CHAPTER XXVII

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, _he_ had, 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?"

BOOK III

CHAPTER XXVIII

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. Does _she_ ever take your boots off?"

"Never."

"You don't allow her?"

"No. I don't allow her."

"You allow _me_" 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 bear _her_ child 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 think _me_ bad?"

"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 love _her_?"

"We can't go into that, Maggie. Can't you understand that it may be

because I love _you_?"

"I don't know. But I don't mind so long as I know it isn't only because

you love _her_."

"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. _You_ must 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 should _I_ be if I was to give you up?"

"I see, Maggie. _I_ see. _I_ see."

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, "_I_ see. _I_ see."

"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.

CHAPTER XXIX

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.

"_Is_n'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 daddy _really meant_ it as a surprise for _me_?"

"I think he must have done, darling."

"Aren't you sorry we spoiled his surprise, mummy?"

"I don't think he minds, Peggy."

"_I_ think 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. _Have_ you 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. _I_ know. 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, "you _did_ think 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.

CHAPTER XXX

Though Thurston Square saw little of Mrs. Majendie, the glory of Mrs.

Eliott's Thursdays remained undiminished. The same little procession

filed through her drawing-room as before. Mrs. Pooley, Miss Proctor, the

Gardners, and Canon Wharton. Mrs. Eliott was more than ever haggard and

pursuing; she had more than ever the air of clinging, desperate and

exhausted, on her precipitous intellectual heights.

But Mrs. Pooley never flagged, possibly because her ideas were vaguer

and more miscellaneous, and therefore less exhausting. It was she who

now urged Mrs. Eliott on. This year Mrs. Pooley was going in for

thought-power, and for mind-control, and had drawn Mrs. Eliott in with

her. They still kept it up for hours together, and still they dreaded

the disastrous invasions of Miss Proctor.

Miss Proctor rode roughshod over the thought-power, and trampled

contemptuously on the mind-control. Mrs. Gardner's attitude was

mysterious and unsatisfactory. She seemed to stand serenely on the shore

of the deep sea where Mrs. Eliott and Mrs. Pooley were for ever plunging

and sinking, and coming up again, bobbing and bubbling, to the surface.

Her manner implied that she would die rather than go in with them; it

also suggested that she knew rather more about the thought-power and the

mind-control than they did; but that she did not wish to talk so much

about it.

Mr. Eliott, dexterous as ever, and fortified by the exact sciences, took

refuge from the occult under his covering of profound stupidity. He had a

secret understanding with Dr. Gardner on the subject. His spirit no

longer searched for Dr. Gardner's across the welter of his wife's

drawing-room, knowing that it would find it at the club.

Now, in October, about four o'clock on the Thursday after Peggy's

birthday, Canon Wharton and Miss Proctor met at Mrs. Eliott's. The Canon

had watched his opportunity and drawn his hostess apart.

"May I speak with you a moment," he said, "before your other guests

arrive?"

Mrs. Eliott led him to a secluded sofa. "If you'll sit here," said she,

"we can leave Johnson to entertain Miss Proctor."

"I am perplexed and distressed," said the Canon, "about our dear Mrs.

Majendie."

Mrs. Eliott's eyes darkened with anxiety. She clasped her hands. "Oh why?

What is it? Do you mean about the dear little girl?"

"I know nothing about the little girl. But I hear very unpleasant things

about her husband."

"What things?"

The Canon's face was reticent and grim. He wished Mrs. Eliott to

understand that he was no unscrupulous purveyor of gossip; that if he

spoke, it was under constraint and severe necessity.

"I do not," said the Canon, "usually give heed to disagreeable reports.

But I am afraid that, where there is such a dense cloud of smoke, there

must be some fire."

"I think," said Mrs. Eliott, "perhaps they didn't get on very well

together once. But they seem to have made it up after the sister's death.

_She_ has been happier these last three years. She has been a different

woman."

"The same woman, my dear lady, the same woman. Only a better saint. For

the last three years, they say, he has been living with another woman."

"Oh--it's impossible. Impossible. He is away a great deal--but--"

"He is away a great deal too often. Running up to Scarby every week in

that yacht of his. In with the Ransomes and all that disreputable set."

"Is Lady Cayley in Scale?"

