PART III
Of that wild rush through the night Frances never recalled any very clear detail afterwards. She only knew a strange dazzle of moonlight that filled the world, making all things seem unreal, and once she fancied she caught a glimpse of the Stones grimly outlined upon a distant hill.
Her companion never spoke to her, his whole attention apparently being occupied in forcing the utmost speed from his car, despite the extreme unevenness of the moorland road they travelled. In the end they ran into a little town and straight up the one broad street in an inn, Frances always remembered the sign-board of that inn, for it was the first thing that made a definite impression upon her after her flight. The inn was calledThe Man in the Moon, and the sign-board portrayed the same, being an enormous yellow face with the most quizzing expression possible to imagine—a face that would have provoked a smile from the least humorous. Somehow that face served to jolt Frances back to the ordinary and the commonplace. It enabled her to put the overwhelming sense of tragedy away from her and assume something of her old brisk and business-like attitude.
“Is this where you are staying?” she said.
“Yes,” said Rotherby. “It’s comfortable enough in a homely way. Will you get out?”
She turned in the seat and faced him. By the light of the moon he looked ghastly pale, but he managed to call up a smile.
“If there is another inn in the place I’ll go to it,” said Frances.
“I’m afraid there isn’t,” said Rotherby. “And you probably wouldn’t get in if there were. But you needn’t be anxious on that account. I’ll call you my sister if you like.”
His manner reassured her. Moreover, he had the look of a man at the end of his strength. She wondered what had happened to affect him so.
She got out of the car without further discussion and waited while he ran it under an archway into the stableyard. It seemed a long while before he joined her again, and then she noticed that he moved with a curiously halting gait, almost as if he were feeling his way.
“It’s all right,” he said, as he reached her. “The door’s open. Come inside!”
He extended a hand to push it back for her, but very strangely the intention was frustrated. It was as if he had found some obstacle in his path. And as she turned towards him in surprise he suddenly uttered an inarticulate exclamation and grabbed at her arm. She was aware of his whole weight flung abruptly upon her, and she caught at him, supporting him as best she could.
He staggered against the door-post, breathing heavily. “I shall be all right in a minute—in a minute,” he gasped out. “Just hold me up—if you can! I won’t faint.”
She held him up, exerting all her strength.
Several dreadful seconds passed, then he made a determined effort and straightened himself. As he did so, she felt the sleeve of his coat at the elbow and found it wet through. A ghastly doubt assailed her.
“What has happened?” she said through trembling lips. “Your arm! Is it—is it——”
“Blood? Yes. I got it in the shoulder. Don’t be frightened! I shall get over it. Can you open the door?”
He spoke jerkily, but with more assurance. Frances opened the door with a sick wonder if the horrors of that night would ever pass.
Rotherby staggered in, and she followed him closely, half expecting him to fall headlong. But he had mastered himself to a certain extent, and she heard him speak with some authority to the shock-headed landlord who came sleepily out of the bar-parlour to meet them.
“This lady is my sister. Can you give her a comfortable room for the night?”
“There’s the room you told me to prepare, sir,” said the man, with a loutish grin.
“That’ll do. Take her to it! See that she has everything she wants! Good night, Frances! You follow him! I shall see you in the morning.”
Rotherby spoke calmly, but it was through clenched teeth.
Frances stood hesitating. The landlord waited at the foot of a steep, ill-lighted staircase.
“That’s all,” said Rotherby. “I’m sorry I can’t do more to-night.”
He was obviously putting strong restraint upon himself. Frances waited a moment longer, then spoke.
“I can’t—possibly—leave you like this. You have been hurt. You must let me do what I can to help you.”
Again for an instant she saw his smile, and she saw the clenched teeth behind it.
“I shall be all right,” he said again. “I don’t think there is anything to be done. It isn’t serious. I’ll see a doctor in the morning if necessary.”
But Frances was too practical to be thus reassured. “You must let me help you,” she said. “You must.”
He yielded the point abruptly. “Very well—if you wish it. Get some hot water, Jarvis! I’ve had a bit of an accident.”
He moved forward to the stairs, and Frances went with him, feeling herself once more the victim of an inexorable Fate.
They went up together, Rotherby stumbling until she gave him her arm to steady him. Reaching a small landing on which a gas-jet burned low, he directed her into a room with an open door, and they entered, he leaning upon her.
The moonlight flooded in through the uncovered window, and she saw that it was a bedroom with an old four-poster bed. She helped Rotherby to it, and he sank down upon the foot with a sigh of relief.
“Have you got any matches?” she said.
“In my pocket—on the right,” he said. “Can you get them?”
She felt for and found them. As she stood up again he surprised her by catching her hand to his lips. She drew it quickly away, and he said nothing.
She lighted the gas, that flared starkly in the shabby, old-fashioned room, and turned round to him again, forcing herself to a calm and matter-of-fact attitude.
“Shall I help you off with your coat?” she said.
He turned to her suddenly, and she was conscious of an unwilling admiration of the man’s courage when she saw the effort of his smile.
“I say, don’t dislike me so!” he said. “I’ll make Jarvis help me. Don’t you stay! There’s a room for you next-door—my room as a matter of fact, but I’ll stay in here for to-night.”
Against her will she was softened. Something about him—something which he neither uttered nor betrayed by look or gesture—appealed to her very strongly. She found herself unable to comply with his suggestion and abandon him to the mercy of the landlord who was even now lumbering heavily up the stairs. She realized clearly that whatever came of this night’s happenings, she was bound in common humanity to stand by Rotherby now. No other course of action was open to her.
“I shall not leave you,” she said, “till I have done all I can to help you—unless you make that impossible for me.”
“Heaven forbid!” said Rotherby, still smiling his twisted smile.
“Well, I am in earnest,” she said, as she bent to help him.
“I like you best that way,” said Rotherby.
She felt that in some fashion he had worsted her, but she put the matter resolutely away from her. It was not the moment for close analysis of the situation. She could only go as she was driven.
With the utmost care she helped him remove his coat, and was shocked to find that the shirt-sleeve was soaked with blood from shoulder to elbow.
“Don’t let Jarvis see!” said Rotherby sharply, and she covered it while the man was in the room.
