The light burned in Edith's room till morning; for her spine kept sleep from her through many nights. They no longer said, "She is better, or certainly no worse." They said, "She is worse, or certainly no better." The progress of her death could be reckoned by weeks and measured by inches. Soon they would be giving her morphia, to make her sleep. Meanwhile she was terribly awake.
She heard her brother's soft footsteps as he passed her door. She heard him pause on the upper landing and creep into the room overhead. She heard him go out again and shut himself up in the little room beyond. There came upon her an awful intuition of the truth.
The next day she sent for him.
"What is it, Edie?" he said.
She looked at him with loving eyes, and asked him as Maggie had asked, "Are you ill?"
He started. The question brought back to him vividly the scene of the night before; brought back to him Maggie with her love and fear.
"What is it? Tell me," she insisted.
He owned to headaches. She knew he often had them.
"It's not a bit of use," she said, "trying to deceiveme. It's not headaches. It's Anne."
"Poor Anne. I think she's all right. After all, she's got the child, you know."
"Yes.She's got Peggy. If I could see you all right, too, I should die happy."
"Don't worry about me. I'm not worth it."
She gazed at him searchingly, confirmed in her intuition. That was the sort of thing poor Charlie used to say.
"It's my fault," she said. "It always has been."
"Angel, if you could lay everybody's sins on your own shoulders, you would."
"I mean it. You were right and I was wrong. Ah, how one pays! Onlyyou've had to pay for my untruthfulness. I can see it now. If I'd done as you asked me, in the beginning, and told her the truth—"
"She wouldn't have married me. No, Edie. You're assuming that I've lived to regret that I married her. I never have regretted it for one single moment. Not for myself, that is. For her, yes. Granted that I'm as unhappy as you please, I'd rather be unhappy with her than happy without her. See?"
"Walter—if you keep true to her, I believe you'll have your happiness yet. I don't know how it's coming. It may come very late. But it's bound to come. She's good—"
He assented with a groan. "Oh, muchtoogood."
"And the goodness in her must recognise the goodness in you; when she understands. I believe she's beginning to understand. She doesn't know how much she understands."
"Understands what?"
"Your goodness. She loved you for it. She'll love you for it again."
"My dear Edie, you're the only person who believes in my goodness—you and Peggy."
"I and Peggy. And Charlie and the Hannays. And Nanna and the Gardners—and God."
"I wish God would give Anne a hint that He thinks well of me."
"Dear—if you keep true to her—He will."
If he kept true to her! It was the second time she had said it. It was almost as if she had divined what had so nearly happened.
"I think," she said, "I'd like to talk to Anne, now, while I can talk. You see, once they go giving me morphia"—she closed her eyes. "Just let me lie still for half an hour, and then bring Anne to me."
She lay still. He watched her for an hour. And he knew that in that hour she had prayed.
He found Anne sitting on the nursery floor, playing with Peggy. "Edie wants you," he said, loosening Peggy's little hands as they clung about his legs.
"Mother must go, darling," said she.
But all Peggy said was, "Daddy'll stay."
He did not stay long. He had to restrain himself, to go carefully with Peggy, lest he should help her to make her mother's heart ache.
Anne found Nanna busied about the bed. Nanna was saying, "Is that any easier, Miss Edie?"
"It's heavenly, Nanna," said Edie, stifling a moan. "Oh dear, I hope in the next world I shan't feel as if my spine were still with me, like people when their legs are cut off."
"Miss Edie, what an idea!"
"Well, Nanna, you can't tell whether it mayn't be so. Anne, dear, you've got such a nice, pretty body, why have you such a withering contempt for it? It behaves so well to you, too. That's more than I can say of mine; and yet, I believe I shall quite miss it when it's gone. At any rate, I shall be glad that I was decent to the poor thing while it was with me. Run away now, please, Nanna, and shut the door."
Nanna thought she knew why Miss Edie wanted the door shut. She, too, had her intuitive forebodings. She was aware, the whole household was aware, that the mistress cared more for her child than for the husband who had given it her. Their master's life was not altogether happy. They wondered many times how he was going to stand it.
"Anne" said Edith, "I'm uneasy about Walter."
"You need not be," said Anne.
"Why? Aren't you?"
"I know he hasn't been well lately—"
"How can you expect him to be well when he's so unhappy?"
Anne was silent.
"How long is it going to last, dear? And where is it going to end?"
"Edith, you needn't be afraid. I shall never leave him."
That was not what Edith was afraid of, but she did not say so.
"How can I," Anne went on, "when I believe the Church's doctrine of marriage?"
"Do you? Do you believe that love is a provision for the soul's redemption of the body? or for the body's redemption of the soul?"
"I believe that, having married Walter, whatever he is or does, I cannot leave him without great sin."
"Then you'll be shocked when I tell you that if your husband were a bad man, I should be the first to implore you to leave him, though he is my brother. Where there can be no love on either side there's no marriage, and no sacrament. That'smyprofane belief."
"And when there's love on one side only?"
"The sacrament is there, offered by the loving person, and refused by the unloving. And that refusal, my dear child, may, if you like, be a great sin—supposing, of course, that the love is pure and devoted. I hardly know which is the worst sin, then, to refuse to give, or to refuse to take it; or to take it, and then throw it away. What would you think if Peggy hardened her little heart against you?"
"My Peggy!"
"Yes, your Peggy. It's the same thing. You'll see it some day. But I want you to see it now, before it's too late."
"Edie, if you'd only tell me where I've failed! If you're thinking of our—our separation—"
"I was not. But, since youhavementioned it, I can't help reminding you that you fell in love with Walter because you thought he was a saint. And so I don't see what's to prevent you now. He's qualifying. He mayn't be perfect; but, in some ways, a saint couldn't very well do more. Has it never occurred to that you are indulging the virtue that comes easiest to you, and exacting from him the virtue that comes hardest? And he has stood the test."
"It was his own doing—his own wish."
"Is it? I doubt it—when he's more in love with you than he was before he married you."
"That's all over."
"For you. Not for him. He's a man, as you may say, of obstinate affections."
"Ah, Edie—you don't know."
"I know," said Edith, "you're perfectly sweet, the way you take my scoldings. It's cowardly of me, when I'm lying here safe, and you can't scold back again. But I wouldn't do it if I didn't love you."
"I know—I know you love me."
"But I couldn't love you so much, if I didn't love Walter more."
"You well may, Edie. He's been a good brother to you."
"Some day you'll own he's been as good a husband as he's been a brother. Better; for it's a more difficult post, my dear. I don't really think my body, spine and all, can have tried him more than your spirit."