"Lady Cayley is at Scarby."

"Do you mean to say--"

"I mean," said the Canon, rising, "to say nothing."

Mrs. Eliott detained him with her eyes of anguish.

"Canon Wharton--do you think she knows?"

"I cannot tell you."

The Canon never told. He was far too clever.

Mrs. Eliott wandered to Miss Proctor.

"Do you know," said Miss Proctor, searching Mrs. Eliott's face with an

inquisitive gaze, "how our friends, the Majendies, are getting on?"

"Oh, as usual. I see very little of her now. Anne is quite taken up with

her little girl and with her good works."

"Oh! That," said Miss Proctor, "was a most unsuitable marriage."

It was five o'clock. The Canon and Miss Proctor had drunk their two

cups of tea and departed. Mrs. Pooley had arrived soon after four;

she lingered, to talk a little more about the thought-power and the

mind-control. Mrs. Pooley was convinced that she could make things

happen. That they were, in fact, happening. But Mrs. Eliott was no longer

interested.

Mrs. Pooley, too, departed, feeling that dear Fanny's Thursday had been a

disappointment. She had been quite unable to sustain the conversation at

its usual height.

Mrs. Pooley indubitably gone, Mrs. Eliott wandered down to Johnson in his

study. There, in perfect confidence, she revealed to him the Canon's

revelations.

Johnson betrayed no surprise. That story had been going the round of his

club for the last two years.

"What will Anne do?" said Mrs. Eliott, "when she finds out?"

"I don't suppose she'll do anything."

"Will she get a separation, do you think?"

"How can I tell you?"

"I wonder if she knows."

"She's not likely to tell you, if she does."

"She's bound to know, sooner or later. I wonder if one ought to prepare

her?"

"Prepare her for what?"

"The shock of it. I'm afraid of her hearing in some horrid way. It would

be so awful, if she didn't know."

"It can't be pleasant, any way, my dear."

"Do advise me, Johnson. Ought I or ought I not to tell her?"

Mr. Eliott's face told how his nature shrank from the agony of decision.

But he was touched by her distress.

"Certainly not. Much better let well alone."

"If I were only sure that it _was_ well I was letting alone."

"Can't be sure of anything. Give it the benefit of the doubt."

"Yes--but if you were I?"

"If I were you I should say nothing."

"That only means that I should say nothing if I were you. But I'm not."

"Be thankful, my dear, at any rate, for that."

He took up a book, _The Search for Stellar Parallaxes_, a book that he

understood and that his wife could not understand. That book was the sole

refuge open to him when pressed for an opinion. He knew that, when she

saw him reading it, she would realise that he was her intellectual

master.

The front doorbell announced the arrival of another caller.

She went away, wondering, as he meant she should, whether he were so very

undecided, after all. Certainly his indecisions closed a subject more

effectually than other people's verdicts.

She found Anne in the empty, half-dark drawing-room waiting for her. She

had chosen the darkest corner, and the darkest hour.

"Fanny," she said, and her voice trembled, "are you alone? Can I speak to

you a moment?"

"Yes, dear, yes. Just let me leave word with Mason that I'm not at home.

But no one will come now."

In the interval she heard Anne struggling with the sob that had choked

her voice. She felt that the decision had been made for her. The terrible

task had been taken out of her hands. Anne knew.

She sat down beside her friend and put her hand on her shoulder. In that

moment poor Fanny's intellectual vanities dropped from her, like an

inappropriate garment, and she became pure woman. She forgot Anne's

recent disaffection and her coldness, she forgot the years that had

separated them, and remembered only the time when Anne was the girlfriend

who had loved her, and had come to her in all her griefs, and had made

her house her home.

"What is it, dear?" she murmured.

Anne felt for her hand and pressed it. She tried to speak, but no words

would come.

"Of course," thought Mrs. Eliott, "she cannot tell me. But she knows I

know."

"My dear," she said, "can I or Johnson help you?"

Anne shook her head; but she pressed her friend's hand tighter.

Wondering what she could do or say to help her, Mrs. Eliott resolved to

take Anne's knowledge for granted, and act upon it.

"If there's trouble, dear, will you come to us? We want you to look on

our house as a refuge, any hour of the day or night."

