Answers to that question were still trooping past Helen when dawn came through the windows, and some of them had the faces of children born to an unwilling mother. Her mind cried out in protest: she could not be held responsible; and because she felt the pull of future generations that might blame her, she released the past from any responsibility towards herself. No, she would not be held responsible: she had bought Miriam, and the price must be paid: she and Miriam and all mankind were bound by shackles forged unskilfully long ago, and the moor, understanding them, had warned her. She could remember no day when the moor had not foretold her suffering.
A person less simple than Helen would have readjusted her conception of herself, her character and circumstances, in the light of her new knowledge; but with the passionate assertion that she could not be held altogether responsible for what her own children might have to suffer, Helen had made her final personal comment. For a day, her thoughts hovered about the distant drama of which Mildred Caniper was the memento, like a dusty programme found when the play itself is half forgotten, and Helen's love grew with her added pity; but more urgent matters were knocking at her mind, and every morning, when she woke, two facts had forced an entrance. She was nearer to Zebedee by a night, and only the daylight separated her from George and what he might demand and, outside, the moor was covered with thick snow, as cold as her own mind.
A great fire burned in Mildred Caniper's room, another in the kitchen; the only buds on the poplars were frozen white ones, and the whiteness of the lawn was pitted with Halkett's footsteps. Since the first day of snow he had climbed the garden wall close to the kitchen door so that he should not make another trail, but the original one still gaped there, and Helen wished more snow would fall and hide the tracks. She saw them every morning when she went into her own room to dress, and they were deep and black, like open mouths begging the clouds for food.
One day, John, looking from the kitchen window, asked who had been tramping about the garden.
"Doesn't it look ugly?" Helen said. "I can't bear snow when it's blotched with black. Is there going to be more of it?"
"I think so."
"Are your lambs all right?"
"We haven't lost one. Lily's a wonder with them. We've a nursery in our kitchen. Come and see it." He went out, and she heard him on the crisp snow.
"Now he'll mix the trail," she thought happily. "And I might have done it myself. I think I'm growing stupid. But it will be John and George when I get up in the morning: that's better than George and me."
John came back and spoke gravely. "I find those footsteps go right across the moor towards Halkett's Farm."
"Of course! George made them."
"Oh, you knew?"
"Yes. I couldn't imagine Jim had done it, could I?"
"What did he come for?"
"He sat by the fire and smoked."
"You'd better not encourage him."
"I don't."
"Be careful!—What are you laughing at?"
"That old story of the kiss!"
"It makes me mad."
"He doesn't try to kiss me, John. I shouldn't be horrified if he did. You needn't be afraid for me."
"All right. It's your affair. Want any wood chopped?"
"Rupert did a stack for me."
"This is pretty dull for you, isn't it? When does—"
She interrupted. "At the end of next week, I think." She was somewhat tired of answering the question.
That night, as she sat with George, he said, "When we're like this, I wish you'd wear your wedding-ring."
"I said I wouldn't."
"It couldn't do any harm."
"It could—to me."
"You talk as if it's dirt," he said.
"Oh, no, I know it's gold! Let's keep our bargains and talk of something else. Tell me what you have been doing today."
His face reddened to a colour that obscured his comeliness. "You can't get round me like that."
"What do you mean?" She lifted her head so that he saw her round white throat. "Why should I condescend to get round you, as you call it?"
"That's it!" he shouted angrily. "That's the word!" He rose and knocked his pipe against the stove. "You're too damned free with your condescension, and I'm sick of it." He left the kitchen angrily, and two minutes later she heard the distant banging of the garden door.
She wanted to run after him, for she was afraid of the impulses of his anger. She felt a dreadful need to conciliate, for no other reason than his body's greater strength, but she let him go, and though for several days she did not see him, she had no sense of liberty. He would come back, she knew, and she found herself planning unworthy little shifts, arranging how she would manage him if he did this or that, losing her birthright of belief that man and woman could meet and traffic honestly together. They could not do it, she found, when either used base weapons: she, her guile, or he, his strength; but if he used his strength, how could she save herself from using guile? She had to use it, and she clung fiercely to it, though she knew that, at last, it would be wrested from her.
In these days of his absence, there were hours when she wandered ceaselessly through the house, urged by the pride which refused allegiance to this man, tortured by her love for Zebedee and the pain she had to give him, hunted by the thought that George was making for himself a place in the circle where she kept her pensioners. Each time that he looked at her with longing, though she shrank, she gave her ready pity, and when he walked away into the night, her heart went after him unwillingly. Worse than all, she knew she would not always see him as a pensioner. Far off and indistinct, like a gallows seen on a distant hill, she spied the day when she might own a kind of need of him; she had to love those who loved her enough, and his strength, the very limits of his mind, would some day hold her. But she would not let these thoughts properly take shape: they were vague menaces, and they chased her through Mr. Pinderwell's sparsely-furnished rooms. She was glad that Zebedee had never been a pensioner; he had always given more than he had asked. His had not been an attitude of pleading, and she could not remember once seeing an appeal in his eyes. They had always been quick on her face and busy with herself, and her pride in him was mixed with anger that he had not bound her to him by his need. He would manage without her very well, she thought, and hardened herself a little; but hard or soft, the result of her fierce thinking was the same. She had the picture of Miriam like a broken flower, lying limp and crumpled on the floor, and she believed she had done well in selling herself to save that beauty. It was the only thing to do, and Zebedee would know. These words she repeated many times.
