XLIII
As Rowcliffe went back to his surgery he recalled two things he had forgotten. One was a little gray figure he had seen once or twice lately wandering through the fields about Upthorne Farm. The other was a certain interview he had had with Alice when she had come to ask him to get Greatorex to sing. That was in November, not long before the concert. He remembered the suggestion he had then made that Alice should turn her attention to reclaiming Greatorex. And, though he had no morbid sense of responsibility in the matter, it struck him with something like compunction that he had put Greatorex into Alice's head chiefly to distract her from throwing herself at his.
And then, he had gone and forgotten all about it.
He told himself now that he had been a fool not to think of it. And if he was a fool, what was to be said of the Vicar, under whose nose this singular form of choir practice had been going on for goodness knew how long?
It did not occur to the doctor that if his surgery day had been a Friday, which was choir practice day, he would have been certain to have thought of it. Neither was he aware that what he had observed this evening was only the unforeseen result of a perfectly innocent parochial arrangement. It had begun at Christmas and again at Easter, when it was understood that Greatorex, who was nervous about his voice, should turn up for practice ten minutes before the rest of the choir to try over his part in an anthem or cantata, so that, as Alice said, he might do himself justice.
Since Easter the ten minutes had grown to fifteen or even twenty. And twice in the last three weeks Greatorex, by collusion with Alice, had arrived a whole hour before his time. Still, there was nothing in this circumstance itself to alarm the Vicar. Choir practice was choir practice, a mysterious thing he never interfered with, knowing himself to be unmusical.
Rowcliffe had had good reason for refusing to urge Greatorex to marry Essy Gale. But what he had seen in Garth church made him determined to say something to Greatorex, after all.
He went on his northerly round the very next Sunday and timed it so that he overtook his man on his way home from church. He gave Greatorex a lift with the result (which he had calculated) that Greatorex gave him dinner, as he had done once or twice before. The after-dinner pipe made Jim peculiarly approachable, and Rowcliffe approached him suddenly and directly. "I say, Greatorex, why don't you marry? Not a bad thing for you, you know."
"Ay. Saw they tall me," said Greatorex amicably.
Rowcliffe went on to advise his marrying Essy, not on the grounds of morality or of justice to the girl (he was a tactful person), but on Greatorex's account, as the best thing Greatorex could do for himself.
"Yo mane," said Greatorex, "I ought to marry her?"
Rowcliffe said no, he wasn't going into that.
Greatorex was profoundly thoughtful.
Presently he said that he would speak to Essy.
* * * * *
He spoke to her that afternoon.
In the cottage down by the beck Essy sat by the hearth, nursing her baby. He had recovered from his ailment and lay in her lap, gurgling and squinting at the fire. He wore the robe that Mrs. Gale had brought to Essy five months ago. Essy had turned it up above his knees, and smiling softly she watched his little pink feet curling and uncurling as she held them to the fire. Essy's back and the back of the baby's head were toward the door, which stood open, the day being still warm.
Greatorex stood there a moment looking at them before he tapped on the door.
He felt no tenderness for either of them, only a sullen pity that was half resentment.
As if she had heard his footsteps and known them, Essy spoke without looking round.
"Yo' can coom in ef yo' want," she said.
"Thank yo'," he said stiffly and came in.
"I caan't get oop wi' t' baaby. But there's a chair soomwhere."
He found it and sat down.
"Are yo' woondering why I've coom, Essy?"
"Naw, Jim. I wasn't woondering about yo' at all."
Her voice was sweet and placable. She followed the direction of his eyes.
"'E's better. Ef thot's what yo've coom for."
"It isn' what I've coom for. I've soomthing to saay to yo', Essy."
"There's nat mooch good yo're saayin' anything, Jim. I knaw all yo' 'ave t' saay."
"Yo'll 'ave t' 'ear it, Essy, whether yo' knaw it or not. They're tallin' mae I ought to marry yo'."
Essy's eyes flashed.
"Who's tallin' yo'?"
"T' Vicar, for woon."
"T' Vicar! 'E's a nice woon t' taalk o' marryin', whan 'is awn wife caan't live wi' 'im, nor 'is awn daughter, neither. And 'oo alse talled yo'? 'Twasn' Moother?"
"Naw. It wasn' yore moother."
"An' 'twasn' mae, Jim, and navver will bae."
"'Twas Dr. Rawcliffe."
"'E? 'E's anoother. 'Ooo's 'e married? Miss Gwanda? Nat' e!"
"Yo' let t' doctor bae, Essy. 'E's right enoof. Saw I ought t' marry yo'. But I'm nat goain' to."
"'Ave yo' coom t' tall mae thot? 'S ef I didn' knaw it. 'Ave I avver aassked yo' t' marry mae?"
"Haw, Essy."
"Yo' can aassk mae; yo'll bae saafe enoof. Fer I wawn't 'ave yo'. Woonce I med 'a' been maad enoof. I med 'a' said yes t' yo'. But I'd saay naw to-day."
At that he smiled.
"Yo' wouldn' 'ave a good-fer-noothin' falla like mae, would yo, laass? Look yo'—it's nat that I couldn' 'ave married yo'. I could 'ave married yo' right enoof. An' it's nat thot I dawn' think yo' pretty. Yo're pretty enoof fer me. It's—it's—I caan't rightly tall whot it is."
"Dawn' tall mae. I dawn' want t' knaw."
He looked hard at her.
"I might marry yo' yat," he said. "But yo' knaw you wouldn' bae happy wi' mae. I sud bae crool t' yo'. Nat because I wanted t' bae crool, but because I couldn' halp mysel. Theer'd bae soomthin' alse I sud bae thinkin' on and wantin' all t' while."
"I knaw. I knaw. I wouldn' lat yo', Jim. I wouldn' lat yo'."
"I knaw there's t' baaby an' all. It's hard on yo', Essy. But—I dawn' knaw—I ned bae crool to t' baaby, too."
Then she looked up at him, but with more incredulity than reproach.
"Yo' wudn'," she said. "Yo' cudn' bae crool t' lil Jimmy."
He scowled.
"Yo've called 'im thot, Essy?"