"What have I done? Tell me—tell me."
"Done? Oh, Nancy, I hate to have to say it to you. What haven't you done? There's no way in which you haven't hurt and humiliated him. I'm not thinking of your separation—I'm thinking of the way you've treated him, and his affection for you and Peggy. You won't let him love you. You won't even let him love his little girl."
"Does he say that?"
"Would he say it? People in my peculiar position don't require to have things said to them; theysay them. You see, if I didn't say them now I should have to get up out of my grave and do it, and that would be ten times more disagreeable for you. It might even be very uncomfortable for me."
"Edie, I wish I knew when you were serious."
"Well, if I'm not serious now, whenshallI be?"
Anne smiled. "You're very like Walter."
"Yes. He's every bit as serious as I am. And he's getting more and more serious every day."
"Oh, Edie, you don't understand. I—I've suffered so terribly."
"I do understand. I've gone through it—every pang of it—and it's all come back to me again through your suffering—and I know it's been worse for you. I've told him so. It's because I don't want you to suffer more that I'm saying these awful things to you."
"Oh!AmI to suffer more?"
"I believe that's the only way your happiness can come to you—through great suffering. I'm only afraid that the suffering may come through Peggy, if you don't take care."
"Peggy—"
It was her own terror put into words.
"Yes. That child has a terrible capacity for loving. And for her that means suffering. She loves you. She loves her father. Do you suppose she won't suffer when she sees? Her little heart will be torn in two between you."
"Oh, Edith—I cannot bear it."
She hid her face from the anguish.
"You needn't. That's it. It rests with you."
"With me? If you would only tell me how."
"I can't tell you anything. It'll come. Probably in the way you least expect it. But—it'll come."
"Edie, I feel as if you held us all together. And when you've gone—"
"You mean whenit'sgone. When it's 'gone,'" said Edie, smiling. "I shall hold you together all the more. You needn't sigh like that."
"Did I sigh?"
As Anne stooped over the bed she sighed again, thinking how Edith's loving arms used to leap up and hold her, and how they could never hold anything any more.
Of all the things that Edith said to her that afternoon, two remained fixed in Anne's memory: how Peggy would suffer through overmuch loving—she remembered that saying, because it had confirmed her terror; and how love was a provision for the soul's redemption of the body, or for the body's redemption of the soul. This she remembered, because she did not understand it.
That was in August. Before the month was out they were beginning to give Edith morphia.
In September Gorst came to see her for the last time.
In October she died in her brother's arms.
In the days that followed, it was as if her spirit, refusing to depart from them, had rested on the sister she had loved. Spirit to spirit, she stooped, kindling in Anne her own dedicated flame. In the white death-chamber, and through the quiet house, the presence of Anne, moving with a hushed footfall, was like the presence of a blessed spirit. Her face was as a face long hidden upon the heart of peace. Her very grief aspired; it had wings, lifting her towards her sister in her heavenly place.
For Anne, in the days that followed, was possessed by a great and burning charity. Mrs. Hannay called and was taken into the white room to see Edith. And Anne's heart went out to Mrs. Hannay, when she spoke of the beauty and goodness of Edith; and to Lawson Hannay, when he pressed her hand without speaking; and to Gorst, when she saw him stealing on tiptoe from Edith's room, his face swollen and inflamed with grief. Her heart went out to all of them, because they had loved Edith.
And to her husband her heart went out with a tenderness born of an immense pity and compassion. For the first three days, Majendie gave no sign that he was shaken by his sister's death. But on the evening of the day they buried her, Anne found him in the study, sitting in his low chair by the fire, his head sunk, his body bowed forward over his knees, convulsed with a nervous shivering. He started and stared at her approach, and straightened himself suddenly. She held out her hand. He looked at it dumbly, as if unwilling or afraid to take it.
"My dear," she said softly.
Then she knelt beside him, and drew his head down upon her breast, and let it rest there.
It was a Thursday night in October, three weeks after Edith's death. Anne was in her room, undressing. She moved noiselessly, with many tender precautions, for fear of waking Peggy, and for fear of destroying the peace that possessed her own soul like heavenly sleep. It was the mystic mood that went before prayer.
In those three weeks Anne felt that she had been brought very near to God. She had not known such stillness and content since the days at Scarby that had made her life terrible. It was as if Edith's spirit in bliss had power given it to help her sister, to draw Anne with it into the divine presence.
And the dead woman bound the living to each other also, as she had said. How she bound them Anne had not realised until to-day. It was Mrs. Elliott's day, her Thursday. Anne had spent half an hour in Thurston Square, and had come away with a cold, unsatisfactory feeling towards Fanny. Fanny, for the first time, had jarred on her. She had so plainly hesitated between condolence and congratulation. She seemed to be secretly rejoicing in Edith Majendie's death. Her manner intimated clearly that a burden had been removed from her friend's life, and that the time had now come for Anne to blossom out and enjoy herself. Anne had been glad to get away from Fanny, to come back to the house in Prior Street and to find Walter waiting for her. Fanny, in spite of her intellectual rarity, lacked the sense that, after all,hehad, the sense of Edith's spiritual perfection. Strangely, inconsistently, incomprehensibly, he had it. He and his wife had that in common, if they had nothing else. They were bound to each other by Edith's dear and sacred memory, an immaterial, immortal tie. They would always share their knowledge of her. Other people might take for granted that her terrible illness had loosened, little by little, the bond that held them to her. They knew that it was not so. They never found themselves declining on the mourner's pitiful commonplaces, "Poor Edie"; "She is released"; "It's a mercy she was taken." It was their tribute to Edith's triumphant personality that they mourned for her as for one cut off in the fulness of a strong, beneficent life.
For those three weeks Anne remained to her husband all that she had been on the night of Edith's burial.
And, as she felt that nobody but her husband understood what she had lost in Edith, she realised for the first time his kindred to his sister. She forced herself to dwell on his many admirable qualities. He was unselfish, chivalrous, the soul of honour. On his chivalry, which touched her more nearly than his other virtues, she was disposed to put a very high interpretation. She felt that, in his way, he acknowledged her spiritual perfection, also, and reverenced it. If their relations only continued as they were, she believed that she would yet be happy with him. To think of him as she had once been obliged to think was to profane the sorrow that sanctified him now. She was persuaded that the shock of Edith's death had changed him, that he was ennobled by his grief. She could not yet see that the change was in herself. She said to herself that her prayers for him were answered.
