’ll grow anywhere; ground is ground,” she cried, with Cockney
superiority. “You are too indulgent to Chalcraft; he and Gainah are
past work. They should be pensioned off. She might be allowed to come
to dinner on Sundays.”

“She has been a mother to me.”

Gainah, behind the yew, her head furtively poked forward, saw the girl
look at him--a look that said plainly enough:

“And shall not I be your wife? Doesn’t a man leave all and cleave to
his wife?”

The elder woman’s hands, rubbed over with wet mold which was drying and
caking, crossed convulsively on her chest. This was not new to
her--this comedy of love. She had played it, too, with something less
of fancy. She knew what was coming. She waited, sick at heart, for the
first kiss. She nearly fell upon the half-opened leaves of the young
lilies when Jethro dropped his massive head and pointed his lips to
Pamela’s. Her fingers lost their last hold of the domestic scepter when
she heard the quick, liquid chirrup of his kiss on the firm scarlet
flesh.




CHAPTER VII.


PAMELA ran up to her room with the long, low lattice window and the
somber furniture. She threw herself full length on the old sofa which
she had rescued from one of the attics and covered in the most approved
be-frilled style with cretonne. Her head was back on the cushions, her
sparkling eyes were on a level with the garden. She looked at the
Brussels sprouts with satisfaction, imagining shaven emerald turf and
lozenge-shaped beds of standard roses and geraniums in their place.

She was going to marry Jethro. Their eyes and lips had met--the thing
was settled. Men did not propose in set words and the conventional
attitude nowadays. She would marry Jethro. Her future life stretched
out before her--smooth, level, pleasant--like the big tennis lawn at
Turle. She thought of all the country houses round where she was sure
of a hearty welcome because she was a cousin. They were comfortable,
easy people, these Turles and Crisps and Jaynes and Furlongers. She had
grown really fond of Nancy, with her simper, her pretty pink face, and
her glorious red hair. Annie Jayne, in her spick and span nursery with
her beaming face bent over her baby boy and her lips flowing forth
pious reminiscences of her mother, had her own particular charm. To be
simple, to be sterling, that was all one wanted; everything else was
garish, meretricious. Hearts were better than the flimsy things called
brains.

She saw her life roll away year after year, so placid, so uneventful,
so comfortable and prosperous. She loved money for her pleasure, not
her pocket. She always felt her greatest admiration for Jethro when he
hauled out a canvas bag of sovereigns.

She began to form social plans. She would be exclusive, yet catholic,
like Aunt Sophy. Jethro must let her have another servant--that would
be three. The wagonette must be done up, and she’d try for a Battlesden
car like Furlonger’s. She’d aim at culture, too--a Browning class, in
opposition to Mrs. McAlpine’s Shakspere. There wouldn’t be so many
expurgations necessary. The members of the Shakspere class had neatly
written slips sent them with a list of passages to be slurred. She
would like to take a rise out of Mrs. McAlpine, who lived in a cottage,
but gave herself tremendous airs because she was a J. P.’s daughter,
and had instituted afternoon tea with cucumber or cress sandwiches.

In the afternoon she slipped on her things and went to the Buttery, the
ancient cottage where the absentee journalist’s wife lived with a small
maid. Mrs. Clutton had become her most confidential friend. She didn’t
mean to mention her engagement, but she was twitching with excitement,
dragged here and there with emotions of very different sorts.

She went across the common in the March sun and wind. Her heart and
feet danced, but her face was like the changing sky. Forget! She must
forget. She was to marry Jethro. It was so easy to say forget, so
difficult to do it. Once she stopped, her eyes strained in the
direction of London--far away over moor and hill and sleek pasture. She
groaned aloud. She knew that she would give it all--greenhouse,
Battlesden, big, fond man with the bulging bag of sovereigns--for one
touch on the mouth from one other man. _He_ was still in prison, still
only a number behind the high wall. When he came out? Emigration or the
army. But that was not her affair.

When she reached the Buttery she went through the high green trellis
door into the garden, sure of finding her hostess there on such a day,
at such a season. It was a fair-sized garden in apple-pie order. The
long borders were gay. At one end were substantial pig-sties. In them
Mrs. Clutton kept fowls. She was leaning over the wall, her elbows
spread out on the wire netting which was nailed across to keep the
birds from flying over.

She came running excitedly along the neat asphalt path. In one hand she
held an egg. It was evidently only just laid. It hardened as the air
touched it.

“Look!” she said with a laugh, “I’m going to give this to the cock.
What would your thrifty Gainah say? They are all going--my pet
hens--Flirt and Prim and Sheila. My cock, too--Tatters. Isn’t he a
fine fellow? But morals! None. They are neurotic. Old Chalcraft says
they eat their eggs because the floor of the run is brick and they
can’t scratch. I hate a person who snouts round for a practical
solution. It’s just environment--because I am their mistress. Tatters
has been more trouble to me than able-bodied twins. I fed him from the
very shell with hard-boiled egg and bread-crumb, thereby sowing the
seed of future vice, no doubt. I’ve scrubbed his legs with carbolic and
anointed him with vaseline for scaly-leg. I read about it in a paper. I
came and stood out here, paper in hand, comparing his leg with the
symptoms. And then, after all, I found that humpy-bumpy legs were
natural to that particular breed. I was overjoyed at his first
baby-crow--such a throaty, silly sound.

“To be practical--the eggs went. Every time Flirt or Prim or Sheila
cackled I rushed out, only to find them stalking gravely up and down
with an unconscious expression faintly tinged with injury. And then one
day I saw that villain Tatters gulping down the last bit of shell. I’ve
sold them at a sacrifice, on condition that they are sent to market and
not allowed to demoralize another run. Hone will be here directly; he’s
taking them to Liddleshorn. But--Tatters--here!”

She threw the egg, flinging back her head at the same moment. The cock
rushed at it. In an instant it was gone, yellow yolk, brown shell,
stringy white. Mrs. Clutton shrugged and pushed the picturesque black
hair from her brow. Pamela said, with a laugh:

“Well, you _are_ mad. No one else would have done that.”

“Of course not. I get more and more ridiculous. But what can one do? I
pay afternoon calls and say mad things. You must shock the people down
here--it’s your only chance. I’m bound to talk extravagantly. You can’t
discuss gravely for a whole afternoon whether servants should be
allowed to wear veils on their afternoons out, or whether it is really
economical to wash at home. I wonder what Tim’s first impression of me
will be when he comes home!”

“You expect him soon?”

“Who knows!” She shrugged and led the way into the house. “He’s
irresponsible. I got these at a sale--and these--and these.” She
pointed out various ornaments on the shelf of her sitting-room. “And
Tryphena says that old Mrs. Hillyar is dead. So I shall be able to get
her tallboys chest of drawers for the merest trifle: collectors have no
conscience.”

“Does Mr. Clutton care for old things?” Pamela looked round
intolerantly at the mixed collection of antique furniture and
bric-a-brac which crowded the room.

“Of course. He is most artistic: master of every art--except that of
earning a decent living. As for hobbies! He has exhausted them. I
suggested that paying his debts would be a novel one--a complete
collection of receipted bills! But the idea didn’t appeal to him. He
was never afflicted with the form of indigestion called conscience.”

“He’s a journalist?”

“Yes; most brilliant. He assimilates everything--but his food. A
confirmed dyspeptic; he would have three serious internal diseases in
one week.”

Tryphena Hone, the little maidservant, brought in tea. The two young
women sat and chatted until the room grew dark. When the lamp came in,
it burned steadily. Pamela said:

“Our lamps never burn like that. Yet I see to them myself. Aunt Sophy
taught me her own particular way of trimming a lamp.”

“My lamp burns well because I never see to it myself. The whole duty of
the foolish young housekeeper is ‘doing the lamps.’

“I was telling you about Tim.” She seemed in a confidential mood. “He
was brought up to the profession of great expectations. One’s greatest
curse is a modest competence. We had it--until Tim’s father died,
without even leaving him the shilling with which he cut him off. We
hadn’t a halfpenny. Tim, with his unfailing originality, suggested
earning a living, but his profession had spoiled him. He was like the
Irishman who was willing to do anything but work or run errands. I took
in boarders, but it didn’t pay; I never happened on a _paying_ paying
guest. He tried journalism; every failure tries that. At last a man on
a rather prominent paper--worn out with importunities, no
doubt--shipped him to South America and told him to study
out-of-the-way sides of things. He paid him for it, too. His articles
have been a great success. It really seems as if our luck has turned.
Journalists are short-sighted; the man need not have sent him abroad
in search of novelty. I could tell strange tales. Every cottage here
has its skeleton, and I wheedle round the old people until they show
me the bones. I am making a note-book for Tim--he can write a series
of articles on Sussex skeletons when he comes home.”

She looked round at her bits of china and brass; at the shabby
furniture which she had picked up at sales and in odd corners.

“Every little thing,” she said, “has its history. Such tender
tales--such fierce, curdling, terrible tales--I hear from plodding men
and heavy women in these little Sussex cottages! And it is all the more
impressive because they are so phlegmatic. They tell you of a ruined
life much more calmly than they would tell you of a bad batch of bread
or a chicken stolen by the fox.”

Pamela was hardly listening. Her feet were on the gleaming rail of the
pierced brass fender; her eyes thoughtful on the winking coals.

“Do you consider one runs a risk in marrying?” she asked tentatively at
last.

“No risk--if you marry for the right motive. I haven’t found out what
that is: not money; not duty--only prigs do their duty; not impulse;
certainly not love.”

“Can one marry for peace?”

“Maybe. Peace is a great thing; I’ve found that since dear Tim went
away and took his imaginary incurable troubles with him. I would write
over every baby girl’s cradle: ‘DON’T MARRY A DYSPEPTIC!’

“Must you really go? Here is Nancy’s latest photograph.” She took it
from the table. “Of course you have one. Nancy is just the average
woman--insatiable desire to have herself photographed in evening-dress.
Nancy is stupid; she actually believed that a Papal Bull was a live
animal. Just wit enough to dress her magnificent hair according to the
latest fashion plate--that’s Nancy! She’s callous, too. The other day
she ran down one of the Peter Buckman children when she was cycling.
She only said calmly that it ‘was bad for the wheel.’ Fortunately the
child wasn’t hurt.”

Pamela went home in bright moonlight; it was only a stone’s throw from
the Buttery to Folly Corner.

She thought calmly of her future as she walked: the moon, the sweet,
crisp March night cooled and stilled her. She was not going to marry
for love. To marry for love had once been the dear dream of her life.
But that was over; the prison had engulfed her poor romance--it had
been a mean one at the best. It was all over--the first wild, keen
shame and rebellion, the steadfast belief in him, the passionate
waiting for the future. It was all over--dead. She was going to marry
Jethro; going to take refuge in his kindliness--as if he were a wayside
barn on a wet day. She meant to be a good wife, a happy wife. Nothing
was more contemptible than a tiresome, melancholy woman with a past.




CHAPTER VIII.


SHE was loitering in the drawing-room next morning when Jethro came in.
There was a strong touch of out-door sweetness about him. He was not
one of those men who smell of hot rooms and tobacco.

He went up and kissed her, taking her fair round face reverently in his
hands as a matter of course. She was thrilled, not with love, but with
pleasure at the open adoration in his light blue eyes. His great hands
placed gently under her chin, his fine head well set on his broad
shoulders, and his big limbs in the breeches and gaiters, stirred in
her the primitive passion of woman for brute strength in a man.

He threw himself on the couch and blinked lazily at the gewgaws of the
room, which his very presence always made so trivial. Then he lugged
out his worn brown pocket-book and took from it a slip of paper roughly
torn from a newspaper. Directly she saw it Pamela’s cheeks blazed, and
the same agonized shame and degradation which she had felt on her first
visit to that room she felt then.

“Come here.”

He spoke gently, yet with command; the voice of a man who after
marriage will tell his wife to fetch his slippers or his pipe, as if
service were a matter of course.

She stepped into the great embrasure of the bay window and sat down on
the green-covered walnut-wood chair--just as she had sat down on the
first day. Her eyes looked straight ahead, not at ripe grain, but at
the burning purple of furrowed earth.

Jethro touched her idle hand with the privileged tenderness of an
accepted lover.

“You are a slipped thing,” he said fondly.

“Slipped?”

“Slender, then. I always fancied a woman with a trim, hard waist like
yours. But I came to talk business.”

He held out the roughly torn bit of newspaper.

“Tear it up,” she said thickly.

Her head hung on her bosom and her eyes fell until the lashes rested on
her flaming skin.

“Not yet.”

She put out her hand to snatch it from him, with the wicked, stealthy
air of a cat after a bird. Until that shameful bit of paper was
destroyed her womanhood was vulgarized.

“Give it me,” she besought humbly.

He laid it in her open hand and she tore it into minute bits, opened
the casement, and cast it out. The wind caught it, carried it, and shed
it like snowflakes over the ridged furrows.

“We needn’t wait long for the wedding,” he said, as she latched the
casement and came back to the green chair.

It pleased him to watch her changing face, now pink like Nancy’s,
now white like the hidden skin on his own arms and chest.

“When you like,” she returned docilely--thinking it would be better to
settle soon.

“And I’ve drawn you a check--a year’s salary and a year more instead of
notice,” he continued, twisting up his face into cunning wrinkles with
satisfaction at his own artifice. “Take Aunt Sophy with you into
Liddleshorn and buy clothes.”

She took the strip of paper, her eyes dilating at the magnificence of
the amount.

“You are a great deal too good to me.”

“When we are married,” he went on, pressing her hand jovially, “I’ll
make any alterations about the place you like. But the carriage drive
must wait till winter--hedging and ditching time; labor’s cheap then.
How about inside?”

“I should like a bath-room.”

“You shall have it. And nurseries.” His voice was perfectly
matter-of-fact. “The two sunny rooms up top will do. I’ll have bars to
the windows; it’s as well to be ready.”

“Not too ready,” she said faintly, hardly knowing whether to retreat or
to laugh.

“A son,” Jethro said dreamily, “to come beating with me when shooting’s
on. They soon grow up. He shall have a little horse and ride to hounds.
We say in these parts about a woman’s children:

    “If ye’ve got one, ye can run. If ye’ve got two, ye can goo.
    But if ye’ve got three ye must bide where ye be.”

She got up nervously, not knowing whether he would be betrayed into
rustic sayings yet more suggestive.

“I’d like to go to Liddleshorn to-morrow,” she said, folding the check
in her purse. “There will be time before dinner to run over to Turle
and see if Aunt Sophy can come with me--if you wish it.”

“She’s a splendid manager.”

“Very well. I’ll take her and Nancy. What are you doing this morning?
We might go to Turle together.”

“I must see Boyce”--(he was the cowman)--“about those newly dropped
lambs. He thought maybe you’d like a sock.”

“A what?”

“A sock--pet lamb.”

“That would be nice--but, when it grew a sheep?”

“You could send it to the butcher.”

“Never. Tell Boyce, with thanks for his remembrance, I’d rather not.
Well, good-by until dinner.”

She ran upstairs, humming complacently, and in a leisurely way put on
her short skirt and narrow-brimmed hat. Through her window she saw
Jethro cross the garden and stroll into the yard, his broad shoulders
proudly back and his hands deep in his breeches pockets. Her heart
swelled with satisfaction--in him and in the broad acres, plowed or
pasture, and in the beautifully built golden ricks which hedged the
house. Everything was hers.

She went downstairs. Gainah, for the first time for ten years, had
gone out for the day to see an old friend some miles up the line.
Pamela thought that the house seemed more like home, more her own,
without the elder woman, and she began to speculate on the time when
Folly Corner would no longer roof them both.

She stood in the passage by the window. Gainah’s geraniums, preserved
from frost in the kitchen all through the winter, were blooming. The
future mistress decided that she would banish them. She had not reached
the altitude of admiring an earthenware pot. Then she glanced at the
wall, at the rude prints in narrow black frames. Mrs. Clutton had been
enthusiastic about them, saying they were “Bunbury’s”--which meant
nothing to Pamela. She couldn’t endure those fat women in low dresses,
and those men with wigs and lewd expressions.

She sat down in the armchair by the oak table, idly putting
on her gloves. There was a hand-bell on the table--one of her
institutions--together with a smart tray for letters. The blue Oriental
bowl, instead of being littered with string and screwed envelopes, was
reserved for cards, and in place of the farming papers was the current
copy from the library of the most cultured magazine then running its
brief life. She thought that the extraordinary cover struck a
distinctive note directly one entered the house.

The kitchen door was at the other end of the passage, immediately
opposite the drawing-room. It was ajar. She was just stretching her
gloved hand to the bell, to tell them that Daborn might bring round
her bicycle, when a man’s voice struck on her heart.

At first she half struggled to her feet, and they failed her. Then she
fell back in the chair helplessly, like a woman with an overstrained
spine. That voice! _His_ voice! No. It couldn’t be. There was very
little in a voice; each individual had not the monopoly of one. Now, a
face would be different. How absurd she was! The dates did not agree.
She had a head for dates, and that one--the date of his release--had
eaten into her brain like an acid into metal. It was too soon.

The air through the open window--she had opened it herself only a
minute ago, before the world changed--was warm. The full red heads of
the geraniums nodded heavily with occasional puffs of vigorous March
wind. It was a warm, noisy world. The beseeching, persistent bleat of
the little new lambs rung like a mournful bell with every second, and
through it filtered the confused song of every madly happy bird that
had mated and built a nest.

She put out her hand again for the bell, calling herself a fanciful,
nervous fool. As she gripped the handle she heard the voice
again--persuasive, winning. Hadn’t she often heard it like that? It
said:

“You can have one by very easy payments.”

The bell fell on the table, rolled off, and clanged its noisy tongue as
it touched the oak floor. The pretty, ruddy housemaid came in, looked
flurried. She left the kitchen door wide behind her, and Pamela saw
the well-scrubbed table, the gleaming brass preserving-pan on top of an
oak corner cupboard in which candles, soaps, and so on were stored. She
could, with the tail of her eye, see the back door leading to the
flagged yard, and she seemed to feel that he was standing there.
Certainly someone was there, because the sheep dog, who was so savage
on the chain, barked angrily.

“I want my bicycle,” she said as calmly as she could, “and, Nettie, who
is that at the back door?”

“A piker--I beg pardon, miss--a tramp. Yet not just a piker; he never
begged. But he wants me and Cook to buy a sewing-machine, paying it off
by little bits each month.”

“I shouldn’t like the noise of a sewing-machine in the kitchen.”

“Then I’ll tell him to go away.”

“Nettie.”

“Yes, miss.”

“I was just going to say that--I forget. I remember--you need not speak
to Daborn about the bicycle for a few moments. I’ll go into the garden
and find him myself.”

“Very well, miss.”

The buxom figure of the country girl in her deep pink gown went round
the half-opened door. Pamela sat, her head against the wall, a sound
like the thudding, throbbing noise of an engine-room in her head and at
her waist. Suddenly she stretched out her hand and rang the bell again.
The housemaid came round the door for the second time, looking a little
surprised.

“Has he gone?”

“No, miss. Cook’s going to have a machine--not to work here, miss.
She’s to be married next club day.”

“I should like to see him. Perhaps the machines are good and cheap.
Tell him to step through.”

The pink figure disappeared again and she waited--sick, expectant,
dreading; disgusted with herself for the half delight which she felt, a
delight which nearly swamped the fear.

He came through the door and they shut it after him. There was no
mistake. Her ears had not played her false. Directly he saw her sitting
there, beneath the row of black-framed prints, beside the shining brown
table which held the great bowl of blue, he gave a start, a whistle of
astonishment, and said under his breath:

“Pam!”

She looked at him for an instant--cropped hair, shoddy clothes, blunted
nails, the evasive stamp of something new and perplexing on his
handsome face:

“Edred!”

She was looking apprehensively down the long garden path which ran
between the box edgings. Jethro might come in. Then she again turned
her eyes with an effort toward the tall figure in the deplorable suit
of ginger-colored tweed. In spite of herself, an expression of ecstasy
broke across the cloud above her eyes. She half rose, put out her hand,
peaked her head toward him. He gave a quick glance round; listened.
Everything was still, but for the lambs and birds and insects; no sound
of human life, no clink or clatter from the kitchen. He stepped up
lithely to the chair, lifted her in his long arms, and kissed her--a
long kiss which told volumes--full on the mouth. With that kiss,
fully returned, each told the history of the weary months the prison
had stolen.

She let herself lie for a moment in his arms, caring for nothing in the
world but that first re-union which she had so often imagined, so often
longed for. Then she roused herself.

“Why did you come?” she said reproachfully. “Oh, my darling, why did
you come and spoil everything?”

He shrugged.

“We don’t know that anything is spoilt yet. I wouldn’t stand in your
light for worlds. Tell me how you came here. Give me my cue.”

“Come into the other room. We shall be quieter there.”

He followed her through the low door into the room which the yew
shadowed. They were no longer in the sun; something damp, melancholy,
and threatening struck at them both.

“Sit down,” she said, pointing nervously to a chair, taking one
herself, and throwing a quick glance at the brass face of the tall
clock. “I--I didn’t know you were out. I thought that it would be
another six months----”

He stuck out his long legs and sunk his hands in his pockets. He was
tall and slim and elegant. At each gesture she was more than ever
his slave--it brought back remembrance. Her eyes hardly left his
face--dark, sallow, cruel. A sardonic-looking man, with silky black
hair half veiling his scoffing mouth, and sleepy eyes which seemed
always to be mocking.

“Haven’t you ever heard,” he asked airily, “of a ticket-of-leave?”

She shivered as she answered, well down in her dry throat, “I think
so.”

“Tell me how you came here, and what part I’m expected to play. I’m
down on my luck at present, and you may be able to help me. Look at
these clothes.” He touched the sacklike cloth. “Nothing but paper. The
first shower would reduce me to pulp.”

“I came here,” she said, “in answer to an advertisement. A man--the man
who owns this house--wanted a wife.”

“Whew! Such is the faithfulness of woman! But it was clever of
you--confoundedly clever.”

“Don’t! It nearly killed me. He is so kind, so fond of me. He believes
I am his cousin--his mother was a Crisp. There are other confirming
details. Very likely I _am_ his cousin--that doesn’t matter. They have
all been kind--my new relations. They think that he advertised for
information about his mother’s brother--who disappeared in early
life--and that I, as a surviving child, answered. They never troubled
for fuller proof; they take my word----”

“Very useful people!”

“That flippant tongue of yours,” she flashed out, “brings back bitter
memories.”

“Never mind memories--no time for them. Go on with your story. At
present I’m uncomfortable; don’t know my ground. If he should come
in----”

“Jethro!” She looked alarmed, and seemed to strain her ears for outside
sounds.

“Queer name. Jethro--what?”

“Jayne.”

“Jethro Jayne! He ought to be the villain in a melodrama--wicked squire
or something of that sort. And are you going to marry him, Pam?”

She caught her hands across her breast theatrically.

“I--I don’t know. You have changed everything.”

“Not at all. I’ll free you. I’m not”--he gave his soft, callous
laugh--“in a position to keep a wife, and he is. As Mrs. Jethro Jayne
you might be very useful to me.”

“As Mrs. Jethro Jayne I dare not look at you.”

“Pooh! You were always too intense. Marry him and help me. That would
be the act of a sensible woman. You are quite free.”

“Absolutely free,” she assented dreamily, looking a little wildly at
the handsome face.

She was free; in no sense was she tied to him. She wasn’t in his power;
he couldn’t rake up against her any discreditable past. This was not
the stock position of the sensational drama--confiding husband,
blackmailing lover, wife with unclean or imprudent past. She was free,
free, free! Free to order him away from the house and out of her
life. If Jethro came in she could afford to tell the truth. There was
nothing wrong in it.

And yet, hating herself all the time, because she knew he wasn’t
worthy, she adored this dark-haired cynical ex-criminal. His prison
taint, marked elusively on his face, only made her yearn over him the
more. Free! And yet chained like a slave. She cursed and despised
herself for the contemptible, dog-like devotion which a true woman
calls love. She couldn’t send him away. She couldn’t live without him.
She wanted him to kiss her again, to call her Pam in that careless,
caressing voice. Jethro was nothing--but a good-natured money-bag. This
man had been the first to stir in her some wonderful, untamable
passion. She was insisting to her heart that a woman must always love
the _first_, return to him, cleave to him, however unworthy he may be.

There were steady steps outside. Someone was coming round the house,
brushing the wall across which the vine spread its stout arms. She knew
the step. She knew the melodious whistle. It was Jethro. She pictured
him coming in his leisurely way round to the garden door, little
dreaming; his hands stuck in the pockets of his shooting breeches, his
cap a little tilted over his eyes to keep the hard March sun out.

She sprang to her feet. The man sprang up too. He had heard the steps
before she heard them. His life had been one that lent itself to
stealth and minute caution. He knew that the next moment would decide
her, and consequently would decide his fate. He had no claim on
her--she might turn him adrift if she chose, as he had reminded her.
And he much preferred to stay. Lucky accident had brought him here.
Selling sewing-machines by easy payments at the back door was not a
life to his taste.

The steady, leisurely steps grew more distinct. The two--desperate girl
and desperate man--were close, eye to eye. With a fleet movement he
folded his arms about her and kissed her for the second time on the
mouth. She whispered fiercely, as soon as she got her breath:

“When I came--that first day--he asked me if I had brothers or sisters.
I thought of you--you were never out of my head. Something,
someone--God or the devil--made me say I had a brother, a sailor on a
long voyage. You understand?”

“Perfectly.” He nodded his head approvingly. “Now sit down, darling,
and leave off trembling.”

The long, broad shadow of a man fell across the floor from the open
door to the plinth of the tall clock. It stopped on the threshold.
Pamela’s feet, which had turned numb and cold, were set fast. She tried
to get up unconcernedly, but could only grip her hands round the curved
arms of the rush-seated chair of golden beechwood. The last remnant of
a struggle was fighting itself out within her. Should she stand up and
say:

“I knew this man once. He boarded at the house where I was an
assistant. He made love to me. I was flattered and I responded--but
that was nothing. It was all over long ago. Send him away and let us be
happy together as we have settled to be.”

Should she say that? Should she tell the bald, mean, ugly truth?

They were both looking at her--these two men who between them held the
strings of her future. Jethro’s light eyes were a bit cold and hard. He
was suspicious, like all simple men. She said, putting one hand stiffly
toward the companion beechwood chair:

“This is my brother----”

She broke off, a nervous dread sealing her lips. She had nearly said
“my brother Edred,” and then she could not remember whether, at that
first interview in the big bay window, she had given him a name.

“My brother--the sailor,” she went on falteringly, her stiff hand still
out, like the wooden arm of a signal, toward the chair in which he sat
looking carelessly nonchalant. “He has come home from sea. His ship,”
she seemed to see the suspicion deepen on Jethro’s open face as he
glanced at the visitor’s rough hands and cheap suit, “was wrecked.”

“The _Matador_--wrecked off the coast of West Africa. I was second
officer. A Dutch vessel ran into us. Made off without offering to help.
That’s like those cowardly Dutchmen. I was hanging on to a mast for ten
hours. Everything I had in the world gone, of course.”

The lies rolled glibly off his ready tongue. Pamela felt her cheeks
flame as if hot irons had brushed them. She did not look up. Let these
two settle her fate between themselves.

Jethro took a wide stride into the room and put out his brown hand.

“Glad to see you,” he said with simple heartiness. “Glad to see any of
my mother’s people at Folly Corner.”

After that they went on talking. She didn’t hear a word--only the
amicable voices. That Edred was smoothly lying she felt sure; that
Jethro was taking every word as solemnly as he took his Bible or the
advice of his head man she felt equally sure. They were so simple, so
true, these Sussex folk. They had taken her on trust. They would take
him on trust too--this unscrupulous jail-bird, her lover, hero, the
wrecker of her life.

Why couldn’t she stand up and say:

“We are both liars and impostors. He is no sailor; merely a shady city
man who has just served his time for dishonesty”?

He was talking cleverly of the sea, using nautical terms, fashioning
his sentences tersely and rudely like a bluff sailor. What a clever,
heartless villain he was--and how she loved him!

Nettie came in to lay the cloth for dinner. Pamela got up and walked
across the room mechanically, beckoning to the maid to follow.

When they were outside in the sunny, narrow corridor she said--looking
steadily into the girl’s unexpressive eyes:

“That gentleman is my brother--Mr. Edred Crisp.”

“The piker!--oh, miss, I ask your pardon.”

“He is a sailor,” Pamela went on steadily, “and he was wrecked. He went
through dreadful hardships. Everything he had was lost at sea. He was
obliged to sell machines for a living. It was quite by accident that he
happened to come here and find me.”

“It was Providence sent him, miss.”

“Yes, Providence--of course. And you will lay for one extra at dinner,
and you will get the best room ready.”

“To be sure I will, miss. Wrecked at sea! Whatever will Cook say when I
tells her?”

“And Nettie.”

“Yes, miss. How pale you look, miss! It’s shook you, and no wonder.”

“Here are the keys. Get out some little things for dessert. I’ve told
you how to manage for dessert. And the best table linen--and everything
of the best.”

“To be sure, miss.”

She went back to the parlor. It struck a gray note after the stream of
hopeful sun in the corridor. The yew--impenetrable, glistening,
green--blocked the latticed window; logs on the yawning brick hearth
had broken in the middle amid a wreck of wood-ash. She dropped on her
knees and began to ply the bellows. Presently the smoke and flames
curled blue and yellow round the wood, and reflected on her face,
remorselessly showing the careworn line of her mouth and the hopeless
droop of her lids. Edred had taken a piece of paper from his pocket
and was drawing a pretended plan of something--it didn’t matter
what--lies, of course--and he was talking glibly of the different parts
of a ship and the habits of the natives off the coast of West Africa.
Her hands moved softly on the bellows, and the gentle plaintive
“shoo-shoo” as they puffed made a sad accompaniment to that
high-pitched, eager voice and the occasional slow, mellow note of
Jethro’s.

He was talking in his innocence of his mother’s brother. He spoke of
the other uncle--Thomas--who had also been a sailor. He said that a
love of the sea was evidently in the Crisp blood. And then he added
heartily that he hoped Edred would make a long stay; the place was
large enough and there was always a home for kindred. Pamela said
nothing. She looked round fitfully from time to time. She blew the
bellows more vigorously, with a fancy that the ruddy light should fall
on those two faces near the table--one big and ruddy and restful, the
other dark, sallow, full of a guilty, eager brilliance.

She could hardly breathe. Her heart was playing her such mad pranks. At
one moment she could feel nothing but the most lawless, unrestrained
delight at Edred’s return to her--in any circumstance. At the next she
felt a profound pity for her own extraordinary position and the sudden
sinister twirl of her fortunes. On Jethro she bestowed only one
emotion, and that--mild contempt. The queer feminine twist--small
regard for the man who blindly loves and is gulled--was strong in
her. She had illogically looked to him to get her out of her
difficulty. He was, in his ignorance, making things harder; he was
placidly wrecking his own life. He loved her. She would have made him a
good wife; she had a very grateful regard for him. If only she had gone
to Turle ten minutes before! If she had been quicker in changing her
gown! If, if, if! The little word, which sometimes means so much more
than the very biggest in the language, chimed in her racked head.

How should she shape her course? Edred’s nautical sentences, coming to
her now and then in a nonsensical jumble, disposed her to a sailor’s
simile. With him under the same roof, with him in daily association,
she could see only one thing possible--elopement with him when, if
ever, he chose to suggest it. One kiss on the mouth from him would take
her from Jethro, even at the moment when she stood with that confiding,
admirable simpleton at the altar steps. One kiss, she shuddered, would
win her from Jethro even if she were his wife of years’ standing.
Contemptible, animal, womanly devotion!

Nettie came in again and lingered curiously, staring at the visitor.
She had taken off her pink cotton and put on her black stuff, with the
white collar and cuffs. The lappets of her cap floated to her neat
waist. Pamela, with disgust, saw Edred look at her approvingly. She had
often seen him look like that at any pretty parlor-maid they happened
to have at the boarding-house. It was a low type of man who would
smirk at a servant. He was really very vulgar; he hadn’t one good
quality. And yet--she wished that big, stupid Jethro would leave them
alone for a moment!

She hung the bellows on the nail and scrambled to her feet.

“You’d like to come up to your room,” she said, her pleading gray eyes
on the flushed dark face and her feet moving toward the door.

He got up with alacrity. The ginger tweeds he wore were too short at
the arms and legs, too wide across the back, but nothing could make him
look anything but carelessly elegant. He had the lethargic air of the
true Piccadilly product--the men you jostle by the dozen on the
pavement there, who have just life enough and energy enough to put on
an immaculate frock-coat, with a wired flower in the buttonhole.

They went up the oak stairs and into the best spare room. Pamela shut
the door.

“It’s a bigger room than I’ve been accustomed to,” he said, with a
shrug of his thin shoulders and a bitter smile.

“If you were more ashamed,” she said, trying to let condemnation get
the stronger hold of her, “I should be more pleased. You are not
ashamed; you are not silent.”

“Why should I be? To be found out is a blunder. I am annoyed, that’s
all. I was a catspaw--in other words, a fool. Overent and Bladden both
got off to Spain: £40,000 in the cab that took them to Victoria! What
luck! I tell you, Pamela, the thought of those two fellows nearly
drove me to suicide when I was in prison. But the game isn’t up----”

She gave a little scream; then, in a fright, put her hand on her mouth.

“But you’ll never again----”

“Pooh! my darling--business is business. Bogus company promoting is as
honest a profession as--stock-broking, for example, or making a corner.
Suppose the gold-fields, or diamond-fields, or petroleum-wells _don’t_
exist--that’s business. If not, where is the use of fools? The small
capitalist must have been created with some object.”

“You are hopeless. I dread to think of what the end may be. At all
events”--she moved her head toward the door and tapped her foot softly
on the floor--“you’ll leave him alone.”

“I’ll be a pattern. As for him--there is nothing left for me to do. I
leave him entirely to you. Marry him. Perhaps you know a pretty girl
with a little fortune who would suit me.”

She thought of Nancy, and immediately an unreasoning, murderous
jealousy of that pink-faced, foolish thing took possession of her. She
sat down on the low window-seat. The casement was hooked back, and the
new shoots of ivy tickled her chin as she leaned out with a tired groan
and looked down at the glistening garden. Then she pulled herself back
to every-day detail with a jerk, and got up, saying that she would send
him up what was necessary--brushes, soap, and so on. The room had
not yet been prepared. The silk quilt was spread gauntly over a
blanketless bed. Edred was looking at it and at the dim hangings with
idle interest.

“You don’t often see a bed like this nowadays,” he said.

“It is a state bed, in a way. They were all born in it; they all die in
it. Full of ghosts! I’d rather you slept in it than I.”

“I’m inured to them--the prison’s full. Not the ghosts of small
capitalists who come wringing their hands for their swamped savings;
only women and weaklings see ghosts of that kind. It was one ghost of
lost opportunity--that tormented me; the ghost of £40,000 collared by
Overent and Bladden, who were a shade more clever than I was.”

She took up a corner of the patchwork quilt.

“It is made,” she said dreamily, “from bits of wedding dresses. Each
bride contributed her patches. It is a pretty idea--the people about
here are full of fancies.”

“You’ll be contributing your patches before long,” he said airily. “By
Jove! I, as only brother, must give you away. We never imagined that
particular position in the old days, Pam.”

“I don’t admit it now.” She shook her pale head. “Oh, why did you come?
Why am I fool enough to love you?”

“No heroics, dear. I’m fond of you--too fond to stand in your light. I
won’t dispute that I’ve some regard for myself, too. Run away now and
send me a few things. I want to make myself as decent as these
confounded clothes will allow.”

She went away. Directly Jethro heard her foot on the stairs he called
her, in a masterful way, just as if she already belonged to him.

He said, his face shining with hospitality and kinsmanship, how pleased
he was. He spoke of driving Edred over to Turle that very day, but she
negatived it as skillfully as she could. Then he spoke heartily of the
wedding and of Edred’s opportune arrival. She was afraid that he meant
to kiss her again; he seemed prone to hearty lover’s kisses, without
considering mood or asking for permission. Nettie, bearing a steaming
soup tureen, saved her.

The gong--one of her civilized institutions--was beaten. Edred came
humming down the shallow stairs. The three took their seats at the low,
narrow table--Jethro on the high master’s stool at one end, Pamela on
the other, Edred modestly at the side.