"An' why sudn' I call 'im? 'E's a right to thot naame, annyhow. Yo' caann't taake thot awaay from 'im."
"I dawn' want t' taake it away from 'im. But I wish yo' 'adn'. I wish you 'adn', Essy."
"Why 'alf t' lads in t' village is called Jimmy. Yo're called Jimmy yourself, coom t' thot."
He considered it. "Well—it's nat as ef they didn' knaw—all of 'em."
"Oh—they knaws!"
"D'yo' mind them, Essy? They dawn't maake yo' feel baad about it, do they?"
She shook her head and smiled her dreamy smile.
He rose and looked down at her with his grieved, resentful eyes.
"Yo' moosn' suppawse I dawn feel baad, Essy. I've laaid awaake manny a night, thinkin' what I've doon t'yo'."
"What 'ave yo' doon, Jimmy? Yo' maade mae 'appy fer sex moonths.
An' there's t' baaby. I didn' want 'im before 'e coom—seemed like I'd
'ave t' 'ave 'im stead o' yo'. But yo' can goa right awaay, Jimmy, an'
I sudn' keer ef I navver saw yo' again, so long's I 'ad 'im."
"Is thot truth, Essy?"
"It's Gawd's truth."
He put out his hand and caressed the child's downy head as if it was the head of some young animal.
"I wish I could do more fer 'im, Essy. I will, maaybe, soom daay."
"I wouldn' lat yo'. I wouldn' tooch yo're mooney now ef I could goa out t' wark an' look affter 'im too. I wouldn' tooch a panny of it, I wouldn'."
"Dawn' yo' saay thot, Essy. Yo' dawn' want to spite mae, do yo'?"
"I didn' saay it t' spite yo', Jimmy. I said it saw's yo' sudn' feel saw baad."
He smiled mournfully.
"Poor Essy," he said.
She gave him a queer look. "Yo' needn' pity mae," she said.
* * * * *
He went away considerably relieved in his mind, but still suffering that sullen uneasiness in his soul.
XLIV
It was the last week in June.
Mary Cartaret sat in the door of the cottage by the beck. And in her lap she held Essy's baby. Essy had run in to the last cottage in the row to look after her great aunt, the Widow Gale, who had fallen out of bed in the night.
The Widow Gale, in her solitude, had formed the habit of falling out of bed. But this time she had hurt her head, and Essy had gone for the doctor and had met Miss Mary in the village and Mary had come with her to help.
For by good luck—better luck than the Widow Gale deserved—it was a
Wednesday. Rowcliffe had sent word that he would come at three.
It was three now.
And as he passed along the narrow path he saw Mary Cartaret in the doorway with the baby in her lap.
She smiled at him as he went by.
"I'm making myself useful," she said.
"Oh, more than that!"
His impression was that Mary had made herself beautiful. He looked back over his shoulder and laughed as he hurried on.
Up till now it hadn't occurred to him that Mary could be beautiful. But it didn't puzzle him. He knew how she had achieved that momentary effect.
He knew and he was to remember. For the effect repeated itself.
As he came back Mary was standing in the path, holding the baby in her arms. She was looking, she said, for Essy. Would Essy be coming soon?
Rowcliffe did not answer all at once. He stood contemplating the picture. It wasn't all Mary. The baby did his part. He had been "short-coated" that month, and his thighs, crushed and delicately creased, showed rose red against the white rose of Mary's arm. She leaned her head, brooding tenderly, to his, and his head (he was a dark baby) was dusk to her flame.
Rowcliffe smiled. "Why?" he said. "Do you want to get rid of him?"
As if unconsciously she pressed the child closer to her. As if unconsciously she held his head against her breast. And when his fingers worked there, in their way, she covered them with her hand.
"No," she said. "He's a nice baby. (Aren't you a nice baby? There!)
Essy's unhappy because he's going to have blue eyes and dark hair. But
I think they're the prettiest, don't you?"
"Yes," said Rowcliffe.
He was grave and curt.
And Mary remembered that that was what Gwenda had—blue eyes and dark hair.
It was what Gwenda's children might have had, too. She felt that she had made him think of Gwenda.
Then Essy came and took the baby from her.
"'E's too 'eavy fer yo', Miss," she said. She laughed as she took him; she gazed at him with pride and affection unabashed. His one fault, for Essy, was that, though he had got Greatorex's eyes, he had not got Greatorex's hair.
Mary and Rowcliffe went back together.
"You're coming in to tea, aren't you?" she said.
"Rather." He had got into the habit again of looking in at the Vicarage for tea every Wednesday. They were having tea in the orchard now. And in June the Vicarage orchard was a pleasanter place than the surgery.
It was in fact a very pleasant place. Pleasanter than the gray and amber drawing-room.
When Rowcliffe came to think of it, he owed the Cartarets many pleasant things. So he had formed another habit of asking them back to tea in his orchard. He had had no idea what a pleasant place his orchard could be too.
Now, though Rowcliffe nearly always had tea alone with Mary at the Vicarage, Mary never came to tea at Rowcliffe's house alone. She always brought Alice with her. And Rowcliffe found that a nuisance. For one thing, Alice had the air of being dragged there against her will, so completely had she recovered from him. For another, he couldn't talk to Mary quite so well. He didn't know that he wanted to talk to Mary. He didn't know that he particularly wanted to be alone with her, but somehow Alice's being there made him want it.
He was to be alone with Mary to-day, in the orchard.
* * * * *
The window of the Vicar's study raked the orchard. But that didn't matter, for the Vicar was not at home this Wednesday.
The orchard waited for them. Two wicker-work armchairs and the little round tea-table were set out under the trees. Mary's knitting lay in one of the chairs. She had the habit of knitting while she talked, or while Rowcliffe talked and she listened. The act of knitting disposed her to long silences. It also occupied her, so that Rowcliffe, when he liked, could be silent too.
But generally he talked and Mary listened.
They hadn't many subjects. But Mary made the most of what they had. And she always knew the precise moment when Rowcliffe had ceased to be interested in any one of them. She knew, as if by instinct, all his moments.