Anne stared at her friend. There was something ominous and dismaying in

her solemn tenderness, and it roused Anne to wonder, even in her grief.

"You cannot help me, dear," she said. "No one can. Yet I had to come to

you and tell you--"

"Tell me everything," said Mrs. Eliott, "if you can."

Anne tried to steady her voice to tell her, and failed. Then Fanny had an

inspiration. She felt that she must divert Anne's thoughts from the grief

that made her dumb, and get her to talk naturally of other things.

"How's Peggy?" said she. She knew it would be good to remind her that,

whatever happened, she had still the child.

But at that question, Anne released Mrs. Eliott's hand, and laid her head

back upon the cushion and cried.

"Dear," whispered Mrs. Eliott, with her inspiration full upon her, "you

will always have _her_."

Then Anne sat up in her corner, and put away her tears, and controlled

herself to speak.

"Fanny," she said, "Dr. Gardner has seen her. He says I shall not have

her very long. Perhaps--a few years--if we take the very greatest

care--"

"Oh, my dear! What is it?"

"It's her heart. I thought it was her spine, because of Edie. But it

isn't. She has valvular disease. Oh, Fanny, I didn't think a little child

could have it."

"Nor I," said Mrs. Eliott, shocked into a great calm. "But surely--if you

take care--"

"No. He gives no hope. He only says a few years, if we leave Scale and

take her into the country. She must never be overtired, never excited. We

must never vex her. He says one violent crying fit might kill her. And

she cries so easily. She cries sometimes till she's sick."

Mrs. Eliott's face had grown white; she trembled, and was dumb before the

anguish of Anne's face.

But it was Anne who rose, and put her arms about the childless woman, and

kissed and comforted her.

It was as if she had said: Thank God you never had one.

CHAPTER XXXI

The rumour which was going the round of the clubs in due time reached

Lady Cayley through the Ransomes. It roused in her many violent and

conflicting emotions.

She sat trembling in the Ransomes' drawing-room. Mrs. Ransome had just

asked whether there was anything in it; because if there was, she, Mrs.

Ransome, washed her hands of her. She intimated that it would take a good

deal of washing to get Sarah off her hands.

Sarah had unveiled the face of horror, the face of outraged virtue, and

the wrath and writhing of propriety wounded in the uncertain, quivering,

vital spot. During the unveiling Dick Ransome had come in. He wanted

to know if Topsy had been bullying poor Toodles. Whereupon Topsy wept

feebly, and poor Toodles had a moment of monstrous calm.

She wanted to get it quite clear, to make no mistake. They might as well

give her the details. Majendie had left his wife, had he? Well, she

wasn't surprised at that. The wonder was that, having married her, he had

stuck to her so long. He had left his wife, and was living at Scarby, was

he, with her? Well, she only wanted to get all the details clear.

At this Sarah fell into a fit of laughter very terrifying to see. Since

her own sister wouldn't take her word for it, she supposed she'd have to

prove that it was not so.

And, under the horror of her virtue and respectability, there heaved a

dull, dumb fury, born of her memory that it once was, her belief that

it might have been again, and her knowledge that it was not so. She

trembled, shaken by the troubling of the fire that ran underground,

the immense, unseen, unliberated, primeval fire. She was no longer a

creature of sophistries, hypocrisies, and wiles. She was the large woman

of the simple earth, welded by the dark, unspiritual flame.

Dick Ransome turned on his sister-in-law a pale, puffy face in which two

little dark eyes twinkled with a shrewd, gross humour. Nothing could

possibly have pleased Dick Ransome more than an exhibition of indignant

virtue, as achieved by Sarah. He knew a great deal more about Sarah than

Mrs. Ransome knew, or than Sarah knew herself. To Dick Ransome's mind,

thus illumined by knowledge, that spectacle swept the whole range of

human comedy. He sat taking in all the entertainment it presented; and,

when it was all over, he remarked quietly that Toodles needn't bother

about her proofs. He had got them too. He knew that it was not so. He

could tell her that much, but he wasn't going to give Majendie away. No,

she couldn't get any more out of him than that.

Sarah smiled. She did not need to get anything more out of him. She had

her proof; or, if it didn't exactly amount to proof, she had her clue.

