Rupert laughed delightedly and put his arm through hers as he picked up the bag.
"Come in. No doubt you're right."
"I believe he's really afraid of us," she added. "I should be."
As they entered the hall, they saw Miriam floating down the stairs. One hand on the rail kept time with her descent; her black dress, of airy make, fluffed from stair to stair; the white neck holding her little head was as luminous as the pearls she wanted. She paused on one foot with the other pointed.
"Where is he?" she whispered.
"Just coming out of the drawing-room," Rupert answered quickly, encouraging her. "Stay like that. Chin a little higher. Yes. You're like Beatrix Esmond coming down the stairs. Excellent!"
A touch from Helen silenced him as Mildred Caniper and her brother turned the corner of the passage. They both stood still at the sight of this dark-clad vision which rested immobile for an instant before it smiled brilliantly and finished the flight.
"This is Miriam," Mildred Caniper said in hard tones.
Miriam cast a quick, wavering glance at her and returned to meet the gaze of Uncle Alfred, who had not taken her hand. At last, seeing it outstretched, he took it limply.
"Ah—Miriam," he said, with a queer kind of cough.
"She's knocked him all of a heap," Rupert told himself vulgarly as he carried the bag upstairs, and once more he wished he knew what his mother had been like.
At supper, Uncle Alfred was monosyllabic, and the Canipers, realizing that he was much shyer than themselves, became hospitable. Notya made the droll remarks of which she was sometimes capable, and Miriam showed off without fear of a rebuke. It was a comely party, and Mrs. Samson breathed her heavy pleasure in it as she removed the plates. When the meal was over and Uncle Alfred was smoking placidly in the drawing-room, Helen wandered out to the garden gate. There she found John biting an empty pipe.
After their fashion, they kept silence for a time before Helen said, "Would it matter if I went for a walk?"
"I was thinking of having one myself."
"He won't miss you and me," she said. "May I come with you, or were you going to Brent Farm?"
"I'm not going there. Come on."
The wind met them lightly as they headed towards the road. The night was very dark, and the ground seemed to lift itself before them and sink again at their approach.
"It's like butting into a wave," John said. "I keep shutting my eyes, ready for the shock."
"Yes." Helen began to talk as though she were alone. "The moor is always like the sea, when it's green and when it's black. It moves, too, gently. And now the air feels like water, heavy and soft. And yet the wind's far more alive than water. I'd like to have a wind bath every day. Oh, I'm glad we live here."
She stumbled, and John caught her by the elbow.
"Want a hand?"
"No, thank you. It's these slippers."
"High heels?"
"No, a stone. I wonder if the fires are out. It's so long since last night. We'd better not go far, John."
"We'll stop at Halkett's turning."
They took the road, and their pace quickened to the drum beats of their feet.
"It sounds like winter," Helen said.
"But it feels like spring."
She thought she heard resentment for that season in his voice. "Well, why don't you go and tell her?"
"Oh, shut up! What's the use? I've no money. A nice suitor I'd make for a woman like that!"
Helen's voice sang above their footsteps and the swishing of her dress. "Silly, old-fashioned ideas you've got! They're rather insulting to her, I think."
"Perhaps, if she cares; but if she doesn't—She'd send me off like a stray dog."
"That's pride. You shouldn't be proud in love."
"You should be proud in everything, I believe. And what do you know about it?"
"Oh—I think. Can you hear a horse, a long way off? And of course I want to be married, too, but Miriam is sure to be, and then Notya would be left alone. Besides, I couldn't leave the moor, and there's no one but George Halkett here!"
"H'm. You're not going to marry him."
"No, I'm not—but I'm sorry for him."
"You needn't be. He's no good. You must have nothing to do with him. Ask Lily Brent. He tried to kiss her once, the beast, but she nearly broke his nose, and serve him right."
"Oh? Did she mind?"
"Mind!"
"I don't think I should have. He looks clean, and if he really wanted to kiss me very badly, I expect I should let him. It's such a little thing."
"Good heavens, girl!" He stopped in a stride and turned to her. "That kind of charity is very ill-advised."
Her laughter floated over his head with the coolness of the wind. "I hope I shan't have to give way to it."
He continued to be serious. "Well, you're not ignorant. Rupert and I made up our minds to that as soon as we knew anything ourselves; but women are such fools, such fools! Tender-hearted idiots!"
"Is that why you're afraid to go to Lily Brent?" she asked.
"Ah, that's different," he mumbled. "She's more like a man."
Helen was smiling as they walked on. "If you could have Lily Brent and give up your garden, or keep your garden and lose her—"
"I'm not going to talk about it," he said.
"I wanted to know how much love really matters. That horse is much nearer now. We'll see the lights soon. And there's some one by the roadside, smoking. It's George. Good-evening, George."
His deep voice rumbled through the darkness, exchanging salutations. "I'm waiting for the doctor."
"Some one's coming now."
"Yes, it's his old nag. That horse makes you believe in eternity, anyhow."
She felt a sudden, painful anger. "He's a friend of mine—the horse," and quietly, she repeated to herself, "The horse," because he had no name by which she could endear him.
"Is Mr. Halkett worse?" John asked, from the edge of the road.
The red end of Halkett's cigar glowed and faded. "I'm anxious about him."
The yellow lights of the approaching dog-cart swept the borders of the moor and Helen felt herself caught in the illumination. The horse stopped and she heard the doctor's clear-cut voice.
"Is that you, Helen?"
"Yes."
"Anything wrong?"
"No, I'm just here with John," she said and went close to the cart. "And George is waiting for you."
"He'd better hop up, then." He bent towards her. "Did you find the fires?"
She nodded with the vehemence of her gladness that he should remember. "And," she whispered hurriedly, "you were quite right about the doors. Uncle Alfred's going to be a friend."
"That's good. Hullo, Halkett. Get up, will you, and we'll go on. Where's John?"
"Sitting on the bank."
The cart shook under Halkett's added weight, and as he took his seat he bulked enormous in the darkness. Dwarfed by that nearness, the doctor sat with his hat in one hand and gathered the reins up with the other.
"No, just a minute!" Helen cried. "I want to stroke the horse." Her voice had laughter in it.
"There's a patient waiting for me, you know."
"Yes. There! It's done. Go on. Good-night."
The cart took the corner in a blur of lamplight and shadow, tipped over a large stone and disappeared down the high-banked lane, leaving Helen with an impressive, half-alarming memory of the two jolted figures, black, with white ovals for faces, side by side, and Zebedee's spare frame clearing itself, now and then, from the other's breadth.