But she went beyond that conclusion on her own path. She had married George, and that was ugly, but life had to be lived and it must be beautiful; it could not be so long that she should fail to make it beautiful: fifty years, perhaps. She beat her hands together. She could surely make it beautiful for fifty years.
But at night, when she waited for George, she trembled, for she knew that her determination meant ultimate surrender.
He came on the fourth night. She gave him half a smile, and with a thin foot she pushed his chair into its place, but he did not sit down. He stood with his hands clasped behind him, his head thrust forward, and having glanced at him in that somewhat sulky pose, she was shaken by inward laughter. Men and women, she reflected, were such foolish things: they troubled over the little matters of a day, a year, or a decade, and could not see how small a mark their happiness or sorrow made in the history of a world that went on marching.
She bent over her sewing while she thought, and she might have forgotten his presence if a movement had not blocked the light.
"George, please, I can't see."
"I beg your pardon."
"I wish you would sit down. It isn't comfortable like this."
"All right." He sank down heavily and sighed.
She lifted her head quickly and showed him her puckered face. "Are you still so cross?"
"I—don't know. I've been miserable enough," he said, but he had to smile on her.
She was astonished that he should have no difficulty in speaking of himself, and she looked at him in this surprised consideration before she tempted him to say more.
"Why?" she asked.
"You wouldn't understand."
"I might."
"How much I wanted you."
She tapped her thimble against her teeth. "It's so absurd," she said softly.
"Eh?"
She hated him to say that, and she frowned a little as he asked, "Why is it absurd?"
"Because you don't know me at all."
"That's nothing to do with it." He stood up and kicked a protruding coal. "Nothing to do with it. I know I—want you." He turned sharply towards her. "I was half drunk that night."
"I wish you wouldn't talk about it."
He added abruptly, "I've had nothing since."
Her silence implied that this was only what she had expected and, feeling baulked of his effect, he sighed again.
"Oh, you are so pathetic! Why don't you smile?" He did it, and she nodded her applause, while he, appeased and daring, asked her, "Well, did you miss me?"
"Yes. A little."
"Are you glad I'm here?"
"I think so."
"When will you be sure?"
"Ah, that depends on you. I hate you to be rough."
"God knows I've had enough to make me. You wear me out, you're so damned superior."
"I'm afraid that's not my fault!"
He swore under his breath. "At it again!"
"Oh, dear!" she cried, "that was meant to be a joke! I thought it rather good! Shall I make some coffee? They say a wise woman always has good things for her—for a man to eat and drink. I'm going to try it."
They drank in silence, but as he put down his cup, she said, twinkling over hers, "Was I a wise woman?" and suddenly she felt the great loneliness of the house, and remembered that she was a woman, and this man's wife. She looked down that he might see no change. He did not answer, and the coals, dropping in the grate, were like little tongues clicking in distress. She wondered if he were ever going to speak.
"Give me your cup," she heard him say, and his voice was confident. She felt a hand put firmly on her shoulder, and she saw him bending over her.
"Good-night," he said, "I'm going," and still with that hand on her, he kissed her mouth.
She did not move when the door was shut behind him: she leaned back in the chair, pressed there by his kiss, her hands limp in her lap. She respected him at last. There had been dignity in that kiss, and she thought it better that he should take what he desired than sit too humble under her gaze, but she knew she was no longer what she had been. He had, in some manner, made her partly his: not by the spirit, not by her will, but by taking something from her: there was more to take, and she was sure now that he would take it. She was not angry, but for a long time she cried quietly in her chair.
Snow was falling when Zebedee at last drove up the road, and from the window of Mildred Caniper's bedroom Helen watched his huddled figure and the striving horse. She saw him look for the obliterated track and then turn towards the shelter of Brent Farm.
"Is he coming?" Mildred asked. She was childishly interested in his return.
"Yes. He has gone to put the horse up at the farm."
"He will be cold."
"Yes." Helen was cold, too.
"It is a dreadful day for driving."
"I don't think he minds that," she said in a dead voice.
"No. You had better go downstairs."
"When I see him starting back. He'll have to talk to Lily. No, he's coming now."
She stood at the window while she slowly counted twenty, and then she warmed her hands before she went.
She was irritated by the memory of him running across the road with his hands in his pockets, his head butting against the storm, his eager feet sinking into the snow and dragging themselves out again. She had a crazy wish that he would fall. Why could he not walk? she asked herself. It was absurd to be in such a hurry. There was plenty of time, more than enough, if he but knew it! She laughed, and hated the false, cruel sound, and looked round the hall to see if there were any one to hear; but in the snow, as she opened the gate to him, there was a moment in which she knew nothing but joy. He had come back, he was close to her, and evil had passed away.
"Oh, my darling—" he said. "Let me get off my coat!"
He took her hands, and unsmilingly he scanned her, from her smooth hair to her mouth, from her hands to her feet.
"What is it?" he asked.
She gave him her clear regard. "All the things that have mattered most to me have been comings and goings through this gate and the garden door."
"Well, dearest one—"
"You've come again."
"And I shall come tomorrow."
"Will you?" She closed her eyelids on what he might see, and he kissed her between the eyes. "I have stayed away too long," he said.
"Yes. I want to talk to you. Come and see Notya first."
"Things have been happening, Daniel tells me."
"Oh, yes, they have."
"And if your letters had shown me your face, I shouldn't have stayed away another day."
"Isn't it so nice, Zebedee?"
"It's lovelier than it ever was, but there's a line here, and here, and here. And your eyes—"
Again she shut them, but she held up her face. "I want you to kiss my mouth."
