“Some of us have to work for what isn’t,” he said.
“Yes. I’ve done that too,” she answered.
He lifted his eyes abruptly to hers, dark eyes that seemed to her to hold a curious protest. “And you’ve found it worth while?” he said.
She countered the question. “Have you?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t say I’d done it.”
“But you know what it feels like,” she said.
He smiled at that. “You are very shrewd. Well, I have done it. But I don’t see any results—any decent results. I never shall see any.”
“Does one ever really get results before the work is done?” said Frances.
“I don’t know.” He dropped his eyes again moodily, and she found her own resting upon the silvery gleam of his bent head. “Life can be pretty damnable,” he said, “most particularly to those who have a sense of duty.”
“It is more damnable if we rebel,” said Frances quietly.
“You speak as one who knows,” he said.
“Yes. I do know.” She uttered the words with conviction. “I have been a rebel. But that is over. I am going back now to work in the furrows—if a place can be found for me.”
He frowned at her words. “Those infernal furrows! We plough our very souls into the soil! And to what end? Of what use?”
“So you are a rebel too!” said Frances, with the suspicion of a smile.
He threw her his sudden, challenging look, and she thought he was angry. But in a moment, sombrely, with eyes downcast, he made answer. “Yes, I am a rebel too.”
There fell a silence between them that was curiously sympathetic. Frances reflected later that it was that silence that banished all her former embarrassment. She knew when he spoke again that it would not be as a stranger. Somehow they had ceased to be strangers.
He looked up at her again at length. “Miss Thorold, I want to ask you something, and I don’t know how to put it. I’ve lived among clods too long to express myself with much delicacy. Will you make allowances for that?”
She met his look with frankness. “You do not need to ask me that,” she said.
“Thank you.” His eyes held hers with a certain mastery notwithstanding the humility of his address. “I have no intention of being offensive, I assure you. But I know—I can’t help knowing—that you have come through a pretty bad passage lately. I don’t want to ask anything about it. I only want to lend a hand to help you back to firm ground. Will you let me do this?”
“I have already accepted too much from you,” she said.
His look hardened. “I know. So you think. But you only see one point of view. I want you to realize that there is another. And if you leave Tetherstones now, well, you won’t have done all you might towards lessening what I believe you regard as an obligation.”
“What do you mean?” she said. “I thought you wanted me to go.”
“You thought wrong,” he returned with finality. “There is room for you here, and no reason whatever why you should go back to old Mrs. Trehearn, who is utterly unfit to look after you. Square says it would be madness. I beg you will not contemplate such a thing for a moment.”
He spoke with a force that he did not attempt to conceal, and she heard him with a strange mixture of surprise and doubt. She could not understand his insistence, but at the back of her mind she was oddly conscious of the fact that she lacked the strength to combat it.
Instinctively she sought to temporize. “It would be quite impossible for me to stay on here indefinitely. You have all been much too kind to me already, and I couldn’t—I really couldn’t.”
“Wait!” he said. “I haven’t suggested your doing that. I know you wouldn’t. What I do suggest is that you should stay here to convalesce while you are looking about for another post. Can’t you do that as easily here as with your brother in the North for instance?”
She smiled a little at his words, but she shook her head. “I can’t go on living on your kindness, and I have so very little money left. You must understand how impossible it would be.”
“I don’t understand,” he said doggedly. “You are a woman, and a woman has got to be protected when she is at the end of her resources. If you really want to make any return, you can do the farm accounts for Milly. She never had any aptitude for figures. But for heaven’s sake don’t talk of going until you are well! I won’t hear of it.”
There was little logic in the argument and more than a little dogmatism; but for some reason Frances found herself unable to combat the point further. He was evidently determined that she should stay, and she was too tired for further resistance.
“We will talk of this again,” she said gently. “Meanwhile, I am very, very grateful to you, and—should like to help with the farm accounts if I may—while I am here.”
“Thank you,” he said.
He got to his feet with the words. She thought he was going to take her hand, then suddenly she saw him stiffen, and realized that they were no longer alone.
She raised herself to see the bent figure of an old man coming towards them over the grass.
“My father!” said Arthur Dermot.
The old man had reached them. He stood, leaning on a knotted stick, looking at her. Again she marvelled, for it was the face of a scholar—a dreamer—that she beheld. It had the grey hue of one who seldom moves in the sunshine. The eyes were drawn as if they did not see very clearly or were continually looking for something beyond their range of vision. His hair was snowy white. She thought he must be very old.
“Is this our visitor from the moors?” he asked, in a feeble tenor voice that somehow stirred her compassion.
“Yes,—Miss Thorold.” Arthur’s reply was curt, almost as if he resented the old man’s presence. His whole attitude was uncompromising.
“I am very pleased to meet you,” said Mr. Dermot courteously addressing Frances. “I was so grieved to hear of the unfortunate result of your adventure. I trust you are now nearly restored to your normal health?”
“I am much better,” Frances said. “I have been telling your son how very, very grateful I am for all the kindness that has been shown me here.”
“Not at all—not at all,” said Mr. Dermot. “It has been a great pleasure to us all to be of any service to you. You are a stranger in this part of this world, I hear?”
“Yes. I came here for a rest. It was foolish of me to get lost on the moor,” said Frances, smiling ruefully. “I shall never do that again.”
“Ah! It must have been a very unpleasant experience. It is strange that you should have been found at the Stones.” The tired old face reflected her smile. “There is a tradition hereabouts that the devil walks there at night. You did not meet him by any chance?”
“No,” Frances said. “I did not meet him. Curiously enough, I have never even seen the Stones. I did not know they were there. The night was so dark and misty.”
“It is a very interesting spot,” said Mr. Dermot. “A Druidical circle—according to some—though others believe it to be the result of a volcanic upheaval many thousands of years ago. I myself held the former theory. There are certain marks which in my opinion can only have been made by iron staples. This supports the current belief that Druidical victims were chained there previous to sacrifices. Hence the name of Tetherstones.”