She had found it long ago; and she had followed it up, if not to the end,

at any rate, quite far enough. She reflected that Majendie, like the dear

fool he always was, had given it to her himself, five years ago.

Men's sins take care of themselves. It is their innocent good deeds that

start the hounds of destiny. When Majendie sent Maggie Forrest's

handiwork to Mrs. Ransome, with a kind note recommending the little

embroideress, by that innocent good deed he woke the sleeping dogs of

destiny. Mrs. Ransome's sister had tracked poor Maggie down by the long

trail of her beautiful embroidery. She had been baffled when the

embroidered clue broke off. Now, after three years, she leaped (and

it was not a very difficult leap for Lady Cayley) to the firm conclusion.

Maggie Forrest and her art had disappeared for three years; so, at

perilous intervals, had Majendie; therefore they had disappeared

together.

Sarah did not like the look in Dick Ransome's eye. She removed herself

from it to the seclusion of her bedroom. There she bathed her heated face

with toilette vinegar, steadied her nerves with a cigarette, lay down

on a couch and rested, and, pure from passion, revised the situation

calmly. She was an eminently practical, sensible woman, who knew the

facts of life, and knew, also, how to turn them to her own advantage.

Seen by the larger, calmer spirit that was Sarah now, the situation was

not as unpleasant as it had at first appeared. To be sure, the rumour in

which she had figured was fatal to the matrimonial vision, and to the

beautiful illusion of propriety in which she had once lived. But Sarah

had renounced the vision; she had abandoned the pursuit of the fugitive

propriety. She had long ago seen through the illusion. She might be a

deceiver, but she had no power to hoodwink her own indestructible

lucidity. Looking back on her life, after the joyous romances of her

youth, the years had passed like so many funeral processions, each

bearing some pleasant scandal to its burial. Then there had come the

dreary funeral feast, and then the days of mournful rehabilitation. Oh,

that rehabilitation! There had been three years of it. Three years of

exhausting struggle for a position in society, three years of crawling,

and pushing, and scrambling, and climbing. There had been a dubious

triumph. Then six years of respectable futility, ambiguous courtship,

and palpable frustration. After all that, there was something flattering

in the thought that, at forty-five, she should yet find her name still

coupled with Walter Majendie's in a passionate adventure.

It might easily have been, but for Walter's imbecile, suicidal devotion

to his wife. He had got nothing out of his marriage. Worse than nothing.

He was the laughing-stock of all his friends who were in the secret; who

saw him grovelling at the heels of a disagreeable woman who had made him

conspicuous by her aversion. Of course, it might easily have been.

Sarah's imagination (for she had an imagination) drew out all the

sweetness that there was for it in that idea. Then it occurred to her

sound, prosaic commonsense that a reputation is still a reputation, all

the more precious if somewhat precariously acquired; that, though you may

as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, hanging is very poor fun when for

years you have seen nothing of sheep or lamb either; that, in short, she

must take steps to save her reputation.

The shortest way to save it was the straight way. She would go straight

to Mrs. Majendie with her proofs. Her duty to herself justified the

somewhat unusual step. And, more than her duty, Sarah loved a scene. She

loved to play with other people's emotions and to exhibit her own. She

wanted to see how Mrs. Majendie would take it; how the white-faced,

high-handed lady would look when she was told that her husband had

consoled himself for her high-handedness. She had always been possessed

by an ungovernable curiosity with regard to Majendie's wife.

She did not know Majendie's wife, but she knew Majendie. She knew all

about the separation and its cause. That was where she had come in. She

divined that Mrs. Majendie had never forgiven her husband for his old

intimacy with her. It was Mrs. Majendie's jealousy that had driven him

out of the house, into the arms of pretty Maggie. Where, she wondered,

would Mrs. Majendie's jealousy of pretty Maggie drive him?

Though Sarah knew Majendie, that was more than she would undertake to

say. But the more she thought about it, the more she wondered; and the

more she wondered, the more she desired to know.

She wondered whether Mrs. Majendie had heard the report. From all she

could gather, it was hardly likely. Neither Mrs. Majendie nor her friends

mixed in those circles where it went the round. The scandal of the clubs

and of the Park would never reach her in the high seclusion of the house

in Prior Street.

Into that house Lady Cayley could not hope to penetrate except by guile.