They were talking now, at tea-time, about the Widow Gale. Mary wanted to know how the poor thing was getting on. The Widow Gale had been rather badly shaken and she had bruised her poor old head and one hip. But she wouldn't fall out of bed again to-night. Rowcliffe had barricaded the bed with a chest of drawers. Afterward there must be a rail or something.
Mary was interested in the Widow Gale as long as Rowcliffe liked to talk about her. But the Widow Gale didn't carry them very far.
What would have carried them far was Rowcliffe himself. But Rowcliffe never wanted to talk about himself to Mary. When Mary tried to lead gently up to him, Rowcliffe shied. He wouldn't talk about himself any more than he would talk about Gwenda.
But Mary didn't want to talk about Gwenda either now. So that her face showed the faintest flicker of dismay when Rowcliffe suddenly began to talk about her.
"Have you any idea," he said, "when your sister's coming back?"
"She won't be long," said Mary. "She's only gone to Upthorne village."
"I meant your other sister."
"Oh, Gwenda——"
Mary brooded. And the impression her brooding made on Rowcliffe was that Mary knew something about Gwenda she did not want to tell.
"I don't think," said Mary gravely, "that Gwenda ever will come back again. At least not if she can help it. I thought you knew that."
"I suppose I must have known."
He left it there.
Mary took up her knitting. She was making a little vest for Essy's baby. Rowcliffe watched it growing under her hands.
"As I can't knit, do you mind my smoking?"
She didn't.
"If more women knitted," he said, "it would be a good thing. They wouldn't be bothered so much with nerves."
"I don't do it for nerves. I haven't any," said Mary.
He laughed. "No, I don't think you have."
She fell into one of her gentle silences. A silence not of her own brooding, he judged. It had no dreams behind it and no imagination that carried her away. A silence, rather, that brought her nearer to him, that waited on his mood.
His eyes watched under half-closed lids the movements of her hands and the pretty droop of her head. And he said to himself, "How sweet she is. And how innocent. And good."
Their chairs were set near together in the small plot of grass. The little trees of the orchard shut them in. He began to notice things about her that he had not noticed before, the shape and color of her finger nails, the modeling of her supple wrists, the way her ears were curved and laid close to her rather broad head. He saw that her skin was milk-white at the throat, and honey-white at her ears, and green-white, the white of an elder flower, at the roots of her red hair.
And as she unwound her ball of wool it rolled out of her lap and fell between her feet.
She stooped suddenly, bringing under Rowcliffe's eyes the nape of her neck, shining with golden down, and her shoulders, sun-warmed and rosy under the thin muslin of her blouse.
They dived at the same moment, and as their heads came up again their faces would have touched but that Rowcliffe suddenly drew back his own.
"I say, I do beg your pardon!"
It was odd, but in the moment of his recoil from that imminent contact Rowcliffe remembered the little red-haired nurse. Not that there was much resemblance; for, though the little nurse was sweet, she was not altogether innocent, neither was she what good people like Mary Cartaret would call good. And Mary, leaning back in her chair with the recovered ball in her lap, was smiling at his confusion with an innocence and goodness of which he could have no doubt.
When he tried to account to himself for the remembrance he supposed it must have been the red hair that did it.
And up to the end and to the end of the end Rowcliffe never knew that, though he had been made subject to a sequence of relentless inhibitions and of suggestions overpowering in their nature and persistently sustained, it was ultimately by aid of that one incongruous and irresistible association that Mary Cartaret had cast her spell.
He had never really come under it until that moment.
* * * * *
July passed. It was the end of August. To the west Karva and Morfe High Moor were purple. To the east the bare hillsides with their limestone ramparts smouldered in mist and sun, or shimmered, burning like any hillside of the south. The light even soaked into the gray walls of Garth in its pastures. The little plum-trees in the Vicarage orchard might have been olive trees twinkling in the sun.
Mary was in the Vicar's bedroom, looking now at the door, and now at her own image in the wardrobe glass. It was seven o'clock in the evening and she had chosen a perilous moment for the glass. She wore a childlike frock of rough green silk; it had no collar but was cut square at the neck showing her white throat. The square was bordered with an embroidered design of peacock's eyes. The parted waves of her red hair were burnished with hard brushing; its coils lay close, and smooth as a thick round cap. It needed neither comb nor any ornament.
Mary had dressed, for Rowcliffe was coming to dinner. Such a thing had never been heard of at the Vicarage; but it had come to pass. And as Mary thought of how she had accomplished it, she wondered what Alice could possibly have meant when she said to her "There are moments when I hate you," as she hooked her up the back.
For it never could have happened if she had not persuaded the Vicar (and herself as well) that she was asking Rowcliffe on Alice's account.
The Vicar had come gradually to see that if Alice must be married she had better marry Rowcliffe and have done with it. He had got used to Rowcliffe and he rather liked him; so he had only held out against the idea for a fortnight or so. He had even found a certain austere satisfaction in the thought that he, the doctor, who had tried to terrify him about Ally's insanity, having thrown that bomb into the peaceful Vicarage, should be blown up, as it were, with his own explosion.
The Vicar never doubted that it was Ally that Rowcliffe wanted. For the idea of his wanting Gwenda was so unpleasant to him that he had dismissed it as preposterous; as for Mary, he had made up his mind that Mary would never dream of marrying and leaving him, and that, if she did, he would put his foot down.
There had been changes in the Vicarage in the last two months. The shabby gray and amber drawing-room was not all shabbiness and not all gray and amber now. There were new cretonne covers on the chairs and sofa, and pure white muslin curtains at the windows, and the lamp had a new frilled petticoat. Every afternoon Mrs. Gale was arrayed in a tight black gown and irreproachable cap and apron.
All day long Mary and Mrs. Gale had worked like galley slaves over the preparations for dinner, and between them they had achieved perfection. What was more they had produced an effect of achieving it every day, clear soup, mayonnaise salad and cheese straws and all.
And the black coffee made by Mary and served in the orchard afterward was perfection too.
And the impression made on Rowcliffe by the Vicarage was that of a house and a household rehabilitated after a long period of devastation, by the untiring, selfless labor of a woman who was good and sweet.