Jarvis was too sleepy or too fuddled to be curious. He merely set down the can, wished them good night and stumped away.
Then Frances bent to her work. She found a jagged wound in the shoulder, from which the blood was still oozing, and she proceeded to bathe it with a strip of linen torn from the shirt-sleeve. The means at her disposal were wholly elementary, but she performed her task with a deftness that was characteristic of her, finding with infinite relief that the wound was not vitally deep. Rotherby endured her ministrations with a stoicism that again stirred her to admiration. He seemed bent upon making the business as easy for her as possible.
“Don’t mind me!” he said once. “Just go ahead! I’ll tell you if I can’t stand it.”
And then when she had finished at last, he told her where to find some handkerchiefs for bandaging purposes in the room that he occupied.
“You will go to a doctor in the morning, won’t you?” she said, pausing. “I have only cleansed it. There is bound to be some shot in the wound.”
“Some what?” said Rotherby, and looked at her with one of his most quizzical glances though his face was still drawn with pain. “Oh, didn’t I tell you that I tore it on some barbed wire?”
She felt herself colour deeply, but she did not take up the challenge. “I should go to a doctor all the same,” she said quietly.
He laughed at her with a touch of impudence that she could not resent. “Very good, Sister Superior, I will. Now if you don’t mind tying me up, I shall be grateful. Where would you like me to sleep—in this room, or my own?”
“In your own,” she said firmly.
He sobered suddenly at her tone. “Look here, you won’t run away in the night, will you? I promise you—I swear to you—I’ll play the game.”
What game, she wondered? But she did not put the wonder into words.
“I have nowhere to run to,” she said, and turned away from him that he might not see the bitterness on her face.
When she returned with the handkerchiefs she was a practical self once more. But she was beginning to be conscious of intense physical weariness, and she felt a sense of gratitude to him for noticing it.
“I say, you are tired! You’ve been ill, haven’t you?”
“I am well again,” she said.
He swept the assurance aside. “You don’t look it. Don’t bother about me any more! Oh, well, just tie a wet pad over it and then leave me to my fate!”
He became urgent in his solicitude and the knowledge that he was suffering considerably himself made her respond far more graciously than would otherwise have been the case.
But when it was over at last, when she was alone in the strange room and realized how completely that night’s happenings had changed the whole course of her life, a blackness of despair came down upon her, more overwhelming than any she had ever known. She cast herself down just as she was and wept out her agony till sheer exhaustion came upon her and she drifted at last into the merciful oblivion of dreamless sleep.
It was late in the morning when she awoke in response to a persistent knocking at the door, on the opening of which she found a bare-armed country-girl who informed her without preamble that the gentleman was waiting breakfast for her downstairs. Having delivered this message, she retired, and Frances was left to perform what toilet she could with the very limited means at her command.
Her long sleep had refreshed her and she reflected with relief that her strength was certainly returning. The thought of meeting Montague Rotherby gave her no dismay. Very strangely he had ceased to possess any very great importance in her eyes, her only determination being to break off all connection with him as soon as possible.
Somehow, as she entered the room where he awaited her, she had a feeling that he had never really mattered very greatly in her life. It was only what he had stood for—the realization of that part of her being which had lain dormant for so long, the throbbing certainty that for her also even the stones of the wilderness might be turned into bread.
She came forward to him, faintly smiling. “Are you better to-day?” she said.
She did not offer her hand, but he took it. His face twitched a little at her matter-of-fact greeting. She saw at a glance that he looked ill.
“I’ve had a foul night,” he said. “But it’s not serious. I’m going up to town. Will you come with me?”
She looked at him, startled. “Oh, no!” she said.
He bit his lip. “Are you still disliking me?” he said.
It was a difficult question to answer, so little did he seem to matter now. She replied after a moment without any conscious feeling of any sort.
“No. But I am not coming up to town with you. Is there any particular reason why I should? You are quite able to go alone, I suppose?”
He stared at her for a few seconds, at first frowningly, then with a growing cynicism. At length: “What have they done to you at Tetherstones?” he said. “Since you accepted my protection last night—more, asked for it—I should have thought there was quite a good reason why you should be willing to come to town with me to-day.”
“Then you are quite wrong,” she replied very clearly. “I am not prepared to do anything of the kind.”
His frown deepened for a moment, then passed. “Shall we have breakfast?” he said. “Then you can tell me what your plans are. I am quite willing to fall in with them, whatever they may be.”
Her plans! What were her plans? The old pitiless problem presented itself. Had he meant, she asked herself, thus to bring home to her the fact of her dependence upon his good offices? What were her plans?
“I have got to think,” she said.
He nodded. “Perhaps I can be of use. I believe I can be. I’ll tell you—when we’ve finished breakfast—what I meant by suggesting that you should come up to London with me.”
She wondered if he were referring to the old plan of giving her secretary work. Or perhaps—though she hardly dared to think it—he was going to talk about her sketches and the possibilities therein contained. Against her will, that thought remained with her throughout the brief meal that they ate together. Upon one point only was she fully decided. She could live on charity no longer. She was resolutely determined to work for her living now, whatever that work might be.
She noticed that her companion ate very little, but he seemed fully master of himself, and she put away the feeling of uneasiness that tried to take possession of her. She would very thankfully have avoided any discussion of the events of the previous night, but she knew this to be inevitable. There were certain things that must be faced.
He pushed back his chair at length and spoke. “There’s only one way out of this tangle,” he said. “You must realize that as I do. But perhaps I have not made myself very clear. What I want you to do is to come up to town and—marry me. Will you do that?” He smiled at her with the words. “I’m sorry my courtship has hung fire for so long. But you will admit I am hardly responsible for that. And I am quite ready to make up for lost time now. What do you say to it?”
Frances was on her feet. He had roused her to feeling at last, but it was not such feeling as would have moved her a few weeks earlier. She had to stifle an almost overwhelming sense of indignation before she could speak.
“It is quite impossible,” she said then, with the utmost emphasis. “It is quite, quite impossible!”
“Impossible!” He stared at her. “But why? I understood it was what you wanted. I have a distinct recollection of your telling me so.”
She gasped at the recollection. It stung like a scorpion. “But that was long ago—long ago,” she said. “I don’t want it now! I couldn’t—possibly—contemplate such a thing now.”