"Helen," he said, when he had slowly done her bidding, "let us sit on the stairs and think about each other. Yes, there's room for Jim, but, oh, my blessed one, he ought to have a bath. No, you can stay down there, my boy. Are you comfortable, little heart? Let me look at you again. You are just like a pale flower in a wood. Here, in the darkness, there might be trees and you gleaming up, a flower—"
She dropped her forehead to his knees. "I wish—I were—that flower."
She felt his body tighten. "What has happened?"
"I'll tell you soon."
"No, now."
"When you have seen Notya. She might notice if we looked—queer."
"Then let us go to her at once."
Mildred Caniper cut short the interview, saying, "Take him away, Helen. I'm tired. I'm always tired now."
"Come into Jane," Helen said when they were on the landing. "No one will disturb us there. Let Jim come, too."
"He isn't fit to be in your bedroom, dear. Neither am I. And how like you it is!"
"It's cold," she said. Through the window she saw that the new snow had covered George's tracks. "Cold—cold."
He put his arms round her. "I'm back again, and I can only believe it when I'm holding you. Now tell me what's the matter."
"Shall I? Shall I? Don't hold me, or I can't. It's—oh, you have to know. I'm married, Zebedee."
Plainly he did not think her sane. "This can't be true," he said in a voice that seemed to drop from a great height.
"Yes, it's true. I can show you the thing—the paper. Here it is. Do you want to read it? Oh, yes, it's true."
"But it can't be! I don't understand! I don't understand it. Who—For God's sake, tell me the whole tale."
She told it quickly, in dull tones, and as she watched his face she saw a sickly grey colour invade his tan.
"Don't, don't look like that!" she cried.
"Are you quite sure you're married?" he asked in his new voice. "Let me look at this thing."
Outside, the snow fell thicker, darkening the room, and as she took a step nearer, she saw the muscles twitching in his cheeks. He laid the paper on her dressing-table.
"May his soul rot!" he whispered. He did not look at her. Darkness and distance lay between them, but fearfully she crept up to him and touched his arm.
"Zebedee—"
He turned swiftly, and his face made her shrink back.
"You—you dare to tell me this! And you said you loved me. I thought you loved me."
"I did. I do," she moaned, and her hands fluttered. "Zebedee," she begged.
"Oh—did you think I was going to wish you happiness? I'd rather see you dead. I could have gone on loving you if you were dead, believing you had loved me."
"And do you think I want to be alive?" she asked him, and slipped to her knees beside the bed. "I didn't want to die until just now. All the time, I said, Zebedee will understand. He'll know I did my best. He'll be so sorry for me—"
"So sorry for you that he couldn't think about himself! Sorry for you—yes! But can't you see what you have done for me? You never thought of that! It's like a woman. If you'd killed me—but you have killed me. And you did it lightly. You let me come here, you gave me your mouth to kiss, and then you tell me this! This! Oh, it's nothing! You've married some one else! You couldn't help it! Ah—!" He shook with a rage that terrified her, and having held out disregarded arms to him, she let her trembling mouth droop shapelessly, and made no effort to control her heavy tears, the sobs rushing up and out with ugly, tortured sounds. She spoke between them.
"I never thought you would be angry. But I dreamt about you angry. Oh"—she spoke now only to herself—"he doesn't understand. If I hadn't loved him truly, I needn't have kept my word, but I had to be honest, or I wouldn't have been worthy." She dropped her face against the bed and mumbled there. "Nothing matters, then. Not even being honest. I—I—Oh! Angry—Zebedee darling, I can't bear it. Tell me you won't be angry any more."
"Dearest—" He sat on the bed and pulled her wet face to his knee. "Dearest—"
She took his hands and pressed them against her eyes. "Forgive me, Zebedee."
"I can't forgive you. I can only love you. For ever and ever—I want to think, Helen."
"You're shaking so."
"And you are shivering. Come downstairs beside a fire."
"No; we are safer here." Her arms went round him, beneath his coat, and she leaned her head against his breast. "I wish we could go to sleep and never wake."
"I ought never to have left you."
She looked up. "Zebedee, he hasn't worried me. He kissed me once. That's all. That's why I made you kiss my mouth."
"He shall never worry you. I'm going to see him now, and I shall come back soon. Let me go, sweetheart."
"No, I can't let you go. It isn't that I'm afraid for you. I—I don't mind if you hurt each other, but if you killed him—if he killed you—! But you won't do that. You'll just say dreadful things, and then he'll come to me and take me all. Don't you see? He could. He would. In my own way, I can—I can keep him off, but if you went to him and claimed me—No, Zebedee, there would be no hope for me."
"I'll shoot him, if you like, without giving him a chance. The man ought to be shot. He takes advantage of his own beastliness—" He broke off. "If I talk about it I shall choke."
"But he doesn't know about you."
"You didn't tell him that?"
"I couldn't. I couldn't beg. I didn't want to say your name to him, to bring you into it."
"Yes, I was left out of your calculations pretty thoroughly."
"Zebedee—!"
"Ah, but you expect me to take this very calmly. You keep your promise to a drunken brute, but what of one to me?"
"There wasn't one between us two. We just belonged, as we do now and always shall. You're me and I am you. When I was thinking of myself, I was thinking of you, too. And all the time I thought you'd understand."
"I do—begin to understand. But what about Miriam? Little fool, little fool! Does she know what she's done?"
"No one knows but you. You see, she fainted. I always thought she'd come between us, but what queer things God does!"
His voice rose suddenly, saying, "Helen, it's unbearable. But you shall not stay here. I shall take you away."
"There's Notya."
"Yes."