In the drawing-room, Uncle Alfred sat on one side of the hearth and Miriam on the other. The room was softly lighted by candles and the fire, and at the dimmer end Mr. Pinderwell's bride was smiling. The sound of Mildred Caniper's needle, as she worked at an embroidery frame, was added to the noises of the fire and Uncle Alfred's regular pulling at his pipe. Rupert was proving his capacity for silence on the piano stool.
"And which country," Miriam asked, leaning towards her uncle, "do you like best?"
"Oh—well, I hardly know."
"I never care for the sound of Africa—so hot."
"Hottish," conceded Uncle Alfred.
"Oh, Lord!" Rupert groaned in spirit.
"And South America, full of crocodiles, isn't it?"
"Is it?"
"Haven't you been there?"
"Yes, yes—parts of it."
"Miriam," said Mildred Caniper, "Alfred is not a geography book."
"But he ought to be," she dared.
"And," the cool voice went on, "you never cared for geography, I remember."
Miriam sat back sullenly, stiffening until her prettily shod feet reached an inch further along the fender. Rupert would not relieve the situation and the visitor smoked on, watching Miriam through his tobacco smoke, until a knock came at the door.
"I beg your pardon, M'm—"
"It's Mother Samson," said Rupert. "Shall I look after her?"
"No. I will go." The door closed quietly behind Mrs. Caniper.
Uncle Alfred lowered his pipe. "You are extraordinarily like your mother," he said in quick and agitated tones, and the life of the room was changed amazingly. Rupert turned on his seat, and his elbow scraped the piano notes so that they jangled like a hundred questions. Miriam slipped out of her chair.
"Am I?" she asked from her knees. "I knew I was. Tell me!"
He put his hand to his breast-pocket. "Ah," he said, as a step sounded in the passage, "perhaps tomorrow—"
Miriam lifted the poker. "Because you mustn't poke the fire, Uncle Alfred," she was saying as Mildred Caniper came back. "You haven't known us long enough." She turned to her stepmother. "Did Mrs. Samson want her money? She's saving up. She's going to have a new dress this summer because she hasn't had one since she was married."
"And if she hadn't married," Rupert went on, feeling like a conspirator, "she would have had one every year."
"That gives one something to think about—yes," said Uncle Alfred, doing his share. He was astonished at himself. He had spent the greater part of his life in avoiding relationships which might hamper him and already he was in league with these young people and finding pleasure in the situation.
Miriam was looking at him darkly, mischievously, from the hearthrug. "Tomorrow," she said, resting on the word, "I'll take you for a walk to see the sights. There are rabbits, sheep, new lambs, very white and lively, a hare if we're lucky, ponies, perhaps, if we go far enough. We've all these things on the moor. Oh," her grimace missed foolishness by the hair's breadth which fortune always meted to her, "it's a wonderful place. Will you come with me?"
He nodded with a guilty quickness. "What are these ponies?"
"Little wild ones, with long tails."
"I'm fond of horses," he said and immediately looked ashamed of the confession. "Ha, ha, 'um," he half hummed, trying to cloak embarrassment.
"I'm fond of all animals," Miriam said with loud bitterness, "but we are only allowed to have a cat."
"Hens," Rupert reminded her.
"They're not animals; they're idiots."
"Would you like to keep a cow in the garden?" Mildred Caniper enquired in the pleasantly cold tones which left Miriam powerless.
Uncle Alfred's tuneless humming began again. "Yes, fond of horses," he said vaguely, his eyes quick on woman and girl.
"And can you ride?" Miriam asked politely, implying that it was not necessary for the whole family to be ill-mannered.
"I've had to—yes, but I don't care about it. No, I like to look at them."
"We rode when we were children," his sister said.
"Hung on."
"Well, yes."
Miriam would not encourage these reminiscences, so belated on the part of her stepmother. "We have a neighbour who grows horses," she said. "And he's a wonderful rider. Rupert, don't you think he'd like to show them to Uncle Alfred? On Saturday afternoon, couldn't you take him to the farm?"
"But I'm going on Saturday," Uncle Alfred interposed.
"Saturday! And today's Thursday! Oh!"
"At least I think so," he said weakly.
Secretly she shook her head at him. "No, no," she signed, and said aloud, "A Sunday in the country—"
"No place of worship within four miles," Rupert announced.
"Ah," Uncle Alfred said with a gleam of humour, "that's distinctly cheering."
Miriam beat her hands together softly. "And yet," she said, "I've sometimes been to church for a diversion. Have you?"
"Never," he answered firmly.
"I counted the bald heads," she said mournfully, "but they didn't last out." She looked up and saw that Uncle Alfred was laughing silently: she glanced over her shoulder and saw Mildred Caniper's lips compressed, and she had a double triumph. This was the moment when it would be wise for her to go to bed. Like a dark flower, lifting itself to the sun, she rose from her knees in a single, steady movement.
"Good-night," she said with a little air. "And we'll have our walk tomorrow?"
He was at the door, holding it open. "Yes, but—in the afternoon, if we may. I am not an early riser, and I don't feel very lively in the mornings."
"Ah," she thought as she went upstairs, "he wouldn't have said that to my mother. He's getting old: but never mind, I'm like a lady in a romance! I believe he loved my mother and I'll make him love me."
She was not allowed time for that achievement. On the morning of the day which was to have been productive of so much happiness, the postman brought a letter with a foreign stamp, and Miriam took it to the kitchen where her stepmother and Helen were discussing meals.
"A letter," Miriam said flippantly, "from Italy."
"Thank you, Miriam. Put it on the table." The faint colour our deepened on her cheeks. "I'm afraid one of you will have to go into the town again. I forgot to ask Rupert to order the meat. Miriam—"
"No, I can't go. I'm engaged to Uncle Alfred."
"I think we might easily persuade him to excuse you. He really dislikes walking, though he would not say so."
"Or," Helen said with tact, "we could get chickens from Lily Brent. Wouldn't that be better?"
"Very well. Now, about sweets."
"This letter," Miriam said, bending over it and growing bold in the knowledge that Uncle Alfred was not far off, "this letter looks as if it wants to be opened. All the way from Italy," she mumbled so that Mildred Caniper could not distinguish the words, "and neglected when it gets here. If he took the trouble to write to me, I wouldn't treat him like that. Poor letter! Poor Mr. Caniper! No wonder he went away to Italy." She stood up. "His writing is very straggly," she said clearly.
Mildred Caniper put out a hand which Miriam pretended not to see.
"Shall I order the chickens?" she asked; but no one answered, for her stepmother was reading the letter, and Helen preserved silence as though she were in a church. With care that the dishes should not click against each other, she put the newly washed china on the dresser and laid the silver in its place, and now and then she glanced at Notya, who stood beside the table. It was some time before she folded the letter with a crackle and looked up. Her eyes wandered from Helen to Miriam, and rested there with an unconsciousness so rare as to be startling.