“But why?” Rotherby insisted in astonishment. Then: “Perhaps you think I don’t love you. Is that it?”
“Oh, no!” She had begun to tremble. “That wouldn’t make any difference. At least, it is not that that has made me change my mind.”
“Ah!” he said with a sudden grimness. “Something else has done that.”
She was aware of a sharp pain at her heart that was almost unendurable. It took all her courage to meet his eyes. But she forced her voice to steadiness. “Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that I have come to know my own mind rather than that I have changed it. I thought I loved you, but it was a mistake. As to whether you ever loved me, I have no illusions at all. You never did.”
He got up. She saw his face twist as if he were in pain, but she knew that it was nothing physical that brought that look to his eyes, banishing the cynicism. “You seem very sure of that,” he said, and turned from her to light a cigarette. “So I am struck off the list, am I? Do you think you are altogether wise to do that—after what happened last night?”
The question surprised her, but it was wholly without malice. She could not take offence.
She answered him in a low voice, for the first time conscious of the dread of giving pain. “I have really no choice. I couldn’t do anything else.”
“What do you propose to do?” he said.
The old maddening question that she had had to answer so often. She tried to summon the old battling spirit, but it did not respond to her call. Her pride had been flung in the dust. What did she propose to do? Was there anything left that could ever restore her self-respect?
With a gesture that was quite unconsciously pathetic, she turned and went to the window in silence.
Rotherby smoked without speaking for a few seconds. If he felt the appeal of her hopelessness, he did not show it.
It was she who spoke first at length, without turning, and it was as though she uttered the words to herself with the dreary persistence of despair.
“I have got to begin again.”
“What are you going to do?” said Rotherby.
There was a quality of ruthlessness in his voice that pierced her despair. She swung round abruptly and faced him. There was majesty in her bearing, though with it was mingled the desperation of the hunted animal at bay.
“I will work,” she said. “I am not afraid of work. And I don’t care what I do.”
He came and joined her at the window. “Yes, it sounds all right,” he said. “But you haven’t the strength, and you know it.”
She shrank at the blunt words, for they struck her hard. She knew—it was useless to dispute it—that she lacked the strength.
“What is the use of saying that?” she said, protesting almost in spite of herself.
“Because I want you to see reason,” he rejoined, and she knew that he recognized his advantage, and would press it to the utmost. “Why don’t you want to marry me, Circe? You might do very much worse.”
She drew back from him. “Oh, don’t you see that it is out of the question?” she said. “I couldn’t marry you. I don’t love you.”
She saw his face harden. “That is plain speaking,” he said. “But I want to know why. What have I done to forfeit your love?”
“But I never loved you,” she said.
“Are you sure of that?” He spoke insistently. “You kissed me. You let me hold you in my arms.”
She flinched at the recollection, but she compelled herself to face him. “That was a mistake,” she said.
“You are sure of that?” said Rotherby.
“Quite sure,” she answered with simplicity.
He shifted his ground. “Are you also sure you know what love is?”
She clenched her hands as though in self-defence. “Every woman knows that,” she said.
“Then how did you come to make a mistake?” he countered.
Again she drew back as from the thrust of a dagger. “Oh, I suppose any woman might do that, but when once she has found it out—she doesn’t do it again.”
“How did you come to find out?” said Rotherby.
The inquisition was becoming intolerable, but still she faced him with resolution. “I have had a good many hours for thought,” she said. “And I have thought a good deal.”
“At Tetherstones?” he said.
“Yes.”
She saw a gleam of something she did not understand in his look. He seemed to be watching narrowly for something. He spoke abruptly.
“What I don’t understand—what I want to understand—is why you came with me last night.”
She answered him with an effort. “I had to get away.”
“Ah!” he said. “It wasn’t on my account then? You weren’t coming to meet me after all—in spite of my message? Did you get my message?”
She bent her head. “Yes. I had your message. Ruth told me. I was coming—I was coming—to meet you.”
“Yes?” he said. “Why were you so late?”
She hesitated. She could not tell him of that awful interview in the farm-kitchen. She could not bring herself so much as to mention Arthur’s name.
“I was coming to meet you,” she said again. “I didn’t mean to be late. But they are a strange family. I didn’t want them to know.”
“A very strange family!” said Rotherby. “Why should they know? Your affairs are your own.”
“Yes. But they have been very kind to me. They might think they had a right——”
“A right to shoot anyone from outside who wanted to speak to you?” he said.
“Oh, no—no!” she protested, feeling the hot colour rise overwhelmingly under his look. “That was a piece of madness.”
“You knew it was going to happen?” he questioned.
“No. I knew you were in some sort of danger. I didn’t know what. I was coming to warn you.”
Reluctantly she uttered the brief sentences. It was like the betrayal of her friends.
He seized upon the unwilling admission. “You knew? How did you know?”
She had to answer him. “One of the men on the farm told me. He didn’t say why—merely that you were in danger—that I had better warn you to go.”
“And then you decided to come with me?” said Rotherby.
“I decided that I couldn’t stay any longer,” she told him steadily. “You came up at the right moment, that was all.”
“What?” His eyes searched her again, his expression slowly changing. “You were running away too, were you?”
She wondered that he did not press the point of the mysterious attack upon him further, but was thankful that he refrained. She turned from the subject with relief. “I had to get away,” she said again.
“You’re not going back?” he questioned.
Something rose in her throat. Again she was conscious of that intolerable pain. She forced her utterance. “Never, no, never!” she said.
He made no comment, but turned away from her and paced the length of the room before he spoke again. Then, with his back to her, he paused.
“And yet you would sooner work yourself to death than marry me!”
She answered him immediately with feverish insistence. “Yes, I must work. I must work. I can’t go on being dependent. I can’t endure it.”
He turned round. “Perhaps—if you were independent—you might regard me differently,” he said.
She was silent.
He came slowly back to her. “Circe! May I hope for that?”
She looked at him helplessly.
He stood before her. “I swear to you,” he said forcibly, “that no one on this earth wants you as I do.”
A curious tremor of feeling went through her. She was stirred in spite of herself.