Both men ate and talked heartily, Pamela childishly crumbled bread in
her soup. When the meal was over she left them; decanters on the table,
the smoke of tobacco mingling with the smoke from the fire. She went
into the gay drawing-room and stretched flat on the sofa.

She looked at the trivial vanities which she had brought home so
joyfully from Liddleshorn. She looked, as Gainah had looked, with
somber eyes. Her life was wrecked too. She would never be the mistress
of Folly Corner now.

Through the stout doors came the men’s laughter. Edred’s became more
roystering as the minutes ticked on. She could hear in the intervals
the steady stroke of the clock, the rumbling groan it gave before it
delivered itself of the quarters.

Her arms were above her head, her widely-opened eyes looked across the
hot purple furrows of the field. She could see a long way, over hedges,
across copses. She saw stretches of pasture, dotted with cows; saw
verdant fields of rye-grass; fields of turnips half devoured by sheep,
which were shut in by hurdles.

The sun shone, the birds sang, one or two adventurous bees came in at
the window. Every now and then that laugh of license, of reckless
disregard, pierced the thick doors, and she blenched. She could no
longer see the future.




CHAPTER IX.


AUNT SOPHY was giving her first garden party of the season--to her
second-best set. That meant a family gathering, with the Jeremy Crisps
left out. Maria Furlonger drew the line at the Jeremy Crisps, and said
she did her duty to them as a relative by buying groceries at their
father’s shop.

Edred was to go with Pamela. He was already a local favorite. He had
all the qualities which commend themselves to country society. He could
sing, play tennis, do conjuring tricks at the local entertainments.

Jethro wasn’t going; men with a serious occupation were never even
asked. Aunt Sophy collected her men painfully; a town failure or so,
who happened to be trying poultry farming or fruit culture--having
tried everything else of which he knew anything whatever; the curate;
one or two old gentlemen who had retired from something or the other,
one or two young ones who admired a particular girl.

Pamela ran out to the barn before she started. Jethro was at the door,
with a couple of half-bred retrievers at his heels and a trio of
mongrel pups that he was training for sheep-dogs gamboling in the muck
of the yard.

The vast proportions of the barn--the biggest and oldest for many
miles round--were a fitting background for Jethro with his muscular
frame and fair, sun-seared face. He was so English, so brown, so spare.
There was nothing of the student’s pallor and stoop about him--no
irritating subtlety. There was no furrow in his face, no ridge of
superfluous flesh, no mark of painful thought. It was all tough muscle.
Pamela looked at him admiringly, her desire going out to strength and
health and simplicity of life and motive. The clean shocks of yellow
straw in the barn, the dirty, trodden straw in the yard, agreed well
with his blue checked shirt and tan waistcoat; with his voluminous
checked tie, made in the time-honored rustic fashion. His father had
worn such ties and _his_ father before him. What had been seemly in
“Old Jethro” was seemly in “Young Jethro”; that was the spirit of Folly
Corner. It was a blue check tie made out of half a silk handkerchief,
cut cornerwise and deftly folded into proper shape by the iron. His
sleeves were rolled to the elbow, showing his delicately textured upper
arm. He had been helping his men with some necessary job--he was a
master, by heredity, of all the intricate sublime art of agriculture.
She said:

“We are going now. I wish you could come too.”

As she spoke, a loud angry hiss came from behind the house. It was like
the threatening bubble of a pot that is boiling too fast.

“Chalcraft is taking a starling’s nest,” Jethro said. “Tell Aunt Sophy
I may be up after tea.”

He turned into the barn, through the dim shadow of which she could see
two men, Peter Hone and another. She turned to go back through the
yard, placing the points of her shoes carefully on the ground so that
she might not soil above the toe-cap. Edred was leaning over the white
paling and watching her gingerly progress with amusement.

“Beastly dirty place, isn’t it?” he said, sneering and glancing down at
the trodden straw. “I say, what a jolly dance you could have in that
great barn! Do you remember the dance I took you to at Westminster Town
Hall?”

She nodded, hardly glancing at his slim, foppish figure. He was tinsel
compared to Jethro--Jethro with his muscular arms bared amid the golden
straw of his barn. She saw poetry in the vast gray place, with its
dusty, murky rafters; to Edred it only suggested a subscription dance
and Westminster Town Hall. For the moment she preferred Jethro, with
his white strong throat.

They went down the road and through the wood, talking commonplaces.
Edred had been nearly three months at Folly Corner, and one cannot for
three months keep up the strain of a dramatic attitude. Pamela still
had her moments of anguish, of struggle--but she no longer talked about
those moments. She waited with turgid, stupid hopelessness for what the
future might fling at her. She drifted; the matter had been taken
completely out of her hands. She was--so she understood--to be married
to Jethro directly the harvest was in: until the harvest was in, she
allowed herself time to breathe. She was garnering up strength.

The woods were in their fullest flush of beauty. The anemones were
widely blown, with the quiet watchfulness which comes before death. The
heavy heads of the blue-bells were voluptuous. Here and there one
caught the deep yellow of the oxlip; snowy stitchwork was a delicate
groundwork to every leaf and flower.

No feet but their own disturbed the silence. Jethro was savage on the
rights of property, and this was his land. No old woman might pick up
sticks, no child gather wild-flowers in his preserves. They were small;
he was fond of saying scornfully that he was a working farmer, not a
rich yard-stick from London. He did not make pheasants the sole
business of October, and what he shot he ate or gave away. The contents
of his bag never went to market.

He had the grasping spirit of the farmer who flourished in the early
years of the century, in the roaring times before Parish Councils and
educated, supercilious cockneys, keen on rights of way. He would, when
the opportunity occurred, put a padlocked, five-barred gate across a
little-used public path. He cunningly inclosed wayside waste, doing it
gradually; grubbing the old hedge, bringing his newly planted,
carefully clipped one to the edge of the road. He honestly believed
that he was doing a good act; in his view, all waste land was wasted
land, and he would have had the Government parcel out the commons to
farmers for redemption.

Edred kept his eyes on the ground and grumbled at the deep yellow ruts
made in winter by timber wagons and horses’ hoofs. But Pamela forgot
her dainty shoes, the edge of her new skirt, with the tiny frills. She
looked ardently at every new beauty which slid before her
eyes--bursting twigs, drifted blossom, dry, feathery fagots tied into
bundles, little heaps of creamy wood chips; the hacked hedge-rows and
banks, with the warm orange of the amputated tree-trunks.

It was early June. The day was so hot and dry that when they reached
Turle they could see from the road that even careful matrons like Aunt
Sophy were sitting about the big sloping lawn without even a shawl.
They made little groups--like modern pictures of the ladies in the
“Decameron.”

Nancy came running across the lawn, her heavy red-ringed croquet mallet
in her hand. She had a loose flannel shirt and her cycling skirt with
the big smoked pearl buttons at each hip.

“A cycling skirt always makes a girl look coarse,” Edred murmured
critically.

Pamela gave him a pleased glance; she loved to hear him depreciate
Nancy.

“Oh! do come and play!” cried the girl, addressing herself pointedly to
Edred. “We are making up a fresh set. Croquet is such fun.”

Pamela, the thin stream of gall flowing from her heart, saw him return
Nancy’s pleading, babyish glance tenderly. She turned away. She took
Aunt Sophy’s effusive kiss without a word, only assuring her that she
hadn’t a headache.

Egbert Turle, who had left Cambridge and was walking the hospital,
nodded with patronage from his post by the tennis-net. He came
dutifully to Turle every week.

Mrs. Clutton ran along the grass in her careless gown.

“Come and sit under the elms with me,” she said.

There were several ladies under the elms, in green wooden chairs with
sloping backs. They had not come to play tennis or croquet; their sole
aim was to talk scandal, snub people in the set a shade beneath their
own, and drink astringent tea. They wore long skirts and elaborate
light wraps, as distinguished from the athletic women a few paces off,
who were running about and screaming to each other in the sun.

The earnest topic of the moment turned out to be false hair. Mrs.
McAlpine had confessed to an increasing thinness on the left temple.
Her doctor told her that she used the right side of the brain too
much--and darkly hinted that she must go up to Lechaux--a hairdresser
recommended by the ladies’ paper--and get a front. Annie Jayne cried
out in earnest horror:

“Oh, don’t! My mother never wore false hair in her life. She took to
caps when she was thirty-five. I shall take to caps myself in a year or
two--they look matronly.”

“But no one wears caps nowadays,” cried Mrs. Clutton tersely. “Women
buy false hair instead of lace. If, since the creation, each woman had
done just as her mother did, fig-leaves would still be the height of
fashion.”

Mrs. McAlpine, who had the greatest contempt for the journalist’s
wife--_she_ was a J. P.’s daughter and the widow of a Government
official--broke out in her languidly genteel voice:

“I was afraid I should have been prevented from coming, dear Mrs.
Turle. One can’t possibly attend a garden-party in a coat and skirt”;
she looked complacently at her embroidered bodice, “and my lost box
only turned up last night.”

The face of every lady immediately became solemnly sympathetic.

“I told you all about it, didn’t I? I’d been visiting at Warne--taking
my best things, of course. The things, you know”--she gave a quick
glance of her narrow eyes at Mrs. Clutton--“that one takes with one on
a visit at a house where they are--well, rather particular. Dear Laura
entertains so largely at Warne.”

One or two ladies on the edge of the second-best set looked at her with
reverential alarm. Here was a person who visited on such positively
equal terms at Warne, the biggest seat for miles round, that she called
the hostess by her Christian name!

“I was in despair.” She flattened out her hands. “My box lost! My
diamond comb and pendant, my jeweled girdle, a miniature set with
diamonds that was given to my great-uncle by the Duke of Wellington, my
ivory-backed brushes and silver toilet set--all the small, necessary
trifles that one takes on a visit.”

“And you got them back?” asked a little lady breathlessly.

She was a shabby Jayne. Sophy did not often ask her to a garden-party,
and she was feverishly voluble and deprecating in turn. She had a
home-made blouse, with a funny tucker, and very new black kid gloves,
the perfect palms of which she constantly displayed.

“I got it back,” Mrs. McAlpine said carelessly, giving the home-made
blouse a look of amiable condescension. “But you may all imagine how I
felt; one sets such store by one’s poor trifles.”

A massive girl, with a white gown, threw down her mallet as a member of
the opposition clicked her ball against the stick.

“I can’t play any more; too slow,” she said. “I’ll tell somebody’s
fortune instead.”

“My dear”--the dowdy Jayne cousin looked alarmed--“do you think that it
is in quite good taste?”

She stopped with a jerk as Mrs. McAlpine said sweetly:

“Palmistry is all the rage just now in the best houses. Prejudice of
any sort is so very middle-class. We had a professional palmist at Lady
Clara’s last week, when I ran up to Grosvenor Gardens for her
reception. She implored me to come; we are such very old friends.”

“Mother always thought it was best to ignore such things as
fortune-telling, table-turning, scientific lectures, and anything
unsettling,” Annie Jayne said simply. “I don’t think I’ll have mine
told, Isabel.”

Half a dozen hands were held out. The girl in white went round
phlegmatically.

She distributed journeys, legacies, surprises, and mishaps with equal
calm. When it came to Mrs. Clutton’s turn she held out her pretty hand,
a little coarsened by devotion to her neurotic fowls and her garden,
with pretended nervousness. Isabel looked at it thoughtfully and
murmured something about the lines not being very clear--a certain one,
at least, confusing.

“Don’t say anything dreadful. Don’t tell me I’m going to be hanged;
I’ve always had a foreboding that I shall be; and Tim--my husband, you
know--used to say in his most savagely dyspeptic moments that I
certainly deserved the fate.”

Isabel dropped the roughened hand suddenly.

“I can’t make out your fortune,” she said coldly. “There is no one
else, is there? Yours is settled, Pamela. I’ll go and have a game of
tennis, if Egbert will join--croquet’s duffing.”

She moved away in her statuesque fashion, her white skirt bellowing out
in the May breeze. There was a sudden coldness and constraint. Even
diplomatic Mrs. Turle looked vexed.

Mrs. Clutton made a mouth at Pamela, and said:

“Shall we go and have a look at Nancy’s flowers in the walled garden?”

They skirted the shrubbery, with its clumps of yellow berberis and
laurustinus gone shabby. There was a swing between the double-flowered
cherry trees; Nancy still used it--on rare occasions when she read
fiction. Usually she was honestly intent on improving her mind. A thick
volume lay face downward on the seat. Mrs. Clutton picked it up, read
the title, and dropped the book with a gesture of distaste.

“Nancy shouldn’t be allowed to read that woman’s stories.”

“She is very popular.”

“She ought to lecture--‘for men only.’ However, Nancy won’t hurt; she
won’t understand--half. She is a little more than shallow; all surface,
like a dish--not even a well-dish. Nancy and Isabel Crisp--you know
Isabel is staying here now that Egbert is down from the hospital--will
read the same book. One reads a bit, puts in a marker; the other takes
up the book, reads on from the marker, then puts it in where she leaves
off. That’s how they get through. I’m fond of Nancy--she’s so
picturesquely idiotic. Of course, she will marry your brother?”

Pamela dropped the almond-scented stalk of plum-colored wallflower
which she had pulled and was sticking in her belt.

“I--I don’t know. Oh, no! I wouldn’t let him marry Nancy.”

Mrs. Clutton looked at her suspiciously.

She said meaningly, “There is one man in the world for you--Jethro
Jayne. A woman has only to concern herself about her husband. Of course
your brother will be cruel to Nancy in his own particular fashion.
Some kick with their feet, some lash with their tongues--I prefer the
former; they kiss a bruise, but no man’s lips can reach a woman’s
heart. After all, he’ll make a better husband than that prig, Egbert
Turle; _he’s_ going to marry Isabel Crisp. He’s insufferable. He would
divide the animal kingdom into four groups: the lower animals, hospital
cases, human beings, and ’Varsity men. He talks of nothing but
dissecting-rooms. He alludes constantly to the ‘laity.’”

Mrs. McAlpine’s genteel voice filtered through the shrubs.

“I knew the dear Duchess very well--in her maiden days. We visited at
the same house in the Midlands.”

“That humbug! Her motto is ‘Who’s who?’ I don’t believe that she ever
got farther than the housekeeper’s room at Warne. Some day, when I’ve
bought enough oak and china, I’ll devote a little time to unmasking
her. Tea will be served in half an hour. There’s dear Mrs. Turle going
weightily toward the house to coach her three maids how to set cups.”

“Gainah is like that--or was before I deposed her. Cook did nothing but
wash dishes.”

“You may sort women into two classes: those who can’t touch a chicken
unless they’ve cleaned it themselves, and those who, if they are
obliged to clean it, can’t eat it. Do come with me to Mrs. Hone’s--this
way; through the gate, across the field, and into the Liddleshorn road.
She has a Chippendale teatray which she has half promised to sell. We
shall have plenty of time before tea.”

They went across the field, black-horned cattle following them
curiously. Occasional cottages sparsely dotted the straight road
leading to Liddleshorn. Two new ones, with vivid roofs of smooth tiles
running up in conical shape to a chimney like an exaggerated pimple,
had a blue metal plate lettered with white between the narrow doors.

“You are pretty safe in saying that every singularly ugly cottage is
tenanted by the county police. Mrs. Hone lives at this next one with
the bush of Jew’s mallow.”

They went in single file up the narrow flag path. Sheets of white
candytuft crept coldly along the edge of the borders from the wooden
gate to the door. In the little patch of kitchen garden row after row
of cabbage with a blue bloom looked to Pamela like a generously flung
out art carpet. The man at the best shop in Liddleshorn had shown her
one just that shade. Straight ahead, across the railway bridge, a train
shot past, the tails of smoke like drifting opal under the bright sun.

Mrs. Hone was hobbling about her garden.

“Poor old dear! She looks like a camel whose hump has slipped. Now, you
must say nothing, look nothing--or you’ll spoil my bargain.
Good-afternoon, Mrs. Hone. How’s the rheumatism?”

The sweet wrinkled face lifted and a thin voice said shrilly:

“It aint what you call rheumatism, ma’am; it’s paralism, that’s what I
tells Dr. Frith.”

“You’re busy in your garden. I’ve been working very hard in mine. Your
broad beans are in blossom. And you’ve planted out your French
marigolds already.”

“Aye. But I doubt the frost ’ull nip ’em.”

She laughed; the pretty, brainless cackle of a very old woman--the
light laugh something like a child’s and yet with the knell of decay in
it.

“When I plants out they little seedlin’s I thinks o’ my children--all
planted out; some in London, some on the hill. Some livin’ to blossom,
some nipped by the frost. I’ve had thirteen, bless you! You’ll step
inside?”

They went into the tiny living room, the strangely twisted mistress
painfully leading the way. At a round table an old man sat at
tea--bread, lettuce that had bolted, a handful of spring onions. The
mahogany tray that Mrs. Clutton coveted was on a ledge beside the
low-burning fire. The old wife stepped up to her husband and shook him
none too gently by the shoulder, dropping her head at the same time,
and shouting:

“Get up and let the ladies come to the fire.”

To them she added apologetically:

“He’s very old. I’m only seventy-eight, but he’s pretty nigh eighty.
Deaf, too. I can’t make him hear--not when I wants him to do anything.
I very offen say to him, ‘You don’t want to hear; you don’t want to
hear, that’s what it is,’ I says.”

He turned round savagely at the touch of her hand on his shoulder and
looked at the two women in light gowns on the threshold.

“What are you doing?” he demanded gruffly. “Damn it all, I means to
have my tea.”

“He’s been one of those who lash and kick, too--the brute. And she such
a sweet old fragrant thing! Never mind, Mrs. Hone; don’t you trouble to
move, Mr. Hone; we should be sorry to disturb your tea.”

Mrs. Clutton squeezed round the other side of the table and took the
tray in her hands. It was oval, cut out of the solid wood, and daintily
inlaid with box.

“You’d sell this, Mrs. Hone?”

“The lady wants to know if we’ll sell the tray.”

“What’s she goin’ to give we for it?” he demanded sharply.

“Ten shillings!” screamed Mrs. Clutton.

“No, no! We couldn’t let it go for that. I thought fifteen.”

“Too much.” She put the tray back on the ledge.

He stuffed the last hunk of bread into his fierce old mouth, and
spluttered out:

“Will you give twelve-and-six?”

“Well--yes. Is that settled?”

“You must settle with missus. I’m only a lodger.”

His eyes glittered at the half-sovereign she took from her purse and
laid in Mrs. Hone’s hand.

“Yes, he’s only a lodger, as I often tells him when he’s tiresome. It’s
my house. I was borned here--my brother left it me; he says, ‘You was
borned here and you shall die here.’ My father built it and my brother
added on this front room. His wife wanted to pull the old place down
and put up a new; but he says, ‘No; what the father’s hands had put up
the son’s should never pull down.’”

She kept laughing feebly and looking at them, from one to the other,
with her dim eyes, deep in the web of seventy-eight years.

“It’s my cottage, and that’s why they won’t give me parish relief. It’s
very hard. I ses to ’em, ‘I can’t fill my poor empty belly with bricks
and mortar. An’ I am so fond of a bit of meat.’”

She was like a small child begging for sweets.

“Haven’t you any daughter to come in and look after you?”

“No. My daughter died fifty-five year ago. She was a pretty little gal.
He’s my second husband, you know.” She nodded her head toward the deaf
man, who, mollified by the gold, was munching vegetables like an
amiable donkey. “My first husband died. He was coachman at Warne. When
the new one come I was told to turn out of my nice cottage. So I
married him. I couldn’t leave my nice cottage, could I, my dears? I was
a silly gal and got married agen. I married the new coachman. That was
before my brother died and left me this. If I’d known he was going to
die and leave me this cottage when I was borned, I wouldn’t ha’ been a
silly gal and got married agen. He was a dwarf, my brother. You come
agen some day, and I’ll show you his trousers. I’ll show you my
husband’s trousers, too. I got four shillin’s prize at the show last
year for the best patch put on her husband’s trousers by an old woman
over sixty. And I’m seventy-eight--there’s a difference! There did
ought to be another class for them over seventy. I can use my needle.
Mother always taught us to use our needles. The gals nowadays can’t put
a shirt together.”

“Tea will be ready at Turle,” whispered Pamela.

“Yes. We must go. Good-by, Mrs. Hone; good-day, Mr. Hone. I’ll take the
tray under my arm. Oh, don’t you bother about paper.”

They went down the uneven path with the stiff lines of snowy flowers.

“Poor old soul!” said Pamela, when they reached the road.

“Did she take you in with what she so eloquently calls her ‘poor, empty
belly’? I left off being sentimental long ago. Mrs. Hone has a fat
account in the post-office savings bank. I know that for a fact.”

“Shall we hurry a little? I hate to keep Aunt Sophy waiting, or to vex
her. She didn’t like your remark about being hanged.”

“Of course she didn’t. Wasn’t it fun to see them petrify? No doubt
they’ve been discussing me; saying what bad taste it was to set up a
gallows-tree at a garden party. I give them endless topics for
conversation. They don’t believe me even when I do tell the truth.
There was a comic song Tim used to sing, ‘The only time I told the
truth she said I was a liar.’ That is just my position. I tell the
unvarnished truth: that my husband is a journalist traveling in search
of sensation. They don’t believe me. If he were doing time at Portland
and I said he was stalking big game, my social popularity would rival
Mrs. McAlpine’s. Here’s your brother Edred coming across the meadow to
look for us. He’s a very handsome man; not a bit like you. He reminds
me of some splendid snake. Do you understand? As his sister, you won’t.
You’ll only be shocked; there is a strong streak of the local prudery
and orthodoxy about you, Pamela. I could go to destruction with a man
of that type--hating him and myself all the time.”




CHAPTER X.


JETHRO was hoeing peas in the burning June sun. His white linen hat
flapped over his calm, shrewd eyes. Pamela, loitering along the grass
paths, marveled intolerantly at his choice of an occupation. Why should
a man of substance, a man of birth, a man with acres and with laborers,
hoe peas? She paced the paths thoughtfully, looking at her neat, broad
border of new roses, taking up a fluttering label now and then to read
the half-obliterated name. They were all the very latest and choicest
roses, and had been planted in the spring by the nurseryman at
Liddleshorn, to whom she had given a large order.

Her heart told her that Edred was close behind, and she turned, her
eyes seeking his humbly, pleading for tender recognition. He did not
trouble to look at her, but merely plucked one of her beautiful pink
Verdier roses without permission, and stuck it in his coat, with a
scornful laugh at its huge size.

Jethro, across his little heaps of flagging weeds and clods of yellow
earth, watched the two gloomily. He was tired of Pamela’s elegant
brother; he was suspicious, although he could not have explained why.
His welcome to the shipwrecked stranger had been warm--it had even
extended to a free drawing on his check-book; but he did not want his
kinsman’s-hospitality to be construed into a life invitation. He
remembered a funny story he had once heard about an engaging Irishman
who had come on a month’s visit to a country house and stayed
forty-five years. Edred had lamed his best horse; he had considerably
reduced the cask of old whisky; he dipped too deeply into the
tobacco-jar. He might stay until the wedding, and when that was over he
must take himself off--to the West Coast of Africa, to another wreck,
if he chose. The busy man, hoeing peas not because it was necessary but
as a positive outlet for his energy, was heartily sick of the idle one,
who strolled languidly along the rose border, the smoke from his cigar
making a lean, blue string.

The wicket-gate creaked. Pamela looked up sharply. Heels clattered on
the raised brick path, and a blithe voice called out, “Where are you
all?”

“It’s Nancy.”

Edred moved forward so abruptly that he broke the long ash of his
cigar, which he had been carefully preserving. Pamela followed. A tall,
slim figure stood for a moment in the frame of the shining holly arch
at the entrance of the garden. The sun caught Nancy’s masses of
brick-red hair and enveloped her pretty face in flame. She called out
to Jethro:

“Mother wants you to tell me how much you think she ought to get a load
for her hay. Write it down, please, or I am sure to forget.”

She met Pamela at the beginning of the grass path. They kissed. Edred
watched the tame little salute cynically. Then he took Nancy’s
hand in the cycling glove with the perforated palm--like a thin
crumpet--and watched her white lids fall. She was such a child that she
never tried to hide her feelings.

Pamela dragged off a great branch of damask rose and tore her fingers.

“You should always cut roses,” Nancy said reprovingly, taking up a
label. “Francesca Kruger--that’s flesh, tinged with saffron, isn’t it?”

“Copper,” returned Pamela curtly.

“I wish we could have some good roses. Evergreen isn’t successful with
flowers. But he lets us have plenty of vegetables. I came to know if
you would both come over to Malling Flower Show next Thursday. We could
bike--that would be great fun, wouldn’t it? Mr. Meadows has asked me to
judge the wild flowers, and I feel so horribly nervous. But I’ve been
reading it up.”

“You can’t go to Malling,” Pamela said, looking sternly at the weak,
radiant face, and hating Nancy all the more fiercely because her
temples were so purely white, and because the ruddy hair grew round
them so charmingly. “It’s lecture-day at Liddleshorn--the nursing
lecture. It will be very interesting; we are going to bandage a small
boy.”

“But I don’t care for the lecture. We are not going to finish the
course. Annie says that her mother--Aunt Jerusha--thought scientific
nursing a great mistake, and always said that no woman could expect to
be a good nurse until she had been the mother of a large family and had
buried two-thirds of it. You _must_ come to Malling.”

She was speaking to Pamela, but her blue eyes were on Edred.

“I’ll come, anyhow,” he said lightly. “I’ll call at Turle about three.
Will that do? Pamela would rather go to Liddleshorn and bandage her
small boy.”

“That would be fun. And you’ll come into supper afterward. I must go
now. Mother told me to look in at Hone’s--Nick Hone’s.”

“Where there are so many children?” asked Pamela, her gloomy eyes on
the straight line of beauty afforded by her choice roses.

“No. Those are the Peter Hones. The Bert Hones live near us. But Nick
Hone is a neighbor of yours. Jethro!” she called out shrilly, and he
came across the rough, dry ground, hoe in hand, “do send poor Nick Hone
in some new potatoes. You have plenty.” She glanced along the beds at
the rows in white blossom. “He’s dying, and he keeps saying that if he
had a dish of new potatoes he’d get better. Mrs. Hone went and dug some
yesterday, but they were only as large as cob-nuts. Mother would have
sent some, but Evergreen is a little touchy. He doesn’t like us to
interfere with the vegetables.”

“Daborn shall take a trug full,” said Jethro carelessly. “Dying, is he?
That’s drink. Never knew such a fellow! Three gallons of cider a day at
harvest time wasn’t enough for him. The other men save some and take it
home to their wives.”

“That is kind of you. Mrs. Hone will be so pleased. I’ll be off now.
Three o’clock on Thursday, Mr. Crisp.”

He seemed amused by her adorable air of sheepishness when he took her
hand. They all four went out into the inclosed garden, Jethro and
Pamela dropping behind as a matter of course--his eyes on her, and hers
fixed blankly on the well-cut back of Edred’s coat. Jethro picked up a
flat wooden basket, with pieces of wood at the bottom like the rockers
of a cradle. It stood by a row of early peas.

“Here’s a trug. Daborn shall take it to Hone when he goes home to
dinner. Here, Daborn!”

He put his earthy, hard hand to his mouth and shouted. Pamela saw the
man hurrying from the greenhouse, where he was getting young tomato
plants ready for planting out. She followed Nancy and Edred, dreading
to leave them alone for a moment, despising herself for dreading. They
had just passed through the holly hedge. She scurried after, not
knowing why she put her feet so softly on the gravel and coaxed her
skirt close to her limbs so that it should not brush the box edging.
When she stood in the frame of the arch she stopped. Her clear, jealous
eyes went straight across the garden, across the bed of newly-planted
cauliflowers which Chalcraft had been allowed to dibble in for the last
time--next year she would have a lawn and carriage-drive. She looked
across the brick path, through the tall heads of June flowers, to the
umbrella yew-tree beneath which Gainah’s lilies were blooming.

They were standing behind it, between the thick foliage and the
square lattice of the dining-parlor window. She saw Edred peer through
to see if the room was empty. She saw Nancy, her head down, her arms
and hands jerking, pretending to admire the lilies--bemoaning, in her
imbecile way, no doubt, because Evergreen would not let her have lilies
too.

They were very close together in the bosky kindness of the yew; no
doubt it had been a witness to many like scenes and been discreet.
Nancy seemed to sway a bit nearer the lithe figure in gray. Pamela saw
his face and her heart came to a startled stop. He had looked like that
when he kissed her for the first time--on the stairs of the
boarding-house. It had been the first man’s kiss of her life.

Nancy’s eyes and cheeks and lips blazed like her ruddy hair. He pulled
her toward him with the easy, insolent air of a man who is sure of his
woman--who has been sure of women all his life--and kissed her on lids,
lips, brows.

Pamela, wearing a white cotton gown, her head bare, looked like
statue--one of the statues that used to decorate old gardens. She
forgot everything--her approaching marriage and magnificence, her
border of tea roses, the carriage-drive, her wedding clothes--all the
big and little things which equally made her happiness or misery. For
the first time for many months she seemed to touch her past self. She
had almost forgotten, in the new strong life, the old one of dull
days, and sloppy streets, and shop-windows, and a struggle for the
latest fashion at the least possible cost. She was again that
sharp-witted girl in Bloomsbury, that wildly wretched one who used to
take omnibus in spare hours just to stand on the common and stare
hungrily at a wall.

He was kissing Nancy; he meant to marry her. She couldn’t let him do
that. She must abandon Jethro. Her life must run side by side with
Edred’s. She didn’t care what sort of life--one of poverty, hard work,
hard words; blows, perhaps. One of guilty prosperity, winding up with
the prison again for him. It didn’t matter--so long as they were
together, if only for a little. He didn’t love her. He wasn’t capable,
as she knew love. But she loved him, even when she saw him stoop again
to those red pouting lips behind the yew. All her rage was for Nancy.

Daborn came behind with the trug full of yellow-skinned potatoes. She
stepped back and watched him go through the yard, and presently watched
Nancy go down the bricked path, mount her bicycle, and skim away like a
light swallow. Nancy had forgotten the marked quotation for hay. She
could not carry two ideas in that limited head of hers.

The world was too gay and warm for Pamela’s blank misery. The hot sun
darted into her strained eyes like needles. She went round the house,
hugging the lichened wall, her head down, the woolly leaves and spiral
tendrils of the vine touching her dull hair. At the garden door she met
Gainah, with a flush on her wasted face and a gleam of the old industry
and importance in her cold eyes. She was attired in a loose garment of
unbleached calico, cut like an antiquated bathing garment. Her
skirts were bunched under it. She had a battered straw hat, round which
was firmly fixed a veil of green net. A pair of old stockings were
pulled over her hands and arms. She carried a tin frying-pan, which she
constantly beat with a long iron skimmer.

The air was hot and noisy. There seemed an unusual commotion along the
line of beehives which were set by the south wall. They were straw
skeps, which in winter were covered with turf to keep out the cold.
Pamela, who had read up bee-keeping, with other branches of country
life, had long decided to have bar-frame hives when she was mistress of
Folly Corner. But her knowledge of bees was only theoretical. She was
very frightened of them, and the deft, fearless way in which Gainah
would take a swarm excited her admiration and made her grudgingly admit
that it might be a point of superiority.

The angry buzzing grew louder, the monotonous tom-tom beating of the
frying-pan and skimmer more persistent.

“There’s a swarm over there in the crab-tree,” Gainah said excitedly,
forgetting for the time all party feeling. “I must go and take it. They
know me. They’ve been talking all the morning; I knew we should have a
flitting by dinner-time.”

Pamela languidly turned her head. A dark, pear-shaped mass hung from
the lower branch of the crab tree in the oat-field.

“They know I’m coming,” Gainah said, advancing and still beating, “they
know everything. These are fierce--I crossed them with an Italian
queen ten years ago--but they never sting me. They have more sense and
feeling than half the folk about. When old Bert Hone died and young
Bert took the bees from his mother, they didn’t flourish. He hadn’t
acted fair and they knew it. When there’s a swarm in the thatch none of
the girls in a house ever get married. All Len Daborn’s girls are maids
still.”

She strode on, a spare distorted figure in her calico wrapper, with the
green veil tucked safely down in her scraggy throat. Pamela watched her
vanish and reappear beyond the fruit-bushes. On any other day she might
have asserted herself--given a wise homily on bee-keeping up to date,
or deprecated old-world superstitions.

She went under the low door with the wooden hood and sat down in the
dull dining-parlor, her eyes vaguely looking out of the window at the
space between the casement and the yew. Nancy’s flame-colored hair and
thick scarlet lips seemed to stand out in relief from the curled somber
leaves.

Gainah’s work, just as she had thrown it down when the bees swarmed,
was huddled on the floor, and the blue cambric hearts which she had cut
ready for patching on the white dimity were dotted like huge pale
turquoises on the narrow oak table.

Pamela looked at the half-made quilt. Gainah had told her once, in a
moment of expansiveness, that the blue cambric and white dimity had
been her mother’s wedding petticoat and gown. It was a dainty quilt,
all white groundwork, with blue bordering and bands and carefully cut
hearts and leaves. The stitches were small and regular. Gainah sat at
patchwork from breakfast until supper, now that the garden and the
house were no longer under her control. In the lower drawer of her
chest she already had five quilts folded neatly away in camphor.

The front door opened. Edred came in, rang the hand-bell on the table
in the passage. Pamela heard voices--a little deprecating cackle, a
man’s voice subdued to a cautious bass growl. Unable to bear any more,
she started up, threw back the door, and advanced into the passage. As
she did so, the deep rose-color of Nettie’s cotton gown whisked out of
sight into the kitchen. She went, her head high on her throat, into the
drawing-room, and Edred followed.

Fate seemed to decide that her moments of decided comedy or tragedy
should be played in that room: the room with the ugly grate and marble
mantelpiece which Jethro’s father had put in to make the place smart
for Gainah; with the painted milking-stools and fretwork brackets and
cheap embroideries which she had herself brought from Liddleshorn.

The roses in the blue bowls were drooping, candle-grease had dropped on
to the keys of the piano, the open door of the china closet displayed
dusty shelves and a floor on which the gay red-and-blue rugs were
kicked up. Pamela saw these things; they reminded her sharply of the
change that of late had come over her. She no longer took a
housewifely pride in anything; her life was occupied in playing cat,
with Nancy and Edred for mice.

“Are you going to marry Nancy?” she asked abruptly.

“Are you going to marry Jethro?” he returned aptly.

“I--I suppose so. And yet, when it comes to the point---- Everything
depends on you.”

She looked at him again in an appealing way.

“We’re in a bit of a mess,” he said, shrugging his thin shoulders and
impatiently pulling the fine points of his black mustache.

She hunched her shoulders and clenched her hands between her knees as
if she were in actual physical pain.

“Oh! why did you come?” she moaned.

“Nonsense. It was very fortunate for me. I couldn’t have kept on with
sewing-machines--cut my throat, rather. And you can’t execute a _coup_
of any kind without capital. This sort of thing isn’t permanent, of
course. Old Jeth’s getting sick--he’s a good fellow. Men of that type
always show their feeling in mean ways. He ought to swear at me, kick
me out--he only looks blue when I fill up my glass. I must either marry
Nancy--it can’t make any difference to you, Pam--or I must get a couple
of hundred to set me up in life again. There are lots of good things
going in the City--beastly nuisance not seeing the evening papers. My
head is full of ideas. If I had a couple of hundreds I could turn them
into thousands in a week. Balaclavas have run up to----”

“Don’t talk to me about stocks; I don’t understand--and it is so
unimportant----”

“By Jove! it’s all-important to me.”

She straightened her curved back. He saw a convulsive lump working in
her throat, and the rims of her lids grew faintly pink. He frowned. She
was going to cry. A woman’s tears lashed him to any sort of brutality.

“When I saw you kiss Nancy,” she broke out, “it nearly killed me.”

“So you saw! But when old Jeth kisses you, in his open, whole-hearted,
smacking fashion?”

“It doesn’t affect you. Men are different--and you more different than
any other man,” she said confusedly.

“This sort of thing doesn’t help us,” he cried impatiently. “Which
shall it be? Turle, with Nancy as a wife and Aunt Sophy as a
mother-in-law, or London, with two hundred pounds in my pocket?”

“I haven’t fifty pounds.”