He uttered the word deliberately, with a smile towards his son, who stood on one side moodily fidgeting with the riding-whip he held.
“What a ghastly idea!” said Frances.
“It is somewhat gruesome certainly, but it holds considerable interest for the student. If you are at all attracted by this type of research I shall be very pleased to conduct you to the Stones one day and to point out all the features which in my opinion tend to support this theory. My son Arthur,” again he smiled, “has no use for relics of any description. He is too busy tilling the ground to give his attention to the study of mere stones.”
“Too busy grinding his bread from them!” put in Arthur with a cynical twist of the lips. “Miss Thorold will not be equal to a climb to the Stones for some time yet. And I doubt if they would interest her very greatly when she got there.”
“Indeed they would interest me,” Frances said. “I have always been attracted by the study of old things. I hope Mr. Dermot will one day be kind enough to show me what he has just been describing.”
“With pleasure—with pleasure,” said the old man, evidently gratified by her sympathy. “Sunset is a very favourite time for seeing them. The evening shadows are very beautiful up there.”
“Little Ruth has been telling me about them,” Frances said.
“Ah! The child! The little blind child who lives with us! Yes, yes, of course, the child!” The old man’s voice was suddenly vague. He frowned a little as one who seeks to capture an elusive memory. “It is strange how little her infirmity hampers her,” he said, after a moment. “I sometimes think she has an inner vision that serves her more effectually than physical sight. The brain of a blind person must be a very interesting study.”
“She seems wonderfully happy,” Frances said.
“Yes, yes, she is always happy—like—like—another child I used to know.” Old Mr. Dermot’s eyes took a sudden pathetic look. “I lost that child,” he said. “There are a great many others—a great many others; but she was the darling of them all.” He turned with sudden querulousness upon the younger man standing silently by. “Why are you waiting here? Why don’t you go back to the grinding of your stones?”
“I am waiting for Ruth,” his son made quiet rejoinder, without the movement of a muscle. “I have sent her to fetch something.”
Mr. Dermot’s fine mouth curved satirically. “My son likes to be waited upon,” he observed to Frances. “When you are well enough, he will make use of you too. We all have to work for him. He is a hard taskmaster.”
Frances smiled. “I shall be only too glad to be of use to any of you,” she said. “I am very much in your debt at present.”
“Oh, nonsense, nonsense!” he returned paternally. “We do not talk of debts at Tetherstones. Nor do we let our visitors work. Unless,” he smiled back at her with a kindliness that won its way to her heart, “you would like to help me perhaps. I am writing a book on the Stones.”
“Miss Thorold is not well enough to do anything at present,” said Arthur with brief decision. “We must not worry her. Remember, she is an invalid, and she must be treated as such.”
“Oh, but I am much stronger,” Frances said quickly, for it hurt her to see the sudden animation fade from the grey old face. “I should love to help you if I could. Do you think I can?”
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Dermot, and she was surprised by an odd hopeless ring in his voice. “A great many have tried to help me, but it is a very difficult matter, and no one has succeeded yet.”
“You must let me try,” Frances said gently, with the feeling that she was comforting a child. “I should like to try.”
She uttered the last words with a glance towards Arthur and was surprised by the sternness of his expression. He was not looking at her, but at the old man who stood leaning on his stick with his faded blue eyes gazing sadly before him.
“You may try if you like,” said Mr. Dermot. “But my moments of inspiration are getting rare. Yet I should like to have finished that book when I come to die. It is good to leave something behind to mark where one fell.”
The dreaminess of tone and words smote upon her senses like a knell. Again she tried to find some comforting words, but they were checked by the sight of Ruth coming across the grass in her light, confident fashion. They all watched her, as it were by common consent. She was singing to herself, her little tuneless song.
“Strange!” said the old man suddenly. “They say that blind birds always have the sweetest notes.”
He moved to meet the child, and she put out her hand to him with a smile.
“Oh, Grandpa, are you back again? I am so glad you are back.”
“Are you glad, little one?” He stooped to kiss the upturned face. “Have you missed the old man all this time?”
“I like it best when you are here,” she answered. “We all do. Shall we go for a walk now, Grandpa? My dear Granny said I might go to the Stones. I want to gather some giant harebells for Miss Thorold.”
“May I have my pouch?” said Arthur.
She had it in her hand. She turned and gave it to him. “And there is a letter for Miss Thorold Aunt Maggie told me to bring out. Old Mrs. Trehearn has just brought it.”
“A letter!” said Frances, and felt her heart jerk upon the word.
Silently Arthur handed it to her. One glance at the address was enough. She could not control the swift tremor that went through her as she murmured her thanks.
“And Dr. Square is here,” said Ruth. “He is drinking elder-flower wine in the kitchen. He told me to say he is just coming out to see Miss Thorold.”
“Then we will go,” said Mr. Dermot, turning towards the couch with a courteous gesture. “Miss Thorold, I hope I have not tired you. You are very pale. Give Dr. Square my compliments, Arthur! Tell him I am back again and feeling much better. Good-bye, Miss Thorold! When next I have the pleasure of seeing you, I shall be bringing you my book to read.”
He went, Ruth treading lightly by his side, noiseless and dainty as a scrap of thistledown.
Arthur had not stirred from his post by the foot of the couch. He stood there, massively, filling his pipe. And Frances lay, breathing quickly, her letter unopened in her hand.
Suddenly the man’s eyes looked across at her, straight and challenging. “Aren’t you going to read it?” he said.
She quivered at the abrupt question. She knew that she could not open that letter in his presence.
He realized the fact instantly, and she saw an odd gleam of triumph in his eyes. He turned and picked up his cap.
“All right. I’m going. But don’t forget—whatever he has to say—you’ve promised to stay here for the present!”