"Philip is ill," she said in a voice carried by her thoughts to a great distance. She corrected herself. "Your father is ill." She picked up the envelope and looked at it. "That's why his writing is so—straggly." She seemed to be thinking not only of Philip Caniper, but of many things besides, so that her words, like her thoughts, came through obstacles.
Intensely interested in a Notya moved to some sign of an emotion which was not annoyance, Miriam stood in the doorway and took care to make no movement which might betray her; but Helen stared at the fire and suffered the pain she had always felt for her stepmother's distresses.
"However—" Mildred Caniper said at last, and set briskly to work, while Miriam disappeared into the shadows of the hall and Helen watched the flames playing round the kettle in which the water for Uncle Alfred's breakfast was bubbling.
"How ill is he?" she asked.
"Are you speaking of your father?"
"Yes—please."
"I wish you would use names instead of pronouns. A good deal worse, I am afraid."
"And there's nobody to look after him—our father?"
"Certainly there is."
"Oh! I'm glad," Helen said, looking candidly at Notya. "We can't pretend to care about him—can we? But I don't like to have a father who is ill."
"If he had known that—" the other began, and stopped the foolish little sarcasm in time. "It is no use discussing things, Helen. We have to do them."
"Well, let us go to Italy," Helen said.
Mildred Caniper did not conceal her surprise. Her lips dropped apart, and she stood, balancing in a spoon the egg she was about to boil for Uncle Alfred, and gazed at Helen, before she recovered herself and said easily, "You are rather absurd, Helen, aren't you?"
But Helen knew that she was not. "I thought that was just what you were wanting to do," she answered.
The egg went into the saucepan and was followed by another.
"We can't," Mildred Caniper said with the admonishing air which sat like an imposition on her; "we cannot always do as we wish."
"Oh, I know that," Helen said. She put on a pair of gloves, armed herself with brooms and dusters, and left the room.
It seemed to her that people wilfully complicated life. She put a just value on the restraint which had been a great part of her training, but a pretence which had the transparency of its weakness moved her to a patient kind of scorn, and in that moment she had a flash of insight which showed her that she had sometimes failed to understand her stepmother because she had not suspected the variability of the elder woman's character. Mildred Caniper produced an impression of strength in which she herself did not believe; she had imprisoned her impulses in coldness, and they only escaped in the sharp utterances of her tongue; she was uncertain of her power, and she insisted on its acceptance.
"And she's miserable, miserable," Helen's heart cried out, and she laughed unhappily herself. "And Miriam's afraid of her! There's nothing to be afraid of. She knows that, and she's afraid we'll find it out all the time. And it might all have been so simple and so—so smooth."
Helen was considered by the other Canipers and herself as the dullest of the family, and this morning she swept, dusted and polished in the old ignorance of her acuteness, nor would the knowledge of it have consoled her. She was puzzling over the cause which kept the man in Italy apart from the woman here, and when she gave that up in weariness, she tried to picture him in a white house beside an eternally blue sea. The windows of the house had jalousies of a purplish red, there were palm-trees in the sloping garden and, at the foot of it, waves rocked a shallow, tethered boat. And her father was in bed, no doubt; the flush redder on his thin cheeks, his pointed black beard jerked over the sheet. She had seen him lying so on his last visit to the moor, and she had an important little feeling of triumph in the memory of that familiarity. She was not sentimental about this distant parent, for he was less real than old Halkett, far less real than Mr. Pinderwell; yet it seemed cruel that he should lie in that warm southern country without a wife or daughter to care for him.
"Helen," Miriam said from Ph[oe]be's door, "do you think he is going to die?"
"How can I tell?"
"And you don't care?"
"Not much, of course, but I'm sorry for him."
"Sweet thing! And if he dies, shall we wear black?"
Helen's pale lips condescended to a rather mocking smile. "I see you mean to."
"Well, if you can do the proper thing and look nice at the same time—" She broke off and fidgeted. "I don't mind his dying if he does it far away, but, oh, wouldn't it be horrible if he did it here? Ill people make me sick."
"Why don't you go and do something yourself? Go and amuse Uncle Alfred."
"No, he's not nice in the mornings. He said so, and I've peeped at him. Liverish."
"Order the chickens, then, but ask Notya first."
"Where is she?"
Together they peeped over the banisters and listened.
"You'd better ask," Miriam said. "I wonder where she is. Call her," she added, daring Helen to break one of the rules of that quiet house; and Helen, who had discovered the truth that day, lifted her voice clearly.
"If she's not cross," Miriam whispered, "we'll know she's worried."
"Oh," Helen said soberly, "how horrid of us! I wish I hadn't."
Miriam's elbow was in her side. "Here she comes, look!"
They could see the crown of Mildred Caniper's fair head, the white blot of her clasped hands.
"What is it?" she asked quietly, turning up her face.
"Shall Miriam order the chickens?" Helen called down.
"Oh, yes—yes," she answered, and went away.
"Ha, ha! Quite successful! Any special kind of chicken? Black legs? Yellow legs?"
"She'll give you the best she has," Helen said.
Miriam popped her head round the door of the dining-room where Uncle Alfred was smoking, waved her hand, and spared him the necessity of speech by running from the house. The sun shone in a callous sky and the wind bit at her playfully as she went down the track, to remind her that though she wore neither hat nor coat, summer was still weeks away. Miriam faced all the seasons now with equanimity, for Uncle Alfred was in the dining-room, and she intended that her future should be bound up with his. Gaily she mounted the Brent Farm road, with a word for a melancholy calf which had lost its way, and a feeling of affection for all she saw and soon meant to leave. She liked the long front of the farmhouse with its windows latticed into diamonds, the porch sentinelled by large white stones, the path outlined with smaller ones and the green gate with its two steps into the field.
The dairy door stood open, and Miriam found both Lily Brent and John within. They stood with the whole space of the floor between them and there was a certain likeness in their attitudes. Each leaned against the stone shelf which jutted, waist high, from the wall, but neither took support from it. Her brown eyes were level with his grey ones; her hands were on her hips, while his arms were folded across his breast.
"Hullo, Napoleon!" Miriam said. "Good-morning, Lily. Is he being tiresome? He looks it."
"We're only arguing," she said. "We often do it."
This was the little girl whom Mrs. Brent, now in her ample grave, had slapped and kissed and teased, to the edification of the Canipers. She had grown tall and very straight; her thick dark hair was twisted tightly round her head; her skirt was short, revealing firm ankles and wooden shoes, and she wore a jersey which fitted her body closely and left her brown neck bare. Her watchful eyes were like those of some shy animal, but her lips had the faculty of repose. Helen had once compared her to a mettlesome young horse and there was about her some quality of the male. She might have been a youth scorning passion because she feared it.