After they had drunk Mary's coffee the Vicar strolled away to his study so as to leave Rowcliffe alone with Mary, and Alice strolled away heaven knew where so as to leave Mary alone with Rowcliffe. And the Vicar said to himself, "Mary is really doing it very well. Ally ought to be grateful to her."
But Ally wasn't a bit grateful. She said to herself, "I've half a mind to tell him; only Gwenda would hate me." And she called over her shoulder as she strolled away, "You'd better not stay out too long, you two. It's going to rain."
Morfe High Moor hangs over Garth and a hot and swollen cloud was hanging over Morfe High Moor. Above the gray ramparts the very east was sultry. In the orchard under the low plum-trees it was as airless as in a tent.
Rowcliffe didn't want to stay out too long in the orchard. He knew that the window of the Vicar's study raked it. So he asked Mary if she would come with him for a stroll. (His only criticism of Mary was that she didn't walk enough.)
Mary thought, "My nice frock will be ruined if the rain comes." But she went.
"Shall it be the moor or the fields?" he said.
Mary thought again, and said, "The fields."
He was glad she hadn't said "The moor."
They strolled past the village and turned into the pasture that lay between the high road and the beck. The narrow paths led up a slope from field to field through the gaps in the stone walls. The fields turned with the turning of the dale and with that turning of the road that Rowcliffe knew, under Karva. Instinctively, with a hand on her arm he steered her, away from the high road and its turning, toward the beck, so that they had their backs to the thunder storm as it came up over Karva and the High Moor.
It was when they were down in the bottom that it burst.
There was shelter on the further side of the last field. They ran to it, climbed, and crouched together under the stone wall.
Rowcliffe took off the light overcoat he wore and tried to put it on her. But Mary wouldn't let him. She looked at his clothes, at the round dinner jacket with its silk collar and at the beautiful evening trousers with their braided seams. He insisted. She refused. He insisted still, and compromised by laying the overcoat round both of them.
And they crouched together under the wall, sitting closer so that the coat might cover them.
It thundered and lightened. The rain pelted them from the high batteries of Karva. And Rowcliffe drew Mary closer. She laughed like a happy child.
Rowcliffe sighed.
It was after he had sighed that he kissed her under the cover of the coat.
* * * * *
They sat there for half an hour; three-quarters; till the storm ceased with the rising of the moon.
* * * * *
"I'm afraid the pretty frock's spoiled," he said.
"That doesn't matter. Your poor suit's ruined."
He laughed.
"Whatever's been ruined," he said, "it was worth it."
Hand in hand they went back together through the drenched fields.
At the first gap he stopped.
"It's settled?" he said. "You won't go back on it? You do care for me? And you will marry me?"
"Yes."
"Soon?"
"Yes; soon."
At the last gap he stopped again.
"Mary," he said, "I suppose you knew about Gwenda?"
"I knew there was something. What was it?"
He had said to himself, "I shall have to tell her. I shall have to say
I cared for her."
What he did say was, "There was nothing in it. It's all over. It was all over long ago."
"I knew," she said, "it was all over."
And the solemn white moon came up, the moon that Gwenda loved; it came up over Greffington Edge and looked at them.
XLV
It was Sunday afternoon, the last Sunday of August, the first since that evening (it was a Thursday) when Steven Rowcliffe had dined at the Vicarage. Mary had announced her engagement the next day.
The news had an extraordinary effect on Alice and the Vicar.
Mary had come to her father in his study on Friday evening after Prayers. She informed him of the bare fact in the curtest manner, without preface or apology or explanation. A terrible scene had followed; at least the Vicar's part in it had been terrible. Nothing he had ever said to Gwenda could compare with what he then said to Mary. Alice's behavior he had been prepared for. He had expected anything from Gwenda; but from Mary he had not expected this. It was her treachery he resented, the treachery of a creature he had depended on and trusted. He absolutely forbade the engagement. He said it was unheard of. He spoke of her "conduct" as if it had been disgraceful or improper. He declared that "that fellow" Rowcliffe should never come inside his house again. He bullied and threatened and bullied again. And through it all Mary sat calm and quiet and submissive. The expression of the qualities he had relied on, her sweetness and goodness, never left her face. She replied to his violence, "Yes, Papa. Very well, Papa, I see." But, as Gwenda had warned him, bully as he would, Mary beat him in the end.
She looked meekly down at the hearth-rug and said, "I know how you feel about it, Papa dear. I understand all you've got to say and I'm sorry. But it isn't any good. You know it isn't just as well as I do."
It might have been Gwenda who spoke to him, only that Gwenda could never have looked meek.
The Vicar had not recovered from the shock. He was convinced that he never would recover from it. But on that Sunday he had found a temporary oblivion, dozing in his study between two services.
There had been no scene like that with Alice. But what had passed between the sisters had been even worse.
Mary had gone straight from the study to Ally's room. Ally was undressing.
Ally received the news in a cruel silence. She looked coldly, sternly almost, and steadily at Mary.
"You needn't have told me that," she said at last. "I could see what you were doing the other night."
"What I was doing?"
"Yes, you. I don't imagine Steven Rowcliffe did it"
"Really Ally—what do you suppose I did?"
"I don't know what it was. But I know you did something and I know that—whatever it was—I wouldn't have done it."
And Mary answered quietly. "If I were you, Ally, I wouldn't show my feelings quite so plainly."
And Ally looked at her again.
"It's not my feelings—" she said.
Mary reddened. "I don't know what you mean."
"You'll know, some day," Ally said and turned her back on her.
* * * * *
Mary went out, closing the door softly, as if she spared her sick sister's unreasonably irritated nerves. She felt rather miserable as she undressed alone in her bedroom. She was wounded in her sweetness and her goodness, and she was also a little afraid of what Ally might take it into her head to say or do. She didn't try to think what Ally had meant. Her sweetness and goodness, with their instinct of self-preservation, told her that it might be better not.
The August night was warm and tender, and, when Mary had got into bed and lay stretched out in contentment under the white sheet, she began to think of Rowcliffe to the exclusion of all other interests; and presently, between a dream and a dream, she fell asleep.
* * * * *
But Ally could not sleep.
