CHAPTER VIII.SHEwas 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 fetchhis 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, nowpink 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 hewould 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 timefor 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 bringround 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!Hisvoice! 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, andPamela 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 aquick 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. Ateach 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 Iamhis 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 toorder 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 thefirst, 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 woulddecide 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 tome. 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.”“TheMatador—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 carewornline 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 whoblindly 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 lowtype 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-wellsdon’texist—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 spreadgauntly 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 footon 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 thesteady 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.
SHEwas 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 fetchhis 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, nowpink 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.”
“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.”
“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 hewould 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 timefor 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 bringround 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!Hisvoice! 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, andPamela 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 aquick 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. Ateach 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 Iamhis 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 toorder 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 thefirst, 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 woulddecide 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 tome. 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.”
“TheMatador—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 carewornline 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 whoblindly 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 lowtype 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-wellsdon’texist—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 spreadgauntly 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 footon 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 thesteady 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.