"If it's a very important argument," said Miriam, "I'll retire. There's a sad baby calf down by your gate. I could go and talk to him."
"Silly little beast!" Lily said; "he's always making a fuss. Listen to this, Miriam. John wants to pay me for letting him work a strip of my land that's been lying idle all these years."
"If you won't let me pay rent—"
"He hasn't any money, Lily."
"I can try to pay you by helping on the farm. You can lie in bed and let me do your share of milking."
"He'll do no harm," Miriam asserted.
"I know that. He's been doing odd jobs for us ever since we began carrying his vegetables to town. He likes to pay for all he gets. You're mean-spirited, John."
"All right. I'll be mean-spirited, and I'll be here for this evening's milking."
"That's settled, then," she said, with a great semblance of relief.
"And Mrs. Caniper of Pinderwell House will be very much obliged if you'll let her have two chickens as soon as possible."
"Certainly, miss. I'll go and see about them."
Miriam let out a little scream and put her hands to her ears.
"No, no, don't kill them yet! Not till you're quite sure that I'm safely on the other side of the road. John, stop her!"
"You're a little goose," Lily said. "They're lying quite comfortably dead in the larder."
"Oh, thank Heaven! Shall I tell you a horrible secret of my past life? Once when I was very small, I crept through Halkett's larch-wood just to see what was happening down there, because Mrs. Samson had been hinting things, and what I saw—oh, what do you think I saw?" She shuddered and, covering her face, she let one bright eye peep round the protecting hand. "I saw that idiot boy wringing a hen's neck! And now," she ended, "I simply can't eat chicken."
"Dear, dear!" John said, and clucked his tongue. "Dreadful confession of a young girl!"
Lily Brent was laughing. "And to think I've wrung their necks myself!"
"Have you? Ugh! Nasty!"
"It is, but some one had to do it."
"Don't do it again," said John quickly.
She raised her eyebrows, met his glance, and looked away.
"I can't get on with my work while you two are gossiping here."
"Come home, John. Father's iller. Notya's too much worried to be cross. She had a letter—Aren't you interested?"
He was thinking, "I'll start breaking up that ground tomorrow," and behind that conscious thought there was another: "I shall be able to watch her going in and out."
"John—"
"No, I'm not interested. Go home and look after your uncle. I've a lot to think about."
She left him sitting on a fence and staring creatively at his knees.
Helen met Miriam in the hall.
"There's been a telegram and Notya's going to Italy."
"Ah!" Miriam said, but her bright looks faded when Helen added, "With Uncle Alfred."
Miriam dropped her head and thrust her doubled fists under her chin, in the angry movement of her childhood. "Oh, isn't that just my luck!" she muttered fiercely. "I—I hadn't done with Uncle Alfred."
"Perhaps father hasn't done with life," Helen remarked.
"Oh, don't be pious! Don't be pious! You're always adorning tales. You're a prig!"
"Well, I haven't time to think about that now," Helen said with the excellent humour which made amends for her many virtues. "I'm helping Notya to pack and I want you to ask George Halkett if he will drive her down. The train goes at a quarter to three."
"I'm sorry," Miriam said, looking like the heroine in a play, "but I can't go there. I—don't approve of George."
"Oh!" Helen cried, screwing up her face. "Has John been telling you about Lily Brent?"
"No. What? Tell me!" Miriam answered with complete forgetfulness of her pose.
"Some nonsense. George tried to kiss her."
"Did he?" There was a flat tone in Miriam's voice.
"And she hit him, and now John thinks he's wicked."
"So he is." She was hardly aware of what she said, for she was hesitating between the immediate establishment of her supremacy and the punishment of George, and having decided that his punishment should include sufficient tribute, she said firmly, "I won't have anything to do with him."
"Then I'll go. Help Notya if you can."
Miriam took a step nearer. "What is she like?"
"Oh—queer."
"Then perhaps I'd rather go to George," she whispered.
"I'm halfway there already," Helen said from the door.
She slipped across the moor with the speed which came so easily to her, and her breathing had hardly quickened when she issued from the larch-wood and stood on the cobble-stones before the low white house. Already the leaves of a rose-tree by the door were budding, for in that sheltered place the sun was gathered warmly. So, too, she thought, darkness would lie closely there and rain would shoot down in thick splinters with intent to hurt. She was oppressed by a sense of concentration in this tree-lined hollow, and before she stepped across the yard she lifted and shook her shoulders to free them of the weight. She remembered one summer day when the air had been clogged by the scent of marigolds, but this was not their season, and the smell of the larches came healthfully on the winds that struggled through the trees.
She had raised her hand to knock on the open door when she heard a step, and turned to see George Halkett.
"George," she said without preamble, "I've come to ask you to do something for us. Our stepmother has unexpectedly to catch a train. Could you, would you, drive her down—and a box, and our uncle, and his bag?"
She found, to her surprise, that John's story had given George a new place in her mind. She had been accustomed to see him as a mere part of the farm which bore his name, and now she looked at him with a different curiosity. She imagined him bending over Lily Brent and, with a strong distaste, she pictured him starting back at her assault. It seemed to her, she could not tell why, that no woman should raise her hand against a man, and that this restraint was less for her dignity than for his.
"I'll do it with pleasure," George was saying.
"Thank you very much," she murmured, and named the time. "Is Mr. Halkett better?"
"I'm afraid he's never going to get better, Miss Helen," he said, using the title he had given her long ago because of a childish dignity which amused him.
"I'm sorry," she said, and wondered if she spoke the truth.
Her gaze, very wide and serious, affected his, and as they looked at each other she realized that, with those half-closed eyes of his, he was considering her as he had never done before. She became conscious of her physical self at once, and this was an experience strange to her; she remembered the gown she wore, the fashion of her hair, her grey stockings and worn, low shoes; slowly, almost imperceptibly, she shifted a foot which was twisted inwards, and having done this, she found that she did not like George's appraisement. With a broken word of farewell and thanks she quickly left him.
"I didn't like that," she said emphatically to the broad freedom of the moor. George's interest was like the hollow: it hemmed her in and made her hot, but here the wide winds swept over her with a cleansing cold. Nevertheless, when she went to Notya's room, she took the opportunity of scanning herself in the glass.
"You have been running," Mildred Caniper said.
"No, not lately."
"You are very pink."
"Yes."
Mildred Caniper's tone changed suddenly. "And I don't know where you have been. I wish you would not run off without warning. And I could not find Miriam anywhere." From anger she sank back to helplessness. "I don't know what to take," she said, and her hands jerked on her lap.