He was gone with the words, striding away towards the house, leaving her oddly disconcerted and unsure of herself.
Yes, she had promised to stay. At the bidding of this man whom she scarcely knew, she had yielded the point and she knew that he would keep her to it. His attitude was wholly incomprehensible to her, convinced as she was that he had wished her gone. But in his taciturn, ungracious fashion he had somehow made it impossible for her to go. She wondered, as she watched him depart, if he were pleased—or otherwise—with his morning’s work. Even with his last words vibrating in her mind, she greatly doubted if he had acted in accordance with his own inclination. She knew he had meant to be kind, but was it under pressure perhaps from someone else—Dolly, his mother, or the old tired man his father, who had evidently but just returned to the farm after a prolonged absence? It was impossible to tell. She was bound to suspend judgment. And meantime—meantime that second letter from Montague Rotherby was yet unopened in her trembling hand.
It was still unopened when Dr. Square came out of the house with Dolly, and at his approach she pushed it behind a cushion.
Whether he noted any agitation on her part or not she could not say, but he was very emphatic in his orders to her to rest, and impressed upon Dolly the necessity for absolute quiet. Then he departed, and, before she could open her letter, Milly came out with her work and a chair and sat down beside her with the evident intention of remaining. Milly was the silent one of the family, a shy, diffident girl who shared Ruth’s adoration for her mother, but had little in common with the rest. She was stitching at a flannel shirt for Arthur, and she worked steadily without lifting her eyes.
Frances did not attempt any conversation. She was very tired, and the thought of that letter which could only be read in solitude burdened her. She had not answered the first, and he had written again so soon! She had a bewildered feeling as of being driven against her will, but whither she could not have said. Only she knew that if she would save herself this letter must be answered. He was growing impatient, and perhaps it was not surprising. She had given him a certain right over her. He could at least with justice claim an explanation of her changed attitude. But the bare thought of such an explanation revolted her. She had a passionate desire to thrust him out of her life, never to see him, never to communicate with him again. Only she knew—too well—that he would not submit to such treatment. Sooner or later he would demand a reckoning. And—torturing thought!—after all, had he not a right?
Oliver’s cheery voice across the lawn diverted her attention. He was leaning on the sill of the dairy window, talking jauntily to someone within. She liked Oliver—Oliver Twist as they called him, on account, she had discovered, of a slight limp, the result of a kick on the knee in his boyhood. He had a gay personality that appealed to her, and the comic flash of his daring blue eyes was a thing to remember. He was never depressed, whatever the weather.
He was plainly enjoying himself on this occasion, and presently a ringing laugh in unison with his told her who was the companion of his idle moments. There was only one person at Tetherstones who ever laughed like that.
Milly glanced up nervously from her work at the sound, but made no comment. Only, as the distant figure suddenly leapt the sill and disappeared into the dairy, she coloured very deeply as if ashamed. Frances, who had viewed the whole incident with amused interest, felt a little out of patience with her. She had noticed before that Maggie and Oliver were evidently kindred spirits.
She closed her eyes with the reflection that Milly must be something of a prude, when a sudden commotion rekindled her interest and she opened them again in time to see Oliver come hurtling through the window with amazing force to land on his back in a bed of mignonette. With amazement that seemed to choke her she saw Arthur, his head lowered like an infuriated bull, draw back from the window into the dairy.
“Good heavens!” she said aloud. “Did he do that?”
“Yes,” said Milly under her breath. She added very nervously, “It—it—it was Oliver’s fault.”
“Good heavens!” said Frances again.
The glimpse of Arthur’s face, dead-white, a mask of anger, had set her pulses wildly throbbing. She watched tensely to see what Oliver would do.
What he did do amazed her almost more than his first involuntary gymnastic. He got up from the mignonette laughing as if he had just come out of a football scrum, straightened his attire without the smallest hint of discomfiture, and coolly vaulted back through the window into the dairy.
“Ah!” whispered Milly, and held her breath.
She clearly expected some further act of violence, and trembled for the young man’s safety. Frances also watched with keen anxiety. But at the end of many seconds she began to realize that the episode was over. No one approached the window again.
Milly drew a deep breath and resumed her work in silence.
It was clear that she did not wish to discuss what had just taken place, and Frances was far too considerate to trouble her with questions or comments. But the incident had very successfully diverted her own thoughts. She actually forgot that disturbing letter which lay hidden under her cushion.
Her thoughts dwelt persistently upon Arthur Dermot. The man puzzled her. There was something tragic about him, something fierce, untamed and solitary, with which she found herself strangely in sympathy. She realized that the life he led was a singlehanded fight against odds. He was like a swimmer battling to make headway against an overwhelming current, succeeding only in keeping afloat; and she who for so long had also fought alone was aware of a quick sense of comradeship urging her to a readier comprehension than it seemed anyone else at Tetherstones possessed. She was beginning to understand what had made her first visualize him as a gladiator standing alone in the arena of life.
The rest of the morning passed uneventfully, save that Oliver presently appeared, unabashed and cheery of mien, armed with a hoe, and proceeded, whistling, to restore order in the bed of crushed mignonette. Then Dolly came out with her midday meal, after which the sisters took her back to her room to rest. She slept deeply during the afternoon, only awakening when the shadows were beginning to grow long. Then, looking forth from her window, there came to her the sudden memory of the letter she had forgotten. A gleam of something white under the cedar-tree where her couch had been caught her eye, and she realized immediately that it must have fallen there when they gathered up her rugs. The house was very still and seemed deserted. She guessed that those of the family who were not occupied in farm-work were gathering apples for cider in the orchard on the other side of the building.
There was no one to send for her letter, and that sense of shame with which the bare thought of Rotherby now inspired her urged her strongly not to leave it for any chance comer to discover. She was stronger far than she had been, and she made swift decision to use her strength. She got up from her bed and slipped on her shoes. She was already dressed, and she only paused to throw around her a shawl that Dolly had left handy. Then, with an odd feeling of guilt, she opened her door and went out into the dark oak passage.