For it was no longer an effort, painful and perfunctory, to pray for her husband. Since Edith's death she had prayed for him, as she had prayed in the time of reconciliation that followed her first discovery of his sin. She was horrified when she realised how in six years her passion of redemption had grown cold. It was there that she had failed him, in letting go the immaterial hold by which she might have drawn him with her into the secret shelter of the Unseen. She perceived that in those years her spiritual life had suffered by the invasion of her earthly trouble. She had approached the silent shelter with cries of supplication for herself and for her child, the sweet mortal thing she had loved above all mortal things. Every year had made it harder for her to reach the sources of her help, hardest of all to achieve the initiatory state, the nakedness, the prostration, the stillness of the dedicated soul. Too many miseries cried and strove in her. She could no longer shut to her door, and bar the passage to the procession of her thoughts, no longer cleanse and empty her spirit's house for the divine thing she desired to dwell with her.
And now she was restored to her peace; lifted up and swept, effortless, into the place of heavenly help. Anne's soul had no longer to reach out her hand and feel her way to God, for it was God who sought for her and found her. She heard behind her, as it were, the footsteps of the divine pursuing power. Once more, as in the mystic days before her marriage, she had only to close her eyes, and the communion was complete. At night, when her prayer was ended, she lay motionless in the darkness, till she seemed to pass into the ultimate bliss, beyond the reach of prayer. There were moments when she felt herself to be close upon the very vision of God, the beatitude of the pure.
After these moments Anne found herself contemplating her own inviolate sanctity.
There was in Anne an immense sincerity, underlying a perfect tangle of minute deceptions and hypocrisies. She was not deceived as to the supreme event. She was truly experiencing the great spiritual passion which, alone of passions, is destined to an immortal satisfaction. She had all but touched the end of the saint's progress. But she was ignorant, both of the paths that brought her there, and the paths that had led and might again lead, her feet astray.
Each night, when she closed her bedroom door, she felt that she was entering into a sanctuary. She was profoundly, tenderly grateful to her husband for the renunciation that made that refuge possible to her. She accepted her blessed isolation as his gift.
This Thursday had been a day of little lacerating distractions. She had gone through it thirsting for the rest and surrender, the healing silence of the night.
She undressed slowly, being by nature thorough and deliberate in all her movements.
She was standing before her looking-glass, about to unpin her hair, when she heard a low knock at her door. Majendie had been detained, and was late in coming to take his last look at Peggy before going to bed.
Anne opened the door softly, and signed to him to make no noise. He stole on tiptoe to the child's cot, and stood there for a moment. Then he came and sat down in the chair by the dressing-table, where Anne was standing with her arms raised, unpinning her hair. Majendie had always admired that attitude in Anne. It was simple, calm, classic, and superbly feminine. Her long white wrapper clothed her more perfectly than any dress.
He sat looking at the quick white fingers untwisting the braid of hair. It hung divided into three strands, still rippling with the braiding, still dull with its folded warmth. She combed the three into one sleek sheet that covered her like a veil, drawn close over head and shoulders. Her face showed smooth and saint-like between the cloistral bands. Majendie thought he had never seen anything more beautiful than that face and hair, with their harmonies of dull gold and sombre white.
"I like you," he said; "but isn't the style just a trifle severe?"
Anne said nothing. She was trying to forget his presence while she yet permitted it.
"Do you mind my looking at you like this?"
"No."
(They spoke in low voices, for fear of waking the sleeping child.)
She took up her brush, and with a turn of her head swept her hair forward over one shoulder. It hung in one mass to her waist. Then she began to brush it.
The first strokes of the brush stirred the dull gold that slept in its ashen furrows. A shining undulation passed through it, and broke, at the ends, as it were, into a curling golden foam. Then Anne stood up and tossed it backwards. Her brush went deep and straight, like a ploughshare, turning up the rich, smooth swell of the under-gold; it went light on the top, till numberless little threads of hair rippled, and rose, and knitted themselves, and lay on her head like a fine gold net; then, with a few swift swimming movements, upwards and outwards. It scattered the whole mass into drifting strands and flying wings and soft falling feathers, and, under them, little tender curls of flaxen down. With another stroke of the brush and a shake of her head, Anne's hair rose in one whorl and fell again, and broke into a shower of woven spray; pure gold in every thread.
Majendie held out a shy hand and caught the receding curl of it. Its faint fragrance reached him, winging a shaft of memory. His nerves shook him, and he looked away.
Anne had been cool and business-like in every motion, unconscious of her effect, unconscious almost of him. Now she gathered her hair into one mass, and began plaiting it rapidly, desiring thus to hasten his departure. She flung back the stiff braid, and laid her finger on the extinguisher of the shaded lamp, as a hint for him to go.
"Anne," he whispered, "Anne—"
The whisper struck fear into her.
She faced him calmly, coldly; not unkindly. Unkindness would have given him more hope than that pitiless imperturbability.
"Have you anything to say to me?" she said.
"No."
"Well, then, will you be good enough to go?"
"Do you really mean it?"
"I always mean what I say. I haven't said my prayers yet."
"And when you have said them?"
She had turned out the lamp, so that she might not see his unhappy face. She did not see it; she only saw her spiritual vision destroyed and scattered, and the havoc of dreams, resurgent, profaning heavenly sleep.
"Please," she whispered, "please, if you love me, leave me to myself."
He left her; and her heart turned after him as he went, and blessed him.
"He is good, after all," her heart said.
But Majendie's heart had hardened. He said to himself, "She is too much for me." As he lay awake thinking of her, he remembered Maggie. He remembered that Maggie loved him, and that he had gone away from her and left her, because he loved Anne. And now, because he loved Anne, he would go to Maggie. He remembered that it was on Fridays that he used to go and see her.
Very well, to-morrow night would be Friday night.
To-morrow night he would go and see her.
And yet, when to-morrow night came, he did not go. He never went until December, when Maggie's postal orders left off coming. Then he knew that Maggie was ill again. She had been fretting. He knew it; although, this time, she had not written to tell him so.
He went, and found Maggie perfectly well. The postal orders had not come, because the last lady, the lady with the title, had not paid her. Maggie was good as gold again, placid and at peace.
"Why," he asked himself bitterly, "why did I not leave her to her peace?"
And a still more bitter voice answered, "Why not you, as well as anybody else?"