He put out his hand to her. “Circe!” His voice came oddly uncontrolled. “Won’t you—can’t you——”
She did not know what moved her—his obvious earnestness or her own utter friendlessness. But somehow her mood answered his. Her hand went into his grasp.
“But I must be independent first,” she said. It was the last effort of her pride. “You’ll help me to be that?”
“I’ll help you,” he said.
The days that succeeded her flight from Tetherstones left an ineradicable impression upon Frances. She maintained her steady refusal to accompany Rotherby to London, but she did not remain atThe Man in the Moon. She found a bedroom over the little Post Office at Fordestown, and here she established herself, after collecting her few belongings from her former lodging at Brookside. She had very little money left, but she built on the hope that her sketches might find a market. Rotherby had undertaken to do his best to dispose of the one which he had taken with him, and she had plans for making more while the golden weather lasted.
On the second day of her sojourn at Fordestown she wrote to Dolly at Tetherstones. She found it impossible to give any adequate reason for her abrupt departure, so she barely touched upon it beyond begging her to believe that in spite of everything she was and would ever be deeply grateful for all the kindness that they had shown her. She ended the letter with a request that the next time Oliver had to come to Fordestown he might bring her sketching materials to her. She posted her letter and went out on to the moor for the rest of the day.
The solitude of the great heather-clad space that she loved brought soothing to her tired spirit. She was at last able to review the situation deliberately and dispassionately; but the more she meditated upon it, the more did she feel that the disposition of the future was no longer in her own control.
Very curiously, and now it seemed inextricably, had her life been bound up with Montague Rotherby’s. Neither attraction nor repulsion were factors that counted any more. He had laid claim to her so persistently that she had almost begun to feel at last that he had a claim. In any case she was too tired, too dazed by the blows of Fate, to battle any further. She who had fought so hard for her freedom was compelled to own herself vanquished at last. Like a stormy dawn romance had come to her, and by its light she had seen the golden vision of love. But the light had swiftly faded and the vision fled. And she was left—a slave.
“I will never have any more dreams,” she said to herself, as she gazed through tears at the dim blue tors. “None but a fool could ever imagine that the stones could be made bread.”
And then she sought to brace herself with the thought that she had not greatly suffered.
“It can’t have gone very deep,” she told herself very resolutely, “in so short a time.”
But yet she knew—as we all know—that it is not by time or any other circumstance that Love the Immeasurable can be measured, and that no power on earth can ever obliterate the memory of Love.
Of Montague personally she thought but little during those days. Of Arthur Dermot she thought ceaselessly. Against her will the individuality of the man imposed itself upon her. Night and day she thought of him, puzzled, distressed, humiliated, seeking vainly for a solution to the mystery in which all his actions were wrapped. Why had he misjudged her thus? What madness had driven him to attempt the other man’s life? Was he actually mad, she asked herself? It might have accounted for much, and yet somehow she did not believe it. The man’s melancholy philosophy was the philosophy of reason, his cynical acceptance of life the deliberate and trained conclusion of a balanced mind. His love for herself she found harder to understand, but it moved her to the depths, appealing to her as nothing had ever appealed before. His violence, his brutality, had shocked her unspeakably, so that she prayed passionately that she might never see him again. But yet, strangely, the appeal still held. By that alone, he had entered the inner shrine of her heart, and, strive as she might, she could not cast him out. His love for her might be dead. Never for a moment did she imagine that it could have survived that awful night. But the memory of it—ah, the memory of it—it would go with her all through her life, just as she would remember the purple flower upon the coping in the Palace garden, a thing of beauty beloved for a while and then lost—the gift that the gods had offered only to snatch away ere she had grasped it.
Those days of waiting were as the days spent by a prisoner awaiting trial, only there was no hope on the horizon. Like one of the prisoners of old of whom Arthur had told her, she was tethered to her stone and the first effort she made for freedom would crush her. Though to a great extent she had regained her strength, she knew that she was not equal to hard work—such work as she had done for the Bishop. There were times of faintness and inertia when she felt that the very heart within her must be worn out, times of overwhelming depression also, when for hours the tears would well up and fall and she lacked the power to restrain them.
No one knew what she was enduring. There was no one at hand to help her. Chained to her stone, she waited day by day, not for deliverance but for the coming of her fate.
And then one day there came a letter from Rotherby, and in that letter was an enclosure that sent the blood tingling through her veins. He had sold her sketch for five guineas, and he could dispose of more if she cared to send them. “Couldn’t you do a companion picture to the stepping-stones?” he said in conclusion.
His letter held no endearments. It was the most business-like epistle she had ever received from him, and her gratitude was intense. She sent him all the sketches she had by the next post, and with them a note expressing her earnest thanks and asking how he fared.
Then she sat down to think. It seemed to her in the first flush of excitement that this was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her. It was like a tonic to her drooping spirits. Surely it was the turning-point at last!
The bleatings and patterings of a flock of sheep passing up the street brought to her mind the fact that it was market-day. She went to the window with an eagerness she had not known for long with the thought that Oliver might be coming at any time with her sketching materials. She longed to take up her beloved pastime again. If indeed it were to give her back her cherished independence, with what gladness would she spend her utmost effort to achieve her best. But it seemed too good to be true.
She looked in vain for Oliver or for any face she knew, and at length, disappointed, she turned away. But Rotherby’s letter was close to her hand, and she sat down to read it afresh.
It was while she was thus employed that she heard the trampling of a horse’s hoofs outside, and looked forth once more in time to see Dr. Square just rolling off his old white horse.
Her heart gave a leap at the sight, but the next moment she told herself that he had patients in Fordestown and it was not likely that he had come thither to seek her.
Nevertheless she listened anxiously, and presently heard the sound of his heavy step upon the stairs. She went to her door then and opened it, meeting him on the narrow landing outside.
She saw in a moment that his big face lacked its usual cheeriness though he greeted her with outstretched hand. “Ah, here you are, Miss Thorold! Dolly told me where to look for you, and they sent me up from downstairs. May I come in?”
“Please do!” she said, and led the way back into her room. Her first instinctive feeling of pleasure at sight of him had given way to one of misgiving. She turned very quickly and faced him. “Please tell me what is the matter! Something is wrong.”
He did not attempt to deny it. “They’re in bad trouble at Tetherstones,” he said. “And when Dolly told me you were here, I said I’d come over and see you.”
