with eyes that dared not flutter into a blink. Her eyeballs became
tense and dry, her hands strained at the edge of the table. For all
that she knew, her brother-in-law might have been in the room all the
time; she was still startled by his soft appearances and vanishings,
as by his sudden meaningless laughter, and by the arrows of shrewdness
that would dart across his erratic brain. “Olver?” she whispered next,
half-expecting him to answer from under her very feet, and little
as she desired his company, she thought that any answer would be
preferable to the continued silence in the room and to the doubt as to
whether Olver was there or not.
She was coming to the conclusion that her instinct had been a mistaken
one, since five minutes had certainly elapsed while she stared and
peered round the room, and she was about to relax from her strain of
looking and listening for Olver, when she heard a faint tap on the
window, and, looking round, she saw his face pressed against the window
pane from outside. Her fright gave way to petulance; she called out
to him to give over his tricks, and at the same time she beckoned
imperiously to him to come into the house. Well-accustomed to him by
now, she felt relief when he materialised out of the silence. “How
long had you been watching me?” she asked.
“That’s my secret,” he replied.
She struggled, impatient of the little mysteries he liked to make.
“Anyhow, Nicholas isn’t here,” she observed, turning away from Olver
and tapping her fingers irritably upon the table.
“I don’t want Nicholas,” said Olver, “I want you.”
He came further into the room, while she looked at him in enquiry.
“Oh, you’ve found an old bird’s nest you want to show me,” she said
disdainfully.
“That’s as far as you can think,” replied Olver with equal disdain. He
came up to her. “Have you ever thought that there’s things you’ve no
idea of going on all round you?”
“Why,” she said, fright again overtaking her, “that’s what I was
thinking just now.”
“But you didn’t like to think too close on it?”
“No, perhaps I didn’t. Let me be, Olver; I’ve troubles enough without
you moidering me.”
“And are you the only one to have troubles?”
“Let me be, Olver, I tell you.”
“No, I won’t let you be. I’ve a grudge against you. I’ve thought it
out.”
“I’m not well, Olver; keep your grudge till I’ve got my baby. Then I’ll
have it out with you if I must.”
“You hadn’t any pity on Nicco.”
“Oh, that’s how the land lies, is it?”
“No use being brazen about it, Daisy. I’m here to speak for Nicco, and
nothing you say’ll stop me.”
“If you don’t let me be, I’ll tell Nicholas, and he’ll be angry with
you.”
“I’m not afraid of Nicco.”
“Oh, yes, you are. We all are. Even me,--and I’m his wife.”
“A pretty wife. Nicco can kill me if he likes; I’ll speak first. I know
better what’s good for him than he knows himself. You’ve broken his
heart.”
“Not me, Olver, not me only. His heart would have been broken anyhow.
And God knows he’s breaking mine.”
“Who cares about yours? Nicco’s worth everything.”
“I know that, do you suppose I don’t know that? It’s making me mad,
Olver. Can’t you have a little pity on me and leave me to myself?”
“I wouldn’t have any pity for you, not if you were dying.”
“Well, I shall be dying before very long, if that’s any consolation to
you.”
“You aren’t the sort that dies. Nicco’ll have you stuck to him for
years; he’ll leave you before you leave him.”
“Don’t say that, Olver; he’s strong; different, but as strong as me.”
“Oh, his body’s strong enough, but there’s something burns him away
inside. Look at his eyes.”
“Olver, don’t say such terrible things. What do you know? I never
can tell how much you know,--you’re simple, aren’t you? He doesn’t
complain. He doesn’t complain to you, does he?”
“He’ll die, but he won’t have complained once. And we shall never know.
He’s good to us both, isn’t he?”
“Good,--yes, he’s good; but you don’t understand, Olver, you needn’t
rub it into me how good he is or how much he’s worth. I know it
already, I love him so much it makes me sick and mad. It’s almost
too much for me, what I have to put up with, what with one thing and
another.... Now go away, can’t you? I’ve told you, I’ve admitted it all
to you; I can’t put it more plainly.”
“He’s good to you just as he’s good to me; he hasn’t a ha’pennyworth of
feeling for you.”
“I know, Olver, I know; can’t you leave me alone? I’m not well, I tell
you; it isn’t the moment to come baiting me.”
“There’s another woman he wanted....”
“You shan’t speak of her!” screamed Daisy.