"Do you mean—Is she going to die?"
"I don't know. She may not live for long. And if she dies, you shall come away with me. We can go together anywhere in the world. There's no morality and no sense and no justice in such a sacrifice."
"Oh," she sighed, "what peace, if I could go with you!"
"You shall go with me."
She felt his heart ticking away the seconds. "But I can't," she said softly. "You see, I've married him."
"Great God—!"
"I know. But I can't help it. I knew what I was doing. And he needs me."
"Ah! If he's going to need you—And again, what of my need of you?"
"You're a better man than he is."
He pushed her from him and went to the window, and she dared not ask him for his thoughts. Perhaps he had none: perhaps, in the waste of snow from which the black trunks of trees stood up, he saw a likeness to his life.
He turned to ask, "How often does that beast get washed?"
She looked at him vaguely. "Who?"
"That dog."
"Oh—once a fortnight."
"Who does it?"
"John or I."
"You let him sleep with you?"
"Outside my door."
"I think he ought to be inside. I'm going over to see John. You can't live here alone. And, Helen, I've not given up my right to you. You shall come to me when Mrs. Caniper sets you free."
She was standing now, and she answered through stiff lips, "You mustn't hope for that. You know I told you long ago the kind of woman I am."
"And you can't change yourself for my sake?"
She moved uneasily. "I would, so gladly, if I could," she said, and he shook his head as though he did not believe her.
"But I will not have you and John trying to arrange my life. I choose to be alone. If you interfere—" His look reproached her. "I'm sorry, Zebedee, but I'm suffering, too, and I know best about George, about myself. After all"—her voice rose and broke—"after all, I've married him! Oh, what a fuss, what a fuss! We make too much of it. We have to bear it. We are not willing to bear anything. Other women, other men, have lost what they loved best. We want too much. We were not meant for happiness."
His hand was on the door, but he came back and stood close to her. "Do you think you have been talking to a stone? What do you expect of me? I"—he held his head—"I am trying to keep sane. To you, this may be a small thing among greater ones, but to me—it's the only one."
"To me, too. But if I made a mistake in promising, I should make another in running away now. One has to do one's best."
"And this is a woman's best!" he said in a voice she did not know.
"Is that so bad?" She was looking at a stranger: she was in an empty world, a black, wild place, and in it she could not find Zebedee.
"There is no logic in it," she heard him say, and she was in her room once more, holding to the bed-rail, standing near this haggard travesty of her man.
"Oh! What have I done to you?" she cried out.
He followed his own thought. "If your sense of duty is greater towards him than towards me, why don't you go to him and give him all he wants?"
"He has not asked for it."
"And I do. If he has no rights, remember mine; but if he has them—"
"Yes, it may come to that," she said, and he saw her lined, white face.
"No, no, Helen! Not for my sake this time, but for yours! No! I didn't mean it. Believe me, I could be glad if you were happy."
"I shan't be happy without you, but if I can't have you, why shouldn't I do my best for him?"
He looked at the floor and said, "Helen, I can't let him touch you." He looked up. "Have you thought of everything?"
"There have been days and days to think in."
"My dear, it isn't possible! To give you into his hands!"
"I shall keep out of them if I can, and no one else can do it for me. Remember that, or you will push me into them. But I'm trying to make my body a little thing. It's only a body, after all. Zebedee, will you let me sit on your knee? Just this once more. Oh, how your arms know how to hold me! I hope—I hope you'll never have to marry any one for Daniel's sake."
He rested his cheek on hers. "Daniel will have to look after himself. Men don't hurt the people they love best for the sake of some one else. That's a woman's trick."
"You never talked like this before."
"Because, you see, no woman had ever hurt me so much."
"And now she has."
"Oh, yes, she has."
"And you love me less?"
"Come with me and see! Helen, Helen, darling, come with me. I want you so. We'll make life beautiful together. Sweetheart, if you needn't suffer, I could bear it for myself, I could manage to bear it for myself."
"I should suffer if I came with you. I should always feel George wanting me."
"And you won't feel me?"
"You are just like myself. You will always be there. No one can come between. George can't."
"But his children will." He set her on her feet and began to walk up and down the room. "Had you thought of that?"
She covered her face and whispered, "I can't talk about it yet. And, oh!" she went on, "I wanted ours. Did you?"
"You know I did."
"And even if I went with you, we couldn't have them. That's gone—just slipped away. They were so clear to me, so beautiful."
"In that house of ours," he said. "Helen, I bought that house before I went away."
"Our house?"
"Our square house—with the trees."
She broke into another storm of sobbing, and he took her on his knee again. He knew that Halkett's children would come and stifle pain and, as he tried to think he would not hate them, her voice came softly through those thoughts.
"Zebedee, I want to tell you something."
"Go on, dear."
"I want to tell you—I—He's not repellent. Don't think that. I didn't want you to think that. I suppose one can forget. And I shall always think, 'It's Zebedee who has the rest, who has all the best of me.'"
"I know you, dear. You'll be giving him all you have."
"Oughtn't I to?"
"Oh, my darling, God only knows. Don't ask me. To me there seems only one thing to do—to smite him in the mouth—and you whom I worship have tied my hands. And I sit here! What do you think is happening to me inside? I'm mad! I can promise nothing. I need time to think. Helen, if you would hate him always, I could bear it better. But you won't, you'll grow fond of him—and I suppose I should be glad; but I can't stand that." He put her down roughly and stood over her. "I can't endure this any longer," he said under his breath, and went.