“But Jethro has. Get it out of him; you’ll do it better than I should.
Go to him frankly; say I’ve a scheme for making a fortune. He will be
delighted to get rid of me. He’s suspicious, without knowing why, poor
chap. This brother and sister humbug is the merest farce. If these
people were not fools, the most generous, gullible fools in the world,
they would have found us out long ago.”

He crossed to the sofa, threw himself beside her, and laxly hooked his
long arm round her firm waist.

“Get me the couple of hun, Pam,” he said tenderly, “and I’ll be off.
Nancy is a pretty imbecile. I’ll go to town. I’ll keep out of mischief,
sail just within the wind--don’t bother your dear anxious head about
me. Marry old Jeth; cut a figure in the neighborhood. With his money
and your brains you can be county swells.”

“And you?”

“I told you--don’t worry. Forget No. 4658.”

She started nervously.

“How can you think of that time without a shudder? Even now, when I go
to sleep at night, the prison wall shoots up and blinds me. Yet
you--were inside. And you say that number--the number that _was_
you--without a tremor. I’m afraid to let you go. It will happen again.”

“Not if I know it. I was green. Overent and Bladden victimized me. Only
fools are found out. Sin is a short name for stupidity. I shall never
overshoot the mark again. There are fifty ways--five hundred--of making
a fortune. No man but a fool need work--in these commercial days.
Milligan cleared fifty thousand only last week, just by buying a
concern and turning it into a company. He’s a prominent man, a
politician, a baronet. Ten years ago he kept a newspaper and sweetstuff
shop at Hornsey. Lady Milligan, whose drawing-room gowns are sketched
in the fashion papers, boiled toffee and sold it in pennyworths. No one
calls Milligan a blackguard.”

“He must have swindled somebody. It’s impossible else.”

“Of course he did. But everybody swindles everybody else--that’s the
commercial spirit; it has made us a great nation.”

“Jethro----”

“Was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He is a fool; without his
inheritance, he’d be plowing and hay-making. Why discuss idly and waste
time? The dinner gong will sound soon.”

He took out his watch. It was a costly gold hunter, which he had bought
in his brief prosperous time. He had put it in her hands only half an
hour before his arrest--when Overent and Bladden had flown with forty
thousand pounds and he was madly packing his bag in the Bloomsbury back
bedroom.

“What am I to do?”

“Get two hundred pounds out of Jethro. I will go away and make my
fortune. Some day, when you read the papers--a day old,” he sneered,
“you’ll see my name as chairman of a public dinner, or recipient of a
testimonial. I mean to be generous--when generosity can be made to pay.
I’ll present my district with a public library, a clock tower, or a
drinking fountain, and be knighted.”

“You’ll come to Folly Corner sometimes?”

“Never.” Even his honor, just because he was a man, was stronger than
hers. “I thought at first that it would work--you as Jethro’s wife, I
as Nancy’s husband. But you are one of those emotional women who go to
the devil and drag a man with them. When I leave here it will be for
good. You won’t even know my address.”

“I couldn’t bear it.”

Her eyes were not on him, but on the lattice. She looked across the
great field, with its uplands and its belt of oaks. She had seen it in
so many aspects--half shorn; plowed, the wet furrows shining like
glass; seen it smoothly iced with January snow; watched the green
needle-points of young grain. That outlook, that deep bay window, had
known the tearing of her heart.

She looked. The ripeness of harvest was suggested. There were the long
stretches of gray-green grain, soon to be golden, soon to rustle with
the dry, hot breeze of August. She saw the tossed-up lavish boughs of
wild roses wreathing above the hedge-rows, and saw the long grass on
the banks, tropical in its growth, and going rapidly to seed.

She couldn’t stay here and watch the changes of the season for
years--year after year and then death--without word of him.

“I couldn’t bear it,” she repeated.

“You wouldn’t be fool enough to throw Jethro over? You wouldn’t come
with me to London and take pot luck--a knight’s wife some day, perhaps,
or only the starving wife of--a number. I mean to be careful--but
failure’s on the cards. Even men like Milligan come a cropper now and
then. I’ve heard shaky stories about him. He doesn’t know when to
stop.”

His eyes were shining. Something of the old passion was stamping itself
anew on his face. She was looking lovely--the daredevil expression
of perfect abandonment and sacrifice strong on her mouth, on her
quickly-breathing body, on the very hands which shook in the lap of her
white gown.

“You wouldn’t come?” he said, under his breath.

She gave a quick sigh, a last sharp glance at the gray, gently-moving
uplands and the wreaths of dog-roses.

“I would go with you--anywhere. I would have gone with you to the
prison, been a number, a thing less than an animal behind the prison
wall--but they wouldn’t let me.”

He put his mouth to hers.

“Dear little woman! In India you’d go to the Suttee. Then it is
settled. Tackle Jethro to-night.”




CHAPTER XI.


SHE waited until supper was over, and then she asked Jethro for half an
hour alone in the little room looking due north, where he kept his
papers, his boots, his agricultural catalogues, stray packets of seeds,
and so on.

The door shut on them. It was nearly dark--the sun setting luridly and
throwing a coppery light across the wall. The oak bureau filled one
corner of the tiny room; turned full to the gaping hearth was a
high-backed oak chair, with the initials “J. J. 1625” cut into its
back. An oak chest beneath the window, carved also, and bearing the
initials “J. J. 1604,” with a coat of arms, showed that the Jaynes had
in the past been even more important people than they were now. A
shadow passed the window. Edred, a dog at his heels, the usual fat
cigar in his mouth, shouted through, saying that he’d stroll up to
Turle and tell Nancy that he couldn’t go to Malling on Thursday. He
gave Pamela a significant look and moved off. The copper light burned
on the wall again. There was a strong scent of jasmine; the wan white
blossoms looked in at the open window. Pamela sat in the chair by the
grate, her head against the carved wood.

“I wanted to speak to you about my--about Edred,” she said.

“I’m going to speak to him myself,” Jethro returned promptly. “He
oughtn’t to be loafing about here like this. The place is big enough
for all of us, but it’s bad for a man to be out of collar so long.”

“He’s very anxious to get something to do. He is full of ideas. He is
very clever.”

Jethro did not answer. He was sitting on the end of the chest, his back
to the window, one foot in a heavy shoe idly dangling. His clean-cut,
rugged face was in shadow; her guilty conscience made her fancy that
his mouth was relentless.

“He doesn’t want to go to sea again,” she straggled on. “His nerves
have been tried--you can understand that?”

“What _does_ he want?”

She heard the wicket-gate creak. Through the summer haze and the misty,
heavy-leaved trees she saw him pass along the road; white dog at his
heels, burning tobacco between his lips.

“He wants two hundred pounds. He would go away from Folly Corner; never
come back, never trouble you for a penny more, for a meal, even.”

Jethro’s light eyes opened. They looked to her like filings of steel in
the uncertain light. His voice came through the twilight suspiciously.

“Why does he talk like that? He is your brother, isn’t he? I want my
wife’s brother to have the run of my house whenever he’s in the
neighborhood.”

“He is afraid that he has trespassed on your hospitality too long.” How
parrot-like her voice was, how stilted her words! She burst out
feverishly:

“Give him the two hundred pounds--if you love me. Let him go at once.
If he delays he may lose his chance. I don’t understand business, but
he will explain it to you; it is something that will not wait.”

“He could come back for the wedding.”

“We shouldn’t want him; we could manage without him, I mean. He would
not be able to get away; business--a new business would be too
engrossing.”

“Two hundred pounds is a good lump.”

“But to set him up in life--to get rid of him.”

“You don’t want to get rid of your own flesh and blood, surely! There’s
no hurry. Wait until after the wedding. It’s in August--just six
weeks.”

He got up, bent over the high chair in his clumsy, hearty fashion, and
kissed her mouth. That kiss decided her, made her inflexible. She
gulped down a little scornful laugh in her throat: a man who kissed in
that way deserved to be jilted.

“Go back to the chest,” she cried petulantly. “This isn’t the proper
time for nonsense; we are talking business. You will give him the money
at once, won’t you?”

“I must think it over. Two hundred pounds!”

“It is nothing to you--everything to us.”

“To him.”

“To him--that is what I meant. Open the bureau; get your check-book. It
will only take a moment.”

“There is no hurry. I never rush things. I’ll talk the affair over with
Edred to-morrow--no, on Wednesday, before I drive in to market.
To-morrow I must see old Crisp, of the Flagon House, about that rye of
his.”

He pulled a wan, white jasmine bloom to pieces slowly, put his head
half out of the window into the damp, scented air, and said casually
that a couple of bats had flown out of the ivy.

Her palms tingled with rage and despair. This matter of two hundred
pounds was nothing to him. The clock in the dining-parlor struck nine
very softly; on the hedge across the road a nightingale was performing
a sad recitative. She jumped to her feet in a passion.

“If you don’t promise to give him the two hundred pounds to-morrow
morning, I’ll go away--I won’t marry you,” she cried.

Jethro only laughed. He felt so secure. The wedding was to be in six
weeks; workmen were coming out from Liddleshorn to-morrow to fit up the
bathroom and paint the place. Nearly every day a young woman came with
things from the draper’s at Liddleshorn. It was all settled. But she
looked pretty in a passion. He rose heavily from the chest again.

“If you touch me I shall strike you.”

“What’s the matter, dear? You’ve been cycling too much. I told Edred
that thirty-five miles would be more than you could manage, and it’s
nearly forty to Beer Hill and back.”

“It wasn’t a bit too long a ride. The others did it; even Nancy, who is
supposed to be so delicate. I cannot endure to think you so mean, so
lethargic--over a little thing. You must give him the money to-morrow,
or I swear----”

“Pam.”

“Don’t call me that. Will you----”

“He shall have a check to-morrow morning, as you wish it so much.”

He opened the bureau.

“I’ve got it in notes somewhere. I meant to bank on Wednesday. Two
hundred pounds!” Hereditary closeness got the better of him again. “It
is a good lump. But what is mine is yours--or will be in six weeks. If
it makes you happy.”

“It makes him secure. What are you doing?”

Jethro was pressing his broad thumbs carefully into the sides of a
pigeonhole.

“There is a secret drawer here. I wouldn’t show it to everyone--but you
are flesh of my flesh.”

“Not yet.”

“In six weeks.”

“Show me the secret drawer.”

“Wait a bit; it wants humoring. This is a home-made bureau. My
great-grandfather was a clever old chap, wasn’t he? I’ve heard my
father say that when he died the drawer was overhauled for money, but
all they found was three farthings of the year 1732. Here they are.”

The long shallow drawer was open. Bank notes were lying flat and crisp
in it; in one corner were the farthings, spotted with verdigris.

A shadow passed across the window again. Edred put his handsome,
insouciant face through the tangle of white blossom and green:

“Aren’t you two coming out?” he cried chaffingly. “The moon’s up, and I
never heard the nightingale in better form. I’ll run over to Turle in
the morning.”

Pamela flitted across the dusky room.

“We are coming--in a moment,” she said in a loud voice, looking at him
significantly; then looking back in the gloom at Jethro--burly and
well-favored--by the open bureau, with its shallow secret drawer and
pigeon-holes full of bills.

She watched Edred go down to the gate and lean over; the twin poplars
shooting up like two giant brooms above his head, the white dog like a
wraith in the green light. She shut the window and stepped back into
the silent little room, which, although it was June, felt cold. Jethro
had the notes in his hand. She put out hers with a sudden impulse.

“Give them to me to give to him--as a surprise,” she besought faintly.

She looked at the bank notes--white, crisp, heavily lettered with
black.

“Come,” she said, with a forced air of archness and spontaneity, her
hand still out, and Jethro’s diamonds burning with a pale fire on her
finger. Her gesture was a trifle ghastly in its struggle after
playfulness. Her lips were rolled back, showing the set teeth.

It was such a sudden, breathless impulse. She looked from one to the
other--the man at the bureau, who was so close that she could feel his
breath--sweet as a cow’s--on her hair; the man at the gate, jailed by
poplars.

Why shouldn’t she yield to this new impulse? Why shouldn’t she go away
from them both and begin a new, an absolutely feminine and nunlike
life? These men drove poor women mad. She knew what a future would be
with Edred--delirium, misery, wealth, disaster, disgrace. She knew what
a future would be with Jethro--fat ease, heart-hunger. But a future
apart she did not know. She would run away from them both--with two
hundred pounds in her pocket. Two hundred pounds in notes!

Jethro looked at her strangely.

“I’ll give it him myself--to-morrow morning,” he said soberly, putting
the notes into the drawer and letting it spring back into its
hiding-place.

She sat down in the oak chair, letting body and brain collapse. She
didn’t bother to think--to regret, to rage, to feel. Things were
decided for her.

“You’ll give it to him to-morrow morning, then. How serious you are!
Why do you look at me so oddly? Of course, I did not want the notes.
You never see a joke.”

“I’ll go out and have a talk with Edred now about this business. I
shall be too busy in the morning. You go to bed.” He tried to see her
face through the teasing dusk which had drawn between them; his voice
was tender. “You’ve been doing too much lately. Good-night, dear. Have
a long night’s rest.”

“Good-night.”

As she undressed, slipping her petticoats from her waist to her feet,
she saw through the half-drawn dimity curtains the two men and the dog
strolling about in the uncertain moonlight. Jethro looked magnificently
broad and kingly. When she stretched herself in the bed, almost sinking
in the feathers, she told herself that this might be her last night at
Folly Corner. Before she went to sleep she recalled Jethro’s girth and
bearing, together with his balance at the bank, and hesitated.




CHAPTER XII.


NEXT morning when she awoke workmen were hammering and whistling. When
she looked out of her window she saw scaffolding. Long ladders were set
up stealthily against the old red walls. They were getting Folly Corner
ready for a bride. Those long ladders, that swung scaffolding, reminded
her that her wedding-day was fixed. She dressed and went down into the
garden, where the roses were all embroidered with dew and a white mist
puffed slowly across the meadows beyond the hedge. It was very early.
Len Daborn, going heavily to his work, looked like a patriarch, with
his crook-like stick and spreading white beard. She thought of his
daughters, all maids--because the bees had swarmed in the thatch. She
was very anxious to see Edred before breakfast, and, picking up one of
the potatoes which Daborn had left on the ground when he took the trug
to Hone, threw it in at the open window, crying, with meretricious
raillery:

“Come down. It is a lovely morning.”

She tried to speak quite airily, purposely choosing her words and tone.
Jethro was already about--looking after the young turkeys. Edred, his
voice muffled by sleep and the drawn curtains, called out that he
wouldn’t be long. She healed her heart by looking at her roses. The
garden always comforted her--drew her to it with strange, silent
magnetism. Before he came down, heavy-eyed and irritable, as he always
was in the early morning, she had decided, with infinite relief, that
she would stay at Folly Corner, and let him go back alone, fight life
alone, take his garish triumphs and risks without her.

“Jethro’s going to give you the two hundred pounds this morning,” she
said tersely, hardly lifting her head.

“You are a brick, Pam. We can leave here this afternoon. Pretend that
you have promised to take me over to Annie Jayne’s. We’ll bike to the
station. Never mind luggage. I can spare you plenty of frocks out of
the two hundred. London to-night. We’ll dine somewhere--a good dinner.
Then I’ll drive you to Bloomsbury--they’ll take you in. I can go to a
hotel. To-morrow I’ll get a license and we’ll be married.”

She picked a rose and pressed her nose right into the exquisite petals.
The fresh morning air, the farm sounds; dew, sun in a haze of slow
fire, bees streaming brown and yellow from the hives, the old house
foaming with the loose Devoniensis rose and lichened to the roof--all
these drew her.

“To-morrow morning,” he continued, with satisfaction, “I shall be able
to have a whisky-and-soda directly I wake. It pulls a fellow together.
Leave me alone with old Jeth after breakfast--I’m sorry for the poor
devil; you are treating him badly--but a woman has no heart. And, Pam,
hurry up dinner to-day. We’d better start soon after.”

Jethro came round the house from the yard. He looked a little careless
and rough. Directly he caught Pamela’s glance, his aristocratic face,
with the wholesome russet skin, lighted, and he jerked his thumb, with
a smile and a droll, tender gesture, toward the tall ladders and the
litter of the builders.

The house--restful, spacious, substantial; the figure beside it, all
honest devotion, decided her. She turned to Edred, lithe and dark,
flushed at the prospect of early emancipation from Folly Corner, which
had been to him merely a rambling prison with lax rules.

“I’ve altered my mind,” she whispered hurriedly, not daring to look at
him, not daring to stand close, for fear her hand should touch his
coat-sleeve and make her waver. “I’ll stay. I’ll marry Jethro. Don’t
come down. Lead your own life. In future, as you said, I shall only
know you in the newspapers--a day late. I shall be content, happy;
you’ll be free.”

He stared at her in frank amazement. He was disappointed, astounded,
relieved.

“You’ll stay.” He gave his cynical smile; then, as Jethro came up, his
face shining and his hands soiled with the poultry-yard, he strolled
off.

When breakfast was over she threw a look of meaning across the table
and left the room. As she turned to shut the door she saw the two men
disappear in the direction of Jethro’s little den--the home-made bureau
was in there, with the secret drawer and the bank notes.

Gainah was already settled at the oval table by the window, cutting
patchwork hearts, with the aid of a piece of carefully shaped tin.

Pamela went along the narrow passage into the drawing-room and tried to
dust, to rearrange china, alter furniture--anything for bodily energy.

Now and then she heard the loose lick of a plasterer’s brush. The
workmen outside were whistling blithely and calling to each other. They
all seemed to be named Bill. She sat down on the couch and laughed
foolishly. Why was the workingman always called Bill?

Nettie, the supercilious smirk stronger than usual on her pretty face,
came in to ask for the grocer’s list; the man was at the back door
waiting for orders. She gave it, forgetting nothing--table salt,
bedroom candles, matches, more turpentine--they had their own
beeswax--all the irritating, narrow things that make up the sum total
of a well-managed house. When the girl had gone, she sat down,
listening to the fluty whistles and rough voices outside, and wondering
if she would ever again give the order for the grocer.

She was a weathercock. Hadn’t she said that she would stay and be
Jethro’s wife? Edred had not been disappointed--but then he took
everything with a hard, cynical philosophy. She was to be Jethro’s
wife. Then why did she listen so intently for the opening and shutting
of doors; why gasp and spring to her feet at a footstep?

She was standing, the checked duster in one hand, the other painfully
at her side, when Jethro came in. Her white face was all lines and
furrows.

“I’ve given Edred the notes,” he said shortly. “He wants to be off as
soon as possible. I shan’t go to the Flagon House; very likely I shall
meet old Crisp at market to-morrow. We’ll all drive to the station in
the wagonette after dinner.”

He looked annoyed; the two hundred pounds had gone against the grain;
he was naturally close-fisted--it was the quality which had made the
fortunes of his house. Presently his face lighted, and he said:

“What color would you like them to paint the outside of the place? The
foreman suggests chocolate, but I fancy a nice green.”

“It must be white,” she said positively. “That is fashionable now, and
so clean and fresh--in the country.”

“Then I’ll tell him white. You’d like to see the last of Edred? We
might drive round by Turle on the way back; Nancy will be upset--I
thought there would be a match there.”

She didn’t answer; only rubbed viciously at the polished table.

All that morning she kept away from Edred, although she saw him
lounging about outside--in the garden, in the orchard, waiting for a
word with her. At dinner-time she came down in her most becoming dress.
Her cheeks were flushed, and her gray eyes sparkled and darted. She ate
very little. The two men made a hearty meal, Edred very voluble betwixt
his hurried mouthfuls--talking to Jethro in the superior, pitying way
of the town man. Gainah said nothing; they had ceased to regard her.
She was a machine. She stitched all day; she fed methodically; she
stared at them with her glassy, stupid eyes.

Jethro went out to hurry Daborn with the horse. Pamela, the untasted
pudding steaming on her plate, got up with a jerk, and spoke of putting
on her hat and gloves. Edred, who had been trying to catch her eye all
through the meal, touched her softly on the back of the hand with his
fingers. She gave a little cry, and flinched as if they had been hot
coal. Her wide eyes, searching his face for the first time, were wildly
appealing. He was piqued by her decision to stay behind and marry
Jethro. Now that there was a chance of losing her, she suddenly became
desirable.

“This won’t do,” he whispered eagerly. “You must come.”

“I can’t. Everything is settled.”

“Pooh! You could arrange----”

He had her hand. He was looking at her ardently. The impulse to go with
him--let fate bring what it might--was strong. She looked at him. He
was more in earnest, more in love than he had ever been. She had always
understood that it was a mistake to let a man know you loved him--but
then her feeling had always been so intense that she had been incapable
of hiding it. Her love had bubbled in her eyes, on her eager lips. But
it was bad strategy all the same.

She looked at the cold, dim room, at the foolishly intent old woman by
the window, stitching blue hearts on worn white dimity in a perfect
fury of aimless industry. She looked at the grim shadow of the yew,
at the yawning cavern of the open hearth, at the somber furniture. And
she thought of London, with its glitter, its hurry, and vivacity.
London and Love! She let her wrist relax, let her whole fluttering hand
be buried in that long, cool one.

“I might arrange----”

She broke off as Jethro came through the low door.

“You two ought to be ready,” he called out. “The horse is coming
round.”

She turned and faced him, with her cheeks like rouged cheeks and her
eyes like polished, many-faceted diamonds.

“There is really no need for you to go,” she said unsteadily “Edred
wouldn’t mind. Let Daborn drive us. You know you had an appointment at
the Flagon House.”

“But that was this morning. Of course I’ll come. Be quick and get your
hat on.”

She went up the shallow stairs, woe at her wavering, passionate heart.
It was no good; he must go alone. It was far better that he should go
alone.

“Edred can sit on the box with me. The wagonette is half filled up with
luggage,” Jethro said, as she came out of the gate.

“We can manage very well behind. Can’t we?” She turned, trembling, to
Edred, who was digging at his shoes with the point of his cane.

“Then jump in.” Jethro had the reins in his hand.

They flashed along the white roads. She and Edred kept their hands
clasped under the summer rug of Holland. Once she bent forward, first
looking cautiously at the figure on the box, and shook her head, and
whispered:

“I can’t do it. You see he _would_ come.”

Now and then Jethro, by a flick of his whip, pointed out some
feature of great interest--to him: another farmer’s hay or cattle,
a badly tilled field, a line of old cottages which he had been
renovating--putting slate roofs in place of thatch and square panes of
glass instead of lead lights. Those cottages were for Pamela; the rent
would be her pin money.

As they whizzed down the steep hill leading to the little wayside
station, the signal fell. The porter, who was just throwing back the
gates of the level crossing, waited for the horse to pass.

“We mustn’t stop to see him off,” Jethro said, as Edred’s baggage was
got out. “The mare shies at an engine.”

“We must wait.”

Her voice was so shrill that it startled her. She added, touching
Jethro’s arm, and feeling like Jael of old as she did so:

“Do please wait.”

“Very well. Here, sonny; hold the horse.”

He threw the reins to a boy, and the three of them walked into the tiny
station. Edred went into the booking office for his ticket. On the
platform there were several people--a few rustics, with baskets or
bulging red cotton handkerchiefs; one young woman with a tight,
leafless posy bound carefully round with newspaper.

“He ought to have had some flowers,” Jethro said, throwing a glance
inside at the lean figure at the ticket window.

“What would be the good? He hasn’t any home. He will go to an hotel
to-night.”

A wild, impotent desire to go with him made her quiver.

Another wagonette drove up and Mrs. Turle with Nancy alighted.

The girl’s face flooded when she saw Edred--in dark clothes--and saw
the various leather bags lying about on the platform. They were being
hurriedly labeled by the porter.

“Edred’s going away--for good.” Pamela turned her veiled cheek to the
red lips.

“To sea?”

Nancy’s face grew piteous.

“No. To the city.”

“Then he will come down sometimes.”

“Perhaps--but it is doubtful. He has found Folly Corner dull. London is
so full of attractions for a man.”

“Going away!” Aunt Sophy’s clear eyes seemed to pierce behind the lying
mask of her burning face. “Isn’t it very sudden, dear? You look quite
feverish, Pamela. A touch of headache?”

“My head never aches,” she said, almost rudely.

“Nancy and I will have an escort up. We are shopping; the summer sales
get earlier and earlier every year.”

The porter began to clang the noisy brass bell, and along the line,
which ran perfectly straight for a mile or more, they saw the blue
smoke and bulky, indistinct outline of the approaching engine:

“I’ll go and hurry Edred.”

She stepped out of the sun into the little booking-office, with its
torn excursion-bills and gay pictures of ocean liners.

He was scooping up his change, throwing it, with his accustomed
carelessly reckless air, into his trousers pocket. The door of the
waiting-room was half open. On the platform Aunt Sophy was talking
earnestly to Jethro about farming affairs, and Nancy was staring at the
enameled advertisement of a local seedsman.

“Come in here for a moment.”

She jerked her hand toward the open door. They went in. The window was
of frosted glass.

“I can’t go with you,” she said, looking up hopelessly through her
veil. “You see how it is! Aunt Sophy and Nancy are going up. Everything
is against us. Perhaps it is as well. Good-by.”

He had never been so nearly disposed to sacrifice himself for a woman.
Then, with his unquenchable selfishness, he remembered too that a
pretty woman would be positively useful in his mode of life: many a
dubious bit of business had been pulled off by a good dinner and an
attractive woman. She was so devoted to him. A devoted woman was
invaluable and very rare. They usually played their own game.

He kissed her turbulently on her closed eyes, through the crisp net,
on her burning cheeks and dry lips. They both felt the rush and sway of
the train as it rushed into the station. They both became conscious of
a figure in the narrow door. She lifted her head, unclasped her fierce
arms, to see Jethro.

“We were saying good-by,” she stammered.

Edred was cool.

“Pam and I have always been chums--we were left in the world together,”
he said in a matter-of-fact way, and insolently meeting the doubt in
Jethro’s steely eyes. “Good-by, old girl. By the way, I’ll send you a
telegram when I get to town, just to let you know I am all right.”

He went out into the sun, got into a carriage with the Turles, raised
his hat gayly as the train steamed out.

He was gone. It was all over. The railway banks were gay with
snapdragons, self-sown; ferns had sown themselves in the cutting and
thrust out their fronds like forked green tongues. The station-master’s
black-and-tan terrier bounded round Pamela’s skirts. Every little thing
was emphasized--as it would be in a nightmare.

“Did you think to ask Aunt Sophy the name of her kitchen-range?” asked
Jethro, as they went slowly up the hill.

She was on the box beside him. She felt cold and sick. She looked back
now and then at the empty seats.

“It is the Camelot,” she returned mechanically, and for the rest of the
drive she kept saying to herself, in a dazed way, “Camelot,” as if it
were a new word.

After tea Jethro drove to the Flagon House, saying he might stay to
supper. Folly Corner was quiet, growing mystic with twilight. Pamela
went down the bricked path, without a glance at the rich mosaic of the
herbaceous borders, and stood between the poplars, her arms on the
gate. By and by a boy came along the road. When he got close she saw
that he carried a red envelope. She took it languidly, saying that
there was no answer, and paying him sixpence for porterage.

    “Be ready to start for London with me at half-past ten to-night. Am
    coming back. Will wait under yew.”

It had been sent from Liddleshorn. Edred was waiting at Liddleshorn
now--waiting for the night, which was always kind to criminals.

She went into the house, put a few things together. Jethro came in soon
after nine. He was a bit surly--he had surly fits occasionally.
To-night she took no notice. She couldn’t find it in her heart to look
at him, knowing the part she was going to play.

By ten she was dressed and standing under the yew. Her bag and
umbrella, set against the wall of the house, seemed a grotesquely
modern touch beside the silence and starlight, in contrast to the sharp
delight and terror of her own face.

How white and gaunt the ladders and scaffolding looked! What a queer,
old-world interior the dining-room made! She could see straight
through; they rarely drew the curtains these light June nights.

The night-jar called harshly, a beetle dashed against her face, then
whirred away. From the stall came loud, human-sounding, trumpeting
moans. They made her shudder. She knew that one of the cows was
calving. Once she saw the light of a lantern--muddy and yellow, like a
bilious eye, beside the hard stars--go round the building. She hid
behind the yew, listening to the steady clump of Boyce’s boots as he
went in to tend the animal.

The church clock struck a quarter to eleven. He was late, a quarter of
an hour late; perhaps they wouldn’t catch the last up-train from
Liddleshorn. Very likely he was out in the road merely waiting, as a
matter of prudence, until Boyce went away. The loud moans of the
tortured cow struck her heart.

She strained her eyes, expecting every moment to see the tall, lithe
figure steal across the garden. She strained her ears, imagining she
heard the sharp ring of hoofs along the road. They came nearer, more
certain, more distinct. She advanced like a guilty thing to the gate,
creeping along in the starlight. Each time she reached the poplar there
was perfect silence. Each time she looked along the road it stretched
straight and blank across the common. Yet when she waited at the yew
again she fancied that she heard the ring of those quick hoofs.

The quarters chimed on. Boyce, with his yellow-eyed lantern, shuffled
out of sight. The world was only stars and boding night-jar and
sentinel trees which had hardly stirred a leaf in the hot, still air.

Twelve! Two clocks chimed midnight together, tripping each other up,
like stammering tongues.

He would never come now. Even as she stood there, sick and flushing,
the whistle of the last up-train tore the night, and on the horizon she
saw the lurid tail of fire.

She only wanted him to come, to creep behind the yew and kiss her, as
he had kissed that little pink fool, Nancy Turle. She didn’t trouble
her head about anything more; didn’t add to her agitation by worrying
over practical details. They could walk under the stars until
dawn--anything. Mere trifles like food, sleep, sore feet, light head,
were nothing. If only he would come! Those maddening hoofs kept ringing
along the road. A dozen times she ran along the bricked path.

As the clock struck one she turned away, went under the hooded door
like a thief, up the still staircase into her own room. She flung
herself, wide awake, dry-eyed, and tingling, on her smooth bed.

At two she heard the steady passing of feet--not Boyce’s this time.
With a strangled cry of joy she slipped off the bed and glided to the
open window. The stars were clouded, and a violent summer rain struck
straight from the sky. The feet stopped below Jethro’s window, a rattle
of gravel went against the glass. She looked out cautiously; listened;
heard Chalcraft tell his master that the ricks were not covered.
Jethro answered back that he, too, had heard the rain, and would be
down directly.

She heard him go down, heard the feet of the two men die away. Every
star was hidden. It was too dark to see anything.

She returned to the bed without undressing. She lay there flat on her
back, fully clothed, with her hands and lips clenched. Jethro came back
to the house, to his bed. She heard him steal by her door without his
shoes.

There was silence. Then the restless life of the farm began. Cocks
crowed; there were feet along the wet road. Across the fields, through
the dimness and mystery of the half-born day, Boyce, the cowman, was
weirdly hooting in the morning mist for the cattle to come and be
milked.




CHAPTER XIII.


“MOTHER used to say that when a girl was married she should wear a
bonnet and never jest with gentlemen. Mrs. Clutton’s hats are very
large, and her manner to Jim has always been flippant.”

Annie Jayne, her hair already thin at the temples, and her pretty
narrow brow seamed with a thousand solicitous premature creases, looked
down fondly at her second baby. Its legs had been unswathed; it was
kicking and gurgling on the drawing-room rug.

“She certainly is a little flippant--I must say that,” admitted Aunt
Sophy diplomatically, as she beamed at the rug, and gave vent to a
voluble string of infantile expletives.

“You never should have called on her,” Maria Furlonger cried
reproachfully. “And it did have boofy nickle legs, so it did.”

She, too, beamed at the baby. He returned her wide grin with a look of
stolid, pitying superiority. Annie, her eyes swimming with tenderness
as they rested on the naked, purplish limbs, said:

“Isn’t it _wonderful_, the way he takes notice?”

“She is no more married than you are--than I am,” Maria continued,
returning to the attack, and pulling her mouth back to its natural
limits.

Annie and Aunt Sophy froze a little after the manner of matrons. They
said instinctively and together:

“My _dear!_”

“A married man never sneaks home to his wife after dark when he has
been away for months,” Maria persisted. “It was past ten. Mrs. Daborn
was calling in her cat--the tortoiseshell she has had for sixteen
years. You know that Si Daborn’s cottage is just opposite the Buttery.
She saw him go in like a thief--not even a hand-bag.”

“A married man always has luggage. Mother used to pack father’s bag
herself. If there are buttons off or a thin place in the socks it
reflects on the wife.”

“I must say”--Aunt Sophy held out her finger for the child to
clutch--“that a gentleman doesn’t usually--return from South
America----”

“Without so much as a tooth-brush,” broke in Maria.

“He might have had it in his pocket,” Annie reminded her gently. “We
mustn’t condemn until we are certain.”

“They came down quite coolly to breakfast in the morning,” Maria
continued. “Not a word of explanation to Tryphena--Hone’s eldest girl;
the Hones of Marrow’s farm. I was always against Tryphena taking
service at the Buttery. The Hones are in my district.”

There was a little pause. The baby broke it by cooing. Then Maria cried
out suddenly:

“Good gracious! He can’t be the Birmingham murderer in hiding at the
Buttery. He may be her husband, after all--which makes it all the more
reprehensible. Mrs. Daborn tells me he looked a _most_ suspicious
character: one of those men with a bronzed face, bold eyes, and a suit
with a large check.”

“Mrs. Si Daborn is nearly blind with cataract.”

“You always try to make out a good case for people, Annie. Mrs. Si
Daborn can see a large-checked suit. She is a most respectable old
soul; I think a great deal of her judgment. Her eldest daughter married
a builder; he is in a large way of business at Walthamstow.”

“A murderer! Maria!” Aunt Sophy for once forgot to be diplomatically
gentle. “I must say that it isn’t wise to talk so wildly. You’ll
frighten Annie and upset the darling baby.”

“The Birmingham murderer! Is that the man who murdered his employer and
his employer’s six motherless children? Boiled them in the copper,
didn’t he?”

Annie put the questions quite calmly--as if they merely referred to a
family recipe for making pickled walnuts.

“Yes, that’s the man.”

“Then he can’t be at the Buttery. Jim brought home the evening paper
from Liddleshorn. There is a portrait of the murderer and his
victims--_before_ they went into the copper--poor things. He was
arrested. He committed suicide in his cell.”

The sweet, spiteful expression stole across Aunt Sophy’s face as she
glanced at Maria, who only said tartly:

“He wasn’t the only criminal in the country, after all. Read the papers
regularly, both of you, and see how many crimes there are which are
never fastened on to the right person.”

“I rather thought,” said Annie placidly, “that Pamela would come up to
tea. I told her that I was going to short-coat baby to-day.”

“Rather funny about her brother, wasn’t it?”

Maria had a faculty for starting aggressive subjects.

Aunt Sophy put on her best dignity air--the air she adopted toward
people who only kept one servant, who hadn’t a “conveyance,” who didn’t
get invited to the Vicarage.

“I used to think that he was courting Nancy,” Maria continued,
unabashed.

“My dear! What an extraordinary notion! Isn’t darling Maria’s brain
original, Annie? Nancy is almost engaged to Mr. Minns, the Liddleshorn
curate. He is an extremely intellectual young man. Naturally he was
drawn to Nancy, whose tastes are so literary.”

Pamela was slowly driving up the hill in her governess car. She was
startled by a sharp voice behind. It took little to startle her. Her
gray eyes had lately a vague, fixed look--they seemed to petrify as the
wedding-day grew near--a day not to be evaded.

“I thought that I should never make you hear.” Mrs. Clutton put one
hand on the cart and the other to her pulsing brown throat.

“I’m sorry. Jump in. Are you going to the Mount?”

“Not I. My reception wouldn’t be warm.” She laughed merrily. “You must
have heard the scandal.”

“What scandal?”

Pamela’s high voice seemed to whistle through her teeth; the reins
dropped slackly on Betsy’s back.

“About my husband, of course. He came home quite unexpectedly last
night; came just as he was from his club, where he is putting up until
we settle. I opened the door myself; Tryphena was in bed. He looked so
big and brown and self-assured--so prosperous--nothing of the flabby,
dubious, hard-up artist about him. He ate cold pork for supper, and
slept all night. No more dyspepsia, no more rows! He is a success--a
decent income assured us for life. He climbed some peak in America that
no one else has ever climbed. His book will be the sensation of the
season.”

She stopped, her black eyes snapping and gleaming.