Eastward along the Humber, past the brown wharves and the great square blocks of the warehouses, past the tall chimneys and the docks with their thin pine-forest of masts, there lie the forlorn flat lands of Holderness. Field after field, they stretch, lands level as water, only raised above the river by a fringe of turf and a belt of silt and sand. Earth and water are of one form and of one colour, for, beyond the brown belt, the widening river lies like a brown furrowed field, with a clayey gleam on the crests of its furrows. When the grey days come, water and earth and sky are one, and the river rolls sluggishly, as if shores and sky oppressed it, as if it took its motion from the dragging clouds.
Eleven miles from Scale a thin line of red roofs runs for a field's length up the shore, marking the neck of the estuary. It is the fishing hamlet of Fawlness. Its one street lies on the flat fields low and straight as a dyke.
Beyond the hamlet there is a little spit of land, and beyond the spit of land a narrow creek.
Half a mile up the creek the path that follows it breaks off into the open country, and thins to a track across five fields. It struggles to the gateway of a low, red-roofed, red-brick farm, and ends there. The farm stands alone, and the fields around it are bare to the skyline. Three tall elms stand side by side against it, sheltering it from the east, marking its humble place in the desolate land. To the west a broad bridle-path joins the road to Fawlness.
Majendie had a small yacht moored in the creek, near where the path breaks off to Three Elms Farm. Once, sometimes twice, a week, Majendie came to Three Elms Farm. Sometimes he came for the week-end, more often for a single night, arriving at six in the evening, and leaving very early the next day. In winter he took the train to Hesson, tramped seven miles across country, and reached the farm by the Fawlness road. In summer the yacht brought him from "Hannay & Majendie's" dock to Fawlness creek. At Three Elms Farm he found Maggie waiting for him.
This had been going on, once, sometimes twice a week, for nearly three years, ever since he had rented the farm and brought Maggie from Scale to live there.
The change had made the details of his life difficult. It called for all the qualities in which Majendie was most deficient. It necessitated endless vigilance, endless harassing precautions, an unnatural secrecy. He had to make Anne believe that he had taken to yachting for his health, that he was kept out by wind and weather, that the obligations and complexities of business, multiplying, tied him, and claimed his time. Maggie had to be hidden away, in a place where no one came, lodged with people whose discretion he could trust. Pearson, the captain of his yacht, a close-mouthed, close-fisted Yorkshireman, had a wife as reticent as himself. Pearson and his wife and their son Steve knew that their living depended on their secrecy. And cupidity apart, the three were devoted to their master and his mistress. Pearson and his son Steve were acquainted with the ways of certain gentlemen of Scale, who sailed their yachts from port to port, up and down the Yorkshire coast. Pearson was a man who observed life dispassionately. He asked no questions and answered none.
It was six o'clock in the evening, early in October, just three years after Edith's death. Majendie had left the yacht lying in the creek with Pearson, Steve, and the boatswain on board, and was hurrying along the field path to Three Elms Farm. A thin rain fell, blurring the distances. The house stood humbly, under its three elms. A light was burning in one window. Maggie stood at the garden gate in the rain, listening for the click of the field gate which was his signal. When it sounded she came down the path to meet him. She put her hands upon his shoulders, drew down his face and kissed him. He took her arm and led her, half clinging to him, into the house and into the lighted room.
A fire burned brightly on the hearth. His chair was set for him beside it, and Maggie's chair opposite. The small round table in the middle of the room was laid for supper. Maggie had decorated walls and chimney-piece and table with chrysanthemums from the garden, and autumn leaves and ivy from the hedgerows. The room had a glad light and welcome for him.
As he came into the lamplight Maggie gave one quick anxious look at him. She had always two thoughts in her little mind between their meetings: Is he ill? Is he well?
He was, to the outward seeing eye, superlatively well. Three years of life lived in the open air, life lived according to the will of nature, had given him back his outward and visible health. At thirty-nine, Majendie had once more the strength, the firm, upright slenderness, and the brilliance of his youth. His face was keen and brown, fined and freshened by wind and weather.
Maggie, waiting humbly on his mood, saw that it was propitious.
"What cold hands," said she. "And no overcoat? You bad boy." She felt his clothes all over to feel if they were damp. "Tired?"
"Just a little, Maggie."
She drew up his chair to the fire, and knelt down to unlace his boots.
"No, Maggie, I can't let you take my boots off."
"Yes, you can, and you will. Doessheever take your boots off?"
"Never."
"You don't allow her?"
"No. I don't allow her."
"You allowme" said Maggie triumphantly. She was persuaded that (since his wife was denied the joy of waiting on him) hers was the truly desirable position. Majendie had never had the heart to enlighten her.
She pressed his feet with her soft hands, to feel if his stockings were damp, too.
"There's a little hole," she cried. "I shall have to mend that to-night."
She put cushions at his back, and sat down on the floor beside him, and laid her head on his knee.
"There's a sole for supper," said she, in a dreamy voice, "and a roast chicken. And an apple tart. I made it." Maggie had always been absurdly proud of the things that she could do.
"Clever Maggie."
"I made it because I thought you'd like it."
"Kind Maggie."
"You didn't get any of those things yesterday, or the day before, did you?"
She was always afraid of giving him what he had had at home. That was one of the difficulties, she felt, of a double household.
"I forget," he said, a little wearily, "what I had yesterday."
Maggie noticed the weariness and said no more.
He laid his hand on her head and stroked her hair. He could always keep Maggie quiet by stroking her hair. She shifted herself instantly into a position easier for his hand. She sat still, only turning to the caressing hand, now her forehead, now the nape of her neck, now her delicate ear.
Maggie knew all his moods and ministered to them. She knew to-night that, if she held her tongue, the peace she had prepared for him would sink into him and heal him. He was not very tired. She could tell. She could measure his weariness to a degree by the movements of his hand. When he was tired she would seize the caressing hand and make it stop. In a few minutes supper would be ready, and when he had had supper, she knew, it would be time to talk.
Majendie was grateful for her silence. He was grateful to her for many things, for her beauty, for her sweetness, for her humility, for her love which had given so much and asked so little. Maggie had still the modest charm that gave to her and to her affection the illusion of a perfect innocence. It had been heightened rather than diminished by their intimacy.
Somehow she had managed so that, as long as he was with her, shame was impossible for himself or her. As long as he was with her he was wrapped in her illusion, the illusion of innocence, of happiness, of all the unspoken sanctities of home. He knew that whether he was or was not with her, as long as he loved her no other man would come between him and her; no other man would cross his threshold and stand upon his hearth. The house he came to was holy to her. There were times, so deep was the illusion, when he could have believed that Maggie, sitting there at his feet, was the pure spouse, the helpmate, and Anne, in the house in Prior Street, the unwedded, unacknowledged mistress, the distant, the secret, the forbidden. He had never disguised from Maggie the temporary and partial nature of the tie that bound them. But the illusion was too strong for both of them. It was strong upon him now.