“Oh, yes, I will,” said Olver, seizing her by the wrists. “Do you call
to mind what you once told me, that you saw them together, and it
seemed a week wasn’t enough for all they had to say? Where are they
now. Three miles apart, yet they haven’t seen one another for six
months,--from the time the Downs were green to the time the Downs are
white. And do you suppose he’s left her for a moment in thought, or
she left him? Not they. They used to slip together to the Kennet, those
two, and they’ve been suddenly divided. And you whine to me because
you’re unhappy. You say you’re not well. Not well! You! Who cares? You
could whelp a litter and be none the worse, and you can stand a bit of
unhappiness just as well as you can stand your baby. I’ve no pity for
you. But Nicco,--he’ll break,--he’ll die inside.”
“Don’t, Olver, don’t; what’s the good of torturing me now. What can I
do?”
“What can you do? You can clear out, can’t you? Go and have your baby
in a ditch, somewhere where Nicco can never find you again,” he said
brutally.
“Where would be the good of that? She’s married herself, Miss Warrener
is, and I love Nicco, I keep on telling you; I can’t give him up,”
cried Daisy, confused and hunted to the last extremity; and she thought
of something she could say to Olver, something which would either
silence him or else force him to throw down all his cards upon the
table, “Whose fault is it, anyhow, that Nicco had to marry me, to save
me from the shame his own brother brought upon me?”
“You think you can trick me like you tricked him,” cried Olver,
horrible with rage. “Why don’t you say the shame Peter Gorwyn brought
on you? You might be a little nearer the mark.”
“Peter Gorwyn?”
They faced one another, all civilisation gone from them. They struck
blindly at one another, keeping nothing back.
“I saw you, oh, I saw you, the day of the Scouring.”
“I loved Nicco, I do love him; I had to have him!”
“_You_ love him?--you’re killing him.”
“He couldn’t have got Miss Warrener,--not with a brother like you. Do
you hear? ’Tisn’t me that keeps him from her; it’s you, you, you.”
“Me?” shouted Olver.
“You, did you never think of that before? It doesn’t matter whether
my baby is your baby or Peter Gorwyn’s baby. It’s you that spoil his
life for him, you and your mother, you mischievous dolt, and your dirty
blood in him. He’s tainted, and he knows it. ’Tisn’t me. I came long
after; I’m just an extra. ’Tis you and your mother destroyed him, from
the day he was born.”
She clasped her hands suddenly to her side and fell back on to her
chair.
“You’ve done for me,” she groaned.
The door opened and Lovel stood upon the threshold. Olver ran to him,
touching him all over with his hands, reaching up to pass his hands
even over his brother’s head.
“Look at her, Nicco; she’s tricked you, the brat isn’t mine, it’s Peter
Gorwyn’s, and she says ’tis I that kept you from Miss Warrener. Why
don’t you kill her, Nicco? and I’ll go right away if it’s true; I love
you better than she does; you shall have Miss Warrener.”
“What’s all this?” said Lovel. He put Olver’s passionate fumbling hands
aside, and went over to Daisy. “You’re ill,” he said in a practical
voice; “What is it? has Olver hurt you?”
“You heard what he said,” she replied, looking up at him with terrified
and pain-racked eyes.
“Never mind about that. Are you ill? Let me help you up.”
“She’s tricked you, Nicco,” cried Olver, fawning round him.
“Hold your tongue, Olver; she’s in pain. You poor fool, why didn’t you
tell me? Heaven knows if I can get to Marlborough through this snow
with darkness coming on. Lean on me, I’ll take you upstairs. Lean on
me; never mind anything else.”
Olver was pulling frantically at him.
“Is it true, Nicco? is it me? Oh, my poor Nicco,--first me and then
her,--what can I do?--but I’ll do something,--I’ll find something to
do,--oh, my head, my heart.”
“The pain, the pain!” cried Daisy.
“Lean on me,” said Lovel, putting his arm round her.
“Gorwyn’s child!” screamed Olver in a frenzy. He followed them to the
foot of the stairs, where he stumbled and fell on the lowermost step,
still calling incoherently after Lovel, who was persuading his wife up
to her room, saying meanwhile, “Lean on me, Daisy, I won’t let you
fall, don’t be afraid, it’ll all be over soon.”
The word was quickly passed down the village street that Daisy Lovel’s
time was come, and that Lovel begged the kindness of some charitable
woman to remain near his wife while he rode to Marlborough in search
of the midwife. “There’s a chance for somebody,” said one woman, “to
see the inside of that house for herself.” “And there’s a come-down
for Gipsy Lovel,” said another, “to have to beg for one of us to go
into his place. Where would he be if we all refused?” “Her time come
already? and she married,--let me see,--four, five months, is it?” said
a third. But in spite of these and other scornful remarks, volunteers
were forthcoming, and even those who had lagged most behind, or who had
recommended that Lovel be left to suffer now the penalty of his years
of unneighbourliness, watched enviously the departure of Mrs. Blagdon
for the house of mystery and evil legend. They saw her received at the
door by Lovel, drawn in and swallowed up, as to their imagination Daisy
herself had been swallowed up on the day of her wedding.