The stairs were steep and winding. She knew that they would try her endurance and prepared to descend with caution. The dizziness of weakness came upon her as she reached them. And she hung upon the rail of the banisters to gather her forces.
In those moments of semi-helplessness there came to her the sound of voices talking in the kitchen below, but having embarked upon the expedition she was in no mood to draw back on account of a little physical weakness and it did not even cross her mind to call for help. Resolutely she summoned her strength, and, conquering her giddiness, began to descend.
It seemed to her that the stairs had become inexplicably steeper, and her hold upon the rail had developed into a desperate clinging with both hands before she rounded the final curve which brought her in sight of the bottom. Her heart was thumping uncontrollably, and her legs were almost refusing to support her by the time she reached the last stair. It was necessity rather than expediency that induced her to sit down there at the foot to gather her forces afresh.
So sitting, with her throbbing head in her hands, there came to her words at first dimly, then with a growing meaning which, too late she realized, were never intended for her ear to hear.
“I’d do it in a minute—you know I would,—” it was Maggie’s voice, but strangely devoid of its customary cheery lilt—“if it weren’t for Mother. But—I believe it would kill her if another of us went wrong.”
“I’m not asking you to go wrong!” Swift and decided came the answer in Oliver’s voice. “I wouldn’t do such a thing. I love you too much for that. Good heavens! Don’t you think your honour is as dear to me as it is to your mother—or Arthur?”
“Yes, but—” Unmistakable distress sounded in Maggie’s rejoinder. She gave a little sob and left it at that.
“Well, then!” said Oliver, in the tone of one who scores a triumph.
There was a brief pause, then a sudden movement, followed by a muffled whisper from Maggie that was half protest and half appeal. “I don’t know what Arthur would say. He’d half kill you.”
“Oh, damn Arthur!” came the cheery response. “Why can’t he get a girl of his own? P’raps he’d be more human then.”
“He wouldn’t—he wouldn’t! Nothing would make him that, so long as—” Again the words broke off in half-hearted remonstrance.
“Rot!” said Oliver. “Once you were married to me, he’d have to come into line.”
“No—no, he wouldn’t! You don’t understand.” Maggie’s answer came with a sound of tears. “You don’t know him if you think that. He would simply kick you out of the place. And Mother—Mother would break her heart if I went too.”
“Don’t cry!” said Oliver softly.
Maggie was plainly sobbing against his shoulder. “I can’t help it. Oh, Oliver, we’ll have to be patient. We’ll have to wait.”
“But what are we going to wait for?” There was a hint of exasperation in Oliver’s query. “I don’t see what we gain by waiting. You’re twenty-eight. I’m thirty-two. We’ve both of us waited five years as it is.”
“Yes—yes! But let’s go on waiting—there’s a darling. Something’ll happen some day. Something’s sure to happen. And then we’ll get married.” Urgent entreaty backed the words. “It’s no good getting married if we can’t live together. And we—we—we are—very happy—as we are.”
More tears followed the assurance. Maggie was evidently aware of pleading a lost cause.
“Oh, we’re awfully happy, aren’t we?” said Oliver, grimly humorous. “Don’t cry, darling! I want to think. There’s no law against our getting married—even if we don’t live together—that I can see, is there? It would make things more sure anyway, and I guess we’d be a lot happier.”
“Oh, Oliver! Deceiving everyone! I couldn’t do it! Why, I’d be miserable every time I went to church!”
“No, you wouldn’t. There’d be no harm done to anyone. You’re old enough to manage your own life, and no one has any right to know how you do it.” Oliver spoke with blunt decision. “You love me and I love you, and if we choose to marry—well, it doesn’t matter a damn to anyone else. I may not be good enough for you, but that’s your business, not Arthur’s. If I’m good enough to love, I’m good enough to marry.”
“Yes.” Dubiously came Maggie’s answer. “But then, Oliver darling, what’s the use? We couldn’t be together any more than we are. And we——”
“That’s rot, isn’t it?” Vigorously Oliver overruled her argument. “Well, anyway, you marry me and see!”
“Ah, but I’m afraid. The beast—the beast might do you a mischief!”
There was almost a wail in Maggie’s words, but Oliver’s hearty laugh drowned it. “Bless the girl! What next? Seems I’d better carry a pitchfork about with me. No, now listen! I’ll fix it all up, and I won’t even tell you till it’s all cut and dried. Then one day you and I’ll go into Fordestown to market, and when we come back we’ll—” Inarticulate whispering ended the sentence. “There now! Will you do that?”
“I don’t know, Oliver. I’m frightened. I’m sure it isn’t right, and yet I don’t know why.”
Maggie’s answer sounded piteous, yet somehow Frances knew that her arms were clinging about her lover’s neck.
There came a pause, then Oliver’s cheery voice. “There now! Don’t you fret yourself! You may take it from me, it is right. And I’m going in to Fordestown to-morrow to get it settled. Mind, I shan’t say another word to you till everything is ready. You won’t back out? Promise!”
“Back out! Oh, darling—darling!”
Broken sounds came from Maggie that brought Frances to an abrupt realization of her position. She straightened herself and got up. Her knees were still trembling, but she forced them into action. She tottered down the passage to the nearest door and out on to the brick path that led to the garden.
The sun was going down. She passed between tall hollyhocks and sunflowers into the kitchen-garden. The lawn lay beyond. It was further than she had thought, and her strength was failing her. She came upon a rough bench set against the wall out of sight of the house and dropped down upon it with a feeling that she could go no further.
How long she had sat there she could not have said, for she was very near to fainting, when there came the sound of a man’s feet on the path beside her, and, looking up, she saw Arthur in his shirt-sleeves, a spade on his shoulder.