"Let's see," Helen said cheerfully. "Warm things for the journey, and cooler things for when you get there." She made no show of consulting Notya and, moving with leisurely competence from wardrobe to chest of drawers, she laid little heaps of clothing on the bed.
"Handkerchiefs: one, two, three, four—"
"I shan't need many."
"But you'd better take a lot."
"I shall soon come back."
"Five, six, seven," Helen counted on, and her whispers sounded loudly in the room where Mildred Caniper's thoughts were busy.
"You haven't a very warm coat, so you must take mine," Helen said, and when she looked up she discovered in her stepmother the extraordinary stillness of a being whose soul has gone on a long journey. Her voice came, as before, from that great distance, yet with surprising clearness, as though she spoke through some instrument which reduced the volume and accentuated the peculiarities of her tones.
"One ought never to be afraid of anything," the small voice said—"never." Her lips tightened, and slowly she seemed to return to the body which sat on the sofa by the window. "I don't know what to take," she said again.
"I'm doing it," Helen told her. "You mustn't lose the train."
"No." She stood up, and, going to the dressing-table, she leaned on it as though she searched intently for something lying there. "I expect he will be dead," she said. "It's a long way. All those frontiers—"
Helen looked at the bent back, and her pity shaped itself in eager words. "Shall I come with you? Let me! I can get ready—"
Mildred Caniper straightened herself and turned, and Helen recognized the blue light in her eye.
"Your presence, Helen," she said distinctly, "will not reduce the number of the frontiers." Her manner blamed Helen for her own lack of self-control; but to this her stepchildren were accustomed, and Helen felt no anger.
"Oh, no," she answered pleasantly; "it would not do that."
She packed on methodically, and while she feigned absorption in that business her thoughts were swift and troubled, as they were when she was a little girl and, suffering for Notya's sake, wept in the heather. It was impossible to help this woman whose curling hair mocked her sternness, whose sternness so easily collapsed and as easily recovered at a word; it was, perhaps, intrusive to attempt it, yet the desire was as quick as Helen's blood.
"You are much too helpful, Helen," Mildred Caniper went on, and softened that harshness quickly. "You must learn that no one can help anybody else." She smiled. "You must deny yourself the luxury of trying!"
"I shall remember," Helen said with her quiet acquiescence, "but I must go now and see about your lunch. Would you mind writing the labels? Uncle Alfred will want one for his bag. Oh, I know I'm irritating," she added on a wave of feeling which had to break, "but I can't help it. I—I'm like that." She reflected with humiliation that it was absurd to obtrude herself thus on a scene shadowed by tragedy, yet when she saw a glint of real amusement on Mildred Caniper's face, a new thought came to her. Perhaps reserve was not so great a virtue as she had believed. She must not forget; nor must she forget that Miriam considered her a prig, that Mildred Caniper found her too helpful. She pressed her hands against her forehead and concentrated her energies on the travellers' food.
The minutes, busy as they were, dragged by like hours. Uncle Alfred ate his luncheon with the deliberation of a man who cannot expect to renew his digestive apparatus, and the road remained empty of George Halkett and his trap. Mildred Caniper, calm now, and dressed for her journey, had many instructions for Helen concerning food, the employment of Mrs. Samson, bills to be paid, and other domestic details which at this moment lacked reality.
"And," she ended, "tell Rupert not to be late. The house should be locked up at ten o'clock."
"Yes," Helen answered, but when she looked at her stepmother she could see only the distressed figure which had sat on the sofa, with hands jerking on its knee. Did she love Philip Caniper? Had they quarrelled long ago, and did she now want to make amends? No, no! She shut her eyes. She must not pry. She felt as though she had caught herself reading a letter which belonged to some one else.
Not deterred by such squeamishness, Miriam watched the luncheon-party with an almost indecent eagerness. Her curiosity about Mildred Caniper was blurred by pleasure in her departure, and each mouthful unwillingly taken by that lady seemed to minister to Miriam's freedom. Now and then she went to the garden gate to look for George, yet with her hurry to drive out her stepmother there was that luckless necessity to let Uncle Alfred go. On him her dark gaze was fastened expectantly. Surely he had something to say to her; doubtless he waited for a fitting opportunity, and she was determined that he should have it, but she realized that he was past the age when he would leap from an unfinished meal to whisper with her. This put a disturbing limit to her power, and with an instinct for preserving her faith in herself she slightly shifted the view from which she looked at him. So she was reassured, and she waited like an affectionate grand-daughter in the dark corner of the passage where his coat and hat were hanging.
"Let me help you on," she said.
"Thank you. Thank you. This is a sad business."
She handed him his hat. She found that, after all, she could say nothing, and though hope was dying in her, she made no effort to revive it.
"Well—good-bye," Uncle Alfred was saying, and holding out his hand.
She gave hers limply. "Good-bye." She hardly looked at him. Uncle Alfred, who had loved her mother, was going without so much as a cheering word. He looked old and rather dull as he went on with his precise small steps into the hall and she walked listlessly behind him.
"He's like a little performing animal," she thought.
Fumbling in his breast pocket, he turned to her. "If you should need me," he said, and produced his card. "I'll write and tell you what happens—er—when we get there."
She thanked and passed him coldly, for she felt that he had broken faith with her.
Outside the gate George Halkett sat in his high dog-cart and idly laid the whip across the horse's back. John stood and talked to him with the courtesy exacted by the circumstances, but George's eye caught the sunlight on Miriam's hair, and sullenly he bowed to her. She smiled back, putting the venom and swiftness of her emotion into that salute. She watched until his head slowly turned towards her again, and then it happened that she was looking far beyond the chimneys of Brent Farm.
"Now he's angry," she told herself, and pleasure went like a creeping thing down her back. She could see by the stubborn set of his head that he would not risk another glance.
Behind her, on the step, Notya was still talking to Helen.
Uncle Alfred stopped swinging his eyeglass and clicked the gold case of his watch. "We must be going," he said, and Miriam's heart cried out, "Yes; go, go, go!"
Lightly and strangely, Mildred Caniper kissed the cheeks of Miriam and Helen and shook John's hand, before she took her place beside George Halkett, with a word of thanks. Uncle Alfred stiffly climbed to his perch at the back, and, incommoded by his sister's box, he sat there, clasping the handrail. A few shufflings of his feet and rearrangements of his body told of his discomfort, and on his face there was the knowledge that this was but the prelude to worse things. Mildred Caniper did not look back nor wave a hand, but Uncle Alfred's unfortunate position necessitated a direct view of his young relatives. Three times he lifted his hat, and at last the cart swung into the road and he need look no more.