“Oh, what is the matter?” she said.
His kindly eyes looked into hers with a hint of concern. “Don’t you upset yourself, Miss Thorold!” he said. “You’re not too strong, remember. It’s the little girl—little Ruth. She’s had an accident, and she’s very ill.”
“Oh, poor mite!” said Frances. “How did it happen?”
“It’s difficult to say. The child was lost for some hours the day after you left. Then they found her up at the Stones. She had been looking for you, she said. And that was all they could get out of her. She had had a bad fall off the Rocking Stone, and couldn’t move.”
“Oh, poor little girl!” Frances’ voice was quick with anxiety. “Is she much hurt?”
Dr. Square nodded slowly once or twice. “She has no strength—and I’m afraid—very much afraid—there is some mischief to the spine. She keeps on asking for you, Miss Thorold. I said I’d come and tell you.”
“Ah!” Frances said.
It came upon her like a blow—the cudgel-stroke of Fate. So there was to be no escape after all! A sense of suffocation came upon her, and she turned sharply to the window, instinctively seeking air. Blind for a moment, she leaned there, gathering her strength.
Behind her she heard the doctor’s voice. “Now take it quietly! Don’t let yourself be overcome! There’s no need. The little one isn’t suffering, and—please God—she won’t suffer. It’s only her anxiety about you that’s worrying her. She’s not used to worry, you know. She’s only a baby.” His voice shook a little. “But if you could just go to her—set her mind at rest—you’d never be sorry. You’ve had a hard life, Miss Thorold, but you’ve got a soft heart. And sometimes, you know, when we are throwing a line to others, the tide turns in our favour and we find we’re drifting in to our own desired haven as well.”
His words reached her through a great chaos of emotions. She leaned against the window-frame with closed eyes, seeing herself as driftwood upon the tide of which he spoke. To go back to Tetherstones, to face again the torment from which she had barely escaped, to feel the grey walls enclosing her once more and all the sinister influences that had, as it were, stretched out and around her to draw her down! She lifted her face to the soft grey sky with an inarticulate prayer for help.
She heard again the doctor’s voice behind her, and realized that he was pleading for something very near his heart. Was not little Ruth near to the hearts of all who knew her?
“It won’t be for very long,” he was saying. “She’s fretting her heart out for you because she had got hold of the idea that you are in danger—frightened—unhappy. No one can set her mind at rest except you, and it would be a kindness to them all at Tetherstones to go and do it. You would like to do them a kindness, Miss Thorold?”
That moved her. Very suddenly all her doubt and hesitation were swept away. To do them a kindness—these people who had brought her back from the gates of death, who had sheltered her, cared for her, comforted her in her extremity! What mattered anything besides? What was her pride compared with this? What though her very heart were pierced by the ordeal? She could not shirk it now. It was as though an answer had come to that half-formed prayer of hers. Whatever the outcome, she had no choice but to go back.
With a sharp, catching breath, she turned. “I will go—of course,” she said. “How can I get there?”
He smiled at her with instant relief, and she realized that he had hardly expected to gain his point. She wondered how much he knew regarding her sudden departure. It was evident that he understood that she had a very strong reason for not wishing to return.
He got up. “Well, as I said, you’ll never regret it,” he said. “As to getting there, Oliver’s in the town now with the cart. Do you mind going back with him? It may be for a few days, you know. You’re prepared for that?”
“I will stay as long as little Ruth wants me,” she said.
“That’s right. That’s like you.” He held out his hand to her, “Good-bye, Miss Thorold! You’re looking better. I believe the tide has turned already.”
She tried to smile in answer, but she found no words. Driftwood! Driftwood! And even if the tide turned, whither could it land her now?
“Pleased to see you, Miss Thorold,” Oliver touched his hat with his whip and gave her his friendly smile of welcome. “A bad business this about the little girl. They’re all very upset at Tetherstones.”
“I am sure they must be,” Frances said. “What a terribly sad business, Oliver! Who was it found her?”
“I found her,” said Oliver. “But we thought she was with you and no one missed her at first. She’d been lying there all night and a good part of the day before she was missed. We’d been busy, you see—” he jerked the reins—“busy with other things. Then Maggie came out to me and said you were gone and the little one couldn’t be found, and I went straight away to the Stones to look for her. She was lying just under the Rocking Stone unconscious, and I carried her back. She’s come to herself since, but they say she’s somehow different—that she’ll never be the same again—that she—” He broke off to cough and flicked the horse’s ears with his whip. They clattered over the rough stones of the street for some distance in silence. After a while he spoke again. “She’s only a child—a bit of a baby—but she isn’t like others I’ve ever seen. Maggie is just breaking her heart over her.”
“Poor Maggie!” said Frances gently.
“Yes.” He nodded acquiescence. “Maggie and Nan—Ruth’s mother—were always the pals, you see. There was only a year between them. Nan was Arthur’s favourite sister too. He’s feeling it pretty badly—though he’d sooner die than let anyone know.”
Frances felt her heart contract. She said nothing.
They were out upon the open moor road before Oliver volunteered anything further. Then, somewhat abruptly, with a sidelong glance at her, he said, “It’s decent of you to come back to us after the fright you had.”
“I am only coming for little Ruth’s sake,” Frances said.
“Yes, I know. The doctor told me. I didn’t think he’d get you to come,” said Oliver frankly. “You’d had a pretty bad scare. But it might have been worse, I suppose. The fellow wasn’t much damaged, was he?”
There was curiosity in his tone tempered with a reticence that she was quick to detect. A sharp sense of anger surged within her.
“It was no thanks to—to—the man who shot him that he wasn’t killed,” she said.
“No. I know,” said Oliver. He added after a moment, “Anyway I did my best to prevent it. It wasn’t my fault that it happened.”
She turned upon him. “But—surely you didn’t know it was going to happen?” she said.
He lifted his shoulders. “No, I didn’t know, Miss Thorold. But I did know the chap was in danger. I told you so, didn’t I?”
“But why—why?” said Frances.
He gave her again that sidelong glance. “Can’t always account for things,” he said. “We’re a good long way from towns and civilization here.”
“But he might have been killed!” she said.