“I’m very glad,” Pamela said, with a kind of sad heartiness. “Very glad
that someone is going to be happy.”

“Someone else, you mean. Your happiness is beyond question, though
happiness is only attitude. What alterations Mr. Jayne is making at
Folly Corner!”

“We couldn’t do without a new wing. A country house isn’t complete
without a billiard-room,” Pamela said, with her limp, forced air of
breeding, of doing the “correct thing.”

“And your brother will be bringing men down, week ends, no doubt.”

“Edred!” She caught the reins up tightly. “He will not come again.”

Mrs. Clutton looked at her shrewdly. Then she said:

“Tim and I are to live at Chelsea; one of those delightful new houses,
all white paint and wrought iron. He has gone back to town. He is much
too busy to stay. I am making all arrangements for leaving the Buttery
at the end of the week. He was so delighted with the oak. When I showed
him my notebook, full of rustic skeletons, he fairly shouted. It will
make a most sensational thing to run in an up-to-date paper: daily
installments, skillfully backed up by interviews, paragraphs,
photographs of the Chelsea house, when we are settled.”

“There is nothing scandalous in all this.”

“How discursive I am! Never mind. You will hear it all, from the proper
point of view, at the Mount. I can see them sitting in judgment! Annie
Jayne, quoting her mother; that horrid Maria Furlonger, an animated
sneer; dear Mrs. Turle, trying to pull both ways, enjoying the scandal
and yet not wishing to take sides against me, in case Tim should turn
out all right and be a vehicle for eligible bachelors. She has a fury
for marrying Nancy.

“A married man should come back with his halter round his neck. Tim
should have had the station fly full of boxes. He just walked in
without a word--without a clean collar or a nightshirt. I thought that
he was in Venezuela. When Tryphena saw us both come down next morning
she dropped the butter-dish--hand-painted willow--the little fool! Then
she sneaked off and told her mother. Mrs. Hone, very fat, very shiny
with outraged virtue, came back to say that she couldn’t allow _her_
girl to stay in such a place. _Her_ children had always been brought
up respectable. No one could say that one of _her_ daughters had been
compelled to marry in a hurry.”

“And you are going away? You won’t be here for my wedding--a week next
Thursday.”

“I’m afraid not. But you must come and see us in town. I’ve told Tim
all about you. He adores big, dun-haired girls. He likes women as he
likes wine--with body.

“I want you to go to Mrs. Hone’s,” she continued, “that is why I ran
after the cart. Say I’ll give her five shillings for that figure with
the skull in its hand. Tim thinks an exhibition of Staffordshire would
be a good idea.”

“Bert Hone’s?”

“Yes. He is dead. Queer old savage! Good-by. I’m going to talk to the
landlord of the Buttery.”

She turned off at the cross-roads. Pamela drove to Mrs. Hone’s, haggled
for the figure, wrapped it in newspaper, and put it in the cart. As she
did so she mentioned carelessly that Mrs. Clutton was going away.

“Be she now?” the doubled-up old woman cried. “Sure! London now. You
don’t say so, my dear soul. I shall miss her. When my man died she came
in to look at him. He worked up to the very last, although he was so
old--past eighty. He took his turn with the hayin’. He never wasted a
hour; it was Sunday when he died, so it was. She come and looked at
him a-layin’ in his coffin, and she shed a tear. The other ladies gi’
me black clothes. Young Mis’ Jayne up at the Mount brought the little
baby for me to see, and Mis’ Turle sent Miss Nancy down with a bottle
o’ doctor’s stuff--it’s nothin’ but camphor; jest smell it. But Mis’
Clutton brought a fine wreath like wax. He went down into his grave as
if he was a gentleman farmer. Nobody else thought o’ flowers; wreaths
aint for the likes o’ we.”

As Pamela turned the pony’s head she decided not to go to the Mount
that day. There were still moments when Annie’s impenetrability and
Aunt Sophy’s phlegm jarred.

She drove home across the common. It was a burning day--the last in
July. There was a ticking sound in the hot air, as the black seed pods
of the broom burst. High in the sky was an intense angry sun, swept now
and then by boding thunder-clouds. Across the common stretched a carpet
of heather, exquisite purple, just breaking into bloom. When she turned
off and drove down Waggoner’s Lane on the way to Folly Corner, the
hedges were full of blackberry blossoms, widely opened, and pale
heliotrope. There was a fishy smell of privet from a cottage garden,
and the soft, tearing swish of a scythe came from a field. The high
hedges were hung with butter-colored hay, which had caught in the
branches as the loaded wain toiled by. At Folly Corner, in her
garden, the long edgings of white pinks were dry, and brown, and
scentless, and sad. The elder tree which hung over the barn was shabby.
The leaves on the poplars rustled dryly, as they never had done in
June.

The newspaper, which the carrier brought daily from Liddleshorn, was on
the table in the corridor, neatly folded, tied with twine, and
addressed to Jethro. She carried it into the drawing-room and read it
listlessly. Politics didn’t interest her--foreign politics in
particular seemed singularly superfluous. But she read the art
notices and the reviews of new books as a matter of duty, and the
advertisements as a matter of interest. There were twelve pages to the
paper that day. One was taken up with an advertisement--the prospectus
of a new company. It was something about a ruby mine--it didn’t matter
much, anyhow. She was far too languid to read it all. Still, her eye
ran listlessly down. When she came to the names of the directors she
cried out. Edred Crisp, Esq., of Marquise Mansions, W., headed the
list.

That name brought everything back. She drove it into her brain letter
by letter. She stared at it so long, so fixedly, that her eyes played
pranks, and the one name, Edred Crisp, took up the whole sheet.

There was a barking of dogs, a grating grind of wheels outside,
Jethro’s voice. She jumped up, her face suddenly stern, desperate. She
looked out of the window, her head framed in fully-blown roses which
had shriveled and turned brown.

“Come in here,” she said metallically, looking at the spare figure and
keen, kind eyes. “I want to speak to you.”

“My boots are dirty.”

“Never mind. Come now; if you don’t, I may change again, and that will
be the worse for both of us.”

Until he came in at the door, stooping his head a little because it was
so low, she kept her throbbing eyes upon those words, “Edred Crisp,
Esq., Marquise Mansions, W.”

“I’ve been to Liddleshorn and seen Preece about the wedding-cake,” he
said.

“The wedding-cake!” she repeated blankly. “Oh, you need not have
troubled. It does not matter in the least.”

Jethro was looking puzzled--a little annoyed, too. Her unequal moods of
late vexed him. He was a short-tempered man, given to fits of silence
and _brusquerie_, just as his father had been. Men in the country are
often so; she had noticed that young Jim Jayne snubbed Annie. In towns
a man goes out and blows off his temper--at his club or a music-hall;
in the country he vents it on his women.

“Doesn’t matter? That sounds strange from you, Pamela.”

She laughed. The steady look in her eyes, the lambent light on
her face, struck him. She seemed swept, dominated by a sudden
fierce, irrevocable decision. The newspaper, wide open at the
page-advertisement of the new company, was on her knees. She put her
finger under Edred’s name and showed it to him.

“Umph! Well, he has never written a line since he went away--didn’t
even send the telegram. Still, I’m glad he’s getting on. Looks like
business, doesn’t it?” He read the name and address in a rather
awe-struck way. “There seems to be money in that. How much capital, do
they say? He hasn’t been long in making his fortune. Perhaps he’ll pay
me back the two hundred. It was understood between us to be only a
loan--if he succeeded. What are the Chinese beggars doing at----”

He lifted the paper to turn it. She drew it away.

“Never mind the Chinese. You will have time--your whole life--for
them.”

“My whole life!” He laughed. “By Jove! we mean to settle them in less
than a month--judging by the telegrams. Just let me have a look at the
summary, dear.”

“But I want to speak to you.”

“You have spoken. It was to tell me about Edred, wasn’t it?”

“About Edred--yes.”

“You haven’t had a letter from him? You don’t know anything but that?”
He pointed to the paper.

She shook her head.

“I’ve never had a letter from him since he left; but this,” she put her
finger on the words, “has decided me. The mere look of the letters put
together to form _him_ was enough. Can’t you guess, Jethro? You are not
stupid.”

“Guess!” An angry darkness suddenly overspread his face. “Guess what?”

“You don’t guess. You only suspect--and suspicion never decides a
woman’s fate. I shall have to tell you.”

She seemed to pull herself together, giving a last fierce look of
affection round the room and out of the window, at the flowers and the
fripperies that she was so fond of. Then she said coldly--with the
unerring cold, callousness of steel:

“Edred is not my brother. He was my lover in London. We were engaged to
be married. He got into trouble--some business affair. The others were
to blame. They got away and he had to pay the penalty. When I came here
he was in prison. I decided never to see him again; not to let him know
my address. He came to the back door with machines that day--that day,
dear; oh, Jethro, I’m so sorry--when you gave me the check for my
wedding things and asked me about the pet lamb. I can’t marry you; I
can’t stay. He doesn’t love me--as you do. He’ll be unkind to me: he’s
that sort of man. I’m a fool, a traitor--everything that is ignoble.
Why don’t you strike me?” She threw up her face and looked at him
mournfully--that wild, sharp face, which was just a mask for her
racking brain.

“Why don’t you curse me? I have spoilt your life--but it might have
been worse. If he came back, or sent a message saying he wanted me, I
should have gone. Yes, your wife, Jethro, would have gone. I’ve been
trying to cure myself. I saw his name, and it all came back. He was the
first man--no one else before had said or looked love, or kissed
me. I suppose that must be the reason. There can be no other--he is
worthless. You are a god compared to him. But he was first. I can’t
help it.” She shook her head hopelessly, the molten, heavy tears
rolling slowly down her face.

“That isn’t all. You shall know the very worst. Then you won’t care so
much. You’ll drive me away from Folly Corner--and forget. Marry some
good, even-minded girl--some girl without the horrible strength that I
have. I must tell you the rest. He did send a telegram. You were at the
Flagon House. He said he was coming back to fetch me. I waited under
the yew until past midnight. He never came. Until to-day, until I saw
this”--she touched his name--“I thought--I hoped that he might be dead.
He wouldn’t have any power over me then.

“You saw him kissing me in the waiting-room. Why didn’t you guess
then--why did you stop short--just suspecting? Suspicion is no good--it
is only a petty thing. If you had not driven us to the station I should
have gone to London with him. That day I kept changing my mind. Do
speak, Jethro. Don’t look at me in that queer way. You must be angry.
Show it. Strike me. Call me all the disgraceful names you are surely
thinking.”

He got up, giving himself a slow shake in the shaggy coat of homespun,
which was of a very light color and looked something like hairy
sacking.

“You must go to him,” he said simply, not a trace of anger on his face.
“It’s natural--I wouldn’t stand up against Nature for the world.
Nature mates us all--no good our meddling. Even with the cattle----”

“Never mind the cattle,” she broke in, her squeamishness asserting
itself even now--his speech was apt to be blunt enough when he spoke of
the simple facts which he had been accustomed to take as a matter of
course all his life.

“You can’t help it,” he continued, with superb generosity. “I don’t
blame you. He was first--you were meant for him. It isn’t your
fault--or his. I am the fool, the meddler. You can’t mate through the
newspaper. I ought to have known.”

He went toward the door, his head down, his face gentle and strong. She
started up.

“You are not going?”

“There is nothing to stay for.”

“You don’t say one word of blame----”

“It is no good, and I have no right. Go to him, dear.”

“You forgive me?”

“There is nothing to forgive. I should have done as you have done. Not
a woman in the world would hold me back from you, if you were free.”

“But the wedding? What will people say?”

“Let them say. That’s nothing.”

“Those things are everything. You are going to live and die in this
place. For your sake, not mine”--she looked lingeringly at the yellow
fields and rainbow flower-beds--“we must tell Aunt Sophy a plausible
story. I’ll write a note, tell her that Edred is ill--a long
illness--and wants me. Later on, by degrees, you can let them know that
I am never coming back.”

“You’ll tell her that Edred is ill--a long illness--and wants you,” he
repeated in a slow, painstaking voice, as if, for her sake, he was very
anxious to remember. “Very well, I’ll try not to forget. Would you like
me to drive you to the station this afternoon?”

He saw the lightening of her face.

“So soon! But I could be ready. I’ll start packing now.” She went
crisply across the room. “But not you. Let Daborn drive.”

“I’d rather come, if it’s the same to you. There’s a train at four.”

“Four. Very well.”

“We can have an early tea. You like your tea.”

“Tea--yes.”

“Take some flowers. There are plenty of eggs, too. Some of those early
pullets are laying already, although the old birds are on the moult. He
liked quince jam. Could you manage to pack a pot or so?”

“Jethro!” Her keen voice made the name more a shrill, birdlike cry than
a word. “I can’t bear to hear you talk so calmly. I would not mind so
much if you looked the martyr. But you sound so every-day--quince jam,
pullet eggs! And yet I know how bitterly you care.”

“I must try not to. I’ve made a muddle. I hurried things when I should
have let them alone.”

“You’ll forget,” she said, with miserable lack of conviction. “We
shall be--Edred and I--a bad dream. Never trouble to give us a
thought.”

“But I shall expect to hear from you; to see you, perhaps, if I go to
London. I’ve often thought of a week in London. I haven’t been since my
father died. We saw most of the sights, but missed the Doré Gallery.
Everyone ought to go there.”

She gasped.

“You could come up, see us together--man and wife. You can talk of the
Doré Gallery!”

“Why not? I mustn’t lose sight of you, my mother’s kin.”

“Kin!” she cried out, with bitter scorn for herself and Edred. “He
isn’t, at all events. His real name I don’t know; he was sentenced as
Edred Pugin. As for me! Very likely my father was not your missing
uncle at all. I hope not--for your sake. I’m no credit to you.”

“You must send me your address. If that ruby company is good and all
the shares are not allotted, I’ve money lying by--I shan’t need to
spend so much now----”

“You don’t know Edred. Never let him have another penny. He has done
you harm enough. You won’t want our address; we shan’t be creditable
people--for you to know. Up to-day and down to-morrow--I know the life
I’m going to lead. But I step into it with my eyes open,
because--because it will be with him. I want you to know the very worst
of me--you’ll be cured all the sooner. Your misery is nothing--compared
to him. My heart is all stone--until he dissolves it. He doesn’t
want me. But I’m glad, mad to go. Remember all this when I’m gone. Say
she was a callous, reckless, scheming, unprincipled creature--she is
well forgotten.”

She slipped past him, and out of the room, and up the stairs. Once he
thought he heard her sing and then stop abruptly. He went out and
tramped moodily across his acres, finding fault with everything,
swearing freely at the men, kicking his dog, and roughly ordering away
a party of children who were playing in the meadow.

Pamela packed. She said good-by to Gainah, who never troubled to lift
her head, tipped the two maids. When she told them, in a marked and
significant way, that her brother was dangerously ill, pretty Nettie
began to blubber.

When the wagonette was out of sight Gainah put her patchwork away
methodically. Then she went into the garden, looking at things
critically, speaking to Daborn in a sharp voice--the imperious voice of
old. She was a little cramped yet--mentally and bodily. But the fact
that Pamela had gone was beginning to glimmer in on her poor
intelligence. When she saw the housekeeping keys in the basket, she
picked them up and dropped them in her deep pocket with a cunning
chuckle. Then she marched solemnly into the kitchen.




CHAPTER XIV.


WHEN Pamela walked out into the yard at Victoria, the stale stable
smell, the heavy air, and coarse sounds instantly made her feel at
home. The last time she had breathed London was on that hot, stifling
August morning nearly a year ago when she had started for Folly Corner.
Her head had been heavy then, her eyes inflamed with crying, her feet
sore and burning with the ceaseless, hopeless walk of the night
before--backward and forward across the common, keeping the stolid
prison--his shameful casket--in sight.

To-day her mouth curved happily, the blood ran in and out of her face
with the intensity of her emotion. Folly Corner was far behind
her--behind forever; Aunt Sophy, Nancy, Annie--all the kind,
slow-witted women--were mere phantoms; Jethro, clumping his fields
stupidly, his head hanging, his big heart sore, was simply a rustic
figure of no particular interest.

That life at Folly Corner had been a different incarnation. The one
moment when it seemed real was when a ruddy-faced man had brushed by
her on the platform--a pointed Niphetos rosebud in his coat. She
thought then fleetly of her garden, of all the bushes which had been
her choice, which had been planted for her.

She listened joyously to the hoarse voices of the drivers, to the
mellow rattle of the piano-organ playing a tune which she had never
heard. An orderly boy, looking pertly up in her face as she got into
the cab, said:

“Now we _shan’t_ be long.”

That must be the new catchword; once she had been well up in these
things. Edred had taken her to music-halls.

How hot and misty and stuffy it was! And how delicious! She leaned back
in the cab, laughing softly and continuously, like a mad thing. Then
she began to be afraid, not knowing how Edred would receive her. Then
she smiled again, knowing that she knew how to make herself
adorable--at least for a little while. There were certain gestures,
certain airs and words, which always pleased him. She coaxed a finger
under her veil, and pulled a loose bit of hair on the temple over her
brow. He liked loose hair.

It was a misty, gray-gold afternoon. London was empty--for London.

The Green Park was thick and mystic, the white frocks of the little
children standing out solidly in the haze; an occasional white
perambulator moving along slowly, like a fairy boat.

Marquise Mansions. The cab pulled up. The driver called out ironically
to the conductor of a Hammersmith omnibus, “Fancy meeting _you!_”--that
must be another catchword. How she had lost touch of the gay, silly,
witty London life! She had been contemptuous of it, imagined that she
hated it, that she only longed for it because Edred was there. Was it
possible that only yesterday, about this time, she had been watching
Jethro’s cart horses, with their elaboration of brass harness and head
decking? She had thought then that the country was so large, so utterly
satisfying; that towns, with their hotbed air of struggle and scheming,
would choke her. Only yesterday! It had all faded into a sad, tender
dream. She was very glad to be awake again. Marquise Mansions!

It was a leviathan block of latter-day flats; red brick, white paint
already turning smoke-colored, muslin curtains at the windows, little
fragile balconies to the upper stories. A maid in smart black-and-white
livery came daintily out and flicked a duster over one of the
balconies. She looked down into the street and smirked at a man with a
milk cart.

The place was like Edred. It was a typical place for him to choose: all
swagger show, all glitter, very smart and ostentatious, very thin.

She dismissed her cab, went up the tesselated steps, consulted the
names which were displayed on the wall. The hall porter rang the lift
bell. The lift came down. She got in, reclined on the thickly-cushioned
back, and watched the floors skim by, dip down.

Edred was on the third. She knocked with some trepidation at the
extravagantly shaped copper knocker which flaunted itself on a peacock
door. A little pert page, all claret cloth and gilt buttons, opened it.
She caught her breath at the color and depth of the carpets lying on
the stained floor, at great copper bowls and decorative dishes which
were disposed on shelves in a room with a half-opened door.

“Is Mr. Crisp in?”

The little page smiled knowingly; it was a very horrible smile, on such
a chubby, child face. He didn’t seem at all surprised at the advent of
such a visitor--a handsome woman, young and well dressed. It was
evident--her blazing, aching heart told her this--that she was only one
of a type.

“Mr. Crisp is in, miss. What name?”

“Never mind. Tell him an old friend.”

He left her in a little ante-room, dainty, extravagant, luxurious, with
an oriel window looking over the park. She had composure enough to get
up and put her face close to an oval, gilt-framed glass which hung
above the hearth. She had hardly turned away when the door opened. With
lips parted and hands out she advanced, then fell back as a strange man
put his chin and a pair of keen eyes round the lintel. He was a
nondescript. She took an instant dislike to the weak face and reedy
figure. He was dressed in brown tweed of an ugly herring-bone pattern;
he had a thick new watch-chain. She didn’t know who he was, but she
instantly hated--and resented--him.

He came a little farther into the room, looked at her thoughtfully,
critically--as a lady’s-maid might at her lady’s new gown--possibly to
be hers some day. Then he, too, grinned. The glance instantly fired
her; she looked and almost spoke indignant remonstrance. But the
strange man merely grinned again and slipped away. She was left alone.

Edred was a very long time. When at last she heard lagging feet, the
ball in her throat--of frenzied delight, of trepidation and
tumult--nearly choked her.

He was faultlessly dressed. He looked prosperous--a bit bored and
languid--that was part of his mask--but happy and very much plumper.
She fancied that his puffy cheeks detracted from his good looks. He
hadn’t missed her. He had left her at Folly Corner--to die if she
liked, to do worse--without caring.

She struggled up from the extravagantly stuffed divan of figured silk.

“Edred!”

“By Jove! Pam! You?”

She had nervously pulled her gloves off while she waited. His eyes fell
to her hands at once. There wasn’t a ring on them.

“Whew! He hasn’t found out? The wedding isn’t off?”

“Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“My dear little girl--it is such a surprise. Fancy meeting _you!_” he
laughed airily. “Where’s old Jeth? What’s the joke?” His eyes fell to
her hands again. “You’re married? It was to be the sixth--wasn’t it?
No--the sixteenth?” He looked at a calendar.

“The tenth.”

“To-day’s the fourth. Are you playing a trick? How did you know I was
here? I say, Pam, be square. Is he--Jethro, you know--waiting outside?
The old fellow must look odd in a frock-coat. Does he lift each foot
along the pavement, as if he were walking through stubble? If he’s up,
I can give him a good tip. The new company----”

“The ruby mine. I know. I saw your name--that is why I came.”

“Does he want an investment?”

She clasped her hands with an air of hopeless, helpless tragedy.

“You men are all alike. Can’t you see an inch before your nose? Do you
think I should come up here about rubies? Oh! can’t you see it on my
face? Jethro was just as bad; he made me tell him everything.”

“Everything?”

His handsome face became blank.

“Everything.” She threw a hard laugh at him. “Everything--No. 4658 and
all.”

“You didn’t?”

“I did. It is your fault. I couldn’t marry him, Eddie. I had to come.
He wished it. He knows everything. He sent me.”

“He sent you to me?”

“Yes.” She was growing deadly pale. “Don’t you want me? I can go
away--but not to Folly Corner. That is finished.”

He looked troubled, stroking and tugging the coal-black, silky
mustache. He raised his eyes to her, then dropped them to the ground.

She had fallen back, her lids half fallen. It was a hot day; it had
been a long journey. She was very tired, quite faint. She didn’t think
she cared much, now that he evidently didn’t. Yet, never for a moment
did she regret leaving Jethro; never for a moment entertain the idea of
going back. She shut her eyes, listening quite listlessly to the rumble
of life below. Her fate had long ago passed out of her own hands. She
was a chattel in spirit; although free in letter. Let him settle what
he liked.

She was roused by a kiss on her mouth. Edred was on the lounge. His
face was tender--the bold, assured tenderness that always made her
happy.

“Good little girl,” he said, in the half-sneering, half-caressing voice
which was his nearest approach to adoration. “Good little girl to come.
You must stay with me. I’ve missed you, Pam. You had the telegram?”

She let her head stay on his arm; she stretched her dusty feet out
wearily, with a gesture of absolute content.

“Yes. It was dangerous; Jethro might have opened it. I waited by the
yew half the night. Why didn’t you come?”

“Because I had just a shred or so of honor left----”

“The evasive thing that men call honor! I never could understand it.”

“A woman doesn’t. Jethro--poor old man--had been devilish good. The two
‘hun’ put me on my feet, Pam. Like the place?” He nodded his head
comprehensively at the luxury which walled them. “Decentish, isn’t it?”

“It’s very nice. Why didn’t you come, or write? It nearly broke my
heart. If I had not seen your name in the paper yesterday I should have
married Jethro.”

“I’m very glad you didn’t.” He looked sleepily at the beauty of her
flushed cheeks, at the depths of her happy eyes. “You saw the page
advertisement in the _Standard?_ We’re spending thousands in
advertisements--throw a sprat to catch a herring. Does the carrier
still bring the paper? What’s the fellow’s name?”

“Buckman.”

“That’s it. The same slow old horse--Hackty. You see I’ve remembered
that. I suppose they mean it for Hector, or perhaps Active. Gad! what a
sleepy hole! I felt like being in a dentist’s chair the whole time,
half under the gas, you know, just going off. If you went back in fifty
years, they’d be just the same. It’s so precious dull that they’d blow
their brains out--if they had any.”

“Jethro has been so good,” she said, feeling numbly that Jethro was
already very, very far away. She actually laughed, adding: “He insisted
on my bringing up flowers, eggs, some quince jam.”

“That stunning quince jam,” he said boyishly. “Jeth’s a good sort. Was
he very much cut up? It was too bad.” He gave her another kiss, without
any protest on her part, any courtliness on his; quite as a matter of
course.

“He was splendid. Poor, dear old Jethro! You wouldn’t understand.
You’ll only laugh. You always laugh at things that make me want to
cry--it’s the way with a man. He was so simple, so grand. He was like
a Greek god, very calm, but not a bit indifferent. He regarded it so
broadly--talked of Nature. He is all Nature. He is a great, simple,
clean-living ox--slow, reflective, not a bit stupid. He seemed to be
above or past all the small teasing, tearing strings which drag mean
hearts like yours and mine. I’ve been talking a great deal of nonsense
and you are annoyed.”

She looked quite frightened as Edred got up abruptly and rang the bell.
The past ten minutes had been so sweet that she would have accepted
them willingly as eternity.

“Not a bit.” He shrugged. “But it’s rather rough to compare him to one
of his own oxen. Do you remember how proud he was of his
stock--murderous black beasts with tremendous horns? I tell you I
didn’t half like crossing some of those fields in the twilight.”

The page came in. He looked at her boldly as she sat on the couch. She
decided that her first step of authority should be the dismissal of
that boy. Edred ordered tea. Everything was dainty, strangely dainty to
her, because she was fresh from the coarse, lavish hospitality of
Sussex. The sandwiches were evanescent--a suggestion of yellow and
green. Edred tilted the cream into her cup; at Folly Corner they often
had to put up with skim milk because Jethro insisted on having so many
pounds of butter made weekly. He had his stern economies; believed in
making farming thoroughly pay. When eggs fetched more than a shilling a
dozen almost every one was sent to market.

There were French cakes, toast cut in mathematically exact triangles.
The aroma of the tea seemed to fill the room. They sat by the open
window, an inlaid table spread with exquisitely drawn linen between
them. She looked at the road, across the railings into the park, where
an occasional carriage drove through the haze. She looked at Edred. The
prison stain was completely gone. His diamond ring, the pin at his
neck, all his indications of prosperity, pleased her. And yet she
thought the diamonds ostentatious. If he had been a portly man, instead
of a slim and elegant one, he would have been vulgar.

She was always touched by externals--had a painful respect for the
things money gave. In the midst of her intense happiness she paused to
consider discreetly that, love apart, Edred was a more eligible husband
than Jethro. She thought of Jethro--that side of him which had always
jarred on her: his half-sheepish, half-surly air in the presence of
strangers, his shy avoidance of women. Then she thought of his
toilet--the striped tags of his thick boots, which were generally
hanging out, the black suit, which he would speak of as his “best”; his
week-day shirts of galatea; his best white ones, which he did not often
wear because of the difficulty experienced by the old washerwoman in
getting them up. She thought of his ridiculous neckties, of his huge,
snuffy silk pocket-handkerchief, of the turnip-like repeater which had
been his grandfather’s, and which he lugged out of his capacious pocket
laboriously. She poured herself more tea from the Queen Anne silver
pot. She poured another cup for Edred, feeling a delightful sense of
being wifely as she did it.

“We might have had some of Jeth’s jam,” he said, idly smiling at her.
His eyes seemed to contract and glitter unnaturally with undisguised
admiration. She was very flushed and triumphant, a little feverish and
reckless with her mastery of him. Yet, all the same, because she was a
woman of the world, and had been driven to consider her reputation, she
began to wonder, as the gray haze in the park grew black, what
suggestion he was going to make for the night. One could not walk out
into the street, take a hansom, and drive to be married forthwith. He
said, pushing his empty cup away and settling back in the chair:

“I’ve been lucky. Everything I’ve touched has turned up trumps.”

“The ruby mine----”

“Pooh! That is only one thing. I’ve learnt, by very bitter experience,
that it is as well to have plenty of irons in the fire.”

“Is it a genuine concern? You won’t risk anything this time?”

She put the question for his sake--for theirs. She did not wish him to
fail, to suffer again. She wanted to be rich--safe--for the rest of her
life.

“As genuine as anything can be,” he returned evasively. “But don’t
spoil yourself by being serious. The prettiest woman--and you are
looking devilish pretty to-night, darling--can’t afford to be serious:
it brings lines about the mouth.”

She returned his smile, but a moment after she sobered again.

“I’m obliged to be serious,” she told him deprecatingly. “What
arrangement do you propose for to-night? If I go to Bloomsbury too late
they will not be willing to take me in.”

“Bloomsbury!” He looked annoyed at being reminded of that page in his
life. “You don’t want to go there.”

“They know me. I can think of no other place.”

He didn’t answer for a moment. She searched his flushed face anxiously
through the uncertain light.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said at last. “There’s a very fair hotel a few
doors down. Sutton shall send my traps there. I’ll engage a couple of
rooms for myself and him, and you shall have this place. Will that do?
You’ll be very comfortable. They give me service--the cooking’s fair.
One of the chambermaids will unpack your things and help dress you.”

He spoke as if she had all her life been accustomed to such attendance.
He was wonderfully plastic; it was one of his feminine attributes. In a
few weeks he had assimilated the manner, cultivated the brain of a
wealthy man who instinctively measures cost by a five-pound note:
nothing smaller than a “fiver.”

“That would do very well.”

“It won’t be for long. We must marry. I’ll get a license to-morrow.
Sutton shall see about it--he’s a rare fellow for details.”

“Is that the horrid man who looked into the room while I was waiting?”

Edred laughed.

“Yes.”

“Who is he? He mustn’t come here any more. I’m sure he’s hateful.”

“He’s very useful. He lives here--a most superior fellow, much to be
pitied. He was a clerk in a City firm for twenty-five years; went there
when he left school; worked up to a salary of £150. Threw all his
energies into the business; stayed late on Saturday, took papers home
to master on Sunday. Then they chucked him--wanted a younger fellow.
Everybody must be young nowadays. Sutton is invaluable. He knows the
inside of the city. He’s my clerk. I give him a couple of pounds a week
and his grub. He’s perfectly happy--so am I. His tips have put hundreds
into my pocket. Oh! you’ll have to be civil to Sutton.”

“Don’t be in too great a hurry to make money, will you?”

He laughed.

“Too much haste leads to the dock,” he said lightly. “I’m careful
enough. Some day--in a fairly little time, too--I shall be a second
Milligan. Lady Pamela Crisp. It sounds well, doesn’t it?”

“We are going to be married--in my name. Will that be legal?”

“Extraordinary delusions a woman has about the marriage service! Of
course it will be legal.”

“I ought to be going to Victoria to get my luggage. It is in the
cloak-room.”

“Sutton will see to that.”

She never forgot the witchery of that evening. Edred was so adoring, so
recklessly generous, so optimistic. They dined; they had a box at the
theater. No tinge of conscience whipped up her light heart. She never
threw one half-thought back, across the lonely miles of suburb and
common and pasture, to the mellow old house, girt with a great pond,
whose master at that moment might be sitting by the empty hearth with
his whole big faithful heart full of her.

The one disconcerting touch was when they parted at the door of
Marquise Mansions. Edred had been talking of his successes, of the many
clever, shifty schemes he had in prospect.

“We must entertain--in a Bohemian way,” he said. “Only men; jossers I
want to persuade into doing things. You understand? Very often a look
from a pretty, well-dressed woman will do more than hours of
plausibility, of convincing proof, from the woman’s husband. You must
have some Paris frocks; get your hair dressed well.”

“We shall only entertain men?”

“Women are not interesting--the wives and daughters of city men. We
shall only entertain from diplomacy--other women would spoil
everything. You must help me to play my game. It is to your interest,
isn’t it?”

She did not answer. He thought that her expression in the uncertain
light--stars and gas lamps competing--was rebellious. He became
savagely petulant.

“This marrying is a bore,” he said. “Why do you insist on it? Marriage
is only an empty form. It would be all the same--no one would know.
Married people are not branded for all the world to see, after all. We
shall never get tired of each other. It will be just the same, just as
safe, more romantic. What do you think, Pam?”

He stared at her with odd intentness, as she stood in the shadow of the
wide entrance door. She was wrapped from her soft dull hair to her shoe
in a costly evening cloak which they had hurriedly bought on the way to
the theater to cover her dusty traveling dress.

“I think that it has all been said, threshed out,” she returned firmly.
“I don’t want romance--at the expense of respectability.”

The night-rattle of London swung by them as they stood in the shadow of
the door poising their fate in their hands. The warm, misty streets
were festooned with strings of red and yellow light. Pamela was
reminded of those miserable omnibus rides from Portobello Road, when
she had watched the words “OX FORCE--NINON SOAP--DUNN’S NOSTRUM”
glitter and die on the face of a house.

Edred’s eyes, contracted and brilliant, tried to destroy her will. They
were admiring, magnetic. But she was fiercely respectable; she had
struggled, had seen the seamy side of life. She loved him, she was
madly, wickedly infatuated with him, but his smooth claptrap about the
romance of an irregular union did not take her in.

“You are jesting,” she said coldly; “jesting--in very bad taste.”

“Yes. Only a jest,” he returned, gripping her hand.

Three days after that they were married. She started a new,
intoxicating career as mistress of the gorgeously appointed flat at
Marquise Mansions.




CHAPTER XV.


IT was past eleven and they were languidly pecking at breakfast. The
brick-red sun forced himself into the room, made the gorgeously
upholstered settee and chairs look faded, showed the green tarnish on
the great copper pots, the gray rim of dust on the delft which crowded
the shelves, and the darker layer which the housemaid had left in the
interstices of the elaborately carved furniture.

Pamela’s morning gown, of some clinging primrose stuff, had caught
London smuts in the loose ruffles of its sleeves. She lifted her cup
and the ruffles fell back, showing finger-and-thumb bruises on the
white flesh. She was sallow, blotchy, her eyes muddy and swollen. Edred
kept looking up from his paper and staring savagely; the weary face,
all quiver and traces of heavy tears, infuriated him.

“I don’t know what is coming over you,” he broke out at last. “You have
only two moods--the nagging or the maudlin.”

“Edred! I--I thought you’d say you were sorry for last night. Look!”

She held up her bare arm accusingly.

“Sorry!” His frank look of amazement was absolutely genuine. “What have
I to be sorry about?”

“Look!”

The white arm, with the ugly purple marks, quivered before his eyes.

“Pooh! you bruise with a touch. It’s nothing.”

“The things you said----”

“Said! You’d madden any man with your stiff airs of prudery.”

“I’ve begged you not to ask Milligan here.”

“I shall ask him as often as I like. He’s useful. You’ll please be
civil to everybody who’s useful--to Sutton in particular. You treat the
fellow as if he were----”

“The cur he is,” she concluded scornfully.

“You’re no good if you can’t help me to play my game. That is why you
are here, confound you,” he cried savagely. “You don’t think”--his
sneer was devilish--“that I married you because I had such a supreme
longing for fireside virtue.”

“They are all alike--your men,” she cried out passionately. “They
regard me as--as--I cannot finish.”

She buried her disfigured face in her hands. Every line of her shaking
body was crouching, subjective; she was a human hound with a brute for
a master, a brute on whom she fawned.

“It’s new for you to be so particular.”

“I--I don’t understand.” She lifted her face suddenly; let him see it
all grotesquely distorted, drawn out of shape.

“I repeat; it is new for you to be so particular. If you can throw
yourself into the arms of one man----”

“One man?”

“These mawkish airs of innocence don’t impress me. We’ve been quite
bare to each other for twelve months. You came here; forced yourself on
me. Why couldn’t you stay behind like a sensible, modest woman, and
marry Jethro? I was getting on perfectly well, wasn’t I? Did I look as
if I wanted you?”

“Edred!”

“That parrot cry will make me murder you some day. Be a woman, with a
clear head on your shoulders, not a sniveling fool. Be a wife to me.” A
queer, mocking expression contracted his thin mouth. “Help me when you
can. If you offend Milligan----”

“I’ll never speak to him again. Good Heavens! You don’t want me----”

He sprung up from the table, took her by the trembling shoulder, and
swung her round.

“I don’t care what the devil you do,” he said deliberately.