The woman, Mrs. Pearson, came in with supper, moving round the room in silence, devoted and discreet.
Majendie was hungry. Maggie was unable to conceal her frank joy in seeing him eat and drink. She ate little and talked a great deal, drawn by his questions.
"What have you been doing, Maggie?"
Maggie gave an account of her innocent days, of her labours in house and farm and garden. She loved all three, she loved her flowers and her chickens and her rabbits, and the little young pigs. She loved all things that had life. She was proud of her house. Her hands were always busy in it. She had stitched all the linen for it. She had made all the tablecloths, sofa covers and curtains, and given to them embroidered borders. She liked to move about among all these beautiful things and feel that they were hers. But she loved those most which Majendie had used, or noticed, or admired. After supper she took up her old position by his chair.
"How long can you stay?" said she.
"I must go to-morrow."
"Oh, why?"
"I've told you why, dear. It's my little girl's birthday to-morrow."
She remembered.
"Her birthday. How old will she be to-morrow?"
"Seven."
"Seven. What does she do all day long?"
"Oh, she amuses herself. We have a garden."
"How she would love this garden, and the flowers, and the swing, and the chickens, and all the animals, wouldn't she?"
"Yes. Yes."
Somehow he didn't like Maggie to talk about his child, but he hadn't the heart to stop her.
"Is she as pretty as she was?"
"Prettier."
"And she's not a bit like you."
"Not a bit, not a little bit."
"I'm glad," said Maggie.
"Why on earth are you glad?"
"Because—I couldn't bearherchild to be like you."
"You mustn't say those things, Maggie, I don't like it."
"I won't say them. You don't mind my thinking them, do you? I can't help thinking."
She thought for a long time; then she got up, and came to him, and put her arm round his neck, and bowed her head and whispered.
"Don't whisper. I hate it. Speak out. Say what you've got to say."
"I can't say it."
She said it very low.
He bent forward, freeing himself from her mouth and clinging arm.
"No, Maggie. Never. I told you that in the beginning. You promised me you wouldn't think of it. It's bad enough as it is."
"What's bad enough?"
"Everything, my child. I'm bad enough, if you like; but I'm not as bad as all that, I can assure you."
"You don't thinkmebad?"
"You know I don't. You know what I think of you. But you must learn to see what's possible and what isn't."
"I do see. Tell me one thing. Is it because you loveher?"
"We can't go into that, Maggie. Can't you understand that it may be because I loveyou?"
"I don't know. But I don't mind so long as I know it isn't only because you loveher."
"You're not to talk about her, Maggie."
"I know. I won't. I don't want to talk about her, I'm sure. I try not to think about her more than I can help."
"But you must think of her."
"Oh—must I?"
"At any rate, you must think of me."
"I do think of you. I think of you from morning till night. I don't think of anything else. I don't want anything else. I'm contented as long as I've got you. It wasn't that."
"What was it, Maggie?"
"Nothing. Only—it's so awfully lonely in between, when you're not here. That was why I asked you."
"Poor child, poor Maggie. Is it very bad to bear?"
"Not when I know you're coming."
"See here—if it gets too bad to bear, we must end it."
"End it?"
"Yes, Maggie.Youmust end it; you must give me up, when you're tired—"
"Oh no—no," she cried.
"Give me up," he repeated, "and go back to town."
"To Scale?"
"Well, yes; if it's so lonely here."
"And give you up?"
"Yes, Maggie, you must; if you go back to Scale."
"I shall never go back. Who could I go to? There's nobody who'd 'ave me. I've got nobody."
"Nobody?"
"Nobody but you, Wallie. Nobody but you. Have you never thought of that? Why, where shouldIbe if I was to give you up?"
"I see, Maggie.Isee.Isee."
Up till then he had seen nothing. But Maggie, unwise, had put her hand through the fine web of illusion. She had seen, and made him see, the tragedy of the truth behind it, the real nature of the tie that bound them. It was an inconsistent tie, permanent in its impermanence, with all its incompleteness terribly complete. He could not give her up; he had not thought of giving her up; but neither had he thought of keeping her.
It was all wrong. It was wrong to keep her. It would be wrong to give her up. He was all she had. Whatever happened he could not give her up.
And so he said, "Isee.Isee."
"See here," said she (she had adopted some of his phrases), "when I said there was nobody, I meant nobody I'd have anything to do with. If I went back to Scale, there are plenty of low girls in the town who'd make friends with me, if I'd let 'em. But I won't be seen with them. You wouldn't have me seen with them, would you?"
"No, Maggie, not for all the world."
"Well, then, 'ow can you go on talking about my giving you up?"
No. He could not give her up. There was no tie between them but their sin, yet he could not break it. Degraded as it was, it saved him from deeper degradation.
He loved Anne with his whole soul, with his heart and with his body, and he had given his body to Maggie, with as much heart as went with it. In the world's sight he loved Maggie and was bound to Anne. In his own sight he loved Anne and was bound to Maggie.
It had come to that.
He did not care to look back upon the steps by which it had come. He only knew that, seven years ago, he had been sound and whole, a man with one aim and one passion and one life. Now he and his life were divided, cut clean in two by a line not to be passed or touched upon by either sundered half. All of him that Anne had rejected he had given to Maggie.
As far as he could judge he had acted, not grossly, not recklessly, but with a kind of passionate deliberation. He knew he would have to pay for it. He had not stopped to haggle with his conscience or to ask: how much? But he was prepared to pay.
Up to this moment his conscience had not dunned him. But now he foresaw a season when the bills would be falling due.
Maggie had torn the veil of illusion, and he looked for the first time upon his sin.
Even his conscience admitted that he had not meant it to come to that. He had had no ancient private tendency to sin. He wanted nothing but to live at home, happy with the wife he loved, and with his child, his children. And poor Maggie, she too would have asked no more than to be a good wife to the man she loved, and to be the mother of his children.
This life with Maggie, hidden away in Three Elms Farm, in the wilds of Holderness, it could not be called dissipation, but it was division. Where once he had been whole he was now divided. The sane, strong affection that should have knit body and soul together was itself broken in two.
And it was she, the helpmate, she who should have kept him whole, who had caused him to be thus sundered from himself and her.
They were all wrong, all frustrated, all incomplete. Anne, in her sublime infidelity to earth; Maggie, turned from her own sweet use that she might give him what Anne could not give; and he, who between them had severed his body from his soul.