Once admitted, straightforwardness would be her method. She must not

attempt to give the faintest social colour to her visit. She must take

for granted Mrs. Majendie's view of her impossibility. To be sure Mrs.

Majendie's prejudices were moral even more than social. But moral

prejudice could be overcome by cleverness working towards a formidable

moral effect.

She would call after six o'clock, an hour incompatible with any social

intention. An hour when she would probably find Mrs. Majendie alone.

She rested all afternoon. At five o'clock she fortified herself with

strong tea and brandy. Then she made an elaborate and thoughtful

toilette.

At forty-five Sarah's face was very large and horribly white. She

restored, discreetly, delicately, the vanished rose. The beautiful,

flower-like edges of her mouth were blurred. With a thin thread of rouge

she retraced the once perfect outline. Wrinkles had drawn in the corners

of the indomitable eyes, and ill-health had dulled their blue. That

saddest of all changes she repaired by hand-massage, pomade, and

belladonna. The somewhat unrefined exuberance of her figure she laced in

an inimitable corset. Next she arrayed herself in a suit of dark blue

cloth, simple and severely reticent; in a white silk blouse, simpler

still, sewn with innocent daisies, Maggie's handiwork; in a hat, gay in

form, austere in colour; and in gloves of immaculate whiteness.

Nobody could have possessed a more irreproachable appearance than Lady

Cayley when she set out for Prior Street.

At the door she gave neither name nor card. She announced herself as a

lady who desired to see Mrs. Majendie for a moment on important business.

Kate wondered a little, and admitted her. Ladies did call sometimes on

important business, ladies who approached Mrs. Majendie on missions of

charity; and these did not always give their names.

Anne was upstairs in the nursery, superintending the packing of Peggy's

little trunk. She was taking her away to-morrow to the seaside, by Dr.

Gardner's orders. She supposed that the nameless lady would be some

earnest, beneficent person connected with a case for her Rescue

Committee, who might have excellent reasons for not announcing herself

by name.

And, at first, coming into the low lit drawing-room, she did not

recognise her visitor. She advanced innocently, in her perfect manner,

with a charming smile and an appropriate apology.

The smile died with a sudden rigour of repulsion. She paused before

seating herself, as an intimation that the occasion was not one that

could be trusted to explain itself. Lady Cayley rose to it.

"Forgive me for calling at this unconventional hour Mrs. Majendie."

Mrs. Majendie's silence implied that she could not forgive her for

calling at any hour. Lady Cayley smiled inimitably.

"I wanted to find you at home."

"You did not give me your name Lady Cayley."

Their eyes crossed like swords before the duel.

"I didn't, Mrs. Majendie, _because_ I wanted to find you at home. I can't

help being unconventional--"

Mrs. Majendie raised her eyebrows.

"It's my nature."

Mrs. Majendie dropped her eyelids, as much as to say that the nature of

Lady Cayley did not interest her.

"--And I've come on a most unconventional errand."

"Do you mean an unpleasant one?"

"I'm afraid I do, rather. And it's just as unpleasant for me as it is for

you. Have you any idea, Mrs. Majendie, why I've been obliged to come?

It'll make it easier for me if you have."

"I assure you I have none. I cannot conceive why you have come, nor how I

can make anything easier for you."

"I think I mean it would have made it easier for you."

"For me?"

"Well--it would have spared you some painful explanations." Sarah felt

herself sincere. She really desired to spare Mrs. Majendie. The part

which she had rehearsed with such ease in her own bedroom was impossible

in Mrs. Majendie's drawing-room. She was charmed by the spirit of the

place, constrained by its suggestion of fair observances, high decencies,

and social suavities. She could not sit there and tell Mrs. Majendie that

her husband had been unfaithful to her. You do not say these things. And

so subdued was Sarah that she found a certain relief in the reflection

that, by clearing herself, she would clear Majendie.

"I don't in the least know what you want to say to me," said Mrs.

Majendie. "But I would rather take everything for granted than have any

explanations."

"If I thought you would take my innocence for granted--"

"Your innocence? I should be a bad judge of it, Lady Cayley."

"Quite so." Lady Cayley smiled again, and again inimitably. (It was

extraordinary, the things _she_ took for granted.) "That's why I've come

to explain."