She lay till dawn thinking and thinking, and turning from side to side between her thoughts. They were not concerned with Gwenda or with Rowcliffe. After her little spurt of indignation she had ceased to think about Gwenda or Rowcliffe either. Mary's news had made her think about herself, and her thoughts were miserable. Ally was so far like her father the Vicar, that the idea of Mary's marrying was intolerable to her and for precisely the same reason, because she saw no prospect of marrying herself. Her father had begun by forbidding Mary's engagement but he would end by sanctioning it. He would never sanction her marriage to Jim Greatorex.
Even if she defied her father and married Jim Greatorex in spite of him there would be almost as much shame in it as if, like Essy, she had never married him at all.
And she couldn't live without him.
Ally had suffered profoundly from the shock that had struck her down under the arcades on the road to Upthorne. It had left her more than ever helpless, more than ever subject to infatuation, more than ever morally inert. Ally's social self had grown rigid in the traditions of her class, and she was still aware of the unsuitability of her intimacy with Jim Greatorex; but disaster had numbed her once poignant sense of it. She had yielded to his fascination partly through weakness, partly in defiance, partly in the sheer, healthy self-assertion of her suffering will and her frustrated senses. But she had not will enough to defy her father. She credited him with an infinite capacity to crush and wound. And for a day and a half the sight of Mary's happiness—a spectacle which Mary did not spare her—-had made Ally restless. Under the incessant sting of it her longing for Greatorex became insupportable.
On Sunday the Vicar was still too deeply afflicted by the same circumstance to notice Ally's movements, and Ally took advantage of his apathy to excuse herself from Sunday school that afternoon. And about three o'clock she was at Upthorne Farm. She and Greatorex had found a moment after morning service to arrange the hour.
* * * * *
And now they were standing together in the doorway of the Farmhouse.
In the house behind them, in the mistal and the orchard, in the long marshes of the uplands and on the brooding hills there was stillness and solitude.
Maggie had gone up to her aunt at Bar Hill. The farm servants were scattered in their villages.
Alice had just told Greatorex of Mary's engagement and the Vicar's opposition.
"Eh, I was lookin' for it," he said. "But I maade sure it was your oother sister."
"So did I, Jim. So it was. So it would have been, only—"
She stopped herself. She wasn't going to give Mary away to Jim.
He looked at her.
"Wall, it's nowt t' yo, is it?"
"No. It's nothing to me—now. How did you know I cared for him?"
"I knew because I looved yo. Because I was always thinkin' of yo.
Because I watched yo with him."
"Oh Jim—would other people know?"
"Naw. Nat they. They didn't look at yo the saame as I did."
He became thoughtful.
"Wall—this here sattles it," he said presently. "Yo caann't be laft all aloan in t' Vicarage. Yo'll 'ave t' marry mae."
"No," she said. "It won't be like that. It won't, really. If my father won't let my sister marry Dr. Rowcliffe, you don't suppose he'll let me marry you? It makes it more impossible than ever. That's what I came to tell you."
"It's naw use yo're tallin' mae. I won't hear it."
He bent to her.
"Ally—d'yo knaw we're aloan here?"
"Yes, Jim."
"We're saafe till Naddy cooms back for t' milkin'. We've three hours."
She shook her head. "Only an hour and a half, Jim. I must be back for tea."
"Yo'll 'ave tae here. Yo've had it before. I'll maake it for yo."
"I daren't, Jim. They'll expect me. They'll wonder."
"Ay, 'tis thot waay always. Yo're no sooner coom than yo've got to be back for this, thot and toother. I'm fair sick of it."
"So am I."
She sighed.
"Wall then—yo must end it."
"How can I end it?"
"Yo knaw how."
"Oh Jim—darling—haven't I told you?"
"Yo've toald mae noothin' that makes a hap'orth o' difference to mae.
Yo've coom to mae. Thot's all I keer for."
He put his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward the house-place.
"Let me shaw yo t' house—now you've coom."
His voice pleaded and persuaded. In spite of its north-country accent Ally loved his voice. It sounded musical and mournful, like the voices of the mountain sheep coming from far across the moor and purified by distance.
He took her through the kitchen and the little parlor at the end of the house.
As he looked round it, trying to see it with her eyes, doubt came to him. But Ally, standing there, looked toward the kitchen.
"Will Maggie be there?" she said.
"Ay, Maaggie'll be there, ready when yo want her."
"But," she said, "I don't want her."
He followed her look.
"I'll 'ave it all claned oop and paapered and paainted. Look yo—I could have a hole knocked through t' back wall o' t' kitchen and a winder put there—and roon oop a wooden partition and make a passage for yo t' goa to yore awn plaace, soa's Maaggie'll not bae in yore road."
"You needn't. I like it best as it is."
"Do yo? D'yo mind thot Soonda yo caame laasst year? Yo've aassked mae whan it was I started thinkin' of yo. It was than. Thot daay whan yo sot there in thot chair by t' fire, taalkin' t' mae and drinkin' yore tae so pretty."
She drew closer to him.
"Did you really love me then?"
"Ay—I looved yo than."
She pondered it.
"Jim—what would you have done if I hadn't loved you?"
He choked back something in his throat before he answered her. "What sud I have doon? I sud have goan on looving yo joost the saame.
"We'll goa oopstairs now."
He took her back and out through the kitchen and up the stone stairs that turned sharply in their narrow place in the wall. He opened the door at the head of the landing.
"This would bae our room. 'Tis t' best."
He took her into the room where John Greatorex had died. It was the
marriage chamber, the birth-chamber, and the death-chamber of all the
Greatorexes. The low ceiling still bulged above the big double bed
John Greatorex had died in.
The room was tidy and spotlessly clean. The walls had been whitewashed. Fresh dimity curtains hung at the window. The bed was made, a clean white counterpane was spread on it.
The death room had been made ready for the living. The death-bed waited for the bride.
Ally stood there, under the eyes of her lover, looking at those things. She shivered slightly.
She said to herself, "It's the room his father died in."
And there came on her a horror of the room and of all that had happened in it, a horror of death and of the dead.