He nodded. “So he might. But he wasn’t. That’s all that matters. Where is he now?”
“He has gone to town,” she said.
“Then, if he’s a wise man, he’ll stop there,” said Oliver with finality, and whipped up his horse.
The day was soft and cloudy, the tors wrapped in mist. There was a feeling of rain in the air and the sweetness of rain-filled streams. She heard the rushing of unseen water as they trotted over the winding moorland road. It filled her with a great sadness, a longing indescribable to which she could give no name.
She asked no more questions of Oliver, for she knew instinctively that she would receive no actual enlightenment from him. Moreover, something within her shrank from discussing Arthur Dermot and Arthur Dermot’s motives with a third person. Any explanation, she felt, must come from the man himself.
They drove on up the stony road, drawing nearer and nearer to the great boulder-strewn tors, hearing the vague bleatings of sheep in the desolation but seeing no living thing upon their way. Again the eeriness of the place began to possess Frances. It was a relief to her when Oliver said abruptly, “We won’t go by the Stones.”
She believed it to be the quicker route, but it was rough, and she was thankful that he proposed to avoid it. Her dread of Tetherstones was growing with every yard they covered, but there was no turning back now. She could only go forward to whatever might be in store.
The mist gradually descended to meet them and turned to a small rain, drifting in their faces. The chill of the moor laid a clammy touch upon them. Frances shivered in spite of herself.
Oliver shot her his shrewd glance. “They’ll be awfully pleased to see you,” he said, and added, “We’re nearly there.”
Yes, they were nearly there. The atmosphere of Tetherstones seemed to be reaching out to receive them—the old grey place from which she had fled as from a prison.
They turned down the steep lane, and the scent of wet honeysuckle came to Frances mingling with the bog-myrtle of the moors. Something rose in her throat and she turned her face aside. She had fled from the place as from a prison, yet, returning, that exquisite scent came back to her as the breath of home.
They reached the white gate, standing wide to receive them, and drove through to the garden where Roger met them with extravagant antics of delight. His welcome sent a warmth to her heart that in some fashion eased the unacknowledged pain there. She approached the old stone doorway with more assurance.
Oliver saluted and turned the horse; she heard him driving round to the stables as she entered.
The door stood open according to custom. The passage was dark, but she heard someone moving in the kitchen and directed her steps thither, Roger bounding by her side. Then as she turned a corner there came the sudden tread of feet, and she drew back sharply. She was face to face with Arthur Dermot.
He also checked himself abruptly, and in a moment stood back against the wall to let her pass.
He did not attempt to address her, but she could not pass him so in his own house. She stood still.
But for a second or two her voice refused to serve her, and he made an odd movement as if to compel her to pass on. Then with a sharp effort she spoke.
“Little Ruth—I have come to see her. Is she—is she——”
“Dying—yes,” he said. “It was—good of you to come. Nell and Lucy are in the kitchen. If you like, I will tell them you are here.”
“Oh no,” she said. “No. I will go to them.”
She passed him quickly, thankful to escape, hearing his heavy tread as he went on, with that old fateful feeling at her heart. She wondered what he really thought of her for returning thus.
She found the two girls in the kitchen, very subdued and troubled though they gave her a ready welcome.
“We’ve missed you dreadfully,” said Nell. “And little Ruth has hardly left off crying for you all these days.” Her lip quivered. “Dr. Square said he should go and tell you after your letter came—but I didn’t think you’d come.”
“I had to come,” Frances said.
“I thought you would if you really knew how badly you were wanted,” said Lucy.
“I didn’t,” said Nell. “I knew you wouldn’t stay that day of the row. I told you so, didn’t I? And I never thought you’d come back. I told Arthur you wouldn’t. Only you would have done it.”
She looked at Frances with warm admiration in her eyes.
“You’re a brick,” she said. “And we’ll none of us forget it. You might run and tell Dolly, Lucy. Now sit down, Miss Thorold, and I’ll get you a glass of milk.”
She bustled round the old raftered kitchen, and Frances, sitting in the horsehair arm-chair, tried to forget that awful night when she had awaked as from a nightmare to find herself lying before the great fireplace—a prisoner.
“Where are your mother and Maggie?” she asked, when Nell brought her the milk.
“Mother is in the study with the old man,” said Nell. “Maggie is out somewhere. She and Elsie were getting hay down from the loft a few minutes ago. The work has got to go on, you know, whoever lives or dies.” She checked a sob upon the words.
Frances leaned forward and held her hand. “Tell me about little Ruth!” she said.
“Oh, there isn’t much to tell. She went to look for you the night you left. You had a fright, didn’t you? So did we. There was a frightful row after you were gone, and we all of us forgot to wonder where she was till the morning. Then Oliver found her—found her—” Nell choked and recovered herself. “It was up by the Stones. She’d been there heaps of times before and never come to any harm. But this time she must have gone right up on to the Rocking Stone and overbalanced. She was lying under it, and she’d been there for twelve hours or more, poor little darling. She was unconscious when Oliver found her, but she hadn’t been all the time. She keeps on talking about it, about being a prisoner under that stone and begging God to set her free so that she can go to you. She has got a rooted idea that you are in trouble. You’re not, are you? Everything’s all right with you?” She looked down at Frances piteously, through tears.
“Don’t you bother your head about me, my dear!” said Frances. “My affairs don’t count now.” She paused a moment, then, with some hesitation: “Will you tell me why there was such a disturbance after I went?” she asked.
“Oh, that!” said Nell, and also hesitated. “That’s one of the things we’re not supposed to talk about,” she said, after a moment. “You don’t mind, Miss Thorold? You’ll try to understand?”
“My dear, don’t you trouble!” said Frances very kindly. “I shall always try to understand.”
But even as she spoke she felt again that cold misgiving at her heart. What species of monster was this whom they all combined to shield?
Lucy came running down again with an eager message. Dolly said would she go up at once? Little Ruth was in their mother’s room. She would show her where it was.
Then, as they mounted the stairs together, she drew close to Frances and slipped a shy hand into her arm. “We have missed you so much,” she said.
Frances patted the hand without speaking. The warmth of her welcome touched her very deeply.