Thus he brooded.
And Maggie, with her face hidden against his knee, brooded too, piercing the illusion.
He tried to win her from her sad thoughts by talking again of the house and garden. But Maggie was tired of the house and garden now.
"And do the Pearsons look after you well still?" he asked.
"Yes. Very well."
"And Steve—is he as good to you as ever?"
Maggie brightened and became more communicative.
"Yes, very good. He was all day mending my bicycle, Sunday, and he takes me out in the boat sometimes; and he's made such a dear little house for the old Angora rabbit."
"Do you like going out in the boat?"
"Yes, very much."
"Do you like going out with him?"
"No," said Maggie, making a little face, half of disgust and half of derision. "No. His hands are all dirty, and he smells of fish."
Majendie laughed. "There are drawbacks, I must own, to Steve."
He looked at his watch, an action Maggie hated. It always suggested finality, departure.
"Ten o'clock, Maggie. I must be up at six to-morrow. We sail at seven."
"At seven," echoed Maggie in despair.
They were up at six. Maggie went with him to the creek, to see him sail. In the garden she picked a chrysanthemum and stuck it in his buttonhole, forgetting that he couldn't wear her token. There were so many things he couldn't do.
A little rain still fell through a clogging mist. They walked side by side, treading the drenched grass, for the track was too narrow for them both. Maggie's feet dragged, prolonging the moments.
A white pointed sail showed through the mist, where the little yacht lay in the river off the mouth of the creek.
Steve was in the boat close against the creek's bank, waiting to row Majendie to the yacht. He touched his cap to Majendie as they appeared on the bank, but he did not look at Maggie when her gentle voice called good-morning.
Steve's face was close-mouthed and hard set.
She put her hands on Majendie's shoulders and kissed him. Her cheek against his face was pure and cold, wet with the rain. Steve did not look at them. He never looked at them when they were together.
Majendie dropped into the boat. Steve pushed off from the bank. Maggie stood there watching them go. She stood till the boat reached the creek's mouth, and Majendie turned, and raised his cap to her; stood till the white sail moved slowly up the river and disappeared, rounding the spit of land.
Majendie, as he paced the deck and talked to his men of wind and weather, turned casually, on his heel, to look at her where she stood alone in the level immensity of the land. The world looked empty all around her.
And he was touched with a sudden poignant realisation of her life; its sadness, its incompleteness, its isolation.
That was what he had brought her to.
The rain cleared off, the mist lifted, and at nine o'clock it was a fine day for Peggy's birthday. Even Scale, where it stretched its flat avenues into the country, showed golden in the warm and brilliant air.
The household in Prior Street had been up early, making preparations for the day. Peggy had waked before it was light, to feel her presents which lay beside her on her bed; and, by the time Majendie's sail had passed Fawlness Point, she was up and dressed, waiting for him.
Anne had to break it to her gently that perhaps he would not be home in time for eight-o'clock breakfast. Then the child's mouth trembled, and Anne comforted her, half-smiling and half-afraid.
"Ah, Peggy, Peggy," she said, as she rocked her against her breast, "What shall I do with you? Your little heart is too big for your little body."
Anne's terror had not left her in three years. It was always with her now. The child was bound to suffer. She was a little mass of throbbing nerves, of trembling emotions.
Yet Anne herself was happier. The three years had passed smoothly over her. Her motherhood had laid its fine, soft, finishing touch upon her. Her face, her body, had rounded and ripened, year after slow year, to an abiding beauty, born of her tenderness. At thirty-five Anne Majendie had reached the perfect moment of her physical maturity.
Her mind was no longer harassed by anxiety about her husband. He seemed to have settled down. He had ceased to be uncertain in his temper, by turns irritable and depressed. He had parted with the heaviness which had once roused her aversion, and had recovered his personal distinction, the slender refinement of his youth. She rejoiced in his well-being. She attributed it, partly to his open-air habits, partly to the spiritual growth begun in him at the time of his sister's death.
She desired no change in their relations, no further understanding, no closer intimacy.
To Anne's mind, her husband's attitude to her was perfect. The passion that had been her fear had left him. He waited on her hand and foot, with humble, heart-rending devotion. He let her see that he adored her with discretion, at a distance, as a divinely, incomprehensibly high and holy thing.
Her household life had simplified itself. Her days passed in noiseless, equable procession. Many hours had been given back to her empty after Edith's death. She had filled them with interests outside her home, with visiting the poor in the district round All Souls, with evening classes for shop-girls, with "Rescue" work. Not an hour of her day was idle. At the end of the three years Mrs. Majendie was known in Scale by her broad charities and by her saintly life.
She had fallen away a little from her friends in Thurston Square. In three years Fanny Eliott and her circle had grown somewhat unreal to her. She had been aware of their inefficiency before. There had been a time when she felt that Mrs. Eliott's eminence had become a little perilous. She herself had placed her on it, and held her there by a somewhat fatiguing effort of the will to believe. She had been partly (though she did not know it) the dupe of Mrs. Eliott's delight in her, of all the sweet and dangerous ministrations of their mutual vanities. Mrs. Eliott had been uplifted by Anne's preposterously grave approval. Anne had been ravished by her own distinction as the audience of Fanny Eliott's loftier and profounder moods. There could be no criticism of these heights and depths. To have depreciated Fanny Eliott's rarity by a shade would have been to call in question her own.
But all this had ceased long ago, when she married Walter Majendie, and his sister became her dearest friend. Fanny Eliott had always looked on Edith Majendie as her rival; retreating a little ostentatiously before her formidable advance. There should have been no rivalry, for there had been no possible ground of comparison. Neither could Edith Majendie be said to have advanced. The charm of Edith, or rather, her pathetic claim, was that she never could have advanced at all. To Anne's mind, from the first, there had been no choice between Edith, lying motionless on her sofa by the window, and Fanny at large in the drawing-rooms of her acquaintances, scattering her profuse enthusiasms, revolving in her intellectual round, the prisoner of her own perfections. To come into Edith's room had been to come into thrilling contact with reality; while Fanny Eliott was for ever putting you off with some ingenious refinement on it. Edith's personality had triumphed over death and time. Fanny Eliott, poor thing, still suffered by the contrast.
Of all Anne's friends, the Gardners alone stood the test of time. She had never had a doubt of them. They had come later into her life, after the perishing of her great illusion. The shock had humbled her senses and disposed her to reverence for the things of intellect. Dr. Gardner's position, as President of the Scale Literary and Philosophic Society, was as a high rock to which she clung. Mrs. Gardner was dear to her for many reasons.