She turned away to the window and looked out. The long marshland stretched below, white under the August sun. Beyond it the green hills with their steep gray cliffs rose and receded, like a coast line, head after head.
To Ally the scene was desolate beyond all bearing and the house was terrible.
Her eyelids pricked. Her mouth trembled. She kept her back turned to Greatorex while she stifled a sob with her handkerchief pressed tight to her lips.
He saw and came to her and put his arm round her.
"What is it, Ally? What is it, loove?"
She looked up at him.
"I don't know, Jim. But—I think—I'm afraid."
"What are you afraid of?"
She thought a moment. "I'm afraid of father."
"Yo med bae ef yo staayed with him. Thot's why I want yo t' coom to mae."
He looked at her.
"'Tisn' thot yo're afraid of. 'Tis soomthin' alse thot yo wawn't tall mae."
"Well—I think—I'm a little bit afraid of this house. It's—it's so horribly lonely."
He couldn't deny it.
"A'y; it's rackoned t' bae loanly. But I sall navver leaave yo.
I'm goain' t' buy a new trap for yo, soa's yo can coom with mae and
Daaisy. Would yo like thot, Ally?"
"Yes, Jim, I'd love it. But——"
"It'll not bae soa baad. Whan I'm out in t' mistal and in t' fields and thot, yo'll have Maaggie with yo."
She whispered. "Jim—I can't bear Maggie. I'm afraid of her."
"Afraid o' pore Maaggie?"
He took it in. He wondered. He thought he understood.
"Maaggie sall goa. I'll 'ave anoother. An' yo sall 'ave a yooung laass t' waait on yo. Ef it's Maaggie, shea sall nat stand in yore road."
"It isn't Maggie—altogether."
"Than—for Gawd's saake, loove, what is it?"
She sobbed. "It's everything. It's something in this house—in this room."
He looked at her gravely now.
"Naw," he said slowly, "'tis noon o' thawse things. It's mae. It's mae yo're afraid of. Yo think I med bae too roough with yo."
But at that she cried out with a little tender cry and pressed close to him.
"No—no—no—it isn't you. It isn't. It couldn't be."
He crushed her in his arms. His mouth clung to her face and passed over it and covered it with kisses.
"Am I too roough? Tall mae—tall mae."
"No," she whispered.
He pushed back her hat from her forehead, kissing her hair. She took off her hat and flung it on the floor.
His voice came fast and thick.
"Kiss mae back ef yo loove mae."
She kissed him. She stiffened and leaned back in the crook of his arm that held her.
His senses swam. He grasped her as if he would have lifted her bodily from the floor. She was light in his arms as a child. He had turned her from the window.
He looked fiercely round the room that shut them in. His eyes lowered; they fixed themselves on the bed with its white counterpane. They saw under the white counterpane the dead body of his father stretched there, and the stain on the grim beard tilted to the ceiling.
He loosed her and pushed her from him.
"We moost coom out o' this," he muttered.
He pushed her from the room, gently, with a hand on her shoulder, and made her go before him down the stairs.
He went back into the room to pick up her hat.
He found her waiting for him, looking back, at the turn of the stair where John Greatorex's coffin had stuck in the corner of the wall.
"Jim—I'm so frightened," she said.
"Ay. Yo'll bae all right downstairs."
They stood in the kitchen, each looking at the other, each panting, she in her terror and he in his agony.
"Take me away," she said. "Out of the house. That room frightened me.
There's something there."
"Ay;" he assented. "There med bae soomthing. Sall we goa oop t' fealds?"
* * * * *
The Three Fields looked over the back of Upthorne Farm. Naked and gray, the great stone barn looked over the Three Fields. A narrow track led to it, through the gaps, slantwise, from the gate of the mistal.
Above the fields the barren, ruined hillside ended and the moor began. It rolled away southward and westward, in dusk and purple and silver green, utterly untamed, uncaught by the network of the stone walls.
The barn stood high and alone on the slope of the last field, a long, broad-built nave without its tower. A single thorn-tree crouched beside it.
Alice Cartaret and Greatorex went slowly up the Three Fields. There was neither thought nor purpose in their going.
The quivering air was like a sheet of glass let down between plain and hill.
Slowly, with mournful cries, a flock of mountain sheep came down over the shoulder of the moor. Behind them a solitary figure topped the rise as Alice and Greatorex came up the field-track.
Alice stopped in the track and turned.
"Somebody's coming over the moor. He'll see us."
Greatorex stood scanning the hill.
"'Tis Nad, wi' t' dawg, drivin' t' sheep."
"Oh, Jim, he'll see us."
"Nat he!"
But he drew her behind the shelter of the barn.
"He'll come down the fields. He'll be sure to see us."
"Ef he doos, caann't I walk in my awn fealds wi' my awn sweetheart?"
"I don't want to be seen," she moaned.
"Wall—?" he pushed open the door of the barn. "Wae'll creep in here than, tall he's paassed."
A gray light slid through the half-shut door and through the long, narrow slits in the walls. From the open floor of the loft there came the sweet, heavy scent of hay.
"He'll see the door open. He'll come in. He'll find us here."
"He wawn't."
But Jim shut the door.
"We're saafe enoof. But 'tis naw plaace for yo. Yo'll mook yore lil feet. Staay there—where yo are—tell I tall yo."
He groped his way in the half darkness up the hay loft stair. She heard his foot going heavily on the floor over her head.
He drew back the bolt and pushed open the door in the high wall. The sunlight flooded the loft; it streamed down the stair. The dust danced in it.
Jim stood on the stair. He smiled down at Alice where she waited below.
"Coom oop into t' haay loft, Ally."
He stooped. He held out his hand and she climbed to him up the stair.
They sat there on the floor of the loft, silent, in the attitude of children who crouch hiding in their play. He had strewn for her a carpet of the soft, sweet hay and piled it into cushions.
"Oh, Jim," she said at last. "I'm so frightened. I'm so horribly frightened."
She stretched out her arm and slid her hand into his.
Jim's hand pressed hers and let it go. He leaned forward, his elbows propped on his knees, his hands clutching his forehead. And in his thick, mournful voice he spoke.