He stopped beside her, and drove his spade into the ground.
“Miss Thorold!” he said. “What are they all thinking of? How did you come here?”
She tried to smile in answer, but her lips felt very cold and numb. “Oh, I just—walked,” she said.
“You—walked!” Amazement and displeasure sounded in his voice. “Where is everyone?” he said. “Where is Maggie?”
He swung on his heel as if he would go in search of her, but Frances put forth an urgent hand to detain him.
“Don’t go! It—really doesn’t matter. Maggie is busy—getting the tea. I—I didn’t like to interrupt her. I give too much trouble as it is.”
Arthur growled something very deeply into his chest, but he checked his first impulse at her behest.
“Well, but what are you doing here? Why did you come out?” he asked, after a moment.
She hesitated to answer him. Then: “I dropped a letter,” she said. “It is under the cedar-tree. I just thought I would fetch it.”
“You must be mad,” he said. “Stay here while I fetch it!”
He strode away, and she sat and waited for his return, shivering against the wall, wondering if Maggie and Oliver had separated, wishing with all her heart that she had not overheard their talk.
She heard the tramp of his heavy boots returning. He came back to her.
“The letter is not here,” he said briefly. “Does it matter?”
She started. “Not there! But—I thought I saw it from my window. I thought——”
“It is not there,” he repeated. “It has probably blown away. Is it of any great importance?”
His tone seemed to challenge her. She looked up and met his eyes watching her with a certain hardness.
“No,” she said, and wondered what impulse moved her to utter the word.
“You are sure?” he said.
She smiled a little at his insistence. “Yes, quite sure. Please don’t trouble about it! It will probably turn up later.”
He dropped the subject without further discussion. “I had better carry you back now,” he remarked, and stooped to lift her.
She drew back sharply. “Oh, don’t, please! I can walk quite well.”
“You’re not going to walk,” he said, and in a moment the strong brown arms encompassed her.
She abandoned protest. Somehow he made her feel like a child, and she knew that resistance was useless. It was not a dignified situation, but it appealed to her sense of humour, and as he bore her solidly back along the paths between the hollyhocks she uttered a breathless little laugh.
“What a giant you are!” she said.
“So you’re not angry?” he said.
“Why, no! I am obliged to you. To be quite honest, I rather doubt if I could have walked back without some help.”
“Then it is just as well I am here to carry you,” he rejoined.
There was no sound of voices as he entered the house, and Frances breathed a sigh of thankfulness.
He carried her straight through and up to her room. “I hope you will not attempt that again before you are fit for it,” he said, as he deposited her upon the bed.
“Thank you very much. I hope I shall soon be fit,” said Frances.
He lingered in the doorway, his rugged face in shadow. “I hope you won’t,” he said suddenly and unexpectedly, and in a moment flung away down the passage awkwardly, precipitately, as if he feared he had stayed too long.
“Good gracious!” whispered Frances to the lengthening shadows. “What—on earth—did he mean by that?”
But there was only the queer uneven beating of her heart to answer her in the silence.
Frances slept badly that night. There were a good many things to trouble her and keep her brain at work. The thought of Maggie’s clandestine love affair worried her most, though why this should have been so she could not have said. There seemed to be a league among the sisters against their brother’s authority, and she felt that against her will she had been drawn into it. She would have given anything not to have overheard that talk in the kitchen, but she found it impossible to forget it. And yet to interfere in any way seemed to her impossible. Maggie was of an age to direct her own affair, as surely Arthur ought to recognize. Her love for young Oliver was evidently of long standing, and, however unsuitable it might appear, no third person had the right to attempt to frustrate it. To Frances, who had guarded her own independence so jealously for so long, such a course was inexcusable. But the secret worried her. There seemed to be forces at work at Tetherstones of which she had no knowledge—sinister forces with which Maggie obviously felt unable to cope. And Arthur was so strange, so headlong, so impossible to manage.
Arthur! The thought of Arthur held her in a kind of breathless wonder. The man amazed her at every turn, but he never awaked in her that palpitating doubt with which she had always regarded Rotherby. He might possess violent impulses, but he was upright, he was honourable. What he said, he meant. There was even something terrible in his simplicity. He was a man who would suffer the utmost torture sooner than betray a friend. He was also a man who might inflict it without scruple upon an enemy who had incurred his vengeance.
His attitude towards herself had a curious effect upon her. She was aware of a strong bond of sympathy between them. They were rebels together. They had eaten stones for bread. They could not remain as strangers. There was that about him that made her wonder if he had ever had a friend before. He stood out above and beyond the rest with a kind of solitary grandeur that strangely moved her—a man who should have made his mark in the world of men, but condemned to till the soil to give them bread—a slave who had been fashioned for a conqueror. The irony of it stirred her strangely. She wondered if anyone else saw in him aught but a tiller of the ground. The old man, his father, perhaps? But no! He had spoken of him with contempt. She had been aware of a hostility scarcely veiled between them. The old man evidently despised him for the very servitude that so plainly galled his soul. Did no one understand him, she wondered? And then the memory of the mother, white-haired and patient, came to her, and by a flash of intuition she realized that here lay the explanation of many things. He had harnessed himself to the plough for her sake. She could not doubt it. Though she had never seen them together, she knew that she had discovered the truth, and she was conscious, poignantly conscious, of a feeling akin to indignation. How could any woman accept such a sacrifice?
Of her own affairs, of Montague Rotherby, she thought but little that night. The inner voice that had so urgently warned her no longer spoke within her soul. The need was past. Inexplicably, the attraction of the man had gone with it. The loss of her letter had vexed her temporarily, but now she had almost forgotten it. By her silence she would sever all connection with him. She judged him as not ardent enough to follow up the quest. The madness was over and would never return. Once again, and this time with a sense of comfort, she reflected that she was not the type of woman to appeal to such a man for long. That last letter of his had probably been one of farewell. On the whole she was not sorry that she had not read it. She wanted to forget him as soon as possible and with him the bitter humiliation he had made her suffer. It was better to forget than to hate. No; decidedly it was not on his account that Frances passed a restless night.