"One moment. Perhaps I am mistaken. But, if you are referring to--to what

happened in the past, there need be no explanation. I have put all that

out of my mind now. I have heard that you, too, have left it far behind

you; and I am willing to believe it. There is nothing more to be said."

There was such a sweetness and dignity in Mrs. Majendie's voice and

manner that Lady Cayley was further moved to compete in dignity and

sweetness. She suppressed the smile that ignored so much and took so much

for granted.

"Unfortunately a great deal more _has_ been said. Your husband is an

intimate friend of my sister, Mrs. Ransome, as of course you know."

Mrs. Majendie's face denied all knowledge of the intimacy.

"I might have met him at her house a hundred times, but, I assure you,

Mrs. Majendie, that, since his marriage, I have not met him more than

twice, anywhere. The first time was at the Hannays'. You were there.

You saw all that passed between us."

"Well?"

"The second time was at the Hannays', too. Mrs. Hannay was with us all

the time. What do you suppose he talked to me about? His child. He talked

about nothing else."

"I suppose," said Mrs. Majendie coldly, "there was nothing else to talk

about."

"No--but it was so dear and naif of him." She pondered on his naivete

with down-dropped eyes whose lids sheltered the irresponsibly hilarious

blue.

"He talked about his child--your child--to _me_. I hadn't seen him for

two years, and that's all he could talk about. _I_ had to sit and listen

to _that_."

"It wouldn't hurt you, Lady Cayley."

"It didn't--and I'm sure the little girl is charming--only--it was so

delicious of your husband, don't you see?"

Her face curled all over with its soft and sensual smile.

"If we'd been two babes unborn there couldn't have been a more innocent

conversation."

"Well?"

"_Well_, since that night we haven't seen each other for more than five

years. Ask him if it isn't true. Ask Mrs. Hannay--"

"Lady Cayley, I do not doubt your word--nor my husband's honour. I can't

think why you're giving yourself all this trouble."

"Why, because they're saying _now_--"

Mrs. Majendie rose. "Excuse me, if you've only come to tell me what

people are saying, it is useless. I never listen to what people say."

"It isn't likely they'd say it to you."

"Then why should _you_ say it to me?"

"Because it concerns my reputation."

"Forgive me, but--your reputation does not concern me."

"And how about your husband's reputation, Mrs. Majendie?"

"My husband's reputation can take care of itself."

"Not in Scale."

"There's no more scandal talked in Scale than in any other place. I never

pay any attention to it."

"That's all very well--but you must defend yourself sometimes. And when

it comes to saying that I've been living with Mr. Majendie in Scarby for

the last three years--"

Mrs. Majendie was so calm that Lady Cayley fancied that, after all, this

was not the first time she had heard that rumour.

"Let them say it," said she. "Nobody'll believe it."

"Everybody believes it. I came to you because I was afraid you'd be the

first."

"To believe it? I assure you, Lady Cayley, I should be the last."

"What was to prevent you? You didn't know me."

"No. But I know my husband."

"So do I."

"Not _now_" said Mrs. Majendie quietly.

Lady Cayley's bosom heaved. She had felt that she had risen to the

occasion. She had achieved a really magnificent renunciation. With almost

suicidal generosity, she had handed Majendie over intact, as it were, to

his insufferable wife. She was wounded in several very sensitive places

by the married woman's imperious denial of her part in him, by her

attitude of indestructible and unique possession. If _she_ didn't know

him she would like to know who did. But up till now she had meant to

spare Mrs. Majendie her knowledge of him, for she was not ill-natured.

She was sorry for the poor, inept, unhappy prude.

Even now, seated in Mrs. Majendie's drawing-room, she had no impulse to

wound her mortally. Her instinct was rather to patronise and pity, to

unfold the long result of a superior experience, to instruct this woman

who was so incompetent to deal with men, who had spoiled, stupidly, her

husband's life and her own. In that moment Sarah contemplated nothing

more outrageous than a little straight talk with Mrs. Majendie.

"Look here, Mrs. Majendie," she said, with an air of finely ungovernable

impulse, "you're a saint. You know no more about men than your little

girl does. I'm not a saint, I'm a woman of the world. I think I've had a

rather larger experience of men--"

Mrs. Majendie cut her short.