"Yo wouldn't bae freetened ef yo married mae. There'd bae an and of these scares, an' wae sudn't 'ave t' roon these awful risks."
"I can't marry you, darling. I can't."
"Yo caann't, because yo're freetened o' mae. I coom back to thot. Yo think I'm joost a roough man thot caann't understand yo. But I do. I couldn't bae roough with yo, Ally, anny more than Nad, oop yon, could bae roough wi' t' lil laambs."
He was lying flat on his back now, with his arms stretched out above his head. He stared up at the rafters as he went on.
"Yo wouldn't bae freetened o' mae ef yo looved mae as I loove yo."
That brought her to his side with her soft cry.
For a moment he lay rigid and still.
Then he turned and put his arm round her. The light streamed on them where they lay. Through the open doorway of the loft they heard the cry of the sheep coming down into the pasture.
* * * * *
Greatorex got up and slid the door softly to.
XLVI
Morfe Fair was over and the farmers were going home.
A broken, straggling traffic was on the roads from dale to dale. There were men who went gaily in spring carts and in wagons. There were men on horseback and on foot who drove their sheep and their cattle before them.
A train of three were going slowly up Garthdale, with much lingering to gather together and rally the weary and bewildered flocks.
Into this train there burst, rocking at full gallop, a trap drawn by Greatorex's terrified and indignant mare. Daisy was not driven by Greatorex, for the reins were slack in his dropped hands, she was urged, whipped up, and maddened to her relentless speed. Her open nostrils drank the wind of her going.
Greatorex's face flamed and his eyes were brilliant. They declared a furious ecstasy. Ever and again he rose and struggled to stand upright and recover his grip of the reins. Ever and again he was pitched backward on to the seat where he swayed, perilously, with the swaying of the trap.
Behind him, in the bottom of the trap, two young calves, netted in, pushed up their melancholy eyes and innocent noses through the mesh. Hurled against each other, flung rhythmically from side to side, they shared the blind trouble of the man and the torment of the mare.
For the first two miles out of Morfe the trap charged, scattering men and beasts before it and taking the curves of the road at a tangent. With the third mile the pace slackened. The mare had slaked her thirst for the wind of her going and Greatorex's fury was appeased. At the risk of pitching forward over the step he succeeded in gathering up the reins as they neared the dangerous descent to Garthdale.
He had now dropped from the violence of his ecstasy into a dream-like state in which he was borne swaying on a vague, interminable road that overhung, giddily, the bottomless pit and was flanked by hills that loomed and reeled, that oppressed him with their horrible immensity.
He passed the bridge, the church, the Vicarage, the schoolhouse with its beckoning tree, and by the mercy of heaven he was unaware of them.
At the turn of the road, On Upthorne hill, the mare, utterly sobered by the gradient, bowed her head and went with slow, wise feet, taking care of the trap and of her master.
As for Greatorex, he had ceased to struggle. And at the door of his house his servant Maggie received him in her arms.
* * * * *
He stayed in bed the whole of the next day, bearing his sickness, while Maggie waited on him. And in the evening when he lay under her hand, weak, but clear-headed, she delivered herself of what was in her mind.
"Wall—yo may thank Gawd yo're laayin' saafe in yore bed, Jim Greatorex. It'd sarve yo right ef Daaisy 'd lat yo coom hoam oopside down wi yore 'ead draggin' in t' road. Soom daay yo'll bae laayin' there with yore nack brawken.
"Ay, yo may well scootle oonder t' sheets, though there's nawbody but mae t' look at yo. Yo'd navver tooch anoother drap o' thot felthy stoof, Jimmy, ef yo could sea yoreself what a sight yo bae. Naw woonder Assy Gaale wouldn't 'ave yo, for all yo've laft her wi' t' lil baaby."
"Who toald yo she wouldn't 'ave mae?"
"Naybody toald mae. But I knaw. I knaw. I wouldn't 'ave yo myself ef yo aassked mae. I want naw droonkards to marry mae."
Greatorex became pensive.
"Yo'd bae freetened o' mae, Maaggie?" he asked.
And Maggie, seeing her advantage, drove it home.
"There's more than mae and Assy thot's freetened t' marry yo," she said.
He darkened. "Yo 'oald yore tongue. Yo dawn't knaw what yo're saayin', my laass."
"Dawn't I? There's more than mae thot knaws, Mr. Greatorex. Assy isn't t' awnly woon yo've maade talk o' t' plaace."
"What do yo mane? Speaak oop. What d'yo mane——Yo knaw?"
"Yo'd best aassk Naddy. He med tall ye 'oo was with yo laasst Soonda oop t' feald in t' girt byre."
"Naddy couldn't sae 'oo 't was. Med a been Assy. Med a been yo."
"'T wasn' mae, Mr. Greatorex, an' 't was n' Assy. Look yo 'ere. I tall yo Assy's freetened o' yo."
"'Oo says she's freetened?"
"I saays it. She's thot freetened thot she'd wash yore sweet'eart's dirty cleathes sooner 'n marry yo."
"She doesn't wash them?"
"Shea does. T' kape yore baaby, Jim Greatorex."
With that she left him.
* * * * *
For the next three months Greatorex was more than ever uneasy in his soul. The Sunday after Maggie's outburst he had sat all morning and afternoon in his parlor with his father's Bible. He had not even tried to see Alice Cartaret.
For three months, off and on, in the intervals of seeing Alice, he longed, with an intense and painful longing, for his God. He longed for him just because he felt that he was utterly separated from him by his sin. He wanted the thing he couldn't have and wasn't fit to have. He wanted it, just as he wanted Alice Cartaret.
And by his sin he did not mean his getting drunk. Greatorex did not think of God as likely to take his getting drunk very seriously, any more than he had seemed to take Maggie and Essy seriously. For Greatorex measured God's reprobation by his own repentance.
His real offense against God was his offense against Alice Cartaret.
He had got drunk in order to forget it.
But that resource would henceforth be denied him. He was not going to get drunk any more, because he knew that if he did Alice Cartaret wouldn't marry him.
Meanwhile he nourished his soul on its own longing, on the Psalms of
David and on the Book of Job.