Then she realized what she had done to him, and with how much gentleness he had used her. She ran after him and called from the stairhead:
"Zebedee! Wait for me. Kiss me once more. I'll never ask again. It isn't easy for me, either, Zebedee."
He stood, helpless, enraged at destiny, aware that any weapon he might lift in her defence would fall on her and wound her. He could do nothing but swear his lasting love, his ready service.
She thought Zebedee would come to her on the next day, or the next, but she watched in vain for him. Though she had sent him from her, she longed for him to be back, and at night, when George entered the kitchen, she hardly looked up to welcome him. Her mind was more concerned with Zebedee's absence than with George's presence, but in her white face and tired eyes he fancied resentment for the kiss that still burned on his own mouth.
"You haven't much to say," he told her, after an hour of silence. He did not know if he most hated or adored the smooth head turned sideways, the small ear and the fine eyebrow, the aloofness that kept him off and drew him on; but he knew he was the victim of a glorious kind of torment of which she was the pain and the delight.
"I have been thinking," she explained.
"Then why don't you tell me what you think about?"
"Would you be interested?" She smiled at the thought of telling him with what anxiety she looked for Zebedee, with what anger she blamed him for neglect, with what increase she loved him.
"Yes, I would. Now you're laughing. D'you think it funny? D'you think I can't read or write, or understand the way you speak?"
"George," she said, "I wish you wouldn't get so cross. I don't think any of those things."
"Never think about me at all, I suppose. Not worth it."
She answered slowly, "Yes, you are," and he grunted a mockery of thanks.
It was some time before he threw out two words of accusation. "You're different."
"Different?"
"That's what I said. You never answer straight."
"Don't I?"
"There you are again!"
"What do you want me to say? Shall I ask you how I'm different? Well, I've asked, George. Won't you answer?"
"I can't. I can't explain. But a few nights back—well—all tonight you've been sitting as if I wasn't here. I don't know why I stand it. Look here! You married me."
"So you are always telling me; but no one can buy the things you want."
"I'll get them somehow." He used the tones that made her shrink, but tonight she was unmoved, and he saw that her womanhood was crushed by the heaviness of her fatigue, and she was no more than a human being who needed rest.
"I think you ought to go to bed," he said. "I'm going. Good-night." He kissed her hand, but he did not let it fall. "You're not to look so white tomorrow night," he said.
She did not know why she went to the kitchen door and stood by it while he climbed the wall and dropped to the crisp snow on the further side. He called out another low good-night and had her answer before she heard his boots crunching the frozen crust. No stars and no moon shone on the white garden, and to her it was like a place of death. The deep black of the trees against the wall made a mourning border, and the poplars lifted their heads in questioning of fate, but they had no leaves to make the question audible, and no wind stirred their branches. Everything was silent; it seemed as if everything had died, and Helen was envious of the dead. She wished she might curl herself up at a poplar's foot and sleep there until the frost tightened on her heart and stopped its beating.
"It is so hard," she said aloud, and shut the door and locked it with limp hands.
The kitchen's warmth gave back her sanity and humour, and she laughed as she sat before the fire again, but when she spoke to Jim, it was in whispers, because of the emptiness of the old house.
"We shall manage if only we can see Zebedee sometimes. Other women have worse things to bear. And George likes me. I can't help liking people when they like me. And there'll be Zebedee sometimes. We'll try to keep things beautiful, and we'll be strong and very courageous, and now we'll go to bed."
The next morning Zebedee appeared, and in the hall of their many greetings, she slipped her hand into his.
"What have you been doing, Zebedee?"
"Working."
"Is that all?"
He laughed, and asked, "Isn't that enough?"
"No; not enough to keep you from me. I thought you would come yesterday and the day before."
He looked at her with an astonishment that was near scorn, for she had driven him from her and now reproached him when he did not run back. She put her hand on his and looked at him with shadowless grey eyes, and showed him a mouth that tempted, as she had done before she married this other man to whom she was determined to be faithful. His thoughts were momentarily bitter, but his words were gentle.
"I told you I wanted time to think." He pressed her hand and gave it back to her. "And I have thought, and, since you are what you are, I see, at present, no other way but yours."
"Oh." She was daunted by his formality.
"Shall I go up to Mrs. Caniper?"
"Yes," she said, puzzled. "But aren't you cold? Come into the kitchen and you shall have some coffee. I had it ready in case you came. Your hands—your cheeks—" She touched him lightly and led him to the kitchen fire.
"I think we shall have more snow," he said, and his manner was snow against her heart.
"Do you?" she said politely, but her anger dropped away as she saw his face more clearly and knew he had not slept. She knew, too, that his mind was as firmly fixed as hers, and she felt as if the whole world were sliding from her, for this was not her lover: this was some ascetic who had not yet forgotten his desires. He looked haggard, fierce with renunciation and restraint, and she cried out, "Zebedee, darling, don't look like that!"
He laughed a little, moved, and passed his hands over his face. "No," he said sensibly.
He killed the words she had ready for him: she felt them fall, dead things, into her throat, and hang helplessly in her breast. She handed him the cup, and while he drank she stood beside the table and watched him with despair and indignation. She had not imagined him thus changed: she had expected the old adoring looks, the loving words, everything but his caresses and his claims, and he treated her as though she were no more to him than any other woman. She knew him to be just and honest, but she thought him cruel and, aghast at the prospect of endless days wherein he would not smile at her nor praise her, she doubted her ability to live without him. She caught her breath in fear that his habit of indifference would change to indifference indeed; and without shame, she confessed that she would rather have him suffering through love of her than living happily through lack of it.