Miriam fanned herself with her little apron. "Now, how long can we count on in the most unfavourable circumstances?" she asked, but, to her astonishment, the others walked off without a word. She set her teeth in her under-lip and stared through tears at the lessening cart. She began to sing so that she might keep down the sobs that hurt her throat, and the words told of her satisfaction that Uncle Alfred was perched uncomfortably on the back seat of the cart.
"And I wish he would fall off," she sang. "Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!"
The three did not meet again until the sun had set and the brilliant sky had taken on the pale, cold colour in which, like a reluctant bride, it waited for the night. Then John put away his tools and Miriam began to stir about the house which was alive with a secret life of stone and woodwork, of footsteps silenced long ago, and thoughts which refused to die: then, too, Helen came back from the moor where she had gone for comfort. Her feet were wet, her hair was for once in disarray, but her eyes shone with a faith restored. Warring in her always were two beliefs, one bright with the beauty and serenity which were her idea of good, the other dark with the necessity of sacrifice and propitiation. She had not the freedom of her youth, and she saw each good day as a thing to be accepted humbly and ultimately to be paid for, yet she would show no sign of fear. She had to go on steadily under the banner of a tranquil face, and now the moor and the winds that played on it had made that going easier.
She passed through the darkening garden, glanced at the poplars, which looked like brooms sweeping away the early stars, and entered the house by the kitchen door. John and Miriam sat by a leaping fire, but the room was littered with unwashed dishes and the remains of meals.
"Well," Miriam said in answer to Helen's swift glance and the immediate upturning of her sleeves, "why should I do it all? Look at her, John, trying to shame me."
"I'm not. I just can't bear it."
"Have some tea first," John said.
"Let me pile up the plates."
"Have some tea," Miriam echoed, "and I'll make toast; but you shouldn't have gone away without telling me. I didn't know where you were, and the house was full of emptiness."
"I found her snivelling about you," John said. "She wanted me to go out and look for you with a lantern! After a day's work!"
"Things," Miriam murmured, "might have got hold of her."
"I shouldn't have minded moor things. Oh, these stained knives! John, did she really cry?"
"Nearly, I did."
"Not she!"
"I did, Helen. I thought the dark would come, and you'd be lost perhaps, out on the moor—O-oh!"
"I think I'd like it—wrapped up in the night."
"But the noises would send you mad. Your eyes are all red. Have you been crying too?"
"It's the wind. Here's the rain coming. And where's my hair?" She smoothed it back and took off her muddy shoes before she sat down in the armchair and looked about her. "Isn't it as if somebody were dead?" she asked. "There are more shadows."
"I'll turn up the lamp," John said.
The tinkle of Helen's cup and saucer had the clearness of a bell in the quiet room, and she moved more stealthily. Miriam paused as she spread butter on the toast.
"This house is full of dead people," she whispered. "If you begin to think about them—John, you're not going, are you?"
"Only to draw the curtains. Yes, here's the rain."
"And soon Notya will be on the sea," Helen said, listening to the sounds of storm.
"And I hope," Miriam added on a rich burst of laughter, "that Uncle Alfred will be sea-sick. Oh, wouldn't he look queer!" She flourished the knife. "Can't we be merry when we have the chance? Now that she's gone, why should the house still feel full of her? It isn't fair!"
"You're dripping butter on the floor," Helen said.
"Make your old toast yourself, then!"
"It's not only Notya," Helen went on, as she picked up the knife. "It's the Pinderwells and their thoughts, and the people who lived here before them. Their thoughts are in the walls and they come out when the house is quiet."
"Then let us make a noise!" Miriam cried. "Tomorrow's Saturday, and Daniel will come up. Shall we ask him to stay? It would make more live people in the house."
"If he stays, I'm not going to have Rupert in my room again. He talks in his sleep."
"It's better than snoring," Helen said.
"Awful to marry a man who snores," Miriam remarked. "Uncle Alfred does. I heard him."
"You're not thinking of marrying him?" John asked.
"No. I don't like the little man," she said incisively. "He gave me his card as though he'd met me in a train. In case we needed him! I've thrown it into Mrs. Pinderwell's desk." She looked frowningly at the fire. "But he liked me," she said, throwing up her head and defying the silent criticism of the company. "Yes, he did, but I hadn't enough time."
"That's better than too much," Helen said shrewdly, and stretched her stockinged feet to the bars. "Thank you for the tea, and now let us wash up."
"You're scorching," Miriam said, and no one moved. The lamplight had driven the shadows further back, and the room was the more peaceful for the cry of the wind and the hissing of the rain.
"Rupert will get wet," Helen said.
"Poor lad!" John mocked drowsily over his pipe.
"And he doesn't know about our father," Miriam said from her little stool. "Our father, who may be in Heaven."
"That's where Notya is afraid he is," Helen sighed remembering her stepmother's lonely figure on the sofa backed by the bare window and the great moor.
"Does she hate him as much as that?"
"Oh, I hate jokes about Heaven and Hell. They're so obvious," Helen said.
"If they weren't, you wouldn't see them, my dear."
Helen let that pass, but trouble looked from her eyes and sounded in her voice. "She wanted to see him and she was afraid, and no one should ever be afraid. It's ugly."
"Perhaps," Miriam said hopefully, "he will be ill for a very long time, and then she'll have to stay with him, and we can have fun. Fun! Where can we get it? What right had she to bring us here?"
"For God's sake," John said, "don't begin that again. We're warm and fed and roofed, and it's raining outside, and we needn't stir. That ought to make you thankful for your mercies. Suppose you were a tramp."
"Yes, suppose I was a tramp." She clasped her knees and forgot her anger in this make-believe. "A young tramp. Just like me, but ragged."
"Cold and wet."
"My hair would still be curly and my face would be very brown."
"You'd be dirty," Helen reminded her, "and your boots would be crumpled and too big and sodden." She looked at her own slim feet. "That is what I should hate."
"Of course there'd be disadvantages, but if I were a tramp and dwelt on my mercies, what would they be? First—freedom!"
"Ha!" John snorted.
"Well?"
"Freedom! Where is it?"
"With the lady tramp."
"And what is it?"
"Being able to do what you like," Miriam said promptly, "and having no Notya."
John was trying to look patient. "Very well. Let us consider that."
"Yes, grandpapa," Miriam answered meekly, and tweaked Helen's toe.
"You think the tramp can do what she likes, but she has no money in her pocket, so she can't buy the comfortable bed and the good meal she is longing for. She can only go to the first workhouse or sell herself for the price of a glass of gin."
"A pretty tramp like me," Miriam began, and stopped at Helen's pleading. "But John and I are facing facts, so you must not be squeamish. When you come to think of it," she went on, "lady tramps generally have gentlemen tramps with them."
"And there's your Notya."
"Ah!"
"And he'd beat you."