Greatorex would have made a happy saint. But he was a most lugubrious sinner.
XLVII
The train from Durlingham rolled slowly into Reyburn station.
Gwenda Cartaret leaned from the window of a third class carriage and looked up and down the platform. She got out, handing her suit-case to a friendly porter. Nobody had come to meet her. They were much too busy up at the Vicarage.
From the next compartment there alighted a group of six persons, a lady in widow's weeds, an elderly lady and gentleman who addressed her affectionately as "Fanny, dear," and (obviously belonging to the pair) a very young man and a still younger woman.
There was also a much older man, closely attached to them, but not quite so obviously related.
These six people also looked up and down the platform, expecting to be met. They were interested in Gwenda Cartaret. They gazed at her as they had already glanced, surreptitiously and kindly, on the platform at Durlingham. Now they seemed to be saying to themselves that they were sure it must be she.
Gwenda walked quickly away from them and disappeared through the booking-office into the station yard.
And then Rowcliffe, who had apparently been hiding in the general waiting-room, came out on to the platform.
The six fell upon him with cries of joy and affection.
They were his mother, his paternal uncle and aunt, his two youngest cousins, and Dr. Harker, his best friend and colleague who had taken his place in January when he had been ill.
They had all come down from Leeds for Rowcliffe's wedding.
* * * * *
Rowcliffe's trap and Peacock's from Garthdale stood side by side in the station-yard.
Gwenda in Peacock's trap had left the town before she heard behind her the clanking hoofs of Rowcliffe's little brown horse.
She thought, "He will pass in another minute. I shall see him."
But she did not see him. All the way up Rathdale to Morfe the sound of the wheels and of the clanking hoofs pursued her, and Rowcliffe still hung back. He did not want to pass her.
"Well," said Peacock, "thot beats mae. I sud navver a thought thot t' owd maare could a got away from t' doctor's horse. Nat ef e'd a mind t' paass 'er."
"No," said Gwenda. She was thinking, "It's Mary. It's Mary. How could she, when she knew, when she was on her honor not to think of him?"
And she remembered a conversation she had had with her stepmother two months ago, when the news came. (Robina had seized the situation at a glance and she had probed it to its core.)
"You wanted him to marry Ally, did you? It wasn't much good you're going away if you left him with Mary."
"But," she had said, "Mary knew."
And Robina had answered, marvelously. "You should never have let her.
It was her knowing that did it. You were three women to one man, and
Mary was the one without a scruple. Do you suppose she'd think of Ally
or of you, either?"
And she had tried to be loyal to Mary and to Rowcliffe. She had said,
"If we were three, we all had our innings, and he made his choice."
And Robina, "It was Mary did the choosing."
She had added that Gwenda was a little fool, and that she ought to have known that though Mary was as meek as Moses she was that sort.
She went on, thinking, to the steady clanking of the hoofs.
"I suppose," she said to herself, "she couldn't help it."
The lights of Morfe shone through the November darkness. The little slow mare crawled up the winding hill to the top of the Green; Rowcliffe's horse was slower. But no sooner had Peacock's trap passed the doctor's house on its way out of the village square, than the clanking hoofs went fast.
Rowcliffe was free to go his own pace now.
* * * * *
"Which of you two is going to hook me up?" said Mary.
She was in the Vicar's room, putting on her wedding-gown before the wardrobe glass. Her two sisters were dressing her.
"I will," said Gwenda.
"You'd better let me," said Alice. "I know where the eyes are."
Gwenda lifted up the wedding-veil and held it ready. And while Alice pulled and fumbled Mary gazed at her own reflection and at Alice's.
"You should have done as Mummy said and had your frock made in London, like Gwenda. They'd have given you a decent cut. You look as if you couldn't breathe."
"My frock's all right," said Alice.
Her fingers trembled as she strained at the hooks and eyes.
And in the end it was Gwenda who hooked Mary up while Alice held the veil. She held it in front of her. The long streaming net shivered with the trembling of her hands.
* * * * *
The wedding was at two o'clock. The church was crowded, so were the churchyard and the road beside the Vicarage and the bridge over the beck. Morfe and Greffington had emptied themselves into Garthdale. (Greffington had lent its organist.)
It was only when it was all over that somebody noticed that Jim Greatorex was not there with the village choir. "Celebrating a bit too early," somebody said.
And it was only when it was all over that Rowcliffe found Gwenda.
He found her in the long, flat pause, the half-hour of profoundest realisation that comes when the bride disappears to put off her wedding-gown for the gown she will go away in. She had come out to the wedding-party gathered at the door, to tell them that the bride would soon be ready. Rowcliffe and Harker were standing apart, at the end of the path, by the door that led from the garden to the orchard.
He came toward her. Harker drew back into the orchard. They followed him and found themselves alone.
For ten minutes they paced the narrow flagged path under the orchard wall. And they talked, quickly, like two who have but a short time.
"Well—so you've come back at last?"
"At last? I haven't been gone six months."
"You see, time feels longer to us down here."
"That's odd. It goes faster."
"Anyhow, you're not tired of London?"
She stared at him for a second and then looked away.
"Oh no, I'm not tired of it yet."
They turned.
"Shall you stop long here?"
"I'm going back to-morrow."
"To-morrow? You're so glad to get back then?"
"So glad to get back. I only came down for Mary's wedding."
He smiled.
"You won't come for anything but a wedding?"
"A funeral might fetch me."
"Well, Gwenda, I can't say you look as if London agreed with you particularly."
"I can't say you look as if Garthdale agreed very well with you."
"I'm only tired—tired to death."
"I'm sorry."
"I want a holiday. And I'm going to get one—for a month. You look as if you'd been burning the candle at both ends, if you'll forgive my saying so."
"Oh—for all the candles I burn! It isn't such awfully hard work, you know."
"What isn't?"
"What I'm doing."
He stopped straight in the narrow path and looked at her.
"I say, what are you doing?"
She told him.
His face expressed surprise and resentment and a curious wonder and bewilderment.
"But I thought—I thought——They told me you were having no end of a time."
"Tunbridge Wells isn't very amusing. No more is Lady Frances."
Again he stopped dead and stared at her.