With the early morning came sleep that lasted till the sun was high, and Ruth came in to perch on her bed while she breakfasted. She had been out in the cornfields, she said. They were cutting the corn in the field below the Stones. Next week, when Frances was strong enough, they would go and sit among the sheaves. Or perhaps they might go to-day if Uncle Arthur would take them in the dog-cart. The idea attracted Frances though she only smiled. The day was hot, and she was feeling better. She had a desire to go out into the sunshine, away from the old grey house and its secrets, of which already she felt she knew too much.
She did not know that the child had read acquiescence in her silence till later, when Dolly suddenly announced that the cart would be round in half-an-hour, and they must hurry.
“It would do you good to spend the whole day out to-day,” said the practical Dolly, whom Frances suspected of being secretly a little tired of a job that had ceased to be interesting. “Elsie and Lucy and Nell will all be to and fro if you should want anything. And no one could possibly catch cold on a day like this. Milly and I are going to Wearmouth to do some shopping, but I shall be back in good time to get you to bed. Dr. Square said he might not come to-day. If he does, it won’t hurt him to ride as far as the cornfield to see you.”
It had evidently been all talked over and arranged beforehand, and Frances had no objection to raise. In fact, the prospect delighted her.
“I should like to take my sketching-block,” she said. “And I shall be quite happy.”
So, armed with her beloved box of paints and brushes, she presently descended to find Arthur waiting somewhat moodily at the door with a pie-bald cob harnessed to a light dog-cart. His dark face brightened at the sight of her. He took the pipe from between his teeth and knocked out its contents on the heel of his boot.
“Better this morning?” he asked, as she came out.
She smiled at him, panting from her descent of the stairs, but resolutely ignoring her weakness. “Yes, I am much better. I am as strong as a horse to-day. Are you really going to drive me to the cornfields? How kind of you!”
“Jump up!” said Arthur. “You go to his head, Dolly! I’ll help Miss Thorold.”
He issued his orders with characteristic decision, and they were obeyed. Almost before she knew it, Frances found herself lifted on to the high seat where he wrapped a rug about her knees and pushed a cushion behind her.
The next moment he mounted beside her and took the reins. Dolly stepped back. The horse leaped forward.
“Hold on!” said Arthur.
They were out in the winding lane before Frances found breath to ask for Ruth. “Won’t she come with us? Have you forgotten her?”
“We never trouble about Ruth,” he replied. “She finds her own way everywhere. She will probably go across the stepping stones and get there first.”
“Are you never afraid of her coming to harm?” she asked.
“She never does,” said Arthur. He spoke briefly, and immediately turned from the subject. “Do you mind if we go for a stretch first? The horse is fresh.”
“Mind!” said Frances. “I’d love it!”
He laughed, and she knew in a moment that the plan was by no means an impromptu one. “It will do you good,” he said, and turned the horse’s head towards the moors.
They came out upon an open road and went like the wind. The day was glorious, the distant tors all blue and purple in the sunshine. They followed a direction she had never explored, and presently turned off up a wide track that seemed to wind into the very heart of the hills.
“Afraid it’s rather bumpy,” said Arthur. “Do you mind?”
“I mind nothing,” she answered simply.
He glanced at her. “You are not disliking it?”
She drew a long breath. “I don’t believe I ever knew what life could be before to-day.”
He said no more. The guiding of the horse took up all his attention. They came presently to a track crossing the one they were following.
He reined in as if he had reached his destination. Frances looked about her. The place was lonely beyond description. Here and there vast boulders pushed through the short grass, surrounded by tufts of heather that seemed to be trying to hide their nakedness. They were closely surrounded by hills, and the gurgle of an invisible stream filled the air with music.
“Have you ever been here before?” said Arthur.
“Never,” she said.
“Yes, you have,” he returned bluntly.
She started a little, and looked about her more attentively. Was the place familiar?
He pointed suddenly with his whip along the track they faced. “You and Roger!” he said. “Don’t you remember?”
She uttered a gasp of surprise. “Why—yes! But was it here?”
“It was round the curve of that hill,” he said. “Afterwards, you came on here alone, and lost your way, took the wrong turning. Remember?”
“I wanted to get to Fordestown,” she said. “But I was tired. I fell asleep.”
He nodded. “And then you wandered up to the Stones.”
She felt herself colour. With an effort she answered him. “It wasn’t quite like that. I met—a friend, or rather—he found me here. We got lost in the fog. That was how it happened.”
“Yes,” said Arthur.
He turned the horse up the wild track to the left without further words, and they went on in silence at a walk.
A great stillness brooded about their path. A certain awe had taken possession of Frances. The ruggedness of the place, its austerity, held her like a spell. The high hills shut them in, and the music of many streams was the only sound.
“You are taking me to the Stones?” she said at length, and unconsciously her voice was sunk almost to a whisper.
“Yes,” he said.
They went on up the lonely track. She tried to picture her walk with Montague through the blinding fog. Here she had slipped into bog, there she had stumbled among stones. Then as now, the vague sounds of running water had filled the desolation as with eerie, chanting voices. The smell of bog-myrtle came to her suddenly, and in a moment very vividly the terror of that night was back upon her. The thud of the horse’s hoofs on the wet track fell with a fateful, remorseless beat. She experienced a swift, almost overwhelming desire to turn back.
It must have communicated itself to the man beside her, for he checked the animal with a curt word and brought the swaying cart to a standstill.
“Miss Thorold, what is it? Have I brought you too far?”
The concern in his voice reassured her. She met his look with a smile. “No! I am quite all right. It is only my foolish imagination—playing tricks with me. Shall we go on?”