"I might like it."
"And he'd be foul-mouthed."
"Horrid!" Helen exclaimed.
"But I should be used to nothing else."
"And if you came down our high road one day and begged at our door, and saw some one like yourself, some one clean and fresh and innocent—"
"So that's what he thinks of me!"
"Hush! I like this," Helen said.
"Even if there were a stern stepmother in the background, you'd be envious of that girl. You might obey no laws, but you'd find yourself the slave of something, your own vice, perhaps, or folly, or the will of that gentleman tramp of yours." He ended with a sharp tap of his emptied pipe, and sank back in a thoughtful silence.
Helen's hands slid down her stockings from knee to ankle and back again: her eyes were on the fire, but they saw the wet high road and the ragged woman with skirt flapping against shapeless boots. The storm's voice rose and fell, and sometimes nothing could be heard but the howling of the wind, and she knew that the poplars were bent under it; but when it rested for a moment the steady falling of the rain had a kind of reassurance. In the room, there were small sounds of shifting coals and breathing people.
Miriam sat on her stool like a bird on a branch. Her head was on one side, the tilted eyebrows gave her face an enquiring look, and she smiled with a light mischief. "You ought to have been a preacher, John dear," she said. "And you took—they always do—rather an unfair case."
"Take any case you like, you can't get freedom. When you're older you won't want it."
"You're very young, John, to have found that out," Helen said.
"But you know it."
Miriam clapped her hands in warning. "Don't say," she begged, "that it's because you are a woman!"
"Is that the reason?" Helen asked.
"No, it's because you are a Helen, a silly, a slave! And John makes himself believe it because he's in love with a woman who is going to manage him. Clever me!"
Colour was in John's cheeks. "Clever enough," he said, "but an awful little fool. Let's do something."
"When I have been sitting still for a long time," Helen said, as though she produced wisdom, "I'm afraid to move in case something springs on me. I get stiff-necked. I feel—I feel that we're lost children with no one to take care of us."
"I'm rather glad I'm not that tramp," Miriam owned, and shivered.
"And I do wish Notya were safe at home."
"I don't," said Miriam stubbornly.
The wind whistled with a shrill note like a call, and upstairs a door banged loudly.
"Which room?" Miriam whispered.
"Hers, I think. We left the windows open," John said in a sensible loud voice. "I'll go and shut them."
"Don't go. I won't be left here!" Miriam cried. "This house—this house is too big."
"It's because she isn't here," Helen said.
"John, you're the oldest. Make us happy."
"But I'm feeling scared myself," he said comically. "And the front door's wide open, I'll bet."
"And that swearing tramp could walk in if he liked!"
"But we mustn't be afraid of open doors," Helen said, and listened to her own words for a moment. Then she smiled, remembering where she had heard them. "We're frightening each other, and we must wash up. Look at the muddle!"
"It will make a clatter," Miriam objected, "and if you hadn't gone for that walk and made the house feel lonely, I shouldn't be like this now. Something's peeping at me!"
"It's only Mr. Pinderwell," Helen said. "Come and dry."
"I shall sleep in your bed tonight."
"Then I shall sleep in yours."
"I wish Rupert would come."
"John, do go and shut the windows."
"But take a light."
"It would be blown out."
Helen lowered the mop she had been wielding. "And Notya—where is she?"
John lifted his shoulders and opened the door. A gust of wind came down the passage, the front door was loudly shut, and Rupert whistled clearly.
"Oh, here he is," Miriam said on a deep breath, and went to meet him.
John pointed towards the hall. "I don't know why he should make us all feel brave."
"There's something—beautiful about him," Helen said.
Helen was ironing in the kitchen the next afternoon when Daniel Mackenzie appeared in the doorway. She turned to him with a welcome, but the perfection of her manner was lost on Daniel: for the kitchen was empty of Miriam, and that was all he noticed.
"Hasn't Rupert come with you?" Helen asked.
"I missed him," he said in his melancholy voice. "Perhaps he missed me," he added with resignation. He was a tall young man with large hands and feet, and his eyes were vague behind his spectacles. "I thought he would be here. Is everybody out?"
"Notya's away, you know."
"He told me."
"And John and Miriam—I don't know where they are."
He found it difficult to talk to Helen, and as he sat down in the armchair he searched his mind for a remark. "I thought people always ironed on Tuesdays," he said at last.
"Some people do. These are just odd things."
"Eliza does. She makes us have cold supper. And on Mondays. It's too bad."
"But there can't be much to do for you."
"I don't know. There's washing on Monday, and on Sunday she goes to church—so she says."
Helen changed her iron and worked on. She moved rhythmically and her bare forearms were small and shapely, but Daniel did not look at her. He seemed to be interested in the wrinkled boots he wore, and occasionally he uttered a sad; "Puss, Puss," to the cat sleeping before the fire. A light breeze was blowing outside and Helen sometimes paused to look through the open window.
"Our poplars are getting their leaves," she said. "It's strange that I have never seen your garden. Are there any trees in it?"
He sat like a half-empty sack of grain, and slowly, with an effort, he raised his head. "What did you say?"
"Have you any trees in your garden?"
"There's a holly bush in the front and one of those thin trees that have berries—red berries."
"A rowan! Oh, I'm glad you have a rowan!" She looked as though he had made a gift to her.
He was born to ask questions. "Why?" he said, with his first gleam of interest.
"Oh, I like them. Is there a garden at the back?"
"Apple-trees," he sighed. "No fruit."
"They must want pruning. You know, gardening would do you good."
He shook his head. "Too long in the back."
"And Zebedee hasn't time?"
"No, he hasn't time." Daniel was wondering where Miriam was, and how long Rupert would be, and though Helen knew she wearied him, she went on serenely.
"Is he very busy now?"
"Yes."
"I can't think why people get ill in the spring, just when the lovely summer's coming. Does he get called up at night?"
"I suppose so." He was growing tired of this. "But when I'm in bed, I'm asleep, you know."
"Ah, that's nice for you," Helen said with a touch of irony as she carefully pulled out the lace of a dainty collar. "Isn't he rather lonely when you are up here?"
"Lonely!" Daniel's mouth dropped wider and while he tried to answer this absurd question adequately, Rupert entered the room.
"I told you to meet me outside the Bull, you old idiot."
Like Miriam, Rupert had the effect of fortifying the life of his surroundings, but, unlike her, he had a happy trick of seeming more interested in others than in himself. He saw at once, with something keener than his keen eyes, that Daniel was bored, that Helen was at work on more than ironing, and with his entrance he scattered the vague dissension which was abroad. The kitchen recovered from the gloom with which Daniel had shadowed it and Daniel himself grew brighter.
"I thought you said the Plover."