They continued, however, to observe Lovel’s house for some time,
glancing at intervals between the lace curtains which decked their
own windows, and saw a light spring up in the room they assumed to be
Daisy’s, and a gigantic shadow passing to and fro upon the blind.
Evening had come, swiftly to be followed by night; the snow had
begun to fall again in large flakes; very soon the street was white,
unbroken by footmarks, since every soul was within doors. The women
idly watching between their curtains saw Lovel emerge from his house,
close the door behind him, and pass down the alley between two houses
to the shed where he kept his horse. They saw him emerge again, leading
the horse; they saw him swing himself into the saddle and ride away,
his coat collar turned up high against the snow, tall and spare as he
disappeared silently into the thick dusk. The women said, “He’s off to
Marlborough to find the midwife. Things can’t be going,” they added
with relish, “as well as they should.” The men only growled, “He must
be crazed to think he can find the road to Marlborough on a night like
this; he’ll break his own neck and his horse’s legs.” But the women had
a curious faith in Lovel’s efficiency.
Few village confinements were honoured with so much interest. The
darkness in the street was now intense, heightened by the snow that
continued to float down in large, soft flakes; only the little yellow
lights in the windows broke it, all on the ground-floor level but for
the significant exception of Daisy’s window, whose lighted rectangle
on the upper storey threw its beams out against the falling snow. All
was silent in the Lovels’ house; ever Mrs. Blagdon seemed to have
fallen into the clandestine habits of her hosts, for she had not
once run out across the street in an interval for a moment’s gossip
with a neighbour; only the shadow passed upon the blind, enormous and
suggestive, to show that any life stirred within the house. The snow
fell thicker; the few black holes left by the hoofs of Lovel’s horse
had been long since blotted out, and Lovel himself had disappeared into
the night as completely as though he had no intention of ever coming
back. Hours had passed, suppers were finished and cleared away in all
the little lighted kitchens, still the good wives were reluctant to
move upstairs to bed, while careful to conceal their reluctance from
the men. And Mrs. Blagdon, when she finally threw up a window in spite
of the steely cold, to call out in an irritable and impatient voice,
“Anybody seen anything of Lovel?” was answered by a dozen voices in
negation.
“How’s things, Mrs. Blagdon?”
“Turned round the wrong way,” came the reply laconically.
The street fell back into its silence after the small disturbance.
Women who had been through the experience gave a moment’s pity
to Daisy. Gorwyn, the smith, knocking out his pipe against his
hearthstone, reiterated the opinion that Lovel would not be seen again
that night. Peter, his son, stirred uneasily. “Is it all up with her,
would you think, mother?” But Mrs. Gorwyn was contemptuous. “Lord, no;
a solid girl like Daisy’d stand a deal more than that.”
Country news, that most unaccountable traveller, spread even to
Starvecrow in its isolation. Mrs. Quince was full of it,--she who
towards Clare had kept herself so very prim and respectfully reserved.
“You will remember, madam, the girl you saw in the attic bedroom here,
Daisy Morland by name?”
“I remember perfectly, Mrs. Quince; what of her?”
“You will remember she was stitching at some baby-linen,--she was
married to that good-for-nothing Lovel,--Gipsy Lovel, they call him,--a
fortnight later,--a matter of three weeks before you were married
yourself, madam.”
“Yes, Mrs. Quince?”
“She was brought to bed of a son in the early hours of this morning,
madam,” said Mrs. Quince importantly.
“Really. I hope she is well?”
“Well enough; these country girls make nothing of it. Lightly born
as lightly come by, I always say. Yet at one time it was a question
whether they could save the baby.” Mrs. Quince added some details.
“Yes, madam. Her husband had to ride to Marlborough and brought the
doctor out a-pillion, and how he could ha’ done it with the night as
black as pitch, and the snow falling, and the roads hedge-deep in
snow, is what the folk are all asking themselves. They saw him start,
but no one saw him come back, but sure enough when they went to unbar
their doors this morning there were the tracks of a horse up the
street. A fine boy, they say. It’s fortunate he hasn’t taken after his
Uncle Olver.”