“Do you wish to go on?” he said.
“Yes. I am longing to see the Stones. I think this is rather a dreadful place, don’t you? It makes one think of”—she stumbled a little—“of human sacrifice. Do you hold your father’s theory about the Stones?”
“I seldom agree with my father about anything,” he returned sombrely. “Yes, you are right. This is a dreadful place. It has a bad name, as I told you before.”
They went on up the grassy track, mounting steadily. The rocky nature of the ground became more and more pronounced as they proceeded. The grass grew more sparsely though the tufts of heather continued.
“Are you frightened?” Arthur asked abruptly.
“No,” said Frances.
He looked at her. “You are sure?”
“What is there to frighten me?” she said.
“You were frightened the last time you came,” he said.
“Oh, that was different. It was foggy. I was lost.” She spoke quickly, with a touch of confusion, aware of the old embarrassment stirring within her.
He turned his eyes deliberately away and stared at the horse’s ears. “Would you be frightened now,” he said, “if a fog came up and you didn’t know the way?”
“Not with you to guide me,” she said.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
The hills closed gradually in upon the track till it was little more than a narrow passage, winding among boulders. The horse’s feet clattered upon stones. Quite suddenly the path mounted steeply between two large rocks and disappeared.
“Can we possibly get up there?” said Frances.
The man beside her made no reply. He merely struck the animal with the whip, so that he plunged at the steep ascent, and in a few moments was clambering up it with desperate effort. The cart rocked and jolted, and Frances clung to the rail. They reached the two grey rocks at the summit and passed between them on to a flat open space that shone green in the sunshine.
“This is the place,” said Arthur.
Frances looked all about her and drew a long, deep breath. “Ah! How—wonderful!” she said. “What a wilderness!”
They stood up all around, forming a great amphitheatre—the great, grey stones that had weathered so many centuries. Stark and grim, sentinels of the ages, they stood in their changeless circle, as they had stood in the early days of the world ere men had learned to subdue the earth.
Frances sat and gazed and gazed with a curious feeling of reverence upon that forgotten place of sacrifice.
“Isn’t it strange?” she whispered to herself. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
And then she turned to the man by her side. “It reminds me of the days when you were a Roman gladiator and I was one of the slaves who sprinkled the saw-dust in the arena.”
He looked at her with his brooding eyes. “So you were a slave?” he said.
“I have always been one,” she answered, with a quizzical lifting of the brows.
“You were not intended for a slave,” he said.
She smiled a little. “May I get down? I should like to walk here.”
“Are you strong enough?” he said.
“Of course I am strong enough. When I am tired, I will curl up and sleep in the sunshine.”
“You’re not afraid?” he said.
She faced him. “Of course I am not afraid. Why should I be?”
He lifted his shoulders slightly. “You were—or I imagined you were—a little while ago.”
“Oh, that was different,” she said. “Anyway, I am not so foolish now. I could sit here for hours and sketch.”
“It has been called the devil’s paradise,” he said rather harshly.
She snapped her fingers and laughed. “I am never afraid of the devil when the sun is out. Are you?”
“Sometimes,” he said.
He jumped to the ground and turned to help her, the reins over his arm.
She slipped down into his hold. “But there is nothing to frighten anyone here,” she said.
Even as she spoke, her heart misgave her a little. The Stones looked more imposing from the ground. Some of them had an almost threatening aspect. They seemed to crouch like gigantic monsters about to spring.
“It is certainly a wonderful place,” she said. “And the farm is close by?”
“Just down the hill on the other side,” he said. “It takes its name from them. Some bygone race probably used the place for sacrifice. The actual Tetherstones to which the victims were said to have been fastened are over there, close to the cattle-shed in which Ruth found you. The shed is just out of sight below the brow of the hill.”
“It is a wonderful place,” Frances said again.
She relinquished his arm, and began to walk a few steps over the grass. The man stood motionless, watching her. His brows were drawn. He had a waiting look.
Suddenly she turned and came back to him. She was smiling, but her face was pale. “Mr. Dermot, I am not sure that I do want to stay here after all,” she said. “There’s something I can’t quite describe—something uncanny in the atmosphere.”
“You want to go?” he said.
She shivered sharply, standing in the full sunshine. “I don’t want to be left alone here.”
“No,” he said, in his brief way. “And I don’t mean you to be here alone.” He put out a hand and pointed to a curiously shaped stone so poised that it seemed to be on the point of rolling towards them. “Do you see that? That is one of the great tetherstones. It is called the stone of sacrifice. It is so balanced that a child could make it rock, but no one could move it from its place. There are marks on that stone that scientists declare have been made by human hands, places where staples have been driven in, and so cunningly devised that prisoners chained to those staples were unharmed so long as they remained passive. But the moment they strained for freedom, the stone rocked slowly to and fro and they were crushed—gradually ground to death.”
“Oh, don’t!” Frances cried. “How gruesome—how horrible!”
“A devil’s paradise!” he said.
“But why did you bring me here?” she protested. “Why do you tell me these dreadful things?”
He shrugged his shoulders again. “I brought you here to satisfy your curiosity. My father will tell you much more horrible things than that. His book is full of them.”
“Let us go!” she said, shuddering. “I won’t come here again.”
“As you wish,” he said. “There are certainly pleasanter places.”
He helped her back into the cart, and wrapped the rug about her knees. As he did so, with his face turned from her he spoke again in a tone that affected her very strangely.
“Miss Thorold, I haven’t told you everything. There is a much more modern tragedy connected with this place which I haven’t told you of. It isn’t a subject that is ever mentioned among us, and I can’t go into any details. But—you’ve probably discovered by this time that there is something that makes us different from the rest of the world. It is—that.”
He spoke with an effort, and for the first time in all her knowledge of men there came to Frances that tender, motherly feeling that comes to every woman when she is face to face with a man’s suffering.