Mechanically, she moved after him up the stairs, played her part, and followed him down again; but when next he came, she had stiffened in emulation of him, and they talked together like people who had known each other for many years, but never known each other well.
Once he trespassed, but that was not to please himself.
"If you need me, you'll still use me?" he said hurriedly, and she answered, "Yes, of course."
He added, "I can't keep it from Daniel for ever."
"No. It need not be a secret now, except from Notya. And if she lives—"
"She may live for a long time if she has no shock."
"Ah, then," Helen said calmly, "she must not know."
He found her more beautiful than she had been, for now her serenity was by conquest, not by nature, and her head was carried with a freer grace. It might have been the freedom of one who had gained through loss and had the less weight to carry, but he tortured himself with wondering what fuller knowledge had given her maturer grace. Of this he gave no sign, and the attitude he maintained had its merciful result on Helen, for if he pretended not to need her, she had a nightly visitor who told her dumbly of his longing. Love bred liking, as she had prophesied, and, because life was lonely, she came to listen for his step. She was born to minister to people, and the more securely Zebedee shut her out, the more she was inclined to slip into the place that George had ready for her. And with George the spring was in conspiracy. The thaw came in a night, and the next morning's sun began its work of changing a white country into one of wet and glistening green. Snow lingered and grew dirty in the hollows, and became marked with the tiny feet of sheep, but elsewhere the brilliance of the moor was like a cry. It was spring shouting its release from bonds. Buds leapt on the trees, the melted snow flooded the streams, tributary ones bubbled and tinkled in unexpected places.
"Now," Helen said, leaning from the window of Mildred Caniper's room, "you can't help getting well. Oh, how it smells and looks and feels! When the ground is drier, you shall go for a walk, but you must practise up here first. Then John shall carry you downstairs."
But Mildred Caniper did not want to be energetic: she sat by the fire in a cushioned wicker chair, and when Helen looked at the lax figure and the loosened lines of the face she recognized the woman who had made confession to relieve a mind that had finished with all struggling. It was not the real Mildred Caniper who had told that story in the night; it was the one who, weakened by illness, was content to sit with folded hands by the fireside.
She dimmed the sun for Helen and robbed the spring of hope. This glory would not last: colours would fade and flowers die, and so human life itself would slip into a mingling of light and shadow, a pale confluence of the two by which a man could see to dig a grave.
Helen leaned out again, trying to recover the sense of youth, of boundless possibilities of happiness that should have been her sure possession.
"Are you looking for Zebedee?" Mildred asked. "He doesn't come so often."
"You don't need him. And he is busy. He isn't likely to come today."
Yet she wished ardently that he might, for though he would have no tenderness to give her, he would revivify her by the vigour of his being: she would see a man who had refused to let one misfortune cripple him, and as though he had divined her need, he came.
"I had to go to Halkett's Farm," he explained.
"Who's ill there?" she asked sharply.
"The housekeeper."
"I hadn't heard. Is she very ill?"
"She may be."
"Then I hope she'll die," she said in a low voice.
"My dear!" He was startled into the words, and they made her laugh openly for joy of knowing they were ready on his tongue. Lightly she swayed towards him, but he held her off.
"No, no, my heart." He turned deliberately from her. "Why do you wish that?"
"Because of Miriam. She ought to die."
"I'm afraid she won't. She's pretty tough."
"Is there anybody to look after her? I could go sometimes, if you like."
He smiled at this confusion of ministering and avenging angel.
"There's a servant there who seems capable enough."
"I wonder why George didn't tell me."
"She was all right yesterday."
"You'll have to see her tomorrow. Then you'll come here, too."
"There isn't any need."
"But Notya likes to see you. Come and see her now."
She sighed when they walked downstairs together as though things had never changed. "Oh, Zebedee, I wanted you to come today. You have made me feel clean again. Notya—oh—!" She shuddered. "She looks like some fruit just hanging to a tree. Soon she will slip, and she doesn't care. She doesn't think. And once she was like a blade, so bright and edged. And when I looked at her this morning, I felt as if I were fattening and rotting, too, and it wasn't spring any longer. It was autumn, and everything was over-ripe."
"You don't take enough exercise," he said briskly. "Walk on the moor every day. It's only fair to Jim. Read something stiff—philosophy, for instance. It doesn't matter whether you understand it or not, so long as you try. Promise you'll do that. I'll bring some books tomorrow. Take them as medicine and you'll find they're food. And, Helen"—he was at the gate and he looked back at her—"you are rather like a blade yourself."
He knew the curing properties of praise.
When evening came, the blue colour of the sky had changed to one that was a memory of the earth's new green. Helen went through the garden to the moor and sat there on a grey rock out of which her own grey figure might have been carved. She watched the stars blink forth and stare; she saw the gradual darkening of the world, and then Halkett's moving shape came towards her. Out here, he was in his proper place: the kitchen made him clumsy, but wide places set him off, and she felt a kind of pride in his quickness and his strength.
"George," she said softly as he would have passed her, and he swung round and bent and took her in his arms, without hesitation or mistake.
"Were you waiting for me?" he whispered, and felt her nod against his coat. She freed herself very gently. "Shall we stay out here?" he said.
"No. I have left Notya long enough."
"What made you wait for me?"
"I—don't know," she said. She had not asked herself the question, and now the unspoken answer shocked her with its significance. She had gone to wait for him without any thought. It might have been the night that drew her out, but she knew it was not that. Once before, she had called herself a slave, and so she labelled herself again, but now she did it tremulously, without fierceness, aware that it was her own nature to which she was chiefly bound.