They traversed two or three rambling passages before they reached Mrs. Dermot’s room. It was over the kitchen, a low, oak-raftered apartment with an uneven floor. It contained two beds, and in one of these, close to a narrow, ivy-grown window, lay Ruth.
Her face was turned towards the door, and—it came upon Frances with a curious sense of shock—the eyes that had always till then been closed were open, wide open, and burning with a fire so spiritual, so unearthly, that for a moment she halted almost as one afraid. In that moment she realized very fully and beyond all possibility of doubt that little Ruth was dying.
Lucy’s soft touch drew her forward. She was aware of Dolly, pale and restrained, somewhere in the background, but she did not actually see her. She went to the child’s bedside as if she were entering a sanctuary.
Ruth greeted her instantly, but she lay like a waxen image with tiny hands folded on her breast.
“Have you come back at last, dear Miss Thorold?” she said, a thrill of gladness in her voice. “God told me you would in a dream last night.”
Frances knelt down by the bed and closely clasped the little folded hands that never stirred to her touch. “My little darling!” she said softly. “Have you been wanting me?”
The burning eyes were fixed upon her. It was as though in them alone the living spirit lingered. She was sure that the spirit saw her in that hour.
“Yes, I have wanted you,” the child said. “I have been calling you—crying for you—ever since that night. You said that you were coming then, but you never came.”
“I couldn’t,” whispered Frances.
“No. You had to go,” Ruth agreed, in her tired voice. “I knew that. But why didn’t you go to the Stones? You meant to go there, didn’t you?”
“I can’t tell you now, darling,” Frances said.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Ruth. “I think God didn’t want you to go. But I didn’t know that when I went to look for you. I thought you might be lost and frightened again—like you were that first night that I found you. And then—when you weren’t there—I was afraid something had happened to you. Did anything happen, dear Miss Thorold?”
“Nothing dreadful, sweetheart,” she answered softly.
“Then God took care of you,” Ruth said, with conviction. “There was something dreadful very near you—very near you; but He sent it away.”
Those blind eyes—the eyes of a visionary—kindled afresh with the words, and a sudden sense as of something vividly remembered smote Frances. She had seen those eyes before. Where? Where? Then it came to her—like a rending flash of lightning across a dark sky. The Bishop of Burminster had had that inner flame as of prophecy in his eyes on the night that he had denounced her. A great wave of feeling went through her. She had an overwhelming desire to shield herself, shrinking as one shrinks from the unsparing beam of a searchlight.
“We won’t talk of it now, darling,” she said almost pleadingly. “Try to go to sleep!”
“I don’t want to sleep,” said the child. “I want to give you a message, but it hasn’t come yet. And if I go to sleep, I shall forget it.”
“We will give her something to make her sleep presently,” said Dolly gently. “She isn’t in any pain—only a little tired. Take this chair, Miss Thorold! You must be tired too.”
So Frances sat down beside the bed to wait, as all in that house were waiting, for the coming of the Angel of Death.
Late in the afternoon Maggie came in, her plump, rosy face drawn and sad. She came and hung over the bed for a space in silence. Ruth was lying as she had lain throughout, with her eyes fixed upwards, as though waiting for a sign, and still they burned with that fire of inner sight which to Frances had been somehow terrible. Maggie straightened herself at last with a deep sigh. She looked across at Frances with the glimmer of a welcoming smile, but she did not speak. Softly she crept away.
The next to come was the white-haired mother, and to her Ruth spoke the moment she entered the room though her entrance made no sound.
“My dear Granny!” she said.
Frances rose quickly and proffered her chair; but Mrs. Dermot shook her head.
“No, no! I have only come for a moment.” She bent over the child. “Are you happier now, my baby? Can you go to sleep?”
“Yes, I am quite happy,” said little Ruth, “now that Miss Thorold is here. But I can’t go to sleep till I get the message for her. I might die, dear Granny, and I shouldn’t be able to give it her then. We can only send our love—after we are dead.”
“But Miss Thorold can’t stay here all the time, darling,” said Mrs. Dermot, with a tender touch upon the child’s brow. “She will get so tired sitting here. She has been ill, you know. She will want to rest.”
“Someone will call her when the message comes,” said Ruth. “I know she won’t mind. She is always so good. Will you go and rest, please, Miss Thorold? It won’t come yet.”
“Please do!” said Mrs. Dermot. “My son asks me to say that he hopes you will regard Tetherstones as your home for as long as you care to stay in it. I think I need not speak for myself, or tell you how grateful we all are to you for coming back to set our little one’s mind at rest.”
There was infinite pathos to Frances in the quiet utterance. Mrs. Dermot was looking at her with eyes that seemed too tired for tears.
“How she has suffered!” was the thought that passed through Frances’ mind, as she met them.
“You are much more than kind—as you always have been,” she said very earnestly, as she rose to go. “Please remember that I am here to help, if there is anything whatever that I can do! Don’t hesitate—ever—to make use of me!”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Dermot. “I should like you to rest now. Your room is quite ready for you. Perhaps—perhaps—in the night we may need you.”
Frances knew what she meant. She stooped to kiss little Ruth and turned to go. “I shall be ready at any time,” she said.
In the doorway she encountered Dolly entering with a cup of milk in her hand. Dolly stopped.
“Are you going downstairs for some tea? That’s right. It’s in the kitchen. Maggie is there. She will look after you. We are so glad you have come back.”
She passed on into the room, and Frances went out alone.
The old house was full of shadows. She could hear the shrill cries of swallows wheeling about the eaves. The scent of honeysuckle was everywhere. How had she ever thought of it as a prison?
Slowly she went down the stairs, and turned towards the kitchen. As she did so, she heard a sudden sound in the recess in which she had hidden on the night of her flight, and started to see two figures emerge. They were very closely locked together, and she saw that in the dimness she was not observed. Involuntarily almost, she drew back.
“Don’t fret, sweetheart!” It was Oliver’s voice, pitched very low. “It’ll be all right, you’ll see.”
“Oh dear, I do hope so,” came back in a whisper from Maggie. “It doesn’t feel right though I suppose it is.”
“It is right,” the man confidently asserted. “If we can’t choose our circumstances we must adapt ourselves to them. It’s the only way to live.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Maggie somewhat dubiously.
They passed down the passage to the kitchen, leaving Frances standing at the foot of the stairs.