She looked weakly up into his face, saw that he meant it, and began to
shake and sob. This was the worst blow he could deal. He meant it!
Hitherto she had attributed his brutalities to business worry.

She cried violently, hopelessly. She was all tears. She had no spirit
left, except the spirit that vents itself in extravagant words.
Suddenly she darted to the open window.

“If I were to jump down,” she began desperately; her feverish hands
clawed round the ledge, her wild eyes turned inward to the room.

“It wouldn’t be a bad solution.”

She ran back, tried to catch him round the neck with her pleading arms,
murmured pet names, shivered, sobbed, shook, tried vainly, in the wrong
way, to win back the old, transient adoration.

He wrenched himself away, as he would have freed himself from a skein.

“I’m sick of these rows,” he said savagely. “Do as I wish. Mind what
you’re at with Sutton--he knows a precious deal that I’d rather he
didn’t. Play Milligan. A clever woman would do it all without
compromise, but you are a prude--one of those ardent, faithful prudes
that make a man curse. Hang it all, I don’t want your extravagant
devotion; I’m in need of help. I don’t care what you do so long as I
don’t know--that’s married fidelity up to date. Do you understand?”

“I can’t--I won’t! My life is one degradation; you don’t care. If I
were some shameful woman, not your wife----”

“By George! if you knew all, you’re little better. That jargon in the
church--Sutton to give you away, the verger as best man--didn’t put you
on a pedestal of virtue.”

“I won’t--I can’t!” she repeated desperately, linking and unlinking her
hands, looking up at him with the devoted, obstinate eyes of a dog who
is afraid.

“Then go. You are a burden, an irritant.”

“You mean that?”

“Of course. I mean everything.”

He flung himself out of the room. Presently she heard him leave the
flat with Sutton.

She fell down on the settee, cuddling into the stuffed corners for
comfort. She shivered all over. She was cold. She ached with misery.
She told herself that she was a coward. She knew perfectly well, as
well as he did, that her heroics, her dramatic attitudes and words of
palpable restraint, were only pose. A woman who meant suicide wouldn’t
talk about it. She despised herself for that rush to the window--as he
despised her. He had told her to go; he didn’t want her. But she hadn’t
the courage to take him at his word. She loved him. She was perfectly
willing to crawl, to cringe to him--for the sake of an occasional rough
caress.

What a life it had been! She looked back along the year. She recalled
his first few ardent weeks, his gradual cynicism and disregard, the
constant vinegar lash of his reckless tongue, the frequent heavy blows.

What a strange, disreputable, luxurious life they led, the three of
them! She included Sutton without hesitation. He was only a dependent
in externals. Edred seemed more than half afraid of him. Sutton knew
every money-making shuffle, every risky deal of the game.

She gazed wildly about her. Everything was luxurious, slovenly, lonely.
She hadn’t an engagement to fill the day, hadn’t a woman friend in the
world. Then, fleetly, her thoughts ran back with deep affection to
those women she had known once--kin, perhaps--the Turles and Crisps,
and Jaynes and Furlongers. Simple women! She had laughed at them, been
scornful of them, been bored to death by them. At the moment she longed
for them. She pictured them individually in their lonely, comfortable
homes, with their traditional, simple, brainless occupations. She
thought of them singly. Each one had her special reputation among her
neighbors--for a particular jelly, good butter, or savory pickles.

She knew dozens of men. They came to the flat with Edred; sometimes
they came when he was out, when they knew perfectly well that he was
certain to be in the City. Milligan especially cultivated that trick.
Her outraged virtue lighted to a cruel fire. She thought fiercely that
if Milligan came up the stairs that day she would find courage to kill
him.

Yes, dozens of men! They gave her flowers, once or twice a jewel. They
paid her dubious compliments, discussed music-hall artistes, told queer
stories in her presence. They flattered, ignored, or shocked her, as it
suited the mood of the moment. She occupied exactly the position of a
beautiful, expensive lap-dog, whose ears every visitor may pull, to
whom every visitor may toss a lump of sugar.

London outside was gay and hot--all blue and yellow, all dust and eager
noise. The top-heavy omnibus swung by, with gayly dressed women on the
garden seats, fluttering bows of ribbon on the drivers’ whips. The big
hats of the women, piled with feathers and imitation roses, made her
think of her blazing flower borders at Folly Corner. She sat up, wiped
her burning eyes, into which her bitter sorrow seemed to have corroded.
She thought very calmly of Jethro--thought of the slow, easeful,
reflective life which she had so lightly, so gladly, thrown out of
reach. A year ago! They would have married--had a child, perhaps. His
simple words--“A little son to come with me and beat in shooting-time;
they soon grow up”--rippled in her throbbing head. A child! She might
have had her own child by now. The dreadful ache of a barren woman
caught her.

She walked up and down the untidy room, her primrose trail dragging
over the dusty carpet. She rang the bell, but no one came to clear. She
hadn’t a duty in the world. It was hardly noon yet. If she crawled back
to her bed and sobbed away the day, if she went headlong down through
the oriel window--it made no difference. She was perfectly free to do
exactly as she chose.

She walked up and down in her misery and indecision, the August sun
streaming into the room, where the bacon on the table was caked in a
translucent layer of white grease, and the crumpled _serviettes_ were
tossed to the floor.

All her love, her passion, her folly, and heartlessness had ended in
this--a mere vulgar marriage row. Row was the word he had used. Just an
underbred squabble--they had plenty. They had flung words at each
other--the usual taunts of an ill-sorted couple.

She knew he’d come in as usual at night--Sutton behind, with his false
air of subservience; Milligan at his side, his eyes roving about for
her. She knew she’d put on her freshest dress. She knew. She was a
miserable, plastic fool, hopelessly committed. Already she was no
longer angry with Edred; only bitterly, sorely pained and degraded.

If she could only travel past caring! But every bitter word of his
found its frightful billet in her heart; every foul word pierced like a
pointed weapon. Her love was riddled with the cruelest wounds, but not
one was vital. She loved him. He had told her to go. Go! She laughed,
picking up his pipe and kissing the stem ardently.

The gay rattle and careless chaff ran under her yawning window. She
started up suddenly and put on her out-of-door things. She went down
the wide staircase thoughtfully, wondering what on earth she should do
with the day.

She hailed the first omnibus that came rocking down Piccadilly. She got
inside and sat near the door. There were only two other passengers--a
middle-aged man and his more middle-aged wife. Pamela watched them
languidly, in the mood to study other people. Her own life held nothing
now but empty days and distasteful evenings. Dinner-time was
coming--with Milligan, other men, perhaps--all the people who somehow
made her feel contemptible, passively immoral. Their insults were so
delicate, so flattering, that she could not resent them: to resent
would be an admission. She just studied the dilemma of the middle-aged
woman, who was very nervous, who expressed her preference for trams.

“I’ll go nearer the door. Then, if there should be a spill, I could
jump out.”

She rustled along the seat, the stiff folds of her brocaded black
skirt seeming to share her terror. Then she peppered the conductor with
anxious queries, asking him if he didn’t think the driver was drunk.

“Lor’, mum! he’s drove the ’bus for twenty year,” came the not
altogether reassuring answer.

“You think he’s really sober? But, oh conductor”--her voice rose to a
shriek as the horses swerved--“I do wish I was on the Underground. I
insist on getting out.”

He rang his bell viciously and bundled her off the step. Her husband
followed, looking keenly annoyed. Pamela smiled--scenting a marriage
row. Then the blinding tears gushed to her eyes and burned there
without falling. Marriage row! A vulgar, trivial squabble! She lived in
a rain of them.

“I’ll go outside,” she said, with a sudden desire for the sky above her
head and the dry air on her face. She went with a sure foot up the
steps and along the roof, the omnibus still moving, and took the one
spare seat immediately behind the driver. Once she had been proud of
her coolness and dispatch in climbing an omnibus. That was in the old
days, when money was scarce and skirts shabby at the hem: the days when
she had carved at table, accompanied songs, and made herself generally
useful (attractive, so the advertisement stipulated) at the stuffy
boarding-house near the British Museum. Edred had been one of the
boarders--had paid thirty shillings a week, which was as much as he
could afford out of his two pounds five weekly. Those were the days
before he became a--number. She thought of it all, as she was carried
by Kensington Gardens--occasional nights at a music-hall, merry waiting
at pit doors, Sunday jaunts to Hampton Court--with a fresh summer gown,
a smart cheap hat, and a constant dread of a shower.

The women on the seat immediately opposite were talking volubly. They
both had cheap black jackets with very big buttons and outstanding
sleeves. One, as she talked, kept licking her lips and constantly
popping out her tongue with odd vivacity and archness. The other, an
older woman, with a severe expression, took an occasional solemn swig
at a bottle which was genteelly wrapped to the nose in a confectioner’s
paper bag.

As the vivacious woman wriggled on the seat she afforded occasional
peeps of a rusty quilted petticoat with a red flannel lining.

“She done it on the Monday as we see her on the Sunday,” Pamela heard
her say mysteriously.

She fell to wondering _what_ she had done: something very reprehensible
certainly, judging from the shocked expression of the elder woman, who
nodded sourly and tilted her paper bag.

“She says to me, ‘Why don’t you take in a lodger?--some young lady as
is engaged all day in business. There’s the spare room a-goin’
beggin’,’ she says. But I aint goin’ to do it, Mrs. Whitbourn; would
you? Oh, ’e’s a good ’usban’. But there!”--the dusty head with the
black chip hat shook sideways and the quick tongue lolled out--“you
never knows nothin’, do yer?”

“No, yer never does,” confirmed the solemn woman.

“Lor’! ’ere we are at the church. Well, good-by, Mrs. Whitbourn. See
you again some day.”

They kissed lusciously; the sateen petticoat with the frowsy red lining
whisked away.

Pamela stared straight in front of her thoughtfully.

“Yer never knows nothin’, do yer? No, yer never does,” kept striking in
her head.

“Yer never does.”

She didn’t. Strange, that a suspicion of the particular wrong which
Edred might do her had never before occurred to her. Had she found the
secret of his coldness and unconcern--in another woman? Was there
somebody else?

First, a fierce, instinctive jealousy swept her; then she wished
ardently that it might be so. That might be the deathblow of her mad,
headlong love for him.

She went to the very end of the journey, then took another omnibus
back. At Bond Street she alighted and walked down to the dainty shop
where she usually had tea. The woman’s words still haunted her.

“Yer never knows nothin’, do yer?”

One might go on for a lifetime, in a nest of different worlds like
London, and never know. That was perfectly true. She turned her sleeve
up furtively and drank in the angry purple of the bruises on her wrist.
Was another woman responsible for them? It was a new idea and a very
enticing one.




CHAPTER XVI.


AS days went on she became more than ever persuaded of the fatalism of
those suggestive, common words, “Yer never knows nothin’, do yer?” That
woman, with the soiled red lining to her kicked-up petticoat--that
woman, with the loosely sensuous mouth, big tongue, and rolling bright
eyes, had emerged from the gray routine of her particular suburban
corner, merely as a warning. Those comically meaningless words became a
gospel. She was always saying them, puzzling over them. They were on
her pale lips as she looked questioningly into Edred’s face. Once she
woke up and found herself saying them in her sleep. It was too stupid.
But, if only that persistent quoting of them, in silence, that
continual battering of them at the door of her distracted brain, would
bring solution! If she could take hold of some slight clew! She found
herself constantly longing for proof of Edred’s unfaithfulness. That,
she thought, would end her love--her reckless, shameful love for an
unworthy object: love that blows, terrible suggestions, the cruelest
words and looks could not kill. If she could free herself from that
horrid, paralyzing coil of Love!

She used to dog his steps with the patient sleuth-like tread of
an intent panther. She followed him into strange places often
enough--unseen. She was always watching, waiting. Other wives waited
and watched, hoping all the time that nothing was wrong, that they
still had faithful husbands, might still keep their homes together with
honor. But Pamela dogged Edred desperately--much more desperately than
she would have done had there been the smallest chance of happiness
left for them. She only fiercely prayed that there might be some
entanglement, that there was some other woman--weak, innocent, or
criminal--in the background. It meant so much more to her than mere
conjugal peace and trust; her experience had made her bitterly scornful
of married life: you could never successfully blend romance and joint
housekeeping. She was playing for a much higher, nobler stake--her own
independence. A wife was an individual first, a mere married woman
afterward. She was conscious from time to time of the absolute
isolation of each human being who treads the world.

One flesh! Bare hearts! What empty jargon! One could look into the
other one’s eyes and be breeding murder, worse than murder, all the
time. This life, the beings with whom we were accidentally thrown in
contact during our half-conscious sojourn--mere detail! There was a
splendid, terrifying isolation about everyone. Each alone! She used to
look at them curiously, speculatively; figures moving along the yellow
streets at night, in tender twos, in merry companies--and yet alone.
Each one shut in, cut off from all perfect communion, by the film of
his own individuality. Each brain its own secret world. Each body,
under such varying garments, absolutely its own, in spite of vows,
ardent protestations, respectable and legal shackles.

She used to brood thus, a little at random, as she warily trod the
streets behind that slim, carefully-dressed figure. She had become a
strange perversion. She loved her husband still, in a headlong, fierce
way. Yet she longed for him to commit himself, so that her love might
puff away, become impalpable, like smoke rising in a clear sky. There
was no chance for her, no freedom, no self-respect until she became
callous, until that hot, wayward heart of hers was dammed up. She had
read--in a girl’s superficial way--of first love as a potent thing. She
hadn’t known then that it could be such a sweeping, crowning,
involuntary thing--hadn’t dreamed that it could hold you in such grim,
iron grasp. She couldn’t get away from the magnetism of--the first. She
despised him; sometimes, for a clear moment, she loathed him. She
remembered that on one occasion it had been a keen struggle to throw
down the bread knife on the wooden platter instead of slitting it
through his long lean throat.

And yet! He had only to call the old playful, indulgent light into his
lazy eyes, only to carelessly flip at her some gesture or word of the
past, to bring her under his heel--quivering body, small subject soul.
It was horrible to be in such bondage to a man--just because he had
been first. Only because!

One night near Holywell Street she saw him meet a woman. She followed
them down the Strand, an odd, glad singing in her head. The moment had
come.

She studied that woman with a woman’s minute, critical eye. She wasn’t
satisfied. The woman was respectable, obviously, insolently
respectable. She looked like the mistress of a maid-of-all-work and a
flawless little house.

She hadn’t the right atmosphere. She took Edred’s arm, hanging on it
stolidly and looking at other women on the pavements with a sort of
virtuous sneer, seeming to say, “I have a perfect right; can any of you
say as much?” They might have been an aggressively respectable married
couple from South London going to dine at a restaurant by way of
dissipation.

As a matter of fact they turned in at one. Pamela watched Edred push
back the heavy door and gravely stand aside for his companion to pass
in first. There was no eagerness in his attitude; he seemed quite used
to it, not exactly weary, but coldly stolid. He wore the settled air of
a married man--the mild, contented, resigned air of doom, which so many
husbands wear. He was neither unhappy nor happy; he took this evening
meal in the crush and steam and the hurry of waiters as a matter of
course. Why not?

She didn’t pretend to understand him--or her. They were an odd couple.
Nothing stealthy, illicit, ecstatic about them, when there should have
been a suggestion of all three emotions!

The woman wore brown--the frump’s unfailing refuge: it was a hot,
reddish sort of brown; her hat, anxious to be in the fashion, was
painfully skewered to her head by many pins. There were fresh touches
of pink about her at ridiculously unwanted spots. She looked pleased,
shy; like a child dressed for a party.

Pamela followed them up between the line of tables, between the greedy
line of eaters, some gluttonously bending over the plates, some waiting
with an air of impatience, some replete and leaning back, quizzing and
smoking. In the long mirrors she could see the reflection of all
three--such a dramatic three: Edred, with his sheepish, sleepy air; the
strange woman, all pink and brown and narrow airs of virtue as she
looked at--and apparently suspected--every other woman a little smarter
than herself. Last of the three Pamela saw her own tall figure,
stylishly attired, the abundant dull hair bunching out beneath her
toque with the big ostrich plumes. The set and selection of her gown
was in such good, if rather striking, taste, that the over-fed and
quickly-feeding men looked after her, their faces lighting up.

The intangible feeling of shame, of smirching, which was becoming
common to her, caught at her then. She fancied she read insult in the
admiration of these many strange men.

She looked at herself again and was bound to admit that there was not
so very much difference between her costume, her carriage, and the
carriage and costume of others present whose vocation was unmistakable.
The ultra-fashionable woman sails perilously near the wind in
appearance. She felt quite angry with her expensive garments. She
followed still, through the glass, the movements of the woman in pink
and brown. She seemed to shout, in every seam of her dowdy frock, in
every gleaming button of her badly-cut gloves, “respectable married
virtue.” She!--_she!_

The world was whirling round the wrong way.

She followed her quarry, every sense alert so that Edred might not
discover her. When the two settled at a table she deftly slipped aside
and took the one immediately behind them. So that they were sitting
back to back, she and that shameful woman with the perplexing insolent
air of calm virtue. The back of her beautifully-cut and braided
heliotrope coat was within a few inches of the contemptible little
brown bodice with the crisp pink bow at the neck and the pink-lined
ends, like lopping rabbit-ears, at the waist.

The waiter came up. Beneath her breath and mechanically she ordered a
steak, her ears strained all the time to hear what they would order.
Edred said:

“Calves’-head? You have never tasted it--as they serve it here.”

“It’s rather rich,” came a common voice dubiously.

Odd! Her voice, like her frock, like her little pursed mouth and hard
eyes, was respectable. Aggressively respectable! Women like that had no
right to appear respectable; to do so was an additional aggravation.
Wasn’t their _existence_ enough? The jealous fire was rising, was
already burning, a steady white light, at her heart. But she was very
glad, of course. Confused, conflicting thoughts kept running in her
head.

When the steak came she could not eat it; there was enough for two men.
She just played with her knife and fork, dipping deeply into the bottle
of red wine she had ordered.

“I knew it would be too rich,” the voice of the brown woman said
reproachfully. “It’s too bad of you to spoil my dinner, when you know
my stomach’s not strong. Nasty, bilious stuff! I can’t touch another
bit.”

Well! He might have chosen a handsomer, a more refined woman. Little
common narrow creature! He might have given her a more worthy rival
while he was about it.

“Where did I put my gloves? No, I couldn’t look at pudding; it would
just about finish me. Cheese? If _you_ like--not for me. I’ll have a
liqueur by and by; not that beastly green stuff we had last time.
Cherry brandy. I can’t have lost the gloves.”

She twirled round suddenly, putting her hands behind her and anxiously
fumbling. Pamela wheeled round too, grasping the handle of her umbrella
by way of excuse. Their eyes met. The quick, respectable, scandalized
expression shot into those of the brown woman.

Pamela flinched and flushed. It wasn’t pleasant to be mistaken--by her,
too. The wretch--the little, common, hypocritical wretch! How dare she?
Their eyes met: the malevolent stare in the pink and brown woman’s,
the eager, wide look in Pamela’s. She photographed on her alert brain
every line of that face--the face which Edred found more comely than
hers. It was long and thin, but quite youthful; she judged her to be
about twenty-five. The eyes were hot brown, like the gown, and set
close together. They were restless eyes, curiously restless. They roved
about perpetually, seeming miserably to search for something which
never came. It was like a monkey’s face--a pink, unlined monkey face.
There was cunning in it, spite, and a kind of dumb pathos. A very
curious woman for a rival!

She fished up the ginger-colored gloves. They were shamefully new; one
or two of the buttons were still covered with tissue-paper.

Edred had finished his meal; he was smoking, his head back, his eyes
dreamy. Pamela knew the attitude very well; it usually followed a good
dinner. Her heart ached for herself. The little woman fussily put on
her gloves, drew down her veil, settled her fluttering ends of pink
satin. Then she, too, fell back on the red seat and began to look idly
about her, passing audible comments on people whose appearance invited
the acid of her tongue.

“And there’s that woman behind,” she said presently, in a distinct
whisper. “Just behind me. Look--when she isn’t looking. How silly you
are! Always looking the wrong way. Didn’t I say _behind?_”

“Never mind. I’ll take your word for her,” he returned.

“But do look. I’m sure she’s--you know. Half of them are in this place.
Disgraceful, overdressed things!”

He turned with sudden curiosity. Pamela was still twisted round on the
seat. She was staring savagely at that impudent brown hat, with the
ferocious spiked pins which stuck out in all directions. Edred turned.
He saw her--saw her haggard face peering through the smoke and vulgar
glitter of the place. As, for that one supreme moment, they stared
spellbound at each other, the second woman said impatiently:

“Come on. We shall be late. The last time you took me to the theater we
were late.”

Pamela started up, slipped past the tables, past the rows of diners.
Near the door the waiter stood in her path. She dropped a coin in his
hand and hurried on. Once outside the door of that place, under the
cool sky in a dark side street, she took to her heels like a
pickpocket. She was afraid of Edred, more afraid than she had ever
been. There had been a new, ugly threat on his face. It would be
something more than words this time. After all, words were not the
worst. Her flesh was tender; she dreaded that he would beat her.

She turned, panting like a closely-pressed hare, into the Strand, held
up her umbrella to the first hansom, and hustled in.

“Marquise Mansions,” she called up to the driver. “I’ll give you double
fare if you drive very quickly.”

The horse seemed to fly through the moving, brilliant streets. Before
her heart ceased its mad, quick beat of terror and apprehension, the
crude red wall of Marquise Mansions was in sight.

She went up to the flat, locked herself in her bedroom, dragged off her
tight gown, kicked away her shoes, unfastened the piquant hat from her
fair hair--and hid everything. She rolled the things in a rough bundle
and shot them far under the bed.

When Edred burst in ten minutes later, she was half lying in a low
chair by the drawing-room window, with a novel in her hands. The lace
and cashmere of her tea-gown spread softly about her ankles like the
delicate tail of some exquisite foreign bird.




CHAPTER XVII.


SHE had never seen his face look quite so strange, not even on that mad
day in the stuffy Bloomsbury house when she helped him throw his things
into the bag and he whispered hoarsely that “they” were after him. She
was puzzled by the intensity of his expression. He didn’t love her, he
was tired, anxious to be rid of her. That discovery of the contemptible
woman in brown should have been propitious for him. And yet he seemed
furious, and, more than that, afraid.

She had meant to calmly tell the truth. But two things froze the truth
that lay ready on her tongue. She was afraid of him: he was a mere
violent physical brute, in the mood to stamp on her, to drive his fist
into her face: that was what it had come to--her tender, first romance.
Her weak woman’s cowardice made her shiver with apprehension under her
sweeping folds of cashmere. And then, apart from fear, she couldn’t
tell him. She didn’t want him to know she knew.

It was humiliating, mortifying, delightful. She rapidly read her own
heart. She loved him still. There was no solution. The common, dowdy
woman that he had just left had no power to part them. She realized
with fear, with self-reproach, with bitter shame, yet with relief, that
any mere bodily sin he might commit was pardonable. Was there, then,
no cardinal offense? Was she to go on loving in this despicable way
until the very end?

She looked up from the book, smiling, yawning.

There was cunning in her big clear eyes, the cunning which even the
frankest woman on earth has in reserve: handed down to her through
generations of oppressed women, who have always been slaves.

Slaves! The word suddenly came; she couldn’t have told why. And while
she sat back in the chair, chin up, eyes half afraid, mouth stiffly
smiling, she was thinking scornfully that woman always had been and
always would be slaves. They liked to be slaves. All this strident talk
about freedom and rights was froth, propounded by those imbittered free
women who hadn’t succeeded in finding a master.

“You said you were not coming back to dinner,” she said gayly, and then
grew deadly pale as she suddenly remembered that he had said something
about not coming back all night, if a certain business he had in hand
took an anxious turn. He had said that he might be called away to
Liverpool. Her lip curled. Liverpool! Kennington, more likely! That
hat, that terrible gown, had looked like Kennington. Then she rallied.
“You said you were not coming back to dinner, so I--I dined: a woman’s
dinner, you know--an egg, some cake, and three cups of tea.”

“No lies!” he returned savagely. “What were you doing half an hour ago?
An egg! Tea! There was a plate of rump-steak in front of you at the
restaurant.”

She was by this time thoroughly steadied to hard, deliberate lying. She
didn’t want to lose him. She didn’t mean to hand him over publicly to
that woman. She loved him. She’d keep the semblance of him anyhow.

All her frenzied watching; all her deplorable spying; all her fierce
assurance that unfaithfulness on his part would free her soul--ended in
this. She was lying, in order to keep him.

That he had been unfaithful she was certain; his attitude toward the
woman spoke of nothing else. It was an old entanglement, purged of all
piquancy, all intensity. It had become a matter of course.

“You don’t suppose I would go out and dine alone? Steak! I never touch
it.”

“You never do,” he said ponderingly; then added, “but that was, no
doubt, part of your devilish, ingenious scheming, to throw dust in my
eyes.”

“I don’t understand, I really don’t,” she persisted, with the firmness
and absolute blankness of the deeply-committed liar. “Be a little more
clear.”

“You were there. I saw you,” he stormed, moving his hands about
nervously. “Why! You remember looking at me. You remember--her?”

“Her?”

“The woman with me. She was dressed in brown.”

“I hate brown. What woman?”

“You haven’t the impudence to stick to it that you weren’t there--with
a rump steak and a bottle of wine?”

“It doesn’t sound at all inviting--at all like me. My dear boy!” She
leapt up, and tremblingly hung her arms about his stubborn neck. “It
was a delusion--you saw my double.”

“Double be----”

“You must tell me about that woman,” she broke in, smiling falsely, her
teeth, beneath her curled-back lips, white and cruel in their
regularity and soundness. “You’ve committed yourself. Who was she? A
business connection--a person from--Liverpool? Though you’ve never
asserted that it was politic for you to keep in with the women--as it
is for me to appease the men.”

He pushed her away from him by a reckless blow on the chest.

“Curse you!” he said with fury. “You’re like a cat--all claws, all
purr. You double like a cat. I saw one chased by a dog through some
front gardens the other day. She doubled behind some shrubs, and he
lost her.”

She had one hand on her chest, where it throbbed with his fist. She was
smiling still; a demoniacal smile, but with the most hopeless outraged
tenderness behind it.

“There are no front gardens in Piccadilly,” she said, looking at him
oddly. “You must have been in the suburbs.”

He sat down. He was biting his nails fitfully, and looking up at her
from time to time with a sullen, suspicious glance.

“I’ll be even with you yet,” he said threateningly. “You _were_ there.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You’ll swear?”

“Women don’t swear. I wasn’t. I haven’t been out of the flat all day.
Go into the bedroom, if you don’t believe me. Look at my shoes--all in
nice shiny rows. Look at my gowns, all tidily on the pegs. By the way,
what did she wear?”

“Brown,” he returned mechanically.

“Pooh! We’ll come to her later on. I mean the other--the one you
mistook for me.”

“You wore a violet kind of thing, with black stuff sewn on it,” he
persisted. “There were violet feathers in your hat. They nodded at me
like imps when you got up and slipped away. By Jove! I won’t be fooled
like this----”

“Don’t be absurd. Did you ever see me in violet? Think.”

The dress had only come from the tailor’s that morning. She watched him
triumphantly.

“Perhaps not--but I never notice what you wear.”

“You never do,” she made answer sadly; and then she jumped up, again
meaning to kiss him, but he angrily waved her back.

“It was a very curious thing,” she said steadily, and smiling into his
angry, infuriated face. “It’s rather dree to know one has a double. I
hope you’re convinced now. If not, go into the next room. See if you
can find a violet gown. Shall we go together and hunt?”

“You’ll swear you weren’t there?”

“I’ve told you I wasn’t--I’m tired of telling. Now, about this woman?”

“Never mind who she was. It’s not your affair.”

“But----”

“I’ve given you my definition of married fidelity,” he said, with an
ugly, puzzling grin full on her quivering face. “Nothing matters--so
long as the other one doesn’t find out. Find out--if you dare! If I
ever see--your double--dogging me again, I’ll turn round in the streets
and knock her down. Do you understand?”

“I hear--and I’m very sorry for the poor thing. I can only hope that
she won’t cross your path, but--it’s nothing to me. Is it?”

He was out of the room, out of the flat before her lips closed after
the mocking words. She fell back, shaking with degradation. She knew
perfectly well that he would not return that night. She might drop her
mask, spread the accusing violet gown on the bed, plant her dusty shoes
in the middle of the room. She might cry her fill--but where was the
good of that? Tears were bad diplomacy at the best of times. She was
worn out enough by the burning shame of the glib lies she had been
reeling off.

He would not come back that night. He had returned to--_her_--the brown
person. Perhaps she had been waiting outside all the time. She got up,
ran into the other room, began to feverishly unfasten her gown with one
hand, while with the other she flung back the door of the wardrobe. She
would follow them. If he saw her, knocked her down--so well! She would
follow them--to the very door. Then she dropt down on the bed,
shaking her head mournfully, twisting her hands. She wouldn’t
follow--all motive for following was gone. She had been waiting,
watching all these degrading weeks for the advent of a woman. The woman
had come. She had believed that she would bring freedom in her hands.
But she hadn’t; no woman ever would. It needed a subtler force to kill
her love for that villain. She didn’t even feel jealous because he had
gone away with her rival. She was contemptuous of him because her rival
was so uninteresting--that was about all. Her strongest feeling was one
of being stunned--as if he had struck her on the head, instead of on
the breast. She didn’t mind much. She was relieved, immensely relieved,
that it was no longer necessary to watch--to crawl stealthily about the
streets like an unclean animal of prey. She only hoped that he would
come back in the morning--and in a good temper. One must learn to wink
at things.

As she sat on the bed, shaking her head in a foolish, silly fashion,
and smiling at the wall with the self-satisfied air of a person mildly
and harmlessly distraught, the outer door of the flat opened. She
jumped up with a wild hope, a sick dread. She gave the one essential
look in the glass, raised her hot fingers mechanically to her crumpled
hair, and went back to the drawing-room.

Sutton was standing in the middle of it, his head bent in a listening
way.

“Oh!” she said stiffly, with an air of collapse. “You!”

He did not answer, only stared at her. His face was aflame with some
unusual emotion. It looked like a Christmas card--one of those
things--transparencies--which admit a ruddy, steady light in places
where you hold them up before a lamp.

“Edred has gone out,” she continued with abrupt impulse, “and I--I’m
going out too.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere. The pit of a theater, perhaps; he used to take me.”

He was looking at her fixedly, as well he might. Her voice, her face,
her attitude were reckless.

“Will you come to a music-hall with me?”

She looked at him. He read her contempt for him; it was steady behind
the reckless mask. But he didn’t care. For many months he had been
playing for this night.

“Wait. One moment,” she said in a staccato fashion. “I’ll put on my
long cloak--that’s all.”

She whisked through the door and was back in a moment, wrapped to her
ankles in the garment which Edred had bought for her on that fairy
summer evening--the night of the day on which she had left Jethro.

“You are going--like that?” he said musingly, as she hitched up the
tail of her gown, and plunging his hand into his pocket.

He didn’t choose his music-hall with any regard for her. He took her
somewhere--she didn’t know or care exactly where. She only knew that it
wasn’t in one of the big streets. She sat with him in the box, staring
and smiling through the performance. Nothing smote her modesty that
night. She had suddenly turned numb. Sometimes, as she stared and
smiled at the stage, she saw, not a kicking, painted woman, but a
demure, savagely respectable figure in brown. Once a dancer suddenly
changed into a big woman, mostly jacket-buttons and red-lined
petticoat, who extravagantly popped out a very long tongue, and said,
“Yer never knows nothin’, do yer?”

As the evening wore on, and she endured without flinching the risky
songs and patter, Sutton’s attitude grew more free. In the cab on the
way home he sat beside her, seeming to press her uncomfortably into the
corner.

When he unlocked the door of the flat her instinct told her at once
that Edred had not returned. Sensation came back. She suddenly felt ill
at ease. She wished from her heart that she had not gone out for the
evening with Sutton, a man she detested and despised. She looked down
at him contemptuously--a middle-aged, vacuous, little-minded, vulgar,
cunning creature: a very good example of the played-out mercantile
clerk.

“Good-night,” she said curtly.

It seemed an almost superfluous thing to say, jammed in together and
alone as they were in the flat, where a whisper almost passed through
the walls.

“Good-night,” she repeated, with sudden constraint.

“Wait a bit”--he opened the drawing-room door--“I want to talk to you.”

“I’m tired.”

“But it’s very important.”

She marveled at the remarkable change in him. He had become an
impressive figure. He absolutely commanded her, as he stood by the open
door, in his iron-gray suit. It was baggy at the knees and elbows. It
was perfectly true that he had plenty of money now; but he could not
shake off the careful habits of twenty years. He only had two new suits
a year, and he scrupulously changed his coat whenever he came indoors.

He threw out his hand and bowed--something in the way of a shop-walker.
She walked into the room, without another word of protest.

He went out again, putting his face back in his usual queer way, to
throw at her the words:

“I’ll be back in half a jiff. I’ll just put on my slippers and get my
alpaca jacket.”

When he came in again, she was sitting bolt upright on the lounge; she
had not even turned up her veil, nor unbuttoned her long gloves.

“Take off your things,” he said with ghastly jocularity. “Make yourself
at home, you know.”

Then he laughed nervously. It suddenly dawned on her that he was in a
state of great tremor. His jocular tone, his silly, vulgar
words--everything of him--jarred terribly. She reproached herself,
condemned herself again for that hideous evening of frolic at a
third-rate music-hall with such a creature.

“I’ll keep my things on,” she said firmly. “Sometimes these summer
nights are cold. It is going to rain.”

He came and sat on the other end of the lounge, and stared at her with
his unpleasant, expressionless eyes. He crossed first one leg and then
the other; he stroked and tugged at the weakly growing hair on his face.

“If you’ve anything to say,” she said crisply, “say it. It’s twenty
past twelve.”

“I’ve all night to say it in--he won’t come home.”

She nearly struck him for that free, unctuous laugh. She would have
whisked up and locked herself in her own room--but she couldn’t. Even a
mean man is commanding in moments of tremendous excitement. It was
obvious that Sutton was laboring to say something of moment; she was
impelled to sit still and let him say it.

“I don’t know where to begin,” he said helplessly, winding his
watch-chain round his finger.

“If it is business,” she said, suddenly becoming inspired with the idea
that there was some financial difficulty, and he wished to confide in
her, to break it to her, “don’t tell me. I shall not understand.”

“I never talk business with a woman,” he returned with a sneer.

“Oh! Then what do you talk?”

“The one thing of any interest. You know what--but you like to tease
me, you won’t help me out. It’s unkind to a poor beggar,” he said, with
a fearful attempt at pathos and tenderness.

Then she knew instantly what was coming, knew what had transformed him.
She was consumed with shame, with apprehension--but she could not rise
from that paralyzing lounge, could not move one step toward the door.
Like a true woman, hypocritically obtuse to the very last, she said:

“I haven’t the least idea----”

He grabbed at her hands, held them desperately.

“You know; you’ve known all along. It’s been a pretty game, hasn’t it?
You thought I didn’t see the nods you gave me over the dinner-table,
the cunning little winks behind his back.”

“I never winked in my life,” she said indignantly.

He ignored the disclaimer, and went on calmly:

“You’ve stood a good deal more than most girls would have done--a
pretty girl like you, too. He’s been a bit of a brute, hasn’t he? Upon
my word, I wonder that you have stood it so long.”

She made a second frenzied attempt to struggle up from the cushions.
She could see that he was slowly edging up, that the red glow on his
face was more pronounced, that his eyes were nearer being expressive
than they had ever been before.

“Don’t be a fool,” he said, pushing her back. “You’re not a fool;
you’re a sharp girl--you know which side your bread’s buttered. Edred
is going all to pieces; if he doesn’t look out he’ll find himself in
the dock again--with Milligan and one or two more. But I was always
prudent. I’ve made a nice little pile. I can give you every comfort.”

“I don’t know what you mean; on my word of honor I don’t,” she said
beseechingly--too utterly staggered to be angry with him.

“You don’t know! You _won’t_, you mean. You’re bent on playing a better
game. Well! there; I’ll marry you, if you like. No man can make a
fairer offer than that.”

Then, at last, she jumped up--positively, tangibly afraid of him. She
conceived the sudden extravagant idea that he had gone mad. She knew
nothing of his antecedents, she recalled a thousand foolish things that
he had done and looked and said. She firmly believed him to be subject
to attacks of mania. Her eyes expressed her fear.