"Are you going to wait for me every night?" she heard him say. "Give me your hand, Helen. It is so small. Will you go over the wall or through the door? I'd like to lift you over."
"No. I want to go through the garden. There are primroses there. Big ones, like stars."
"It's you that are a star."
"I think they liked the snow. And the poplars are all buds. I wish I could sit in the tree-tops and look right across the moor."
"And wait for me. And when I came I'd hold my arms out and you'd jump into them."
"If I didn't fly away."
"Ay, I expect you would do that."
They did not speak again until they reached the house, and when she had lighted the kitchen lamp she saw him looking moodily into the fire.
"Is Mrs. Biggs better?" she asked smoothly.
"What do you know about her?"
"I heard she was ill."
"Who told you?"
"Dr. Mackenzie."
"Oh, he's been again, has he?"
"Yes." Her voice had a ring in it. "And he will come tomorrow."
"And the next day, I suppose, and the next. I should have thought he'd spare that old nag of his; but no, up he comes, and I want to know why."
She did not answer immediately because she feared to betray the indignation that moved in her like a living thing. She found her sewing and signed to him to put her chair into its place, and when she had stitched steadily for a time she said in pleasant tones, "George, you are like a bad person in a book."
"I'm not up to this kind of talk. You told me yourself that Mrs. Caniper hardly needs a doctor. What does he come for, then? Is it for you?"
"No, it is not."
"Do you like the man?"
She opened her lips and shut them several times before she spoke. "I'm very fond of him—and of Daniel."
"Oh, leave Daniel alone. No woman would look at him."
She gave him a considering gaze for which he could have struck her, because it put him further from her than he had ever been.
"It's no good staring at me like that. I've seen you with him before now."
"Everybody on the moor must have seen me with him."
"Yes, and walking pretty close. I remember that."
"Very likely you will see me walking with him again."
"No, by God!"
"Oh," she said, wearily, "how often you call on God's name."
"No wife of mine—"
She laughed. "You talk like Bluebeard. How many wives have you?"
"I've none," he cried in an extremity of bitterness. "But I'll have one yet, and I'll keep her fast!"
She lifted her head in the haughty way he dreaded. "I will not endure suspicions," she said clearly, but she flushed at her own words, for she remembered that she had been willing to give Zebedee the lesser tokens of her love, and it was only by his sternness that she could look George in the eyes. Zebedee would have taken her boldly and completely, believing his action justified, but he would have no little secret dealings, and she was abashed by the realization of her willingness to deceive. She was the nearer to George by that discovery, and the one shame made her readier to suffer more.
"It's because I want you," he said, shading his eyes; and for the first time she had no resentment for his desires.
"Oh, George, don't you think you had better go home?" she said.
"Why?" he asked her.
"Because—because I want to read."
"Well, I can watch you."
"And you won't think it rude?"
He shook his head. There was a rare joy in sitting within reach of her and honouring her with his restraint.
Her slim feet were crossed on the dog's back, and she hardly stirred except to turn a page: the firelight threw colours on her dress, behind her there was a dark dresser where china gleamed, and sitting there, she made a little picture of home for a man who could remember none but hired women in his house.
"I wish you'd talk to me," he said, and at once she shut her book with a charming air of willingness.
"Do you know what you've been reading about?" he dared to ask her slyly, for surely she had been conscious of his thoughts of her.
She would not be fluttered. "Yes. Shall I tell you?"
"No," he said.
Her voice was influenced by the quick beating of her heart.
"Do you never read anything?"
"I gave it up long ago."
"Why? What did you do at night before you—"
"Before I married you? I used to smoke and wish it was time to go to bed, and look at the newspaper sometimes."
"That must have been very dull."
"I used to watch the clock," he said. He leaned towards her and spoke quickly, softly. "And I watch it still! From waking till dusk I watch it and think of you, sitting and waiting for me. Oh, what's the good of talking to me of books? You're here—and you're my wife, and I'll talk to you of nothing but yourself." He knelt, and his hands were on her waist. "Yourself—my beauty—my little saint—your little hands and feet—your cheeks I want to kiss—your hair—" He drew her to his breast and whispered, "How long is it—your hair?"
There was no resistance in her, and her neck could not hold up the head that drooped over his shoulder when he kissed her ear and spoke in it.
"Helen—Helen—I love you. Tell me you love me. You've got to kiss me—Yes—"
She answered in a quiet voice, but she stopped for breath between the words. "I think—there's some one—in the hall. It must be John."
Reluctantly he loosed her, and she left him quickly for the dark passage which covered and yet cooled her as she called out, "John! Is that you?"
"Both of us," Rupert answered.
"But it's Friday."
"Yes. Won't you let me have a whole holiday tomorrow?"
She looked back into the kitchen and saw George prepared to meet her brothers. Never before had she seen him with so fine a manner, and, smiling at him, she felt like a conspirator, leagued with this man who was liberated by possession of her, against the two who would feel horror when they learnt she was possessed.
John's jaw tightened as he saw George and nodded to him, but Rupert's greeting had its usual friendliness.
"Hullo, here's George!" They shook hands. "I've not seen you for months. What's the weather going to be tomorrow? It's starlight tonight."
"It'll be fine, I think."
"That's good. Helen, you've hidden my slippers again, and I told you not to. What a fiend for tidiness you are!"
"I couldn't leave them in the dust." She was half enjoying her self-consciousness. "They're in the cupboard."
"Find them, there's a dear."