So standing, down the passage to her left that led to the study, she heard a voice—an old man’s voice, broken, pathetic, piteously pleading.
“I assure you—” it said—“I assure you—you are wrong. It is difficult to conceive how you can permit yourself to harbour these monstrous and terrible ideas. I sometimes think your brain is not normal. You are causing the greatest grief both to your mother whom you profess to love—and to myself, for whom I know but too well that all filial affection has long ceased to exist. I am an old man and helpless. Your behaviour is breaking my heart. I shall go down to my grave with the knowledge that my son—my only son—will rejoice to see me laid there.”
There followed an agonized sound that pierced Frances like the cry of a child. Almost before she knew what she was doing, she had turned in the direction of the study. She went down the passage swiftly to the door that stood half-open and knocked upon it quickly and nervously.
“Can I come in?” she said.
It was the impulse to help, to protect, that moved her, and though she knew who was in the study with old Mr. Dermot, she did not hesitate. Only as she entered did he realize that her heart was thumping almost unendurably.
She paused just within the room. “Can I come in?” she said again, and felt her breath come sharply with the words. It needed all her resolution to control it.
A startled silence followed her appearance, and then very kindly and courteously the old man greeted her.
“Come in, Miss Thorold! Come in! I am delighted to see you!”
He was sitting in a leathern armchair in the failing light, and she was struck afresh by his frailty and the deathly whiteness of his face.
“Will you excuse my getting up?” he said. “I have had one of my bad attacks and they leave my heart very weak. Come and sit down, Miss Thorold, and give me the pleasure of a chat with you.”
She went forward, keenly aware of Arthur standing motionless before the fireplace, but not glancing at him as she passed. She reached Mr. Dermot, and took the hand he extended. It was icy-cold and trembling, and it seemed to her that there was something almost appealing in the way it clung to hers.
“I am so sorry you have been ill,” she said.
“Yes, we are a sad household—a sad household,” he made answer. “I am told the little one is very ill—the little blind girl who lives with us. Can you tell me what is the matter with her? Some childish ailment, I suppose?”
As it were against her will, Frances glanced at Arthur. His eyes looked straight back at her from under frowning brows. He spoke briefly, coldly.
“I think you have been informed before, sir, that the child would not live to grow up. Perhaps under the circumstances it is hardly to be desired that she should.”
“Under what circumstances?” said Mr. Dermot, and his voice was as cold as his son’s, but with an edge of satire that was to Frances even more unbearable than the studied indifference of the younger man’s utterance. “Since when, may I ask, have you been a qualified judge as to the relative values of life and death?”
Arthur made a very slight movement that might have denoted either protest or exasperation. “I referred to her infirmity,” he said.
Mr. Dermot laughed, a soft, bitter laugh, and Frances shivered. She felt the tension between the two men to be so acute as to be near the snapping point, and wondered desperately what mistaken impulse had brought her thither and how she might escape. But in a moment the old man addressed her again, and there came to her a curious conviction that in some fashion she was needed.
“Will you not sit down, Miss Thorold,” he said, “and take tea with me? I do not have my meals with my family as, on account of the weakness of my heart, quiet is essential to me. You were just going”; he turned very pointedly to his son; “will you be good enough to ask Elsie to bring tea for Miss Thorold as well as for myself?”
He spoke with frigid politeness as if addressing a menial, but there was a quaver in his voice that betrayed him. Frances realized very clearly in that instant which of the two men had the upper hand, and the realization was as a heavy weight laid upon her. She shook it off with conscious effort, telling herself that it mattered nothing to her at least since she had gained her freedom.
Arthur made no move of any sort in response to his father’s request. He stood as before, grim as a gaoler, looking straight across at her.
Very steadily, with a certain stateliness that was hers upon occasion, she took the chair the old man had indicated. “That is very kind of you,” she said to him. “I should like it very much.”
His smile of pleasure warmed her heart. “I assure you it will be the greatest treat to me,” he said. “It is hard to have to lead the life of a hermit. I have my books, and I am also writing—or I should say I have collected material to write—an exhaustive treatise upon the Stones. I think I told you of my intention the last time we met, and you very kindly offered to help me.”
“I would gladly do anything in my power,” said Frances, moved, as she had been moved before, by a certain forlornness in his attitude.
“Ah!” He nodded with obvious gratification. “That is kind of you. And I am sure you would be interested. There is so much that is strange and indeed almost uncanny about this subject.” He turned again to his son with elaborate courtesy. “We need not detain you here. I am aware that this matter is one that holds no appeal for a brain like yours, and I have no desire to bore you with it.”
“Very good, sir.” Arthur made a sudden movement as one who has come to a decision. “I will go.” He went to the door, and there paused, looking back, almost as if irresolute, then abruptly wheeled again. “I will send in tea,” he said, and was gone.
They heard him tramp heavily down the passage, and it seemed to Frances that a shudder went through the frail old man lying back in the armchair. He made a weary movement with one hand as one who would dismiss a distasteful subject.
“Tell me a little more about your book!” she said gently.
He looked at her, and she saw his eyes kindle in the dimness.
“I am going to ask you to tell me something first,” he said. “It all bears upon the same subject. This illness of the little blind girl which they say is so serious, is it in any way connected with the Stones—with any so-called accident that occurred there?”
He leaned slowly forward with the words, and though they were deliberately uttered there was an eagerness vibrating in them that made her wonder.
“Has no one told you about it?” she said.
“No one—no one. I am treated as a nonentity always.” He spoke fretfully, querulously. “I believe it is on account of my health, but I often think my health would improve if I were allowed to lead a more normal life. My son has relegated to himself the rulership of this establishment, and everyone is made to bow down to him. I am told—nothing. I am consulted—never.”
“He leads a hard life,” Frances said. “Perhaps it has made him hard.”
“No, no! It isn’t that. It is just the passion for ruling. Let me warn you against him, Miss Thorold! Never allow him to attain any sort of influence over you, for he is a difficult man to thwart. You would not like to be bound to him for life. It would break your heart.” He paused a moment and made again that gesture as of dismissing an unpleasant topic. “But now,” he said, “about the little girl—you were going to tell me. Something happened to her up at the Stones. What was it? Do you know what it was?”