“Yes,” said Clare.
“It’s my opinion, madam, I don’t know if it’s yours too,--that people
like that have no business to get children. ’Tisn’t fair, as a matter
of conscience, when you don’t know what dark blood you may be handing
on. Anybody has only got to look at the Lovels to know there’s no good
in them,--well, they ought to restrain themselves, that’s what I say.”
Seeing that Clare did not reply, Mrs. Quince resumed after a moment,
“There always were things about those Lovels that weren’t natural. Now
here’s another thing: how did he ride from King’s Avon to Marlborough
and back on a night like last night, if something unholy wasn’t in
league with him? No other man in the village could have done it, and
there’s not many that would have tried. No, let the baby go, they’d
have said, and the woman too, if need be. And he’s always out on those
hills; if he had to go after sheep there would be some sense in it, but
he just goes straying alone when most men are glad enough to keep their
fireside. He’s been seen on the top of White Horse Hill, in the middle
of a blizzard fit to cut you in half. And I have heard it told, that
after he’s passed by, the Grey Wethers have been found uncovered; yes,
even though they were at the bottom of the deepest drift there they’ll
be, sticking up black in the middle of the snow.”
“You can’t believe everything you’re told, Mrs. Quince.”
“Well, that’s as it may be, madam. All the same, I stick to it that
there is something unholy about those Lovels; it’s easy to say the
younger one is daft, but there’s nothing daft about Nicholas,--far from
it. So why does he look so dark and queer? and why must he pass on his
sly Egyptian blood to an English girl? if he must get children, let him
get them on one of his own sort, that’s what I say.”
Here Calladine came in.
“Secrets?” he asked in his most urbane manner, seeing Mrs. Quince
become silent in the midst of garrulity.
“No,” said Clare. “Mrs. Quince was telling me that Lovel’s wife has had
a son, and that Lovel had to go to Marlborough in the middle of the
night to fetch the doctor.”
“Dear me, that’s a daring, uncomfortable thing to do,” said Calladine,
smiling in a patronising way.
“Yes,” said Clare, looking at him. “Not many people would have cared
for the job, I think.”
Calladine laughed negligently.
“You always had a weakness for your poacher,” he replied.
“Would you be wanting me any more, madam?” enquired Mrs. Quince.
“If Lovel’s wife is in need of anything I can send her, please let me
know, Mrs. Quince.”
“Yes, madam. Very good of you, madam.”
When the housekeeper had left the room, Calladine said, “I never
question your actions, as you know, Clare, but do you think it
judicious to encourage these people? The woman was married not very
long before ourselves, yet she already gives birth to a baby; the man
is well-known as an undesirable in the whole neighbourhood.”
Clare went up to him. “Oh, Richard,” she cried gaily, “are they worth
talking about any longer?” She pushed him down into his armchair and
knelt at his feet. “What are we going to do to-day, tell me?”
“To do?” repeated Calladine in surprise. “Why, what is there that
we could possibly do on a day like this? What a restless spirit it
is--always crying out to be up and doing--when I am quite content if I
may sit and look into your eyes.”
“That’s very pretty, Richard, but it doesn’t mean much; don’t you ever
want to be out, moving, riding, anything! anything but sit cooped
indoors day after day with books?”
“I confess I haven’t much desire to be riding into snow-drifts on this
particular morning,” said Calladine, glancing at the white-and-leaden
prospect out of the window.
“And you wouldn’t allow me to do so either, if I had a mind to?”
“Such a wild child!” said Calladine fondly, stroking her hair. “How
fortunate that you should have a staid, elderly husband to look after
you.”
“How do you think I looked after myself for nineteen years, then,
Richard?”
“Heaven knows,” said Calladine in mock dismay; banter with Clare was
a form of conversation he particularly enjoyed. The morning promised
to pass agreeably; there was nothing he liked better than for Clare
to kneel at his feet, as she was doing now, sitting back on her
heels, while he looked at her fresh youthfulness with that fond and
tender glance of his, and rallied her gently, or caressed her with
the courtly phrases she had heard from him alone among men. “How
_did_ you look after yourself?” he repeated. “You always escaped from
old Martha Sparrow, and even the poacher cannot always have been at
hand for a ready rescue, and in any case he is scarcely my idea of a
knight-errant.”
“No,” said Clare, “he hasn’t such pretty manners as you, Richard.”
“Now you’re laughing at me,--are you, or aren’t you? I never know,” and
he caught her to him and began flecking her face and hair with quick
kisses, but desisted to say more seriously, “You’re so exquisitely a
woman, Clare, so deliciously a child; I realised that you were both
from the day you first came to visit me here.”