"You didn't listen. Even you couldn't mistake one for the other, but I've scored off you. Helen, we shall want a good tea. I drove up with Zebedee, and he's coming here when he's finished with old Halkett."
She stood with a cooling iron in her hand. "I'll make some scones. I expect Eliza gives him horrid food. And for supper there's cold chicken and salad and plenty of pudding; but how shall we put up the horse?"
"Don't worry, Martha. He's only coming to tea. He won't stay long."
"Oh, yes, he will." She had no doubt of it. "I want him to. Make up the fire for me, Daniel, please." She folded away the ironing cloth and gathered up the little damp cuffs and collars she had not ironed. A faint smile curved her steady lips, for nothing gave her more happiness than serving those who had a claim on her, and Zebedee's claim was his lack of womankind to care for him and her own gratitude for his existence. He was the one person to whom she could give the name of friend, yet their communion had seldom expressed itself in confidences: the knowledge of it lay snugly and unspoken in her heart.
"He has never had anything to eat in this house before," she said with a solemnity which provoked Rupert to laughter.
"What a sacrament women make of meals!"
"I wish they all did," Daniel said in the bass notes of genuine feeling.
"I don't know why you keep that awful woman," Helen said.
"Don't start him on Eliza," Rupert begged. "Eliza and the intricacies of English law—"
"Have you seen her?" Daniel persisted.
"No, but of course she's awful if she doesn't give you proper food."
His look proclaimed his realization that he had never appreciated Helen before. "I'm not greedy," he said earnestly, "but I've got to be fed." He sent a wavering glance from his chest to his boots. "Bulk is what I need, and fat foods, and it's a continuous fight to get them."
Rupert roared aloud, but there was sympathy in Helen's hidden mirth. "I'll see what I can do for you today," she said, like an attentive landlady. "And you are going to stay the night. I fry bacon—oh, wonderfully, and you shall have some for breakfast. But now," she added, with a little air of dismissal, "I am going to make the scones."
"Let's have a walk," Rupert said.
"I've walked enough." He had an impulse to stay with Helen.
"Then come outside and smoke. It's as warm as June."
Daniel rose slowly, lifting his body piece by piece. "I shouldn't like you to think," he said, "that I care too much for food."
"I don't."
"But I've got to be kept going."
"I quite understand," she answered busily. Her hands were in the flour; a patch of it, on her pale cheek, showed that her skin had a warm, faint colour of its own.
"We'll sit outside and watch for Zebedee," Rupert told her.
She had baked the scones, changed her dress and made the table ready before the guest arrived. From the dining-room she heard his clear voice, broken by Miriam's low gay one, and, looking from the window, she saw them both at the gate. Out of sight, behind the wall, Daniel and Rupert were talking, involved in one of their interminable discussions, and there were sounds made by the horse as he stretched to eat the grass. For an instant, Helen felt old and forgotten; she remembered Notya, who was in trouble, and she herself was shrouded by her own readiness to see misfortune; all her little preparations, the flowers on the table, the scones before the fire, her pretty dress, were gathered into one foolishness when she saw Zebedee pushing open the gate and looking down at Miriam. There was a sudden new pain in Helen's heart, and in a blinding light which dazzled her she saw that the pain was compounded of jealousy because Miriam was beautiful, and of renunciation because it would be impossible to keep anything which Miriam wanted.
But in the hall, these feelings, like a nightmare in their blackness, passed away when Zebedee uttered the cheerful "Hullo!" with which he had so often greeted her. There were comfort and safety in his neighbourhood, in his swift, judging way of looking at people, as though, without curiosity, he wished to assure himself of their well-being and health, and while there was something professional in the glance, it seemed to be a guarantee of his own honesty. His eyes, grey with brown flecks in them, expected people to be reasonable and happy.
Helen said simply, "I am so glad you have come."
"I made him," Miriam said, and put her hand fleetingly on his arm.
"You didn't. Rupert asked him."
"Yes, but I waylaid him. He was sneaking home."
"No, no, I wasn't."
"Somewhere else, then!"
He thrust his gloves into the pocket of his coat.
"You were coming, weren't you?" Helen asked.
"Of course I was."
She smiled with her extraordinary, almost comic, radiance. "I'll go and make the tea."
Because Daniel blundered through the doorway at that moment, Miriam followed Helen to the kitchen.
"He's going to teach me to drive," she said. "But what a horse! It goes on from generation to generation, like the practice!"
George Halkett had laughed at the horse, too, and Helen felt a cold resentment against him and Miriam.
"Your hair is very untidy, and your cheeks are blue," she said.
"Now you're being a cat. We certainly don't miss Notya when you are here. I'm in the delightful position, my dear, of being able to afford blue cheeks and untidy hair. Daniel won't notice them."
"No, he's arguing with Rupert."
"He came into the house after me. I'm going back to tease him."
"Oh, do leave the poor thing alone."
"No, I shan't. He'd be disappointed."
Helen stood by the fire and watched the kettle and listened to the noises in the schoolroom. Then a shuffling step came down the passage and Daniel spoke.
"Can I help you?"
"Thank you very much." She knew that he had come for refuge and she filled the teapot and put it into his hands. "Don't drop it."
"I'll be careful," he said humbly.
Walking in the trail of the tea he spilt, she followed him with the kettle. She had not the heart to scold him, and at the dining-room door he let out a sharp sound.
"Oh, dear, has it gone through your boot?" she asked, checking her laughter.
"I should just think it has!"
Miriam, whose ears were like a hare's, cried from the schoolroom: "Then perhaps he'll have to have his boot cut off, and that would spoil that lovely pair! Whatever you do, Zebedee, try to spare his boot!"
"She never leaves me alone," Daniel muttered to the pot.
"Don't take any notice of her," Helen said.
Daniel looked up mournfully. "Wouldn't you?"
"No. Sit here and talk to me." She called through the open door. "Come in, everybody!" With Daniel on one side of the table and Zebedee on the other, John's absence was the less apparent. Twilight had not yet come, but Helen had lighted candles to give the room a festive look, and there was a feeling of freedom and friendship in the house. They all talked of unimportant things, and there was laughter amid the chinking of the cups. For the young men, the presence of the girls had a potent, hardly admitted charm: for Miriam there was the exciting antagonism of sex: for Helen there was a pleasure which made her want to take deep breaths.
"Oh!" Miriam cried at last, and flung herself back in her chair. "Isn't this good? Why can't it always be like this?"
"Hush!" Helen said.
"You know it's nicer without her."
"I didn't want you to tempt things," Helen explained.
"She's as superstitious as a savage," Rupert said. "Talk to her, Zebedee, man of science."
"Yes, I will." His glance was humorous but not quite untroubled.