She brought the slippers and went back to her chair. The three men seemed to fill the kitchen. John was silent and, leaning against the table, he filled his pipe and looked up sometimes as the others talked. Rupert, slim against Halkett's bulk, alert and straight, was thinking faster than he spoke, and while he reminded George of this and that, how they had gone ratting once together, how George had let him try a colt that he was breaking, Helen knew there were subtle questions in his brain, but if George suspected them, he gave no sign. He was at his ease, for with men he had neither diffidence nor surliness, and Helen remembered that she had hardly seen him except in the presence of Miriam or herself, two women who, in different ways, had teased him into sulkiness.
Her heart lightened and, when he chanced to look at her, she smiled again. A few seconds later, Rupert followed Helen's glance and learnt what had caused the slight confusion of George's speech. She was looking at him with an absorbed and hopeful interest. She was like a child attracted by some new and changeful thing, and her beauty had an animation it often lacked.
"Can't we all sit down?" Rupert said. He promised himself a pleasant evening of speculation.
John handed his tobacco pouch to George and, having exchanged a few remarks about the frost, the snow, the lambing season, they seemed to consider that courtesy's demands had been fulfilled; but Rupert talked to hide the curiosity which could have little satisfaction until Halkett took his leave.
When he rose to go, he stood before Helen's chair and looked down at her. He was so near that she had to throw back her head before she could see his face.
"Good-night, George."
"Good-night." He took her hand and kissed it, nodded to the others, and went out.
Imperceptibly, Helen straightened herself and took a breath. There was a vague stir in the room.
"Well! I've never been more damned," John said.
"Why?" Helen asked.
"That salute. Is it his usual manner?"
"He has done it before. I liked it."
"He did it very well," said Rupert. "Inspired, I should think. Will you have a cigarette?"
"Will it make me sick?"
"Try it. But why do we find you entertaining the moorland rake?"
She was absurd with the cigarette between her lips, and she asked mumblingly as Rupert held the match, "Why do you call him that?"
Rupert spread his hands. "He has a reputation."
"And he deserves it," said John.
She took the cigarette and many little pieces of tobacco from her mouth. "Before you go any further, I think I had better tell you that I am married to him."
"Good God!" John said, in a conversational tone.
There was a pause that threatened to be everlasting.
"Helen, dear, did you say 'married to him'?"
"Yes, I did."
Rupert lighted one cigarette from another and carefully threw the old one into the fire.
"When?" John asked. He was still staring at her.
"I forget the date."
"Won't you tell us about it?" Rupert said. He leaned against the mantelpiece and puffed quickly.
"There's nothing more to tell."
"But when was it?" John persisted.
"Oh—about a month, six weeks, ago. The paper is upstairs, but one forgets."
"Wants to?"
"I didn't say so, did I? Notya is not to know."
"And Zebedee?"
"Of course he knows."
Rupert was frowning on her with a troubled look, and she knew he was trying to understand, that he was anxious not to hurt her.
"I'm damned if I understand it," John muttered.
Her lips had a set smile. "I'm sure," she said lightly, "you'll never be damned for that. I'm afraid I can't explain, but Zebedee knows everything."
They found nothing else to say: John turned away, at last, and busied himself uneasily with his pipe: Rupert's cigarette became distasteful, and, throwing it after the other, he drove his hands into his pockets and watched it burn.
"I suppose we ought to have congratulated George," he said, and looked grieved at the omission.
Helen laughed on a high note, and though she knew she was disclosing her own trouble by that laughter, she could not stay it.
"Oh, Rupert, don't!"
"My dear, I know it's funny, but I meant it. I wish I could marry you myself."
She laughed again and waved them both away. "Go and see Notya. She may not be asleep."
When John came downstairs, he looked through the kitchen door and said good-night; then he advanced and kissed her. She could not remember when he had last done that, and it was, she thought, as though he kissed the dead. He patted her arm awkwardly.
"Good-night, child."
"Don't worry," she said, steadying her lips.
"Is there anything we can do?"
"Be nice to George."
"Oh, I've got to be."
"John, I wish you wouldn't talk as if he's—bad."
"I didn't mean to set myself up as judge, but I never liked him."
"But I like him," she said. "Go home and tell Lily. I'm afraid she'll lie awake all night!"
"What a family this is!"
"Once, I might have said that to you. I didn't, John."
"But we are a success."
"And why should we not be? We shall be! We—we are. Go home. Good-night."
She waited for Rupert, dreading his quick eyes.
"Notya seems better," he said easily. "Well, did you finish the cigarette?"
"I didn't like it."
"And it looked wrong. A piece of fine sewing suits you better."
She smiled. "Does it? Have you had supper?"
"Lily fed me. I like that girl. The only people I ever want to marry are the ones that some one else has chosen. It's contrariness, I suppose." He looked round. "Two arm-chairs? Do you always sit here?"
"Yes. Notya can't hear us."
"I see."
"And you want to see the rest?"
"I do."
"I shall show you nothing."
"I'd rather find it out."
"Tomorrow," she said, "you will see Daniel and Zebedee. I know you'll be curious about him. I don't mind, but don't let him notice it, please, Rupert."
He marked her little tremor. "Trust me. I'm wasted on the bank."
"You and Daniel will have a fine talk, I suppose. The walls of that house are very thin. Be careful."
"Yes, my dear. I can't help wishing I had not left home."
She stood up. "I don't wish anything undone. If you begin undoing, you find yourself in a worse tangle."
"You're not unhappy?"
"Do I look it?"
"You always answer one question with another. You didn't look it. You do now."
She sighed. "I almost wish you hadn't come, Rupert. You made beauty seem so near."