“Do you think I’m off my head?” he demanded bluntly. “You look as if
you did.”

He rose too, his face becoming inflamed and furious.

“You know,” she said gently, “of course you remember--I was married to
Edred at St. Antony’s last year. You gave me away.”

He looked at her keenly. Then at last he said slowly:

“Haven’t you really found out? Do you still believe in that farce? Why
have you followed him about all these weeks? Oh! I know. I did it well,
didn’t I?” he laughed. “You behind him, I behind you, night after
night. I’m a cute chap. When I was in the City the firm always gave me
little delicate jobs like that to do. I can ferret out anything. And I
can tell you this--she’s beginning to suspect.”

“She?”

“His wife. Come. You must know--you must have known for a long time. I
found it out nearly a year ago. The little woman he dined with
to-night. I was there too. What on earth made you give the waiter half
a quid? Hadn’t you less in your pocket?”

He wasn’t mad. She was--the world was. It was a bewitched night, a
topsy-turvy universe. She wasn’t afraid of him any longer; he was sane
enough, the little wriggling, contemptible reptile. He was sane, he was
speaking the absolute truth. She sat down again.

“Tell me everything,” she said. “Please tell me everything. I thought
that woman was--but--it is I. Will you please explain--everything.”

Sutton began to explain. He seemed to enjoy the task. He sat and talked
and nursed his knee and glanced ardently, hopefully, from time to time,
at the attractive, agonized face in front of him.

“It’s a nice little complication,” he said. “Of course when Edred
married you he thought that she was dead. He’s not a fool; he wouldn’t
have walked into a trap blindfold. He married her some years ago,
before you ever met him. They had a baby. It died and she went off her
head. They took her away to the asylum. Then, after a bit, he had an
official notice that she was dead. He was jolly glad, of course; any
fellow would be. Fancy a man being tied up to a cracked wife! Well! To
cut a long story short, she wasn’t dead at all. It was somebody
else--one of the blessed bungles of the asylum. It was a regular
scandal in all the papers. She’s very much alive. She’s out, cured, as
sane as you are, except for a rum look in her eyes now and then, which
I should funk if I were her husband. He’s taken a little place for her
at Mildmay Park. He says he’s a commercial traveler. But she’s
cunning; she smells a rat.”

“And she’s his wife?” Pamela said stonily.

“I can show the register if you like. It was at a church in----”

“I don’t want proof. I believe it. I might have known it from the
first. She looks his wife. But I----”

She put up her hands and gave a short, wounded cry.

“The position’s favorable for us,” Sutton said complacently. “Of
course, you don’t care for him, a brute who strikes and bullies you.
Besides, he’ll throw you over before long. It’s getting a little too
hot for him. She suspects and you suspect. He’s afraid you’ll be
clawing each other’s faces. You see--it’s an ugly word--he’s committed
bigamy. He may be found out any day. That means----”

“I know, I know,” she said, sharply nodding her head several times;
“but I should never give him away. Never, never.”

“We needn’t send him to prison. He wouldn’t be any use to us there,”
Sutton said, with a gesture of assent. “But we can bleed him pretty
regularly. He’s in a tight corner, poor old chap. I can give him away
on the business side and you on the matrimonial.”

He laughed with relish. She said, in the most matter-of-fact way, “If
you laugh like that again, I think I shall kill you.”

“What a queer girl you are!” His voice was steady, but he made
a furtive movement toward the grate, where there were fire
irons--efficient weapons--if he wanted them. He was thinking uneasily,
in his common, literal way, that she was a big woman, that she looked
deuced queer, that a woman when her blood was up was ten times worse
than a man.

“What a queer girl you are!” he repeated rather timidly. “Do you
forgive him?”

Her head was down on her breast.

“I love him,” she said, almost sullenly.

Sutton surveyed her in silence for a moment or so: anything out of the
ordinary run of emotions struck him dumb. He had expected her to rage,
to cry, to be hysterical, and end by dropping into his ready arms.

“You might have guessed,” he said at last. “Has he ever treated you as
if you were his wife? Have any of us treated you as if you were his
wife? You are not mistress here; the very servants see how things are;
they never come to you for orders. The manager grins openly in your
face.”

“Yes,” she said thoughtfully, thinking it all over and remembering a
thousand damning incidents.

“Why,” Sutton went on, “if you had been his wife, he would have kicked
Milligan out of the place long ago; he would have kicked us all out.
Where have your eyes been, my dear girl? Think! Did any of those men
bring their wives or sisters?”

She shook her fair, dull head: it seemed to sink lower on her breast as
Sutton went fluently on:

“This flat is a bachelor establishment; he and I are the tenants.
If you were his wife I shouldn’t be here; the place is only a bandbox.
I’ll take you to the church where they were married to-morrow morning;
you shall see the register.”

“I don’t want to see it. I know that woman is his wife. I should have
known it from the first, when I saw her hanging on his arm in the
Strand. She is his wife. But I? What am I?”

Sutton said:

“Do you remember the night when Milligan came here with a lady?”

A queer expression of distaste crossed her white face. She remembered.
There had been a quarrel between her and Edred--one of the usual sharp
disputes. She had reproached him for bringing only men to the flat. She
remembered her quick, foaming flood of reproach and invective in answer
to his cold sneers. She remembered that when she stopped, panting for
breath, he had said:

“Well, is that all? Good Heavens! how you women can jaw!”

That night Milligan had brought Lady Milligan with him to dinner. When
they had gone Edred asked her, with an ugly look, if she were satisfied
now. “What more did she want?”

Lady Milligan! A dark young girl, with a tightly-curled fringe like a
door mat, a half dirty blouse, red hands. She remembered.

“Yes, Lady Milligan,” she said to Sutton. “A vulgar woman; but what
could one expect? She used to serve in a tobacconist’s shop.”

Sutton laughed.

“Lady Milligan,” he said, “is nearly fifty; a very religious, proper
woman. Do you understand?”

“Oh!” she breathed, seeming to collapse with this added indignity of
Edred’s. “Yes. I understand. Spare me any more confirming proofs.”

She hid her face in the sofa-cushions, her shame choking her. Sutton
put his hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t be so upset,” he said, with a pompous, condescending attempt at
comfort. “You didn’t know. You couldn’t help it. It will be all right.
I’ll marry you myself. There shall be no hanky-panky this time.”

She started up as if his hand had been the thin lash of a whip through
her cloak.

“Don’t touch me! Marry you! It is impossible for anyone like you to
understand. You don’t know how near I am to desperate crime--only I am
a coward. That makes you safe--I am a coward. I wish Edred would come
home. If only I knew where to find him!”

“The address is in my pocket-book,” he sneered. “But you can’t be
serious. What do you want him for? You can’t alter things. If you nag
at him, he’ll only laugh, or hit you.”

“If he would only come back,” she moaned. “If I could touch him, see
him, speak to him. I feel so alone, so incapable and miserable.”

“You want to have it out with him?”

“I want him,” she returned simply.

Then Sutton lost his temper.

“You are an idiot,” he said flatly. “I make you a good offer; not many
men would make it, and you can only----”

She laughed contemptuously, looking full in his eyes.

“You droll, contemptible creature,” she said with limitless scorn. “Of
course you don’t understand. How should you? I am going out--never mind
where. I am coming back--or I am not--according to my mood. You needn’t
be certain of anything--but the one thing: I don’t intend to marry
_you!_”

She whirled out of the room before he could collect his startled wits.
She was out of the flat and half down the stairs before he could stop
her.

The vast, high house was dark. She ran down the familiar stone steps,
drew the long bolts of the entrance door. As she opened it, she heard
the patter of slippers, a little down at heel, covering the flights;
heard a hoarse, cautious voice cry out down the black shoot of the
quiet staircase.

“Pamela! Come back! Don’t be a fool! Don’t lose your head like this!”

Her only answer was another strident laugh. The door thudded after her.
She stood alone in the night--a chilly night, with a spray of rain.
She stood facing the black mass of the Park.

She swept on westward. After a while she grew cool, practical enough to
put her hand in her pocket and feel if she had her purse. It was there,
lying heavy at the bottom. Her head was on fire, her sore heart beat
rapidly. She went on trying to formulate her life as the day must see
it. Dawn meant shame, ridicule, curiosity. She couldn’t walk London
in thin shoes with heavily jetted toes, in a cloak bordered with
swansdown and a long tea-gown.

What should she do when dawn came? She tried to be cool, practical. She
had always been practical; women who earn their own bread are compelled
to be. She walked on very quickly. The streets were almost empty. She
met with no annoyance. Yet she felt that this was the measure of her
degradation--this night alone under the London stars. What should she
do? She knew what she wanted to do. Go back; ignore everything. Yes,
she wanted that. She kept lashing herself with fierce self-reproach.
She called herself shameless, spiritless, vicious. But she couldn’t
help it. She wanted to go back--to breakfast with him as usual, to say
nothing. She loved him. That terrible cankering love! Would nothing
destroy it?

At Sloane Street she turned down, making her way instinctively, like
all hopeless, desolate creatures, to the river. She walked along and
along, not noticing distance, not feeling the soreness of her
lightly-shod feet, until she came to Chelsea.

She crossed the road and walked closely by the houses in Cheyne Walk.
She went by Oakley Street, by Cheyne Row, by the red blocks of flats
beyond, and by the Hospital, where lights still burned in certain
windows. At the corner of Beaufort Street she stopped. What on earth
was the good of going on?

A quick, frightened feminine cry, a hoarse curse from a man, startled
her, and she stumbled to the pavement, conscious all in a moment
that a hansom had nearly knocked her down. It stopped at a house with a
heavy door painted white. As she stood there by the railings, unsteady,
uncertain, a woman jumped from the hansom and opened the gate of that
house.

She had a long cloak too. Beneath it hung a soft mass of black net
which flashed with steel. Their eyes met; the eyes of these two women
on the pavement. The hansom rattled off. The lights in the house,
except one on the ground floor, were out. The pavements wound away, wet
and empty. Their eyes met. Pamela forced a smile, put out her hand in a
conventional way.

“Is it really Mrs. Clutton?” she said, with an artificial accent, as if
it were broad day and Bond Street.

“Pamela! Pamela! Really? But what are you doing alone? Where is Mr.
Jayne?”

The little dark, vivacious woman’s eyes contracted as they rested on
this wild figure with the wretched, haggard face, the clown-like smile.

Pamela said nothing. She began to cry in a low, terrified fashion, like
a lost child. The other took her by the shoulder and led her up the
flagged path to the door.




CHAPTER XVIII.


SHE opened the wide door into a hall which blazed with a yellow carpet
and led the way into a room which was lighted with a shaded
reading-lamp. The room instantly appealed to Pamela with a sense of
dear familiarity. It was filled with furniture and china from the
Buttery.

“Sit down. It is Mrs. Nick Hone’s chair. She used to stand her
washing-tub on it; Tim says it is worth five pounds.”

A little fire burned in the grate although it was a summer night. On
the bare table of brown oak was a tray set with tea things.

“I always like a cup of tea when I come home from a party; it makes me
sleep. I’ll get another cup. You remember Mrs. Silas Daborn’s corner
cupboard?” She opened it and brought out the china.

Pamela looked about her hungrily, silently, at the familiar dumb things
which seemed alive that night: warm, vital things that knew her. The
hideous china figures on the shelves grinned affably--at a former
neighbor.

“You must drink this hot.”

Pamela began to cry again as the cup was held to her mouth.

“Ssh. No. Drink the tea. Tell me everything and have a big cry
afterward.”

She drank obediently, draining the cup. Then she said in a heartfelt,
passionate way, as if she were an ardent convert to a new belief:

“There is nothing like another woman when one is miserable.”

“Nothing. Men are excellent--when we are happy. At other times they
bully us--with the best intentions--putting all our emotions down to
hysteria.”

“Men are never excellent at any time. They have brought me misery. You
pay for one moment of delight with a day of anguish.”

“This tray,” said Barbara Clutton, evidently thinking it politic to
turn the conversation, “was Mrs. Bert Hone’s. You were with me when I
bought it. Do you remember how deaf she was, and how the old man
swore--most picturesque swears! Do you remember what I said that day
about your brother Edred? How is he?”

Pamela started up at the name.

“I must tell you everything,” she cried energetically. “It isn’t fair
to sit here, to stay in your house without telling you everything.”

She told it all without another moment of hesitation: told every little
thing. She didn’t care how her story would be received. She
relentlessly dissected all her emotions--however unworthy. She detailed
all her experiences--however unsavory. It was a relief to be absolutely
frank at last, to have no concealment whatever from at least one
person. It was a very long story; she touched it up almost lovingly.
The night wore away. She drained herself of all the bitterness, all
the delight and shame and misery of three years.

The fire died out. Hushed sounds in the streets beyond the smugly drawn
curtains, a cold, dull light breaking through a chink and marking the
wall, were suggestive. Barbara Clutton, who had listened without one
word of comment, started to her feet and dragged back the curtains.

It was broad daylight in the streets outside. She put her arm around
Pamela’s shoulders, with a gesture much more eloquently tender and
sympathetic than a torrent of words would have been, and drew her to
the window.

“Did you ever see such an exquisite flush of pink?” she said, pointing
to the sky. “I’ll open the window. There! Such air on one’s cheeks, in
one’s thick eyes. We ought to go for a walk while the world is empty.”

“I wonder what it is like at this moment at Folly Corner, in my
garden,” Pamela said abstractedly.

“Ah! Folly Corner. What a garden, what a dim old house, packed with
ghosts, guilt, dead dreams, and delights! What a collection of
furniture; I’d like Tim to see it. And you put all that behind you for
a tinsel thing. My poor Pamela! But then you are a woman. Let us talk
over your plans. You’ve got to finish your life--that is a piece of
work we are not allowed to throw aside. Let us make plans.”

“I haven’t any--only desires,” Pamela returned in a shamefaced way.

“Desires! Are you thinking of Jethro? The dawn, the quiet has brought
it all back--Folly Corner.”

“That is past--impossible. I was thinking of Edred. I had better go
back. You see, he didn’t mean to shame me. He didn’t know that she was
alive all the time. He is a victim of circumstances. He needs pity.
I’ll go back. I’ll say nothing about it. That will be the best. You
don’t know how fond I am of him! It is terrible; it frightens me
sometimes. Nothing kills it--not even last night; not even the bruises
on my body. I’ll go back. You must forget to-night. I’m not a fit
person for you--or any nice woman--to know.”

A tinge of cold disgust came into Mrs. Clutton’s dark eyes.

“I won’t wrong you by believing that you’re serious,” she said at last,
with some distaste--with a great deal more seriousness than she usually
allowed herself. “Go back! It would be immoral, horrible. You can’t do
it. You can’t possibly mean what you say. We won’t mention him again.
You must stay here; things will arrange themselves--they always do.”

“But Mr. Clutton?”

“Tim. He has gone abroad as war correspondent. It is as well. We
quarrel if we are together too long, or we grow apathetic, which is
worse. I’d rather have isolated episodes of rapture than a
matter-of-fact, unbroken affection. I could never endure the kind of
husband who calls you ‘my dear,’ who draws you a check without
grumbling, who politely wishes you good-morning when you meet at the
breakfast table and asks anxiously if you are sure his shirts are aired.

“We are happy, prosperous. Tim makes money, although brains, as a rule,
are a positive hindrance to worldly success. We know lots of clever
people. To them I am only Tim’s wife: I used to hope that he would be
only my husband. We rush through society; he the kite, I the tail. I
used to think I was clever--I’m merely voluble. I can’t even succeed in
being positively stupid: in a brilliant age like this it’s a
distinction to be unmistakably stupid. Nancy has been up to stay with
me. I took her about. She made a tremendous sensation--with her
complexion, her red locks, her gift of silence. People said she had an
air, was uncommonly clever. She is going to be married to Mr. Minns,
the Liddleshorn curate. And some people say that Mr. Jayne is to be
married too--they talk of Maria Furlonger. Isabel Crisp has married
that prig Egbert Turle. He has bought old Dr. Smith’s practice at
Liddleshorn. Mrs. Turle--she came up with Nancy--says that old Gainah
is wonderfully active, more active than ever. Why! You are nearly
asleep. We’ll go upstairs. There is a room ready. Annie Jayne was to
have spent the night here on Monday. She has at last decided to have
false teeth--greatly against her will: her mother had only six stumps
in her head when she died. But the baby--there’s another since your
time--had an attack of rose rash, whatever that may be. It sounds
pretty.”

She led the way upstairs softly. The house was most luxurious, and the
tail of her gown, as she swept it over the thick carpets, was like a
molten stream of silver.

Pamela fell asleep in a mahogany bed draped with some wonderful fabric
full of color and of bold design. When she woke the sun was fierce in
the room. Her limbs felt stiff and her head muddled. She started up on
her elbow, looking wildly round for her own possessions--the big toilet
table, the winged, ugly wardrobe with the long glass. Her tea-gown, all
frilled and limp and pale on a chair by the bed, was eloquent. It
brought back the nightmare: the person in brown; Sutton, with his
atrocious proposal and disclosure; the long walk, the meeting with her
hostess. She looked over the side of the bed. Her slippers were kicked
off, soles upward. There was a round hole in one, the other had broken
away at the side. Her black silk stockings, lying near, had holes, too.
She fell back despairingly on the square pillow, its frill tickling her
cheeks. Where was the use of waking?

The door opened, and Barbara Clutton stole in. When she saw that her
guest was awake she sat down on the edge of the bed. Then, as Pamela,
like a child, lifted her face, she jumped up and kissed her gravely
between the widely set, melancholy eyes.

“I was always fond of you,” she said, going back to the foot of the
bed. “I always suspected you of drama. I’ve a plan. You must stay
here--it will be a charity to me. When Tim comes home--we’ll see! I
shan’t want you then.” She made a little frank grimace. “When Tim comes
home I want no one--until the first rapture of reunion wears off.
We are like a couple of very juvenile lovers--but we don’t keep up the
strain for long. He won’t return for a couple of months at the very
least. We can have a splendid time, you and I together. There is only
one thing I must insist on--one thing.” The disgustful expression of
the night before momentarily hardened her laughing face. “You must vow,
by something solemn--what binding instrument can we get for you to kiss
or swear by? There is really nothing but a back glass--which is
frivolous--and a poker, which is threatening. Give me your bare word.
Promise not to attempt to see that man; not to degrade me by going
back, by writing. You mustn’t even speak of him. It’s all terrible
tragedy to you; to me it is merely a disgraceful, unavoidable episode.
The woman in brown transforms the situation. I’m more sorry for her
than for you; we can’t help our respectable prejudices. He is never to
be mentioned. We’ll put away, if you please, the very tea-gown which he
has touched. I’ve brought you a coat and skirt--a pale blue skirt which
ought to suit you beautifully. Is it all settled?”

“All!” Pamela returned with promptitude. “I vow. I am only too grateful
to be saved--from myself.”

In that quick way--natural to Barbara Clutton--they decided it. Pamela
fell obediently into the life at Beaufort Street. It was almost
conventual. Day after day she rose from her bed, looked at the mourning
band of river and despaired. She was cut off from London; it was part
of the compact that she was not to go beyond the Chelsea end of
Sloane Street. She shopped in King’s Road. Sometimes she walked out to
Fulham, or penetrated farther still, to a lonely green, belted with red
and yellow houses. The omnibuses pulled up there. She used to stare at
them wistfully, and think of Wormwood Scrubbs and the old, dead days of
anguish.

Furtively she bought newspapers and read them with a hungry eye. She
read everything which might hold a trail of Edred. She bought City
papers, made her head ache by puzzling over market quotations. She read
accounts of frauds, read all the criminal news. She read the lists of
bankrupts, read death notices, advertisements. She never saw his name.
It seemed suddenly sponged from all the places which had formerly
placarded it.

She beat against the bars of that house by the river. She wasn’t happy;
neither she nor Barbara was happy after the first glow of novelty wore
off. They weren’t of the mold to be completely satisfied with the
companionship of their own sex.

Summer died; leaves, whirled by October gales, swept the Embankment.
Pamela was lonely, bored. She had fancied that the society of clever
people--people with the public certificate of cleverness--would be
invigorating. But the distinguished people who came to Beaufort Street
were stupid; they seemed to go out of their way to be commonplace.

“Conversational brilliance is out of fashion,” Barbara said flippantly.

Pamela was tired of Barbara Clutton, tired of her volubility, her
pettishness, her whims. She was very grateful to her, she liked her
very much, of course--she was sick to death of her.

How would it end? She studied the newspapers, for other than
sentimental reasons: she looked for a situation. That would be the
end--a situation. They would never take her back at the boarding-house
in Bloomsbury; Edred’s history, and her connection with him, was too
notorious. But there were other boarding-houses. She would go back to
the old life--that would be the end. She would help carve, talk
smoothly on safe, commonplace subjects at the dinner-table.

She knew the life. She remembered; and it turned her sick. A woman in
subservience was only half a woman. But that was to be the end. She was
to finish as she had begun. Perhaps, by years of saving, she might be
able to start a boarding-house of her own. Perhaps Jethro would help
her to do so, if Maria would permit him.

The boarding-house! She remembered the narrow hall, where the dinner
always hung on the close air; remembered the shabby manservant, the
guests. They had mostly been women, those boarders: old maids who
called each other “dear,” “darling,” “sweet one,” and gathered by twos
into corners of the big, shabby drawing-room to tear each other to
shreds. They were fussy old women, susceptible to draught, and given to
wearing ragged fur tippets in the house when an east wind was blowing.
She knew--and shuddered. But it was the only thing left.

Her thoughts flew to Folly Corner, and then to Edred. She would remind
herself reproachfully that she had not once thought of him that day.
She wanted to forget him; she tried to forget, and yet she reproached
herself because she was beginning to succeed. She must forget--it
wasn’t respectable to remember. Barbara Clutton was always impressing
that on her.

“I like,” she said one day, in explanation of her gospel, “to be a very
respectable woman; an icily virtuous one--but yet to give the
impression of being dangerous.”

Pamela had left off laughing at her oddities--she had left off laughing
at anything. She was cultivating the prim, half-formed manner of a
spinster well over thirty. She grew fussy over trifles, became morbidly
afraid of taking cold, studied her health, her diet. She gratuitously
spied over the servants, seeing an embryo burglar in every tradesman’s
boy, running her fingers along ledges for dust, measuring the contents
of the dishes with suspicious eyes.

“I want to be of some use,” she said, in extenuation. “I’ve had great
experience in housekeeping.”

“Housekeeping!” Her hostess shrugged. “A calling artfully created by
hopelessly lazy women as a blind. My dear girl, no busy woman keeps
house; it’s a terrible confession of idleness. Suppose Cook _does_ give
away the dripping--why should I waste nervous energy in attempting to
stop her? The dripping isn’t worth it. If they refuse to burn small
cinders in the kitchen range--what matters? Figure out for yourself--I
can’t--the cost of a ton of coal, and see how much Tim loses in the
year. He pays--and it can’t be more than a box of cigars.”

Pamela said nothing. She retired to her room and her newspapers. She
looked up from the lines of advertisements, and out at the gliding
river. She thought of Folly Corner, of Jethro, in all his picturesque
environment. And then she dragged herself back to thoughts of Edred; it
was becoming an effort to remember him. She thought she would set aside
half-an-hour every day for remembrance--as if he were some
tenderly-loved dead person. She became afraid of herself. She was
hopelessly fickle, of light behaviour. She was incapable of any lasting
regard. She loved him. She loved him. But the words had become
parrot-like--they no longer tore her heart to say them. She was
forgetting him--the very thing she had once struggled in vain to do.
She was becoming indifferent: the attitude she had once prayed and
struggled for. And yet she wasn’t happy.

Tim precipitated things. He send his wife a telegram, saying that he
was on his way home. Would she care to join him in Paris for a week?

“It needn’t make any difference to you, dear,” the excited little woman
said, as her cab stood at the open door, and her wraps were carried
down the path by a lilac-gowned maid, whose streaming cap-ends whirled
about on the rude November wind.

She kissed Pamela remorsefully, conscious that she had been malicious
now and then.

“It’s difficult for two women to live together without fighting, isn’t
it?” she said ingenuously. “I wonder how they manage in a nunnery! A
novel from the inside of a nunnery would cause a sensation. I’ll
commend it to Tim. He’s quite clever enough to pass as a nun--but it
wouldn’t satisfy my unquenchable sense of propriety. I’ve been very
horrid to you now and then; but when Tim comes--we shall only stay in
Paris ten days at the outside--he will keep us in order. Of course, his
coming won’t make any difference,” she added, with obviously forced
hospitality.

“I shall get a situation,” Pamela said, in the inert way which had
become habitual. “Good-by”--they kissed again. “I’ll look after the
maids. You’ll never be able to keep that between-girl. She’s hopeless.”

The other shrugged and ran out in the wind to the cab. It drove off,
the maid came in, the door shut, an unusual silence settled over the
house. Pamela went into the dining-room and sat by the window, not even
a newspaper in her hand. She felt more lonely, more unwanted than she
had ever felt at any moment in her varied life. Barbara had been in
such a frenzy to get to her husband that she hadn’t given her a
thought--hadn’t even asked her, as a matter of form, to see her off at
the railway station.

She lunched alone and meagerly. After lunch she sat by the dining-room
window until tea came in. The maid set the tray down with a bang and
moved across to the door flouncing her black skirts.

Pamela set her mouth grimly. She knew the ways of servants; they had
decided, in the absence of their mistress, to give her a rough time.
But she was equal to any servant. She amused herself by scheming out an
elaborate house-cleaning--and then abandoned it wearily because the
house wasn’t hers. She went to bed almost directly she had eaten her
dinner. She was awake all night, lying flat and long in the bed, her
eyes open, her thoughts forced to consideration of Edred. What was he
doing? She didn’t feel much curiosity. His tenderness didn’t make her
heart throb. His brutalities no longer made it blaze and ache.

It had really come--indifference: a body, a soul of stone. She turned
on the pillow and cried from sheer loneliness.

It rained next morning. Rain--a high fog! The most miserable morning
imaginable. She had her breakfast in the little room at the back of the
house, with a French window leading to the long, suburban garden. She
didn’t know why she turned the hasp of that window and stepped out
under the gloomy sky, into the dreary rain.

It was a very uninteresting garden; a ghastly, heart-breaking travesty
of a garden. The limp creeper on the blackened wall smutted her hand
when she touched it. The narrow borders were bare and smut-laden. From
the top of the wall a lean, gray cat looked at her with a sinister
mournfulness in its yellow eyes. The fog was in her eyes and down her
throat, the rain fell coldly on her bare head. Peals of coarse, hearty
laughter rang up from the kitchen, where the maids were romping with
the man who came every morning to fill the scuttles and clean the
boots. The gray cat stole along the wall.

She turned back to the window, not knowing why she came into the
garden, not knowing what to do with this sad day. There was a rockery
near the French window--the usual rockery, rich in clinkers. But some
blue thing stared up into the brown air boldly. She uttered a sudden
glad cry and stooped, letting her skirt brush the wet gravel. It was a
delicate blue periwinkle. There was a patch of blue periwinkle at Folly
Corner, just by the granary. Periwinkle! What nonsense was it that
Gainah told her about periwinkle? Ah, yes! If a man and his wife eat
the leaves they will ever be faithful each to the other. The blue
flower with its trail of glistening leaves was in her hand. She bit one
leaf, laughing--yet more a sob than a laugh--as she did it. She would
never be Jethro’s wife--nor any man’s. She was a tainted thing.

She stared at the flower, a long, thoughtful stare. Then she laughed
again and clapped her hands--the heavy, blinding tears in her eyes. The
world was to her one wide delicate flower of cold blue. She went
through the window, laid the trail on the table, looked at it
questioningly. Once she said to it, “Shall I? Dare I?” Then, with a
clumsy movement, she dragged herself up, hurried to the door, went up
the stairs two at a time.

The maids were making her bed. She said abruptly:

“I am going away--a visit. I may be back to-night--I cannot say. You’ll
see to everything just as if Mrs. Clutton and I were at home.”

They left her alone. She put on her things and went out of the house.
She didn’t leave a note for Barbara; she didn’t take any luggage; she
didn’t look at the house with any feeling--no lingering glance of
farewell. Her strip of needlework was hanging out of the basket. She
didn’t trouble to put it in. She might be back to-night. It was
extremely likely that she would be back. Of course she would. She was a
fool, an impudent, optimistic fool to go at all. She would be back. She
nearly rang the bell to order dinner at the usual time. She kept
assuring herself that night would find her again in London--shuddering
at every assurance. She knew very well that this journey was her last
throw. She knew very well that this journey was to decide everything.
Jethro might be married. He might be, if not already married, committed
to some nice, pure, faithful girl. Was she the sort of woman to be
introduced to a girl of that tepid, blameless description? The contempt
for mere unimpassioned, untempted virtue curled her lip.

He might be contemptuous, hard. He might be brutal; he could be
bitterly, uncompromisingly brutal when he chose. He had the reputation
of being a hard man--all the Jaynes had.

She could imagine him saying very coolly some damning, insulting thing.
She could see his ruddy patrician face as he said it, could see the
relentless glint in his cold blue eyes. Eyes a couple of shades paler
than the periwinkle; she crushed it in her hand.

She took her ticket; was fortunate enough to catch a quick train--there
were very few in the day to such an out-of-the-way place. She was quite
alone in the carriage. She watched the landscape eagerly; watched the
foul fog rise as they left London; watched the slow development of a
dazzling autumn day.




CHAPTER XIX.


THERE was no one she knew at the station; she had been nervously
apprehensive that there would be. She had expected to create a small
flutter among the railway people--measuring the intensity of their
emotions during the last year by her own. No one was surprised to see
her. The station-master civilly said good-morning. The porter pulled
his cap and added that they had not sent from Folly Corner to meet her.
Should he send for the blacksmith’s pony-cart? She shook her head,
stepping out into the sun.

She crossed the common, noting every detail of the landscape with
ecstasy. It all soothed and comforted her so inexpressibly, so
mystically; she fell into it with a delicious sensation of ease. Across
the common a woman was driving kids. The old goat had got free and was
awkwardly humping after her, dragging its tether chain. She saw
everything; her heart swelled in her throat at every step, at every new
sight. She saw it all, felt it all--even to the white horse silhouetted
against the broken black sail of the disused windmill.

Each side of her, as she walked on the well-kept road, the common at
her back, were the clean-cut black ditches, half filled with
iron-reddened water, and bound by the silver of dew-soaked, glittering
grass. In a field a man was harvesting swedes. The sick, sweet smell
of them hung in the air; they were bulbed, tawny and big on the black
ground. She stood and watched him, finding added peace in these simple
occupations--the land drew her. He was stuffing the roots into a
bloated, dun-colored sack. They bulged here and bulged there until the
canvas looked like an unwieldly, headless sheep of some mammoth breed.
He threw up the green tops into a cart, the prongs of his fork flashing
in the sun. Everything was bright and cold and hard; the newly-painted
shafts of the cart blood-red and angry against the fierce, clear blue
of the drifting sky.

She noted everything minutely. She was struck by the fantastic
appearance of a copse of bare bushes--a gray-brown film of mystery. She
didn’t throw a backward glance at London, with its crowds, its hectic
flow of life. She was at home. She didn’t even think very much of
Jethro; didn’t speculate on her reception at Folly Corner. She wanted
the place, the influences of the country, as distinct from human
preference. She dreaded the thought of a man’s love. All she had longed
for was placidity. The clear, hard day, the slow, simple occupations of
the few men and women she saw, gave her that.

And then, as the time wore on, came the note of dread, of chill
threatening. The sun slipped out of sight, the sky sulked. When she
began to cross the second stretch of common, a light, delicate powdery
mist hung over the shriveled heather. The common drew away--brown,
bare, heavy with foreboding.

The autumn flaying of the turf was in progress. She saw the bare,
blue-black patches, like the skin of a dark cat. Through the mist she
saw the stolid figure of a man. He was leaning his body against a
turfing iron. A cart, half full of square turfs, was at his elbow.

The mist grew thicker at every step. The one note of comfort and warmth
came from the smithy, round which was an angry red flare, and from
which came the steady clink of iron on iron.

The afternoon grew cold. The chill, delicate powder-mist was eating
into her. She was lightly clad. When first she went to Beaufort Street
she had bought herself some cheap, necessary clothing out of the few
pounds in her purse. This was an afternoon for furs. The mist rose and
rose. The voice of a woman who plodded by with a top-heavy
perambulator, the cry of the wretched, chilled baby inside, were the
only dull sounds in the eerie, pure-white thickness.

Her hair was wet on her face, moisture stood in minute pearls on the
velvet collar of her cloth coat. Higher and higher, thicker and
thicker, rose the delicate, eating mist! She was chin high in it. A
couple of cows, a tethered goat, a long white string of geese, were
queerly-shaped wraiths. The world was white: a wet, ghostly, silent
world. There was a threat at every step; each corner, each clump of
dripping bush formed to her nervous fancy some sinister ambush.

Her spirits fell. Once she absolutely stopped, half-crying, with cold
and misery. She was disposed to go back. It was still a long way to
Folly Corner, and the terrifying mist was triumphant.

She came at last to the cottage at the edge of the oak-scrub copse, the
thatched and plastered cottage under the great oak trees. She
remembered it so well, remembered the hot August day when she had
walked to Folly Corner for the first time, and had thrown herself on
the moss-grown turf under the burning sun. She strained her eyes to see
the wide green glades, the clumps of primrose leaves, the tangled
brambles, the great tropical growing thistles. She knew exactly what
should be there at that season, but she saw nothing save the fire of a
bush of haws. The cottage, which had stood empty on that August day,
was now tenanted. She approached, her chilled limbs moving creakily.
She slowly skirted that cottage, preferring to tread the soddened grass
just for the sake of being near somebody. The world was deserted; she
could no longer hear one single sound. She was the last desperate soul
left outside.

The languid flame of a small fire fell across the tiny casement with
its ragged curtain of brownish white net. She went up close. She could
see the gray beams across the plaster, see the plumy Irish yew standing
straight by the yellow, weather-stained wall. The door was half open.
She saw the flagged floor exuding moisture, saw one poor chair; a bare
brown dresser, on which stood a coarse crock or so. She saw the mere
hint of a table, with turned legs which winked feebly in the light. At
the deadened sound of her feet there was a heavy clumping across the
flags. An old face, the malevolent, evil face of a man, hung in the
shadow. She saw the dull, golden fustian of his torn coat, saw his
gnarled, filthy hand close round the jamb of the door and shut it. She
likened him to an evil spirit. He was a bad omen. It was nonsense, of
course; yes, she knew it was nonsense. The man was only Chalcraft. But
the mist made everything ghostly, demoniacal.

She hadn’t far to go now. She imagined it, she knew every detail, she
knew just how it would all look on that particular day--the white
wicket-gate dirty and dripping with water, the umbrella yew in a fairy
wreath of fog, the great brown pond, with the muddy wheel-tracks
zigzagging away from it and the marks of many hoofs in the yellow mud
at its edge. The garden beds would be weedy; vivid green here and there
with patches of self-sown plants. No doubt, in her absence, Gainah and
Daborn had easefully lapsed back to the old way--weeds all the winter
and a grand forking in the spring. She pictured the long windows,
running away each side of the house door. Inside, Gainah’s red
geraniums would still be fitfully blooming. She remembered the sentinel
poplars at the gate, the raised brick path leading to the door. She
remembered the outbuildings, the untidy muck-yard--all, all.

It was here. Twenty more paces would bring her to the pond. She took
them tremblingly, things becoming practical now that she was steadily
creeping beneath the warm, wide shadow of the place. The mist must
surely be thicker than ever. She could not see the poplars; yet how was
it that she had been able to see the Irish yew outside Chalcraft’s
cottage?

It was here, it should be here, it must be. She nearly reeled in the
wide road as she peered fearfully about her, looking for so many
familiar tokens which should have studded the landscape--but didn’t.

It was, it must be, Folly Corner. But--but--was that a new house? What
was the meaning of that wall which shot up like a straight, unrelenting
shaft and mocked her?

The pond was there. The pond! She stared at the big, brown patch of
water affectionately--certain of that, anyway.