The dearness of Mrs. Gardner was significant. It showed that, thanks to Peggy, Anne's humanisation was almost complete.
To-day, which was Peggy's birthday, Anne's heart was light and happy. She had planned, that, if the day were fine, the festival was to be celebrated by a picnic to Westleydale.
And the day was fine. Majendie had promised to be home in time to start by the nine-fifty train. Meanwhile they waited. Peggy had helped Mary the cook to pack the luncheon basket, and now she felt time heavy on her little hands.
Anne suggested that they should go upstairs and help Nanna. Nanna was in Majendie's room, turning out his drawers. On his bed there was a pile of suits of the year before last, put aside to be given to Anne's poor people. When Peggy was tired of fetching and carrying, she watched her mother turning over the clothes and sorting them into heaps. Anne's methods were rapid and efficient.
"Oh, mummy!" cried Peggy, "don't! You touch daddy's things as if you didn't like them."
"Peggy, darling, what do you mean?"
"You're so quick." She laid her face against one of Majendie's coats and stroked it. "Must daddy's things go away?"
"Yes, darling. Why don't you want them to go?"
"Because I love them. I love all his little coats and hats and shoes and things."
"Oh, Peggy, Peggy, you're a little sentimentalist. Go and see what Nanna's got there."
Nanna had given a cry of joyous discovery. "Look, ma'am," said she, "what I've found in master's portmanteau."
Nanna came forward, shaking out a child's frock. A frock of pure white silk, embroidered round the neck and wrists with a deep border of daisies, pink and white and gold.
"Nanna!"
"Oh, mummy, what is it?"
Peggy touched a daisy with her soft forefinger and shrank back shyly. She knew it was her birthday, but she did not know whether the frock had anything to do with that, or no.
"I wonder," said Anne, "what little girl daddy brought that for."
"Did daddy bring it?"
"Yes, daddy brought it. Do you think he meant it for her birthday, Nanna?"
"Well, m'm, he may have meant it for her birthday last year. I found it stuffed into 'is portmanteau wot 'e took with him in the yacht a year ago. It's bin there—poked away in the cupboard, ever since. I suppose he bought it, meaning to give it to Miss Peggy, and put it away and forgot all about it. See, m'm"—Nanna measured the frock against Peggy's small figure—"it'd 'a' bin too large for her, last birthday. It'll just fit her now, m'm."
"Oh, Peggy!" said Anne. "She must put it on. Quick, Nanna. You shall wear it, my pet, and surprise daddy."
"What fun!" said Peggy.
"Isn't it fun?" Anne was as gay and as happy as Peggy. She was smiling her pretty smile.
Peggy was solemnly arrayed in the little frock. The borders of daisies showed like a necklace and bracelets against her white skin.
"Well, m'm," said Nanna, "if master did forget, he knew what he was about, at the time, anyhow. It's the very frock for her."
"Yes. See, Peggy—it's daisies, marguerites. That's why daddy chose it—for your little name, darling, do you see?"
"My name," said Peggy softly, moved by the wonder and beauty of her frock.
"There he is, Peggy! Run down and show yourself."
"Oh, muvver," shrieked Peggy, "it will be a surprise for daddy, won't it?"
She ran down. They followed, and leaned over the bannisters to listen to the surprise. They heard Peggy's laugh as she came to the last flight of stairs and showed herself to her father. They heard her shriek "Daddy! daddy!" Then there was calm.
Then Peggy's voice dropped from its high joy and broke. "Oh, daddy, are you angry with me?"
Anne came downstairs. Majendie had the child in his arms and was kissing her.
"Are you angry with me, daddy?" she repeated.
"No, my sweetheart, no." He looked up at Anne. He was very pale, and a sweat was on his forehead. "Who put that frock on her?"
"I did," said Anne.
"I think you'd better take it off again," he said quietly.
Anne raised her eyebrows as a sign to him to look at Peggy's miserable mouth. "Oh, let her wear it," she said. "It's her birthday."
Majendie wiped his forehead and turned aside into the study.
"Muvver," said Peggy, as they went hand in hand upstairs again; "do you think daddyreally meantit as a surprise forme?"
"I think he must have done, darling."
"Aren't you sorry we spoiled his surprise, mummy?"
"I don't think he minds, Peggy."
"Ithink he does. Why did he look angry, and say I was to take it off?"
"Perhaps, because it's rather too nice a frock for every day."
"My birthday isn't every day," said Peggy.
So Peggy wore the frock that Maggie had made for her and given to Majendie last year. He had hidden it in his portmanteau, meaning to give it to Mrs. Ransome at Christmas. And he had thrown the portmanteau into the darkest corner of the cupboard, and gone away and forgotten all about it.
And now the sight of Maggie's handiwork had given him a shock. For his sin was heavy upon him. Every day he went in fear of discovery. Anne would ask him where he had got that frock, and he would have to lie to her. And it would be no use; for, sooner or later, she would know that he had lied; and she would track Maggie down by the frock.
He hated to see his innocent child dressed in the garment which was a token and memorial of his sin. He wished he had thrown the damned thing into the Humber.
But Anne had no suspicion. Her face was smooth and tranquil as she came downstairs. She was calling Peggy her "little treasure," and her eyes were smiling as she looked at the frail, small, white and gold creature, stepping daintily and shyly in her delicate dress.
Peggy was buttoned into a little white coat to keep her warm; and they set out, Majendie carrying the luncheon basket, and Peggy an enormous doll.
Peggy enjoyed the journey. When she was not talking to Majendie she was singing a little song to keep the doll quiet, so that the time passed very quickly both for her and him. There were other people in the carriage, and Anne was afraid they would be annoyed at Peggy's singing. But they seemed to like it as much as she and Majendie. Nobody was ever annoyed with Peggy.
In Westleydale the beech trees were in golden leaf. It was green underfoot and on the folding hills. Overhead it was limitless blue above the uplands; and above the woods, among the golden tree-tops, clear films and lacing veins and brilliant spots of blue.
Majendie felt Peggy's hand tighten on his hand. Her little body was trembling with delight.
They found the beech tree under which he and Anne had once sat. He looked at her. And she, remembering, half turned her face from him; and, as she stooped and felt for a soft dry place for the child to sit on, she smiled, half unconsciously, a shy and tender smile.
Then he saw, beside her half-turned face, the face of another woman, smiling, shyly and tenderly, another smile; and his heart smote him with the sorrow of his sin.