The phrase had a vague echo of familiarity for Clare; “so exquisitely
a woman”; she felt sure that she had heard him say that, or something
very like it, before; and she thought with the hardness that was
becoming habitual to her where he was concerned, that from no woman
would he demand anything further.
“What a toy I am to you, Richard,” she said idly; “what a toy you like
to make of me.”
“The most exquisite toy that ever came into the life of a sad and
lonely man,” he said, with a return to his old manner, and he took her
hand and began to play with the bangle on her wrist. He handled her
much as he would handle his terra-cotta statuettes, and for a while she
endured it, but presently sprang away and went to stand at the window
where she might look out upon the prospect of shining snow.
“Always looking out, Clare? what liberty do you see out there? you
think I ought to let you go, little caged bird, but you would soon
perish,--your pretty limbs wouldn’t stand the cold,--better stay
happily where you are, believe me,--don’t fret,--come back to me,--let
me whisper how precious you are,--come back to our lovely idleness.”
“But I don’t like idleness, Richard; no use pretending I do; you should
not have married some one so restless as I.” His hands were upon her
shoulders; she wanted to shake them off.
“Did the poacher ...” began Calladine.
“Ah, leave Lovel alone,” she cried; “what impels you to speak of him
this morning? Leave him alone, with his wife and his baby; they can
very well look after themselves without any interest from us.”
“But, Clare, Mrs. Quince was speaking of them; it’s only natural that
my thoughts should continue to run in that direction; and even you
yourself....”
“You’re fascinated by the subject of Lovel,” she said, whirling
round on him, “now, aren’t you? own to it. You always bring him in:
the Downs, the circus, and now his baby,--everything’s an excuse
for bringing in Lovel. And why? Is it because he took me out of the
circus-tent that night? is it because I rode with him? why not speak
out what’s at the back of your mind?”
“But, Clare, Clare! why so fierce and challenging suddenly? there’s
nothing at the back of my mind.” (“There is,” she thought, “and you too
great a coward to face it out.”) “Come now, don’t let us quarrel and we
won’t speak of Lovel if it offends you,--will that satisfy you?”
“It’s of no importance whether we speak of a man in the village or
not,” she said, turning away and hunching her shoulders.
They went back to sit by the fire, a bulk of hostility unspoken
between them. Calladine felt peevish; his indolent, graceful, vaguely
amorous morning had been spoilt; and spoilt by what? by the presence
of Lovel. “You’ve never yet shaken off that lean rogue,” he broke
out once, sudden and querulous after a spell of silence. They both
sat staring into the fire, separate as they could be. They had not
previously spoken of Lovel, not directly, not insistently; only to
range round him with that nagging, niggling hesitation that seemed to
pull at Calladine. But now his presence blocked every other road of
conversation; he got in the way, he was near, he could not be got rid
of. Almost, he was in the room.
Calladine looked at Clare; fair and slight, delicate even, but so
unafraid. A touch, and she was instantly up and all-daring. She kindled
at a spark. What was it that she and Lovel had in common? the same
apparent frailty of body, the same flame of spirit,--Calladine had all
the lyricism to clothe his perceptions with words. He had apprehended
Lovel; on the rare occasion when he had seen him, he had apprehended
him fully, to his own disquietude. And he apprehended Clare and
their resemblance, with pain and resentment. They were two fine and
vulnerable things, he thought; vulnerable and brave. But he thought it
with only half of his brain, the lyrical, romantic half; with the other
half he was peevish and irritated.
If only they were not so silent; Clare had never faltered or
complained. Only she had wanted to go out; she had looked out of the
window with a kind of homesickness. He was always catching her eyes
at their straying, and being made aware how far removed she was from
himself. But this, again, had been with half of his brain; with the
other half he had known that she was his wife and that he had got her
under his roof. And he had not allowed his lyrical self to call her a
prisoner.
What if she were to escape? He would be without persuasion or authority.
“You stay with me out of apathy,” he cried. “If once your fancy
changed, you would be gone.”
Clare, who had not been thinking of him, turned a mild glance of slight
attention on him. He was glaring at her, frightened and angry.
“Yes,” he continued, “I don’t hold you; you’re kind to me, and you
indulge my game of pretence. But you’re not really here. You’re
indulgent to me as if I were a child,--‘yes, dear, very nice,’ between
your own, grown-up preoccupations. But you ought to remember that I am
your husband,” he said.
“When have I forgotten it?”