The house! Yes. The house was the same. It wasn’t a new house. She
penetrated through its modern coat, its gingerbread attempt at
gentility. The house was there. She could not see very well; the impish
mist tantalized her. But the hard, smooth line of roof told her that
the tiles were new. The yew was gone, the bristly, unclipt umbrella yew
which had watched Edred kiss pink Nancy: the yew which knew the night
of her secret vigil.

That night! The night when she had waited. The night when Boyce had
helped the poor cow with her calving; the night when Chalcraft had
thrown earth at his master’s window to rouse him, because it was
raining, and the ricks were not covered. That night!

She had crept like a criminal a dozen times down the brick-path, had
stood between the poplars, had looked along the road, had heard feet,
phantom feet, which came and died and finally departed. That night! The
poplars were gone, the yew, the raised path of worn bricks. They had
gone and taken that old story of dishonor with them.

A sinuous carriage drive of the brightest gravel wound away, beginning
where the entrance to the yard had been. The yard had been redeemed and
planted as a shrubbery; the new wall half hid the ample farm-buildings.
The shrubbery was very new--glossy laurels and firs set at regular
intervals, the ground between newly dug. She thought--and marveled at
herself for the preference--that she would rather have seen the
mother-pig there, as in the old days--with a pendulous stomach sweeping
the soiled ground, and a litter of pink, squeaking things about her.

The gates leading to the drive were newly hung. She pushed them back
fearfully and went toward the house, treading on the beautifully-cut
grass edge, because she was afraid of the crunch of her own feet in the
death-like silence and pallor of the early evening.

Firelight danced inside the house. As she drew nearer and yet nearer
she could see that there were two fires, one in the dining-room, one in
the drawing-room. The dining-room wouldn’t be dark now that the yew was
gone. That must be an improvement. Yet, at every step she made notes of
disapproval. It was so cold, so tame, so flat and unfeeling; these
mechanically set shrubs, that gleaming regular roof, those wide
windows. Yes! She was near enough to see. There were new windows, sash
windows, with little panes above and one large pane beneath. She had
once said impatiently to Jethro that lead lights cut up the view. He
had taken advantage of her ideas for the benefit of that girl. Of
course, there must be a girl. He would not have gone to all this
expense, except with a view to a wife.

She was near the house, so near that it seemed to throb out to her with
sympathy. She put out her hand and touched the spick, newly-painted
walls. With a quick feeling of resentment she saw that they had cut
down the Devoniensis rose--that globular, foam-like, ethereal thing
which she had worshiped more than any of the roses. She looked down,
round, up, making mental, resentful notes of everything. There were
pert pots on the wide-throated chimneys, grotesque and poor-looking.
There was a new window upstairs, high and narrow, filled with stained
glass. That must be the bath-room. Most of the upper rooms were dimly
lighted. She had often insisted that this was the proper thing to
do--in good houses. Jethro had resisted the innovation, with a view to
the oil involved.

Yes! She stopped, her head critically on one side, her heart becoming
more tolerant of the many changes. This looked a good house, a house
that a lady might live in: she was full of these commonplace
expressions that smack of the housekeeper’s room.

Lights in every window, jealously drawn blinds. It looked like a
house where they dined late, where, about this time, the maids were
tripping to the bedroom doors with cans of hot water. The house had all
the appearance of a good house--a gentleman’s, as distinct from a
yeoman’s, so she thought, beginning to be satisfied and then
remembering that it made no difference to her now. She went round the
house stealthily, like a gypsy woman with a basket of cheap lace. The
dog bounded out of the kennel, then wagged his tail when she went close
and he recognized her. She went round, went past the woodstack. As she
passed, a sandy rat, whose young family lived in the shelter of the
fagots, ran timidly over her foot.

She reached at last the back door. It stood open; she had always
grumbled at the maids, in vain, because they would have the back door
open. Everything around the door was much the same, the modern spirit
had not affected the back of the house. There was the pig-tub waiting
to be carried to the stye, there was the ash-heap, the other heap of
broken crockery and old iron. There were the rain-water tubs lurking in
the angles of the house, their green paint turning blue. She looked up
at the sky and found that the mist had risen, that the mellow moon was
full on her head.

She saw everything. Her eyes stretched away into the garden, through
the entrance-arch of which she saw the glittering glass of the
greenhouse which Jethro had bought to please her.

She stood close to the wall, her wet shoulder pressing the thick
branches of the vine, all black and damp and with loose rough bark.
There were busy movements inside in both the kitchens, a subdued
cluttering of feet, a comforting rattle of china. The warmth and smell
of the fire puffed out. There was a band of amber light, shaming the
cold moon. It fell across the pig-tub and the ash-heap, running
straight from the open door and losing itself in the hedge, which was
being grubbed. Jethro was evidently in the grip of some frenzy of
renewal and refurbishing.

The voices came from the kitchen. One was the voice of Nettie, that
girl Edred used to kiss and squeeze on the sly in his hateful animal
way. There were a couple of strange voices. The predominant smell was
that of apples bubbling in sugar. And then at last, as she stood
shrinking by the wall and undecided what to do, she heard Gainah’s
voice. It said, in the old acid shrew’s tone:

“I’ll have ’em made int’n apple-stucklin.”

She curled her lip, remembering those stodgy apple-pasties of Gainah’s
which Jethro had eaten with such relish. If they were still eating
apple-stucklins--such a name!--the improvements were only external
after all. Gainah’s voice, Gainah’s charge to the new cook, gave her
courage. Jethro had not yet taken a wife; no young wife would endure
Gainah’s rule.

He hadn’t a wife. She would walk straight into the house; the
garden-door was always unbolted until well after dusk. She would
go into the house through the garden-door and walk through the
dining-room. If he were not there she would look into his little room,
where he kept papers, guns, his boots, his bicycle even, when he chose.

It was a new surprise to find herself in a porch--so the dining-room no
longer opened direct into the garden! That was another improvement.

She went through the porch into the room itself. She stopped on the
threshold and cried out faintly. Everything was changed. The yawning
hearth was filled in, and a coal fire was burning in a grate of the
latest design. There was a square table in the middle of the room, in
place of the long narrow one, with the stout legs and the thick staves,
which she had always considered so rude, so uncouth. It was pushed
against the wall opposite the new door--the table beneath which so many
dead and gone Jaynes had slept off their liquor, the table whose top
was ringed with black, ring within ring, each the mark of a wet mug,
each telling the tale of some dead joviality.

She had always declared that it was only fit for a public-house. It
stood against the wall, its disreputable ringed top discreetly covered
with a cloth. They used it as a side-board. There was a filter set out,
a soda-water syphon, and various other things.

The china ornaments had gone, the brass candlesticks. The big
horsehair-covered chair had been re-covered in shrimp-colored plush.
The plaster walls were papered. The thick oak beam above had been
whitened with the rest of the ceiling. She thought that the room looked
much more light and cheerful, much more suitable for a dining-room. But
it was empty. There was no hint of Jethro, no gun in the corner, no
cloth cap thrown carelessly down, no heavy boots drying on the hearth;
one wouldn’t expect any of those things now. And yet their absence
depressed her.

She glided across the thickly-carpeted floor--it was a new carpet--and
looked into his own particular little room. Nothing had changed there.
The bureau from which he had taken the notes for Edred was open. The
shabby rugs were kicked up, the plaster on the walls was in places
discolored. His bicycle, all muddy, leaned against the window ledge,
his gun, his boots, his cap, his thick woolen gloves were strewn about
with masculine carelessness.

“The last thing in the house that a man changes is his own room,” she
said, looking tenderly at a shapeless, deplorable old shooting jacket
which hung limply on a chair. “But she will make him tidy this place
up.”

She! She! She! Who was this girl? She ran through the list of likely
maidens--every Jayne or Crisp or Turle or Furlonger under thirty-five.
It couldn’t be Peggy Crisp of Liddleshorn. It was probably silly,
pretentious Maria Furlonger of the Warren, as Barbara had said.

She turned away, feeling a quick, painful affection for this little,
dirty, dim, north room of his--the only room left untouched. She turned
away, opened the other door, and went along the corridor, thinking that
she might find him in the drawing-room. It was most unlikely; he
disliked that room. But then he had always disliked coal fires, new
furniture, many lights about the house. She was beginning to realize
that only the unlikely would happen at Folly Corner that night.

She turned the handle of the drawing-room door, stole in, and saw with
satisfaction that very little had been touched. Her improvements were
still rampant. The various slips of Eastern embroidery were disposed
about the furniture--awkwardly, by an unskilled, stiff hand. The piano
was draped. The door of the china closet stood ajar, showing the dark
floor with its gaudy rug and the daintily-finished shelves holding the
still daintier family china. The curtains--those curtains which they
had bought together at Liddleshorn--were drawn; the standard lamp,
which had been one of his last gifts before she went away, burned
steadily. There were candles alight on the high shelf--she had always
insisted on candles in the drawing-room; they made such cool pin-points
of steel-blue and yellow. On one side of the hearth was the one thing
that she had always longed for--a cozy corner. She didn’t think that
you touched the water-mark of true refinement without a cozy corner.
Jethro had stoutly resisted it. Yet there it was; no home-made affair,
but a perfect thing, cunningly upholstered in the most artistic style
known to Regent Street.

The green sofa, the green chair, were still in the bay--that bay,
curtained now, through whose leaded lights she had looked--weighing the
uplands thick with grain in all their beauty and plenitude with
Edred’s shallow protestations of love and worldly success.

Jethro was lying on the couch half asleep. She had seen him lie so on
many autumn evenings when he came in tired after a day’s tramping on
the farm, or in the stubble after partridges. He was dozing. She stood
under the shade of the standard lamp and looked at him. He surprised
her--everything did. He wore a brown velvet coat and waistcoat; his
slippers had thin soles.

She made an involuntary sound with her foot, and he was awake and erect
in a moment, stirred like a watch-dog by the least noise.

“Jethro!” she said humbly.

“Pamela--Cousin Pamela! You’ve come to Folly Corner at last.”

He was on his feet, at her side. He stooped and kissed her lightly,
conventionally--the lukewarm kiss of a relative, to whom a kiss has no
background. He seemed to regard it as the proper thing to do--proper,
and perfectly safe. That matter-of-fact kiss of his made her more
wildly miserable than many of Edred’s blows had done.

“You’ve come!” He looked behind her, a curious, questioning glance, as
if he were waiting for the second indispensable figure. But the door
was closed; she offered no explanation.

“How cold and wet you are!” He ran his hand down her coat. “Take that
thing off. I’ll ring for tea; you could always drink tea at any moment.
You see I remember--everything.”

He had his hand out to the bell--bells had been added to the old place
with other things. She put out her chilled hand and tapped him lightly
on his hairy wrist, where the skin was so white.

“Not just yet. No one saw me come in. I’m cold. I had a terrible walk.”

“But you didn’t come alone! Where is Edred? If he couldn’t leave his
business you should have wired. I would have driven to the station. I
would have brought the new Battlesden. You know you had set your heart
on one. I bought it soon after you went away. It’s only been used once.
Did Edred----”

“Sit down,” she said, with another light touch. “Oh! this fire is
glorious.” She turned up the hem of her skirt and let the warmth touch
her icy ankles.

“It’s Friday,” Jethro continued thoughtfully. “Is he coming down
to-morrow? You must stay a week at least.”

“I’ll stay longer--if you will have me,” she said, looking at him
queerly.

“Good! I didn’t suppose he’d be able to get away from business for more
than a week. All the summer I’ve been talking of running up to town,
but I’ve been prevented: haying, harvest, one thing and the other. You
never wrote”--his voice was gently reproachful--“but I remembered the
address--Marquise Mansions.”

“You’ve been making improvements,” she said, looking round the room.

“Yes, I’ve done a few things--the things we settled to do before you
went away,” he returned, in a calm voice, “I knew you’d be coming down
sooner or later, and that you would be pleased. Let me ring for
tea--though there will be dinner in half an hour”--he pulled out the
big, ancestral watch. “I dine late now, as they do at the Warren.”

“The Warren! Oh, yes. Of course you dine late now.”

So it _was_ Maria Furlonger of the Warren--Maria Furlonger, who made
such agonized efforts to get on socially.

“I know you like late dinner. I thought it was as well to have it, so
that when you and Edred came down there would be no fuss--everything
ready and as usual. He used to say that early dinner gave him
indigestion. Late ones make me sleepy; I’m ready for bed before nine.”

“But you haven’t done all these things; you don’t dine late--for us?”

“The place had to be done up,” he said, rather curtly, as if he thought
she laid too much stress on a trivial point. “It doesn’t matter much
whether you call your last meal dinner or supper.”

“But----”

She broke off. The fire was warm and crackling, his voice so calm, she
didn’t wish to disturb things. She recoiled from telling him the truth,
she shrank from hearing it. For she was certain that he meant to marry.
He had learnt to be indifferent to her--his kiss was an admission of
that.

“We must have Gainah in.” He put his hand out again to that little knob
on the wall. “She shall tell them to get the guest-room ready. You’d
like to go upstairs?”

“Not yet. There is something I must tell you first. Perhaps you’ll turn
me out--I don’t know. In any case you will wish me to go to-morrow
morning; even if you were willing to let me stay, she wouldn’t hear of
it.”

“Gainah! She doesn’t rule me any longer,” he laughed. “Poor old Gainah!
She’s old--and queer. Aunt Sophy is afraid she is breaking up. That
would be awkward for me; a man can’t manage maids.”

“I didn’t mean Gainah. I meant Maria Furlonger. She is a good
housekeeper. She’ll make a good mistress for Folly Corner. When you
tell her the truth--and you must tell her--she’ll be indignant. There
isn’t much mercy in Maria. But I congratulate you, Jethro.”

“You talk as if I meant to marry Maria.”

“And you don’t? Who is it, then?”

“I’m not going to marry at all,” he returned soberly. “You ought to
know that, Pamela.”

“You are not going to marry!” she cried out in a shrill, happy,
half-incredulous voice. “I am so glad. Barbara Clutton said you were. I
thought you were doing up the place for your wife.”

“I did it up for you. I thought you’d be pleased. The men had begun
before you went away; it seemed a mistake to stop them. I should have
lost by it; the builder could have claimed.”

“You’re not going to be married,” she repeated, as if it were too good
to be true. “Then, I am not afraid of you. Men are kind and just. They
don’t understand; they don’t pet you and croon over you, as a woman
does. They talk hard business and look at things from the practical
side. You, for example, would urge me to expose him, and I could never
do it, never.”

He started.

“Has he got into trouble again? Is he in prison?”

She shook her head.

“Worse--from my point of view. He is married. His lawful wife comes
first; he married her before he ever met me. He thought she was dead--I
do not blame him for that; it was a mistake. But other things!” She
bent forward and took his big, hard hands. “You don’t know what I’ve
suffered,” she continued in a quick, passionately vibrant whisper.
“Blows! Worse than blows. He constantly urged me to terrible things.
There was one man; there were two. The second one told me the truth and
offered, in a spirit of superb generosity, to marry me. He wanted me to
run away with one--a man I loathed, whose hand I would hardly touch.
There are some like that: you couldn’t kiss them, not if you were as
free as air, not if they were the only ones in the world. Do you ever
feel like that about particular women?”

“I never thought about women--only one.”

“You are different. I think these things out, just for amusement: women
do. I imagine what might happen in particular circumstances. He wanted
to get rid of me; I was a constant danger. He was tired of me--he never
cared, after the first few weeks: no one is indifferent to an absolute
novelty. I went away directly I heard he was married. I have never seen
him, never heard of him since. Barbara Clutton took me in. This morning
I found a periwinkle. You haven’t dug up that patch near the granary?”

“Yes. Everything is altered out there. You’ll see.”

“It reminded me of you. I put on my things and drove straight away to
the station, the flower in my hand. I threw it out of the railway
carriage window. It had done its work; to bring it with me would have
been sentimental, stupid.”

“Poor Cousin Pamela!” He just pressed her fingers, then gently pushed
them away, as if they were a danger. “You must forget him. You are
free.”

“I was always free. But I went away. I left you for him.”

They looked deeply into each other’s eyes. Until that moment they had
not trusted themselves to embark on a long, steady gaze. She saw in
Jethro’s nothing but intense, almost brotherly, affection and pity.

“You might leave me again to go to him?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t know--I think, never. But I don’t know--so long as he is
alive.”

“You are free. But he isn’t. He can’t marry you--can’t make it up to
you.”

“Can’t make an honest woman of me,” she said, with bitter bluntness.
“That is what the women say about here when they force the young men
to marry their daughters. No, he cannot. But that would make no
difference to me--if he wanted me. He was first. I don’t even hate him.
Sometimes I think I am getting indifferent; but I felt like that
before, when he was in prison. I never know--unless he dies. That would
break the terrible spell.”

He looked into her eyes again; he gave her hand a significant grip.
They understood each other. They were to be cousins--nothing more.
Nothing more was possible--she wasn’t even sure that she desired more,
and she feared that he did not. Nothing was possible now. Their love
had come to a full stop.

He got up, saying:

“I’ll go and speak to Gainah. I’ll prepare her. She’s getting old, and
surprises upset her.”

When he came back, he looked a little stubborn--the old familiar look
of rebellion at woman’s tyranny.

“She’ll be all right to-morrow,” he said, in answering Pamela’s
eloquent querying look. “She’ll be glad to-morrow. You know that her
temper’s an odd one.”

They dined alone. Everything seemed strange--Jethro so unusually
precise in dress and manner, the dining-room so conventionally elegant.




CHAPTER XX.


AFTER dinner they went back to the drawing-room together. Nettie
brought in coffee. She looked at Pamela curiously--with no very good
feeling. Her sharp, impudent eyes dropped to the left hand, where
Edred’s meaningless ring still gleamed. The look was not lost on
Pamela. Directly the maid had left the room she slipped the ring off
and put it in her purse. Jethro watched her, keen pity and indignation
in his light eyes.

“If ever he comes here,” he said grimly, and with the eager instinct of
a sportsman, “you must let me settle with him.”

“He will never come,” she said, slowly shaking her head. “He took all
he wanted from Folly Corner.”

“Yes; I shall never see my two hundred pounds again,” the other
returned ruefully, and a disagreeable silence fell over the room, the
fire standing red on those two painfully tense faces.

Soon after coffee Jethro grew sleepy. He dozed spasmodically,
shaking himself up at intervals, with apologetic murmurs. Pamela
sat silent, her unringed hands on her lap, her eyes sadly on the
coals. She resented the lack of drama in what she regarded as her
home-coming. The long, varying walk had been so pregnant with
possibilities. She had imagined, dreaded, dared to hope--so much. This
was the end--Jethro, inert with food, sleeping like a tired dog in the
armchair. Everything was settled. They had talked themselves out
already. She was to stay; she was to be Cousin Pamela again. Whether
they were really cousins or not they did not know--they had agreed not
to trouble--it mattered not. She was back at Folly Corner. To-morrow
she would pick up her dropped reins. She would go to Turle, to the
Warren, to all the roomy, warm old houses; she would kiss again the
placid, clumsy-souled woman. No one was to know the truth. Everything
would be just as it had been before--except that there would be no
question of love between her and Jethro. He tacitly insinuated that,
and she as delicately agreed. It had all been conveyed by a look.

When the clock struck ten, he shook himself up for the last time,
stumbled to his feet, yawned openly, and said that it was late. Was she
quite ready for bed? They went round the house together, winding the
thirty-hour clock in the kitchen, which Gainah, strangely enough, had
forgotten, trying bolts and locks, turning out lights. They went up the
oak steps. At the door of the guest-room he kissed her calmly above the
eyes.

When she was half undressed she discovered that the bed had not been
made. The blankets and quilt were there, but there were no sheets, no
slips on the pillows. She was half amused and half angry, divining at
once what had happened. Gainah with a last kick of authority had bidden
the maids prepare the inferior room which had been hers in former days.

She went softly along the corridor and into that room. The bed was
made. She did not intend to sleep there: Gainah must be grasped with a
firm hand from the very start. She set her candle down, peeled off the
sheets, piled them with the pillows in her arms, and turned to go back
to the guest-room. When she opened the door, a puff of wind--the
draughty old house was full of strange gusts--blew out her candle.
Before the candle blew out she noticed that the key was gone from the
door.

It was a wild autumn night, the wind rising and calling warningly down
the chimney. The room was dark, the curtains closely drawn. One gleam
of light, narrow and pointed, pierced through the uncurtained window in
the corridor and fell on the tumbled bed. She had dragged the sheets up
roughly; the blankets were in billows under the cotton quilt, the
bolster, in a case of some coarse, dark stuff, was half doubled and
partly buried beneath the humped-up coverings. As she gave the last
look back before shutting the door she was struck by the oddity of that
untidy bed. Quite unwittingly, in her hurried gathering of linen, she
had achieved the similitude of a human form. The appearance was
sufficiently startling. It was one of those queer, accidental effects
which sometimes occur. The tumbled blankets, under the white quilt
which she had hastily smoothed, the doubled, coarsely-covered bolster,
half hidden, were like the curled-up body and round head of some
sleeper.

She went softly along the passage, down the steps, round the angles, in
the dark, knowing every turn of the way. When she reached the
guest-room she locked the door, lighted the candle, and made the bed.
Directly she was in the shadow of the dim old hangings she fell asleep.

When the house was quiet and dark Gainah crept out of her room and
slipped, in her flat cloth shoes, down the stairs. She had not
undressed, had not even taken the band of dusty velvet from the top of
her head. She crept down to the lower rooms, where the fires were still
burning steadily, and where every article of furniture, new or old,
took fantastic shape. She went about lingeringly from one room to the
other, moving about slowly and stiffly in the dim circle of light which
came from the candle in her quivering hand.

She walked about through one room into another, along the corridor and
back again. Sometimes she sat down for a moment: sometimes she just
stealthily opened a door and peered in. The two clocks, the eight-day
in the dining-room and the thirty-hour in the kitchen, had clanging
tongues of brass. They were the only sounds in the sleeping house. The
hours struck. She did not seem to notice. A threatening change had come
over her. She was full of fever and tremor. Her cold eyes burned with
the fire of amethysts. Her ever-increasing restlessness would not let
her stay in one room long. She went about wearily, stiffly, driven by
some malignant whip. She went into the drawing-room and screwed herself
awkwardly at one end of the cozy corner. She started up almost
immediately. To her hardihood there was a feeling of oppressive luxury
and enervation about that soft, gayly-tricked room. She was such a
persistent worker that her back felt strange against stuffing; she was
more at ease with the broad bars of a rush-seated chair cutting from
shoulder to shoulder.

She went out in the kitchen and moved about uneasily, peering, by long
habit, into drawers, and sniffing, like an eager old dog, for fire.

There was a fatty frying-pan on the top of the kitchen range--that
new-fangled range that Pamela had made Jethro buy. A victorious gleam
hardened her glittering eyes: the maids had been cutting rashers for
their supper. Her rule was bread, cheese, and water or cider. This was
a battle to be fought out in the morning. The jades! And not wit enough
to scour the pan!

The knife-box stood on the dresser. Gainah bent over it, from habit
again. Everything definite that she did that night was done quite
mechanically and from unquenchable habit. It was her habit to peer for
dirty knives sneaked in among the clean: that was a cardinal offense.

The box was made of mahogany. There was a brass handle; it gleamed in
the light of her candle. The knives had heavy buck-horn handles. Old
Jethro had been proud of them, his son took to them as a matter of
course, but Pamela had sneered and said they were barbarous.

There were two sets--a dozen to each set. One was of lighter make
than the other; their handles were straight and tipped with steel. The
heavier set had stouter handles, which bulged out in knots at the ends.
Gainah picked out the two carving-knives and scrutinized the blades.
There was a weary, speculative look on her wasted, corpse-white face,
in which the brilliant eyes stood out so unnaturally. The frying-pan
was at her feet, but at the touch of the keen knives she absolutely
whirled away from trivial offenses--she was swept by one superb,
dangerous emotion.

She looked round the polished, scoured kitchen, as if asking those dumb
gleaming metal things on walls and shelves to help her--to suggest.

Then she moved toward the scullery and quietly drew the long bolts of
the door. She went across the yard, skirting the generous pile of
farm-buildings. They had been overhauled with the rest of the place.
The brick walls had been pointed; she could see every even, white line
of mortar. The roofs of thick thatch had been covered with sheets of
corrugated iron, which were hard and gray in the dim night. She went to
the tool-shed. That, by some oversight or by intention, had been left
untouched. It stood apart--the walls red patched with green, the roof
of rough tiles covered with a luxurious growth of lichens and
stonecrop.

She pushed back the door and went in. There were tools and labor
implements of many sorts in the house: all the deadly array of weapons
permitted to the peaceful agriculturist. Every one was familiar, to
her; she had known them all from her very birth--pronged fork, long
scythe, solid spade, rakes with long pointed teeth.

She sat down on a heap of sacks and rubbish by the wall. Her oddly
bright eyes roved feverishly over the collection; some on the earthen
floor, some sentinel-like against the wall, some slipped up in the
rafters, lying stealthily in wait.

After a little she got up stiffly, the rheumatism gripping her cold
limbs, and touched these things one by one lingeringly. She ran her
fingers along edges, pressed them against teeth: the speculative,
questioning look crossed her face again. Yes. She must do it. That was
necessary for the peaceful carrying on of the farm life. She had never
scrupled to destroy anything that came in the way of the farm. It must
be done. But how?

She took the hedgebill down. It had a long rounded handle of wood; its
iron head was reared, as if to strike; there was the malignity of a
cobra in the curve.

There was the scythe with which through so many early summers she had
seen them cut down the young grass; the sickle, the almost circular
faghook, the solid billhook of shining steel with which the men chopped
thick sticks that were bound in the very hearts of the fagots.

There was an old tragic tale bound round the sickle. Years ago
Chalcraft had made a clean cut with it through his child’s leg--a
three-year-old asleep in the quivering oats. They said that Chalcraft,
when the child died, tried to hang himself in the granary; but it was
before she came to Folly Corner.

There were the shears--long-handled shears, short-handled. She stood
thoughtfully moving the handles. What sharp wide jaws! One could almost
catch a head, a human head, in them, and clip it off as easily as one
would the head of a dandelion.

She dropped the tools as wearily as she had dropped the knives, with as
great an air of bewilderment. She went back to the house, in at the
open door. She stood for a moment looking out, seeing faintly some of
the changes that had taken place and imagining the rest. Nothing was
the same. The old prosperous, easy, untidy time had gone forever. The
Jaynes were trying to be gentry. She felt convinced that there was ruin
involved in the effort--ruin to the place, ruin to the family. She
loved the place: the hard iron roofs, the white-seamed bricks affronted
her. It wasn’t the Folly Corner she loved, outside nor in. She loved
the family; loved Jethro: hadn’t she almost married his father and been
a Jayne herself? And he! He was going to marry the girl who had lightly
altered everything. He was going to marry her--the girl who had come
back with the easy, insolent air of a devil that night when the shadows
were falling. It must not be. She must save the farm, save the family.
Yes. That was certain, that was settled. She had always made up her
mind that, if Pamela ever dared return, then Pamela must be done away
with. One had to get rid of certain nuisances, certain unprofitable
things about a farm. It was settled. But how?

She went back to the mahogany box, bent over it, brooded. She took out
the carver again, the poultry carver with the long slender blade and
the sharply pointed tip. She rubbed it stealthily along the stone
coping of the sink, then she carried it back to the kitchen and slowly
swished it backward and forward along the steel, doing everything as
silently as possible. By and by she drew the edge of the blade along
her finger. It was so keen that a thin red line of blood ran up.

She went upstairs. In one hand she carried the flat, winking
candlestick of brass, in the other the knife. Her fingers gripped the
smooth golden-brown handle convulsively. The wicked point she held
outward, her eyes fixed on it with much satisfaction. It was the best
thing after all. The tool-house, with its rude weapons of earth, had
not helped her. The knife-box had.

She was at the door of the room where she believed Pamela was sleeping.
Leaving the light outside, she turned the handle with a sure grasp. She
knew that the door could not be locked; the key was weighting her long
pocket. She had remembered to take away the key.

The room was dark. She went like a slow, certain arrow to the bed. All
her movements were slow, sure, horribly deliberate. She was used to
killing things. She knew that the great secret of success was to keep
cool. It didn’t seem to her any worse to kill a woman, when the woman
was a distinct obstruction and hindrance, than it was to kill a bird.

The knife was in her hand. She gripped the handle fiercely; the shining
red bone of her wrist stood out. She shut her eyes; it was a habit of
hers to shut her eyes at the very moment of killing--her ineradicable,
nervous, womanly habit.

She darted the point of the blade down, jabbing it furiously through
the heaped-up bedclothes. Then, her eyes hardly open, her hand out to
feel the way, she crept away, softly shutting the door behind her.

The hard lines of her worn face had relaxed, the feverish shine of her
eyes had given place to a calm light. The strained, hunted, uncertain
expression had gone forever. The rebellion and misery, the desperate
catechising of herself, were all ended. The question which, a year ago,
had rung and rung in her head so persistently, which had rung again so
noisily to-night when she heard that Pamela had come back, was
answered. That question, that weary, bitter question which had chimed
above her brow and made it ache so dully, would chime no more. There
was silence, a strange feeling of ease and lightness above her eyes,
where that maddening noise had been.

Her smoldering hatred of Pamela had taken tangible form. She wasn’t
clever; she knew not the meaning of finesse nor the nature of
conspiracy. It had never occurred to her that she might get rid of
Pamela by skillful appeal to Jethro’s dearest emotions. That was not
her way. Her way was more rough and ready, more grewsomely certain than
that. Pamela must be got rid of in the usual manner. There were plenty
of precedents on the farm. A knife was the only solution--knife, or a
trap, or a quick twist of the neck. But you could not twist a woman’s
neck; neither could you pin her in a gin. A knife--that was the only
way. She condemned Pamela in exactly the same spirit that she would
have condemned an unprofitable animal. She arrived at the decision with
stolidity. Her nerve had shaken a little at the actual act--that was
all: it needed a man to do the killing properly--it wasn’t woman’s
work on the farm.

Pests must be exterminated; that was the simplest rule of domestic
economy.

As she went along the narrow, silent passage and up the stairs to her
own room everything was strangely threatening. The candle was burning
short and leaping desperately in the stick. All the familiar things,
things of common life, reassuring things by day, were weird now with
night and sleep.

She was afraid. She didn’t know why: she fought the feeling. She had
earned the right to repose.

She shut her bedroom door, shooting the bolt convulsively. It was the
first time in her life that she had locked herself in at night. She
undressed quickly, the candle shooting up spasmodically before it died.
She laid her clothes, precisely folded, on the particular chair. She
took the velvet band from her head, parted her poor wisps of hair into
even strands, and twisted each strand into a wisp of rag.

She peeled herself of the various flannel wrappings which increasing
rheumatism demanded. Then she took off her stockings and slipped on her
coarse nightgown and got into bed, drawing the belated last leg in with
a frightened jerk.




CHAPTER XXI.


THE sun, peering through the carelessly-drawn curtain and falling
across her eyes, awakened Pamela next morning.

She jumped briskly to the floor from the high, enshrouded bed. She
realized, with a joyful thrill, that this was not London--not Beaufort
Street. She must write to Barbara, who had been kind; but the bread of
dependence, when a woman hands it, is never sweet.

When she was half dressed she threw back the casement and occasionally
bobbed out her head to look at the garden. Beneath her stretched the
closely-shaven, vividly green grass, the accurately-cut beds, the long,
flower-tangled borders. She saw with satisfaction, with a thrill of
gratitude to Jethro, that everything had been kept in exactly the order
that she wished.

The garden drew her, looking up at her with a bright, magnetic glance:
the satisfying, intense, and comprehensive love for a garden caught her
once more; she marveled because she had once cared more passionately
for something else.

All the things that should be blooming in that month were there. Daborn
had been very good; not a single chrysanthemum--those choice, delicate
ones--had been lost. He had taken cuttings from her dahlias, or
preserved the tubers. They were there too. Her eyes dwelt almost
tearfully on the blazing red cactus which had been her favorite. Her
Japanese anemones, with their rough dull leaves, were heavy with pure
white or pale pink flowers--widely open and waxen, like small saucers
of the finest porcelain.

She was going to be very happy in a placid way--the most satisfactory
form of happiness. She would always be happy; the garden needed her
every month of the twelve. She had passed the stage of rapturous,
transient happiness; she was too old. As she looked in the glass,
twisting her dull, abundant hair, she saw, for the first time,
accusing, brutally frank lines across her face.

She clasped the silver buckle at her waist with a click, and settled
the crimson tie which made a mark of flame down the front of her white
flannel shirt. She ran downstairs, humming under her breath, saying to
herself that it was fortunate that Jethro was indifferent to the old,
agitating passion--looking forward to his tepid, brother’s kiss above
the eyes.

It seemed as if the whole world of Folly Corner rejoiced at her return.
There was a busy cackling in the poultry yard; the bees were flying in
the sun; the geese went, in their waddling, ludicrously dignified way,
along the dry road, cackling with satisfaction. It was like a May
morning--so blue, so warm, so golden. It was like spring; all over the
garden were little chirrups and snatches of song, as if the birds were
nesting.

The dining-room was empty; so was Jethro’s room. She went into the
drawing-room, opened the window, jubilantly ran her fingers over the
keyboard of the piano. Then she went into the kitchen; she must show
herself, assert herself.

Gainah was frying sausages over the wood fire in the back kitchen. She
rigorously tabooed the new range, and she never allowed anyone to touch
her sausages. She made them from the very foundation--putting in a good
taste of sage, in the Sussex way. She fried them, set the dish on the
table with her own hands. She had a reputation for her sausages.

Some of them were sizzling in a copper pan, others waited, long and
lean and red, on a plate close by. They were not very appetizing to
look at, although they were admittedly delicious to eat. They gave out
a great deal of fat; the pan needed frequent emptying.

Gainah had a Windsor chair with a round back set near the fire. She had
a table at her elbow. Every minute or so she got up and emptied the
surplus fat into a bowl. It was a yellow bowl, ringed with lines of
white, and decorated with brown trees roughly run on--a common yellow
bowl such as they sell in country shops.

Pamela stepped across the bricks, her high heels clittering. She put
out her hand with nonchalance, smiled, tried to look pleasant--but she
had always been repelled by Gainah.

“Good-morning,” she said.

The pan of red copper, half full of fat and bubbling sausages, was in
Gainah’s hand. It was tipped toward the yellow bowl.

“Good-morning,” repeated Pamela, the wide smile of greeting exposing
her teeth. “Why didn’t you come into the drawing-room last night to
welcome me back?”

Gainah gave a choking cry and fell forward in the wooden chair. The pan
dropped from her nerveless hand. The sausages were thrown about the
brick floor, the fat streamed along sluggishly, a hot brown stream,
rapidly settling.

Pamela started back. Some of those spitting brown grease spots were
already hardening on her skirt, on the toes of her shoes.

“How careless of you!” she cried wrathfully. “You have spoilt my
skirt.”

Gainah made that disquieting sound again. It did not seem to come from
her throat: it was a threatening sound--outside, beyond her. She was
now sitting bolt-upright in the chair. She made an odd figure, with her
stiff, blanched face, her unreadable eyes, her uncouthly-cut gown, and
her flat, stiffly planted feet. The fat was settling around her, going
white and hard on the cold floor. The sausages were stuck in it. The
pan was face downward on the floor.

Her crooked fingers were caught in at her throat, between the limp
collar and the gown. She seemed to be desperately clawing the stuff
away from her skin, as if she could bear no contact, as if she
suffocated. Her feet were fast in grease, it molded them like a plaster
cast. She didn’t seem to be in any pain, although the fat was thick
on her feet. Her jaw had dropped, like a poor dead jaw. Her eyes were
blank.

Such eyes! Pamela thought of a mechanical toy--broken. Gainah looked
like that. Something had given the last pull at the wire, the
superfluous dangerous turn of the key--the one turn too many, the last
turn. It was just the same: there was the fixed grin, the hard stare,
the obstinate refusal to perform. There had been too violent a pull;
now there was Oblivion where a moment before there had been a semblance
at least of intelligence. She had always intolerantly considered Gainah
very stupid, only half developed in a mental sense. Yet she had never
before been an absolute, helpless, insensate, staring fool.

The door opened, Jethro came in.

He had been out early in the keen brief frost. The bridge of his high
nose was ruddy, his eyes shone. There was about him the intolerant
aggravating air of the person who gets up and goes out while others
sleep. He seemed hungry--a trifle cross.