They sat down, all three, under the beech tree; and Peggy took, first Majendie's hand, then Anne's hand, and held them together in her lap.
"Mummy," said she, "aren't you glad that daddy came? It wouldn't be half so nice without him, would it?"
"No," said Anne, "it wouldn't."
"Mummy, you don't say that as if you meant it."
"Oh, Peggy, of course I meant it."
"Yes, but you didn't make it sound so."
"Peggy," said Majendie, "you're a terribly observant little person."
"She's a little person who sometimes observes all wrong."
"No, mummy, I don't. You never talk to daddy like you talk to me."
"You're a little girl, dear, and daddy's a big grown-up man."
"That's not what I mean, though. You've got a grown-up voice for me, too. I don't mean your grown-up voice. I mean, mummy, you talk to daddy as if—as if you hadn't known him a very long time. And you talk to me as if you'd known me—oh, ever so long.Haveyou known me longer than you've known daddy?"
Majendie gazed with feigned abstraction at the shoulder of the hill visible through the branches of the trees.
"Bless you, sweetheart, I knew daddy long before you were ever thought of."
"When was I thought of, mummy?"
"I don't know, darling."
"Do you know, daddy?"
"Yes, Peggy.Iknow. You were thought of here, in this wood, under this tree, on mummy's birthday, between eight and nine years ago."
"Who thought of me?"
"Ah, that's telling."
"Who thought of me, mummy?"
"Daddy and I, dear."
"And you forgot, and daddy remembered."
"Yes. I've got a rather better memory than your mother, dear."
"You forgot my old birthday, daddy."
"I haven't forgotten your mother's old birthday, though."
Peggy was thinking. Her forehead was all wrinkled with the intensity of her thought.
"Mummy—am I only seven?"
"Only seven, Peggy."
"Then," said Peggy, "youdidthink of me before I was born. How did you know me before I was born?"
Anne shook her head.
"Daddy, how did you know me before I was born?"
"Peggy, you're a little tease."
"You brought it on yourself, my dear. Peggy, if you'll leave off teasing daddy, I'll tell you a story."
"Oh!—"
"Once upon a time" (Anne's voice was very low) "mummy had a dream. She dreamed she was in this wood, walking along that little path—just there—not thinking of Peggy. And when she came to this tree she saw an angel, with big white wings. He was lying under this very tree, on this very bit of grass, just there, where daddy's sitting. And one of his wings was stretched out on the grass, and it was hollow like a cradle. It was all lined with little feathers, like the inside of a swan's wing, as soft as soft. And the other wing was stretched over it like the top of a cradle. And inside, all among the soft little feathers, there was a little baby girl lying, just like Peggy."
"Oh, mummy, was it me?"
"Sh—sh—sh! Whoever it was, the angel saw that mummy loved it, and wanted it very much—"
"The little baby girl?"
"Yes. And so he took the baby and gave it to mummy, to be her own little girl. That's how Peggy came to mummy."
"And did he give it to daddy, too, to be his little girl?"
"Yes," said Majendie, "I was wondering where I came in."
"Yes. He gave it to daddy to be his little girl, too."
"I'm glad he gave me to daddy. The angel brought me to you in the night, like daddy brought me my big dolly. You did bring my big dolly, and put her on my bed, didn't you, daddy? Last night?"
Majendie was silent.
"Daddy wasn't at home last night, Peggy."
"Oh, daddy, where were you?"
Majendie felt his forehead getting damp again.
"Daddy was away on business."
"Oh, mummy, don't you wish he'd never go away?"
"I think it's time for lunch," said Majendie.
They ate their lunch; and when it was ended, Majendie went to the cottage to find water, for Peggy was thirsty. He returned, carrying water in a pitcher, and followed by a red-cheeked, rosy little girl who brought milk in a cup for Peggy.
Anne remembered the cup. It was the same cup that she had drunk from after her husband. And the child was the same child whom he had found sitting in the grass, whom he had shown to her and taken from her arms, whose little body, held close to hers, had unsealed in her the first springs of her maternal passion. It all came back to her.
The little girl beamed on Peggy with a face like a small red sun, and Peggy conceived a sudden yearning for her companionship. It seemed that, at the cottage, there were rabbits, and a new baby, and a litter of puppies three days old. And all these wonders the little girl offered to show to Peggy, if Peggy would go with her.
Peggy begged, and went through the wood, hand in hand with the little beaming girl. Majendie and Anne watched them out of sight.
"Look at the two pairs of legs," said Majendie.
Anne sighed. Her Peggy showed very white and frail beside the red, lusty-legged daughter of the woods.
"I'm not at all happy about her," said she.
"Why not?"
"She gets so terribly tired."
"All children do, don't they?"
Anne shook her head. "Not as she does. It isn't a child's healthy tiredness. It doesn't come like that. It came on quite suddenly the other day, after she'd been excited; and her little lips turned grey."
"Get Gardner to look at her."
"I'm going to. He says she ought to be more in the open air. I wish we could get a cottage somewhere in the country, with a nice garden."
Majendie said nothing. He was thinking of Three Elms Farm, and the garden and the orchard, and of the pure wind that blew over them straight from the sea. He remembered how Maggie had said that the child would love it.
"You could afford it, Walter, couldn't you, now?"
"Of course I can afford it."
He thought how easily it could be done, if he gave up his yacht and the farm. His business was doing better every year. But the double household was a drain on his fresh resources. He could not very well afford to take another house, and keep the farm too. He had thought of that before. He had been thinking of it last night when he spoke to Maggie about giving him up. Poor Maggie! Well, he would have to manage somehow. If the worst came to the worst they could sell the house in Prior Street. And he would sell the yacht.
"I think I shall sell the yacht," he said.
"Oh no, you mustn't do that. You've been so well since you've had it."
"No, it isn't necessary. I shall be better if I take more exercise."
Peggy came back and the subject dropped.
Peggy was very unhappy before the picnic ended. She was tired, so tired that she cried piteously, and Majendie had to take her up in his arms and carry her all the way to the station. Anne carried the doll.
In the train Peggy fell asleep in her father's arms. She slept with her face pressed close against him, and one hand clinging to his breast. Her head rested on his arm, and her hair curled over his rough coat-sleeve.
"Look—" he whispered.
Anne looked. "The little lamb—" she said.
Then she was silent, discerning in the man's face, bent over the sleeping child, the divine look of love and tenderness. She was silent, held by an old enchantment and an older vision; brooding on things dear and secret and long-forgotten.