She sat for a moment or two without moving or speaking; then she put out a hesitating hand and touched his shoulder. “I am sorry,” she said very gently.
He drew in his breath sharply, but still he did not look at her. “I have never spoken of it to anyone outside before. But you are somewhat different. You have been through the mill, and you are capable of understanding?”
“I hope so,” she said.
He jerked up his head with an odd movement of defiance. “There’s one thing I would like you to know,” he said. “Though I am no more than a country clod and grind my living out of the stones, I’ve made a success of it. There’s not a single farmer hereabouts who can say that he has a better show than mine. In fact, they know quite well that Tetherstones beats them all.”
“That was worth doing,” said Frances.
“Yes. It was worth doing. But now that it’s done, anyone could run it—anyone with any experience. Oliver could run it.” He spoke contemptuously.
“Then why not let him,” suggested Frances, “and take a holiday yourself?”
“Let him!” He turned upon her almost violently. “Leave Oliver to run this show! You don’t know—” He pulled himself up. “Of course you don’t know. How should you? Oliver is very useful, but he is only a labourer after all. I don’t see myself putting him in my place. He thinks too much of himself as it is.”
“Ah!” Frances said, with an unpleasant feeling of duplicity at her heart. “But you like him, don’t you? He is a good sort?”
“I hope he is a good sort,” Arthur said grimly. “He needs to be kept in his place. I know that much. And I’ll see that it’s done, too.”
He looked at her hard with the words, as if challenging a reply. But Frances made none. Her years of rigorous work had taught her to maintain silence where she felt speech to be futile. She never wasted her words.
And in a moment Arthur relaxed. “I couldn’t leave my post in any case,” he said. “There are—other reasons.”
“Yes,” Frances said, glad of the change of topic. “I realize that.”
“Do you? How?” Again that peremptory, challenging look met hers.
But she answered him with absolute simplicity. On this point at least she felt no qualms. “On account of your mother,” she said. “I guessed that.”
His face changed, softening magically. “Yes, my mother,” he said. “But what made you guess it?”
“It just came to me,” she said. “I knew you must be fond of someone.”
He looked away from her to a gap of blue distance in front of them, and for a few seconds there was silence between them. Then: “Thank you for saying that,” he said, “and for thinking it. You have an extraordinary insight. Do you read everyone’s motives in this way? Or is it only mine?”
There was a hint of melancholy in the question, as though he invited ridicule to cover an unacknowledged pathos. But Frances did not answer it, for she had no answer ready. She felt as if in his silence he had lifted the veil and given her a glimpse of his lonely soul. She saw him as it were surrounded by a great solitude which she could not cross. And so she turned away.
“I am not a great reader of character,” she said. “Only I know that there is only one way of turning our stones into bread. And if we don’t find it, we starve.”
“Yes, starve!” He repeated the word with his eyes still upon the blue distance. “I’m used to starving,” he said slowly. “It’s a sort of chronic state with me.”
The sound of the reaping-machine came whirring through the sunlit silence, and the man pulled himself together with a gesture of impatience. “Well, I suppose we must go. You have seen the Stones, and I hope you are satisfied.”
“I am glad you brought me,” she said. “But I don’t think I shall come again.”
He looked at her, and she thought there was a hint of relief on his face. “You have seen all there is to see,” he said. “I think you are wise.”
He mounted into the cart beside her and walked the horse forward over the grass.
“There is little Ruth,” said Frances.
The child had come suddenly into view from behind one of the great stones, moving as was her wont lightly and fearlessly, her face upturned. She was carrying a small bunch of harebells, and as she came towards them she stooped and felt among the grass for more. Her soft, chirruping song rose up like the humming of a fairy. Finding some of the wiry stalks she sought, she knelt down in the sunshine to gather them.
“How happy she is!” whispered Frances.
The man said nothing. He walked the horse straight up to the little kneeling figure and reined in beside it.
“Is that you, Uncle Arthur?” said little Ruth.
“Yes,” he said. “Come here to me and I will take you back to the corn-field!”
She got up and came to him. He stooped and grasped her shoulder, guiding her to the step.
“Is Miss Thorold there?” said the child.
“Yes, darling. I am here,” Frances answered, and made room for her in the seat.
Ruth mounted the step, and in a moment nestled in beside her. “I gathered these flowers for you,” she said.
“Thank you, darling.” Frances took the flowers and stooped to kiss her.
“I’ve been waiting for you a long, long time,” Ruth said. “Have you liked your drive?”
“I have loved it,” Frances said with simplicity.
“Thank you,” said Arthur quietly, on the other side.
They passed on through the great circle and out between the stones on to a narrow track that led steeply downwards to a lane.
The buzz of a car rose from below them as they approached it, and Arthur drew in his horse. The car went by unseen, but to Frances in the high cart there came a sudden, sharp sense of insecurity that was almost panic, and for a moment she ceased to breathe. She knew that car.
Her agitation subsided gradually. They went on down the lane and turned into the corn-field.
“I must leave you here,” Arthur said.
He helped them both down and settled them comfortably with a rug and cushions in the shade of the hedge.
“Will you be all right here?” he asked Frances. “I will tell Elsie to look after you.”
“I shall be quite all right,” she assured him. “Please don’t let anyone waste any time over me!”
He smiled and turned away. She watched him go with an answering smile upon her lips.
Roger came up and lay down beside them. The peace of a perfect day descended upon the harvest-field. The fragrance of the cut corn was like an oblation.
“Are we alone?” said Ruth.
“Yes, darling. Why?”
The little girl came pressing close to her side. “Because I’ve got something to tell you, and it’s a secret. I met a man to-day in the lane, who said he was a friend of yours. He didn’t tell me who he was, but it was the friend who wrote that letter to you. And he said—would I tell you that he will be at the Stones again to-night at ten.”