“I saw you through the window,” he said curtly, giving her a bluff
little nod, and approaching as if to kiss her--the calm kiss that she
imagined she wanted from his mouth. “Haven’t they got breakfast ready?
Will you make the coffee, Pamela? The way you used to make it; nobody
does it so well.”

“Yes, yes!--but look! But what is the matter with her, Jethro? Is it a
fit?”

She pointed to Gainah, stiff, staring, widely smiling; a terrified grin
that had petrified on her wrinkled mouth. He looked. He gave a long,
high whistle, then he seemed terribly touched.

“Aunt Sophy’s been afraid of this,” he said gravely. “We must get her
up to bed.”

He picked the rigid figure up tenderly, as he would have picked up an
ailing child.

Pamela followed him. On the way through the kitchen she told the maids
to send two messengers--one to Turle, another to Liddleshorn for
Egbert.

Jethro was halfway up the stairs, the odd figure bunched up like a
short-coated baby in his long arms. It looked so ludicrous, so
fearsome, that Pamela stepped back from the fixed eyes and stretched
mouth. He went slowly, his hands gripped round the blue gown. He paused
on the landing; paused by the window, with its tiny dull panes, its
wide ledge, on which stood a jar of white honesty-pods--“money in both
pockets,” as Gainah had always called it. Pamela slid by him, keeping
her skirt, her head and hands from contact with the blue gown and
hanging arms. She flung back the door of her old room.

“Carry her in here,” she said. “It is nearer. It is a better room than
her own, too. When the doctor comes--I have sent for Egbert--the room
must be tidy.”

He crossed the threshold; she ran in front and flung back the curtains,
letting in the glad November sun.

“Put her in here. Then go down and send Nettie up. We’ll undress her,”
she said tersely, with the cool air of business that follows a shock.

They both looked at the bed at the same moment. Pamela stared, started,
contracted her forehead. Then she threw a stronger look of terror and
dislike at the doll-like, silly head of Gainah, which hung over
Jethro’s shoulder.

“The wicked old woman!” she gasped. “I always knew she wasn’t safe;
these queer people are much more dangerous than a full-blown lunatic.
All the crimes that one reads of in the newspapers are committed by
people like she was--peculiar people. She meant to murder me. She
thought I was sleeping in this bed. Look at the knife.”

She stopped, with a wild leaping at her throat. Jethro had tumbled his
burden down on one side of the humped-up bed. He drew out the knife.
Pamela was close behind him. Together they traced its course. She put
her shaking, twitching fingers through the close long cuts, which rent
everything down to the very bed. All around the cut in the ticking were
down and feathers that had puffed out. The down flew about their heads,
stirred by the quick, short breaths of horror which gushed from their
lungs.

“She meant to kill me. I took the sheets away and slept in the
guest-room. It looked rather like a body--you can see the likeness
yourself: the doubled-up bolster, the blankets all heaped up under the
quilt. She meant to kill me. Show her the knife.”

She took it from Jethro and held it up, held it close to the stony,
widely-opened eyes of the figure at the edge of the bed. But the eyes
gave no sign, the mouth did not relax.

“She doesn’t understand; it is no good trying to make any impression on
her.”

She put the knife on the dressing-table.

“I’m afraid to touch her,” she said. “What an escape!”

“She’s lost her reason.” He looked down sorrowfully.

“You don’t care for _me_. You don’t think of my escape.”

He lifted his eyes from the bed, seeming suddenly to remember. Then he
pulled her to him, kissed her with all the calm restraint of last
night, smoothed her hair--petted her as if she were a startled bird.
But all the time his eyes were turning to the bed. He treated her
tenderly--as a pet thing who had narrowly missed destruction. But any
pet was less than a woman. Gainah was a woman--the wreck of the woman
who had been his mother, his mentor, his tyrant all his days. His eyes
dwelt sorrowfully on the bed. Pamela pushed him to the door rather
pettishly.

“We must get her undressed,” she said. “Egbert will be here soon. Tell
Nettie to bring up a needle and thread. The tick must be sewn or we
shall have the feathers all over the place.”

He went away reluctantly. When Pamela was alone she sat down on the
edge of the sofa. Once she shrugged her shoulders and gave a cold short
laugh of terror. Only last night she had been discontented because her
return to Folly Corner had lacked the elements of drama. There had been
tragedy brewing for her all the while.

Gainah was on her side, just as Jethro had left her. A gentle, almost
imperceptible, vibration of her head was unceasing; it extended to her
hands, which clutched round the edge of the blanket. She seemed to be
slowly crawling back to some muffled kind of consciousness. Once, when
her eyes met Pamela’s, the girl fancied that she saw a gleam of terror.
In another moment she felt certain that Gainah recognized her, was
abjectly afraid of her, was trying, in an agony and without the least
avail, to slip down in the bed and get out of sight.

It was the monthly washing day. It had been the day of the monthly wash
when Pamela first came to Folly Corner. She thought of that as she
threw back the window and heard the rasping, spasmodic sound of the
brush.

Nettie came up. Between them they took off Gainah’s clothes, divested
her of her many flannel packings. Then Pamela went and looked for a
nightgown. She opened all Gainah’s boxes and drawers in the search. She
wanted a fairly smart nightgown--for the doctor. She rejected those of
daily wear--coarse, plain things which any self-respecting housemaid
would disdain--narrow things, like bolster-cases with the bottoms out.

She found, at last, a parcel sewn in linen. On it was pinned a paper
with the words, written in an uncertain, illiterate hand:

“For my laying out.”

She hesitated--for sentimental reasons. Then--for practical reasons,
and the practical was usually uppermost with her when it came to other
people’s affairs--she unpinned the parcel. Woman’s pity for another
woman touched her heart as she flipped the carefully-made nightgown, of
fair, thin stuff, over her arm.

“Poor thing!” she said pitifully, and hesitated once more. Then she
said brusquely to herself:

“Well, at the worst, if she dies, it can be washed, and she can be
buried in it as she wished.”

She shut the drawer, it was a bottom drawer, with her foot. Gainah’s
quilts, the blue one still unfinished, were folded carefully away.

When she went back she found the cook and washerwoman standing by the
bed. The former had brought clean sheets, the latter was standing
stolidly, her crinkled hands on her hips. She sent them all away and
finished Gainah’s toilet herself. She fancied that the helpless figure
shrank from the touch of her hands; fancied that the eyes tried
eloquently and quite in vain to say things which the lips could not.

When the bed was made and Gainah was stretched straight and stiff and
robed in snow-white linen of the very finest, Pamela tidied the room.
She picked up the old woman’s garments with a “finicky,” fine air of
distaste. She twisted together strips of flannel and rolled up
stockings which had been frugally re-footed. Last of all she plunged
her hand into the pocket of the dim blue gown and brought out the heavy
bunch of housekeeping keys. The clinking sound they made roused Gainah.
She tried piteously to move in the bed.




CHAPTER XXII.


“THAT head-flannel may do for Annie; you know there is to be another
little one about Lady Day. I must say that it is a pity when young
wives have a family too fast.”

Mrs. Turle gently laved her ample hands in the fancy-work box,
apportioning the different articles according to her mind.

“Nancy would like that embroidered newspaper rack. She and Duncan are
so very literary. I’m sure Nancy would have distinguished herself in
literature, if it had been necessary. She would have made her
mark--ladies take up so many things nowadays, and are received by the
best people just the same. When Nancy stayed with the Cluttons she
moved in a very literary set, and was much admired.”

“Have you heard from Barbara lately?” asked Pamela.

She was sitting by the fire, with her back to the view of gravel drive
and brand-new park land of Turle House. The big, dazzling white
mantelpiece was a little above her head, loaded with family photos--a
long, ogling, simpering line of family features.

“No. But I saw her name in the papers; I am always seeing it. Her
husband is really a very distinguished man in his way. I can’t think
why she buried herself at the Buttery, and talked so much at random,
making enemies of so many people. How could anyone be expected to
understand her? Nancy says that in London, when staying with the
Cluttons, she met a great many women of that type--ill-balanced
women, my dear, with a trick of extravagant talk and an unchristian,
uncomfortable habit of poking fun at everything.”

Pamela shifted her chair a little back from the hot fire. A quick,
poignant shadow just flecked her face. A vivid picture of London, hot,
restless, virile, flamed before her eyes and shook her calm for a
moment. Then the peaceful slowness dropped down on her again. She
looked, with a gasp of relief, at her surroundings--the big, ugly
room--old-fashioned enough in its appointments and furniture to mark a
distinct period. She looked at Mrs. Turle--who might or might not be
her Aunt Sophy--looked at her motherly figure and hard, high-featured
face. She remembered that Barbara had once said, with a laugh, that
there was a strong streak of “old cat” in Aunt Sophy’s face.

Nothing changed: nothing ever would change. Everything in that room was
the same as it had always been in her knowledge of it. It was restful
and slow: it fed and stilled one’s nerves. She no longer wanted London,
no more wanted Love. But the mention of London, which had held Love,
just stirred her--made her remember that she had never heard anything
of Edred. She wondered if he and Sutton were still at Marquise
Mansions; if they, with Milligan and a few more, were still carrying
on risky financial schemes. The newspapers never mentioned them, the
advertisements of their companies no longer necessitated an extra sheet.

“How is Gainah?” Mrs. Turle brought out a cushion of crazy patchwork.
“I’ll buy this for her, poor soul! What an invaluable woman she was!
What a manager! Folly Corner would have gone all to pieces after Lilith
died but for Gainah. It is a dreadful end for an active woman. I
suppose, dear, you notice no change?”

“None. She just sits upstairs--she won’t leave that room; my old room,
you know----”

“I know. You certainly had a most providential escape.”

“She does patchwork; she cries to Jethro--never to me--for new pieces.”

“She shall certainly have this cushion. It would give her a new idea.
She might copy it. She has never done crazy patchwork.”

“If any of you have any pieces, do send them to Folly Corner. Whenever
we drive into Liddleshorn I will buy her some.”

“I’ll have a hunt. We all remember Gainah. Maria brought some over from
the Warren last week--you can take them back with you. And Annie had
some beautiful corners of sateen. She has been re-covering the cot
eiderdown. I went to help her last Monday; it takes two--one to machine
and the other to hold the work perfectly steady. Annie is rather early
with her preparations, but your Aunt Jerusha always insisted on having
everything ready at least three months before: Annie is a very dutiful
daughter. And Gainah still has that extraordinary dislike for you?”

“Yes. She is afraid of me. It is natural and uncanny. She thinks I am a
ghost; she knows she killed me. The knife was dug in to the very hilt.
What an escape I had! Jethro won’t send her to the asylum. He could
pay. She would have every care. Half the parlormaid’s time is taken up
with Gainah.”

“I can understand that it is a trial for you. It is telling on you,
dear. You really look quite faded. I can see by your eyes that your
head is aching at this moment. Take a dose of caffeine when you get
back. And ask Egbert to give you a tonic. I must say that it isn’t
natural, dear, for a young woman not quite thirty to look so yellow.”

“Gainah and Chalcraft ought to be comfortably provided for away from
Folly Corner,” Pamela persisted. “Chalcraft is anything but a graceful
pauper. He is most familiar to me whenever I go to his cottage.”

She laughed uncomfortably. She had grown into an elegant habit of
philanthropy, after the manner of country ladies. Philanthropy was very
gratifying. She bought courtesy with old gowns and paid for heavenly
benedictions with a milk pudding. But Chalcraft was obdurate. He
declined to bend his ancient knee to the interloper. He kept his bed
nearly all the winter. He made his “missus” bring it down to the
living-room and set it behind the door, so that he might see, in part,
how the world went. At Pamela’s entrance, foolish, half-daft Mrs.
Chalcraft would courtesy and flip a chair, but Chalcraft only grunted.
The cold stare of his rheumy blue eyes reminded her of the day when she
first came to Folly Corner, when she trod down the gray tendrils of the
vine with the pointed toes of her town shoes. She had been an
adventuress then. She was assured now--the mistress of Folly Corner.
She had routed them all--Gainah, Chalcraft, the rude manner of life.
The fierce old head on the pillow behind the door, the blank, worn old
face at the window of her old room, were unpleasant reminders. She
would gladly have sent Chalcraft and Gainah away. But this was the one
point on which Jethro was firm.

“You haven’t heard from Edred lately?”

Aunt Sophy’s placid, purring query struck her ears like a gunshot.
“No,” she said shortly.

Aunt Sophy’s keen blue eyes were full on her face.

“He had a very serious illness?”

“Yes.”

“Why doesn’t he come down to Folly Corner?”

“He’s busy. The train service is so bad.”

“The train service is very good, now that we have the new line. He
could go up every morning quite easily, with a quick horse to take him
to the station. It would be better, dear. We hardly care for you to
live alone with Jethro. You’re really much younger than you look.
Strangers might consider the arrangement a fitting one, but we in the
family, who know that you are really not thirty, consider it hardly
proper. People talk. You know,” she laughed indulgently, “what a long
tongue Maria has--and she visits at so many nice houses. You and
Jethro ought to marry. Why doesn’t the wedding come off? Everyone is
wondering. It is fifteen months since you came back from nursing
Edred.”

“We have changed our minds. We neither of us wish to marry. It doesn’t
matter what people say.”

“My dear, your family has every confidence. But I’m sure my idea is
excellent. Let Edred come and live at Folly Corner. If you had your
brother with you no one could say a word. Isn’t this a pretty workbag?”

She held up a limp blue thing, worked with straggling leaves in brown
silk. She held it so persistently, swinging it tantalizingly by the
string, that Pamela was compelled to meet her inquisitive eyes--eyes
that she had always known suspected her. There was more than a spark of
malice in Aunt Sophy. She had been young once, a coquette, so they
said. The embers of coquetry lay in her eyes still. She had never been
a mere pink and silly girl like her daughter Nancy.

“If you had your brother with you,” she repeated with emphasis, “no one
could say a word. Why doesn’t he come? Is it because of Nancy? He was
in love with Nancy. But she is married now.”

“He cannot come. He has his business.”

“Well, then, my dear,”--she never shifted her questioning eyes,--“I
must say that you ought to marry to Jethro.”

Pamela walked home thoughtfully. There was, then, nothing stationary in
life--outside a happy marriage. The family had combined to drive her
from Folly Corner or into Jethro’s arms. The family did not know the
cold, sad repugnance that they both had for love-making--the dread
avoidance of it, as a poignant, heart-wrenching thing. Aunt Sophy might
suspect, but she would never be sure.

She walked through the woods which she had once trodden with Edred on a
spring day. Crisp frost--like the icing of Maria’s cakes: Maria’s forte
was iced cake--spread over the thick, dead leaves. Every point on which
her eye dwelt was glittering and white. When she reached Folly Corner
she stopped to look at the cows, standing in golden straw and fenced by
a gray paling on which serpent-green moss stood in a thick pile. Why
wouldn’t the family let them alone--she and Jethro? They were
happy--slow, peaceful, like their cattle: _their_ cattle--she had come
to believe that everything was hers, without the burning, binding tie
of marriage. They were happy. The pensive melancholy and roundness of
the old place, which no builder could inspire with modern feeling, had
eaten into them. They only wanted to be left alone.

She went round the house, meaning to enter, as she usually did, by the
garden door. As she passed beneath the window of her old room she
looked up. It stood open. Gainah was indifferent to temperature: she
was stitching at her interminable quilts. All she had kept of her sane
days was the feverish energy, which now wrought itself on snipping up
stuff and sewing it together again. She wore the same old gown of
blue--they could not take it from her; her hair bunched out on each
side of her chalky face in the absurd bunches of corkscrew curls. The
velvet band across her head was tightly strained: it had made a bald
spot in the middle of the parting--a spot which was rapidly spreading.
Pamela saw her plainly: the restless fingers, distorted by rheumatism,
but quite clean and yellow-white, now that she did not do any housework
or cooking; the worn, blank face, the constantly moving lips. She stood
looking up, not knowing why she stopped, lost in speculation which had
little enough to do with this dormant Gainah.

As she stood there Gainah suddenly looked down. She met the upturned
eyes and gave a terrified baby’s cry. She tried to move, to scuttle out
of sight. But her stricken limbs refused their aid; she began to
whimper with fright at the sight of her victim. A flash of anger
lighted on Pamela’s face. She had never forgiven.

She held up her finger and shook it threateningly.

“Go back,” she cried, “go back to the fire at once,” forgetting in her
irritation that the old woman could not move across the room without
help.

The parlormaid came forward to the window. She caught Gainah by the
shoulder, none too gently, and pulled her away, shutting the casement
with an impatient click.

Jethro was in the field beyond the garden. Pamela went to him over the
border of crisp, crunching grass which edged the furrows. She loved
that field in all its moods. She had watched it, consulted it so often
from the shadow of the deep bay window. She remembered just how it
appeared at each particular crisis of her life at Folly Corner--half
shorn of its yellow corn on that first day; mystic with clearing mist
and great green moon the night she came back; dull brown to-day with
thin ice on the upturned tips of its even furrows.

He was near the hedge, talking to Buckman, who was ditching. She went
up and hooked her hand through his arm without saying a word. They had
grown into that attitude--the affectionate, silent attitude of long,
dear familiarity. Sometimes they would sit without speech for a whole
evening, until he suddenly looked up from the paper with a tender look
and stretched his big hand out to touch her fingers.

The ditch was clean, the hedge hacked. Small heaps of black leaf mold
spotted the fringe of grass.

“You’ll be about done that job to-morrow,” Jethro said. “Just tie the
fagots together and put them on the stack.”

The two walked toward the house.

“I think,” she said timidly, “that I would like to go to London
to-morrow. Some shopping--that’s all. And I’d like a sight of London
streets--a bit of color and movement. One wants that twice in a
winter.”

He looked at her suspiciously. The clear fire blazed in her face.
Standing there with the icy ground under their feet and the scurrying,
sunless sky above their heads, they read each other’s souls.

“No,” she said passionately; “you can trust me. I think I can trust
myself. London is very big. I am not likely to meet him.”

“Go, if you like. But there will be a hard frost to-night and very
likely snow to-morrow,” he returned, looking up to the sky for a
weather sign.

The clear, hard light showed his rugged face, stern and simple.




CHAPTER XXIII.


HE stopped at the door and said he must drive over to the Flagon House
before dusk. Pamela went alone into the drawing-room and sat by the
fire. The luxury and completeness of the room touched her with a sense
of Jethro’s boundless generosity--all the more creditable because he
was a frugal man. It was quite a modern room now--it had the thin,
elegant touch which she preferred.

Her tea came in. She threw aside her hat and coat, and toasted her
knees while she read the newspaper. A queer hurry and unrest had taken
possession of her. She kept worrying herself. Should she go to London
to-morrow? Aunt Sophy had stirred her by the mere mention of London.
Should she go? Should she stay at home?

There was no harm in going. Shopping, tea with Barbara perhaps--nothing
more. She would stop at Liddleshorn and ask Nancy or Egbert’s wife to
go with her. There would surely be safety in that. Safety! The word
made her blench and shrink. She instantly suspected herself. So there
was really danger!

She wasn’t sure of herself--not yet: wasn’t sure--would never be.
Wasn’t it more than possible that, directly she was in London alone,
unchecked, unwatched, she would go straight to Marquise Mansions, not
meaning to enter? But, at the foot of the stairs, wasn’t it certain,
miserably certain, that she would go up? If she saw him! Then--that
she admitted, with a violent shame and misery--everything would depend
on his attitude. The woman in brown! The woman--didn’t count.

She wouldn’t think, wouldn’t speculate, wouldn’t decide just now. It
would be premature to decide yet. There was no hurry.

She picked up the paper, which had dropped to the floor. Then she
remembered that it had been the paper which had tempted her to leave
Jethro before. Suppose Edred’s name should be on the next sheet! That
would settle everything--so she feared.

Would it never end--this evil, incomprehensible witchery? Wasn’t she
ever going to be safe? Was her life to be spent in veering between the
happy lethargy of Folly Corner and the periodic joy and black misery of
life with Edred? She despaired of herself. She hadn’t any shame, any
self-respect, any modesty--any of those cold, praiseworthy qualities
which romance has for centuries built up and labeled “feminine
character.”

She read on. One word, at last, became more than a dancing string of
letters. It was the word Sutton. Here at last, after fifteen months of
vigilant watching, was a sign. Here, beneath her eyes, was an indirect
message from Marquise Mansions.

Had he been knighted or sent to penal servitude? Either was equally
likely--in their mode of life. She read. It was a highly respectable
announcement: he was a member of the County Council--a prominent
member--and he had been agitating about some strike--yes, the
plasterers’ strike. Whatever sympathy had he with plasterers? She
laughed softly, and put the paper down. He was evidently prosperous,
this sleek minion of Edred’s. The paragraph was redolent of prosperity.
He was spoken of deferentially as a promising man--a coming man. She
knew his future. He’d go into Parliament, pick his way up the social
ladder.

There was no word of Edred. The omission was a knell on her brow.

She must go to London to-morrow. It would be safe. She wasn’t quite so
weak as she supposed. After all, there really would not be much danger
in going to Marquise Mansions--just to inquire of the porter.

The room grew dark as she sat, stooping forward, her chin in her hands.
The wind rose, and lapped like rising waves about the lonely house. She
put more coal on the fire, feeling the intense cold of the night even
there, in the nest of carpets, thick curtains, and cushions.

Suddenly she heard muffled feet on the red, newly-spread gravel
outside. No wheels, but the steady, heavy tramping of feet! She heard
voices, the rustic, slow voices of the farm men. There was a momentary
silence: then Jethro spoke. She could not catch the words, but there
was a sinister intonation in his voice.

She ran to the window. When she hastily dragged the curtain back she
saw that the glass was spread with a fine cloth of silver. The
casement was fast with frost; it took a determined movement of her
wrist to throw it back.

When she put her head stealthily out into the night, the cold dashed
against her with the sting of a blow. There had not been so cold a
night that winter. The snow fell in solid steady flakes.

It was a typical winter’s night; it was quite theatrical in its
completeness. She might have been looking at the drop-scene of a
domestic drama. Snow, intense cold, slow-tongued, heavy-footed
rustics--everything was ripe for a crisis; but there was to be no
crisis in her life, no more drama. She was in harbor.

Jethro saw her before she spoke.

“Go back!” he said peremptorily. “Go back to the fire!”

Those were the words she had used to Gainah.

“Go back!” he repeated.

She couldn’t see his face; she could see nothing distinctly. The men
were in a circle, as if they covered something. But she didn’t want to
see. The strange ring in his voice was enough.

She shut the window, caught a rug from the cozy corner, and went
through the warm, well-lighted corridor out of doors.

       *       *       *       *       *

They were going very slowly, very cautiously, the group of farm men,
headed by Jethro, toward the barn. She could see them--the bent
shoulders, the rough clothes, the shambling, swinging steps and loose
swing of the body. They were all familiar, these men. She knew them
by name--knew how many shillings a week each had, and of how many
children each was the father. At that moment she didn’t seem to know
them at all. They were instinct with mystery--mystery flavored with
dread.

What were they carrying? She could see now, as she gained on them
silently in her thin slippers, that they guardedly carried a thing--a
long, shrouded bundle. It was shapeless; yet, somehow, it cried out of
life beneath the roughly piled coverings. It was nothing agricultural
that they were carrying toward the barn so carefully.

She heard them speak, heard Daborn say in his cheery voice and
deferential way:

“’Course, sir, it aint as _I_ thinks, it’s as _you_ thinks. But _I_
should jus’ lay ’un in the barn.”

Lay what in the barn? A formless fear quickened her feet. She was very
close, none of them yet suspected her presence--the heavy snow now
extinguished all sound of feet.

They had covered the shrouded thing with sacks--wet sacks that were
already stiffening with frost.

She crept behind them in the shadow of the newly-planted shrubs. She
followed to the barn--the great barn, full of cobwebs, scored by huge
beams. Its new roof of corrugated iron, covering the heavy thatch,
gleamed like a strange, new precious metal.

They stopped to throw open the great door. How cold she was! And yet
how her heart under the sofa-rug blazed and beat--she couldn’t have
told why.

They all went stolidly, carefully into the barn. She slipped like a
wraith in after them.

Jethro turned and saw her.

“Go back!” he said wrathfully. “Go back!” repeating it, with no wrath
at all, but with exquisite pleading and gentleness. “Go back! Dear
love, go back to the fire.”

She looked up at him meaningly, knowingly. She began to feel what it
was that stretched under those wet sacks. Dear love! It was the first
time since her return that he had used those words--his favorite pet
expression during the brief, agitated period of their engagement.

There were frozen flakes of snow scattered over the orange silk rug
which wrapped her from her chin to the toe-caps of her slippers. Her
white face, framed in disheveled, dust-colored hair, was shadowy. They
stood together at the door of the barn. At the back of them, the men,
each with his lantern, made a patch of light. An evil spirit seemed to
stare out of each corner of the vast raftered place--to stare down at
the thing under the sacks.

“I will not go back,” she said firmly. “I want to see. What is there?”

She pointed with a steady finger. They had improvised a bench. They
were laying it out--straightening it, with rough, pitiful reverence, as
she could very well see.

“What is there?”

Her voice rang out in the lofty barn amid the perfect, unnatural
silence which suddenly fell over the rest. Jethro only repeated,
touching her coaxingly on the wrist:

“Go back. I’ll come in and tell you presently.”

She shook her head.

“I stay. I mean to see.”

The group of men, with rare delicacy, without a word or a gesture of
recognition, clumped out, with heads down and heavy feet, trying in
vain to tread lightly.

Jethro and Pamela were alone. She shot forward and touched the sacks.

“You mustn’t touch. I insist on your going in, Pamela.”

But her hand was already on the soiled, wet sacking, and she flipped it
down with fearful eagerness.

“I knew, I knew,” she called out almost exultingly. “I felt sure.”

She looked at the dead face for a long time, and very steadily.

“I was driving home from the Flagon House,” Jethro explained in a husky
voice and averting his eyes from those dead ones which would not close.
“Something went wrong with the harness just as I got to the pond. I
jumped down. By the light of the lamps. I saw--his arm was thrust out.”

She didn’t speak. Her eyes were steady and luminous on Edred’s rigid
face. There was a ticking sound as the water dropped from his sodden
clothes to the floor. Then a quick clatter of a horse’s hoofs fell on
their ears.

Jethro said simply:

“That’s young Buckman gone to Liddleshorn for Egbert. I told him to
saddle the black mare.”

She only looked and looked. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, her lips
were steady. She looked from the handsome dead face to the shabby,
drenched clothes, which were splintered all over with little
spear-shaped fragments of ice.

They were the clothes of a tramp. His boots were burst, a dirty
handkerchief was knotted round his long throat, and on his chin was an
unkempt beard--a piebald beard, half black, half gray. He was handsome
still, but it was the wreck of comeliness--the sodden face of a
dissolute man of fifty.

“He must have had ill luck lately,” Jethro said. “He was evidently
coming back to us.”

“If he had come back--alive,” she said thoughtfully, “I wonder----”

Her steady gaze on the dead, aged, handsome face never wavered. If he
had come back to Folly Corner alive--so--would he have possessed the
old magic?

His eyes were fathoming the raftered roof. In every corner, clothed in
the swaying black cobwebs, was an imp--the evil spirits who had swayed
his life.

“We shall never know what brought him to this. Come away, dear,” urged
Jethro.

She shook Jethro’s big hand off with petulance. The water from the dead
man’s clothes was freezing at her feet, beneath her slippers, and
chilled her. That was the nearest approach to contact she reached with
the dead. She made no attempt to touch him, to go a little nearer, to
stoop and stare into the glazing, fearful surface of his wide dark eyes.

What a mystery he had always been! What a mystery he was now! She had
never been certain even of his name. She didn’t know and never would
know the secret history of the last fifteen months. Two might tell
her--Sutton or the woman in brown. But she did not wish to revive
either of them. That was past. Everything was past. She was stripped at
last of everything; the world was simply Folly Corner. She felt as a
slave might feel when he heard the blows which loosened his shackles.
She was free. She had always been free--in the letter; in the spirit
she had been a wretched slave. A slave to first love--that indefinable,
holding thing.

She turned away suddenly, turned her back on the dead man--not with
horror, grief, or repulsion, but apathetically--as if she had seen
enough. She dismissed him. She put her head to Jethro’s coat, with the
persuasive, rubbing air of a cat.

“I can’t feel,” she said, holding one hand out toward the roughly
improvised bier. “I thank God that I don’t feel any longer. I’m not
touched in the least, not even by ordinary natural emotions. I’m not
sorry; I’m not ashamed; I’m not even glad. I’m only free. Jethro!”

“Dear love!” His great hand was on her hair.

“I don’t feel--for him,” she went on with more passion, “the ordinary
pity and sadness that one feels for any dead thing. I can’t--for him.
There’s no dignity, no pathos in Death when it touches him. You mustn’t
think me hard; mustn’t put this down to vengeance because he injured
me. I can still feel pity. I cried only this morning over a tomtit
which the cat had mangled. But I don’t cry for this. I don’t feel. I’m
stone where he is concerned. Until to-night I have been wax. I’m not
sorry or shocked; not anything womanly, anything human that I ought to
be. I can’t feel. I’m free. Take me away. We’ll get warm in the house.”

They stepped out into the driving snow. The world was white and
pitiless that night.

The door thudded solemnly when Jethro pulled it to. He had his arm
round Pamela, his coat held out to form a screen for her. Midway to the
house she stopped, the blinding, desolate snow whirling above their
heads. She looked up and he looked down. There was a strange fire in
each pair of eyes. Suddenly he stooped and kissed her on the
mouth--roughly, brutally.

Her mouth smarted with the rudeness of that kiss, but a sweet,
permanent content ran through her body. He loved her! She would be
Cousin Pamela no more, save in the tender jest of matrimony. He had
always loved her. His reserve, his brotherly attitude, had been forced.
They were part of his prudent nature, part of his hereditary economy.
He would never expend when there was small chance of any result.

The house was warm--a gently filtering warmth that seemed to wrap them
directly they shut the door.

The discreet clink of china, the savory smell of soup, came from the
kitchen. They were preparing dinner--the place was wholly regardless of
that miserable dead man.

They shut themselves in the drawing-room. Pamela abandoned herself to
the luxury of the fire. Jethro paced about nervously, his ears alert
for wheels.

“Egbert can do nothing,” he said. “The poor chap was dead when I found
him--dead and stiff. He must have been in the pond some time. If I
hadn’t found him to-night the ice would have pinned him in by
to-morrow. We should have been obliged to cut him out. I can’t think
how he got in. It isn’t dark: he never drank--too much. His head was
strong. He could stand a lot of whisky. We don’t know----”

“We shall never know,” she said with the oddest lethargy.

All the time he walked about the room, indulging as he did so in kind
commonplace reflections concerning Edred, she was saying to
herself--lilting the words to a queer dancing air that hummed in her
head:

“Free, free, free.”

She tried herself, probed herself, insisted on proving. She recalled
all sorts of things--her happiest, tenderest moments with the dead man.
She felt nothing at all, except faint disgust for the woman--it could
not have been herself--who had so madly loved that creature who was
lying in the barn searching the roof with his fixed, shallow eyes.

“No,” she said, half to herself, half to Jethro, “I don’t feel.”

She waited a moment, let that flow of recollections rush on. Nothing
touched her. It had been another woman--a dogged, shameful, spiritless
creature. She repeated devotionally, as if she had been kneeling in a
great church, swept by religious frenzy:

“I thank God. I don’t feel.”

       *       *       *       *       *

    “Beaufort Street, May 24.

“MY DEAREST PAMELA: Tim and I will be delighted to spend all June at
Folly Corner, as you suggest: you’ll really see Tim at last!

“We have let this house, and think of settling in the country. It will
not be the real thing, as you have it. We shall go to one of those
intellectual settlements with a good railway service to town; a theater
train once a week. We shall live on a hill; there will be a splendid
view from our windows. We shall have to pay for that view; we shall ask
our friends down to look at it; we shall see it every morning--rave
over it, become callous to it, abuse it--want to murder it. A true
English home is in a hollow, like Folly Corner. I shall have to content
myself with the hard monotony of a pine wood--after Sussex oak! We
shall belong to a coterie--everybody will be an artistic something.
Everybody will flatter and hate his neighbor.

“I want to see the baby. Of course you’ll call him Jethro. I can
understand your disquietude at Gainah’s fondness for him.

“Your letter was too domestic altogether. _Do_ remember that a ‘good
manager’ degenerates into a shrew after thirty.

“Of course your husband is trying--it is a way they have: a man is the
most difficult of all domestic pets. Never mind his occasional morose
moods; never mind his attempts at domestic economy. When a man decides
on domestic economy he smokes a shilling cigar while he lectures his
wife on the sinful extravagance of afternoon tea. A wise woman gives
him his head on such occasions, and never varies her course.

“You are very much to be envied; our life is a struggle to make both
ends meet. Tim’s book of essays, which made such a splash last year,
has been the ruin of him. He is a melancholy object lesson--a man
ruined by press notices. Still, that is not a fate likely to befall you
or Mr. Jayne. My poor Tim no longer has confidence in anything he does.
I tell him--without making the least impression on him--that a thing
doesn’t cease to be clever because you’ve found out the way to do it.
He’s versatile--that is his stumbling-block. To succeed, you must be
superlatively skillful at one thing, and a perfect fool at everything
else.

“So Nancy has won the literary prize in the _Liddleshorn Herald_
competition--and dear Mrs. Turle has justified her opinion.

“As Chalcraft and his wife are dead, of course there will be a sale.
Buy me the oak chair, if I am not present to buy it myself.

“I remember Nettie; she didn’t look the kind of girl who would go off
in a decline. But the rustics are dreadfully unhealthy. When I was at
the Buttery buying things of the cottagers I had a fixed rule by which
I ingratiated myself. If a woman was under fifty I inquired after the
baby; over fifty, I inquired after the bad leg. It sounds horrid, but
was invariably successful. If the victim was a man, I asked if his
ground grew good onions, and said how sorry I was that I couldn’t keep
a pig.

“By the way, when you see Mrs. Silas Daborn, ask her to save me a
kitten next time they occur. The cat we have won’t catch mice--lets
them frisk with the tip of her tail. I cannot think what cats are
coming to. Tim, who is not a Progressive, says it is all the fault of
the School Board.

“We shall come by the quick afternoon train on Wednesday, June 2. We
arrive at five something; Mr. Jayne will please look it up in the
time-table.

    “Affectionately yours, with a kiss for the baby,

      “BARBARA CLUTTON.”


THE END.




Transcriber’s Note


This transcription is based on images made available by the University
of Wisconsin and Google:

    books.google.com/books?id=KSXQAAAAMAAJ

These scans are also available through the Hathi Trust Digital Library:

    hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89011718319

The following changes were made to the printed text:

• Added a table of contents.

• p. 7: She knew the effect of foxgolve on the human heart--Changed
“foxgolve” to “foxglove”.

• p. 12: “No glass,” said Palema in astonishment.--Changed “Palema” to
“Pamela”.

• p. 26: he rolled down the covering and showed his bandaged
limb.--Changed “he” to “He”.

• p. 33: The farmhouse was so overgrown with fruit-trees and ivy that
the mellow bricks were shouded.--Changed “shouded” to “shrouded”.

• p. 63: “It’s the Shakepere class, mamma.”--Changed “Shakepere” to
“Shakspere” for consistency.

• p. 65: She was introduced to all of then--Changed “then” to “them”.

• p. 71: And you never how these queer people from London may turn
out.--Inserted “know” after “never”.

• p. 127: Don’t say anthing dreadful.--Changed “anthing” to “anything”.

• p. 204: His tips have puts hundreds into my pocket.--Changed “puts” to
“put”.

• p. 213: They gave her flowers, one or twice a jewel.--Changed “one” to
“once”.

• p. 242: It was sombeody else--one of the blessed bungles--Changed
“sombeody” to “somebody”.

• p. 255: it’s frill tickling her cheeks.--Changed “it’s” to “its”.

• pp. 256–57: it was part of the compact that that she was not to go
beyond--Deleted the second “that”.

• pp. 303–04: “Put her in here. Then go down and send Nettie up. “We’ll
undress her,”--Deleted the opening double quotation mark before
“We’ll”.

In the plain text version of this ebook, italics have been denoted by
underscores, and small capitals have been changed to all capitals.
Except where noted otherwise, inconsistencies of spelling and
hyphenation have been preserved.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 69758 ***