"I do not want to hear anything about your experience."

"Dear lady, you shan't hear anything about it. I was only going to tell

you that, of all the men I've known, there's nobody I know better than

your husband. My knowledge of him is probably a little different from

yours."

"That I can well believe."

"You mean you think I wouldn't know a good man if I saw one? My

experience isn't as bad as all that. I can tell a good woman when I see

one, too. You're a good woman, Mrs. Majendie, and I've no doubt that

you've been told I'm a bad one. All I can say is, that Walter Majendie

was a good man when I first knew him. He was a good man when he left me

and married you. So my badness can't have hurt him very much. If he's

gone wrong now, it's that goodness of yours that's done it."

Anne's lips turned white, but their muscles never moved. And the woman

who watched her wondered in what circumstances Mrs. Majendie would

display emotion, if she did not display it now.

"What right have you to say these things to me?"

"I've a right to say a good deal more. Your husband was very fond of me.

He would have married me if his friends hadn't come and bullied me to

give him up for the good of his morals. I loved him--" She suggested by

an adroit shrug of her shoulders that her love was a thing that Mrs.

Majendie could either take for granted or ignore. She didn't expect her

to understand it--"And I gave him up. I'm not a cold-blooded woman; and

it was pretty hard for me. But I did it. And" (she faced her) "what was

the good of it? Which of us has been the best for his morals? You or me?

He lived with me two years, and he married you, and everybody said how

virtuous and proper he was. Well, he's been married to you for nine

years, and he's been living with another woman for the last three."

She had not meant to say it; for (in the presence of the social

sanctities) you do not say these things. But flesh and blood are stronger

than all the social sanctities; and flesh and blood had risen and claimed

their old dominion over Sarah. The unspeakable depths in her had been

stirred by her vision of the things that might have been. She was filled

with a passionate hatred of the purity which had captured Majendie, and

drawn him from her, and made her seem vile in his sight. She rejoiced

in her power to crush it, to confront it with the proof of its own

futility.

"I do not believe it," said Mrs. Majendie.

"Of course you don't believe it. You're a good woman." She shook her

meditative head. "The sort of woman who can live with a man for nine

years without seeing what he's like. If you'd understood your husband as

well as I do, you'd have known that he couldn't run his life on your

lines for six months, let alone nine years."

Mrs. Majendie's chin rose, as if she were lifting her face above the

reach of the hand that had tried to strike it. Her voice throbbed on one

deep monotonous note.

"I do not believe a word of what you say. And I cannot think what your

motive is in saying it."

"Don't worry about my motive. It ought to be pretty clear. Let me tell

you--you can bring your husband back to-morrow, and you can keep him to

the end of time, if you choose, Mrs. Majendie. Or you can lose him

altogether. And you will, if you go on as you're doing. If I were you,

I should make up my mind whether it's good enough. I shouldn't think it

was, myself."

Mrs. Majendie was silent. She tried to think of some word that would end

the intolerable interview. Her lips parted to speak, but her thoughts

died in her brain unborn.

She felt her face turning white under the woman's face; it hypnotised

her; it held her dumb.

"Don't you worry," said Lady Cayley soothingly. "You can get your husband

back from that woman to-morrow, if you choose." She smiled. "Do you see

my motive now?"

Lady Cayley had not seen it; but she had seen herself for one beautiful

moment as the benignant and inspired conciliator. She desired Mrs.

Majendie to see her so. She had gratified her more generous instincts in

giving the unfortunate lady "the straight tip." She knew, perfectly well,

that Mrs. Majendie wouldn't take it. She knew, all the time, that

whatever else her revelation did, it would not move Mrs. Majendie to

charm her husband back. She could not say precisely what it would do.

Used to live solely in the voluptuous moment, she had no sense of drama

beyond the scene she played in.

"Your motive," said Mrs. Majendie, "is of no importance. No motive could

excuse you."

"You think not." She rose and looked down on the motionless woman. "I've

told you the truth, Mrs. Majendie, because, sooner or later, you'd have

had to know it; and other people would have told you worse things that

aren't true. You can take it from me that there's nothing more to tell.

I've told you the worst."

"You've told me, and I do not believe it."

"You'd better believe it. But, if you really don't, you can ask your

husband. Ask him where he goes to every week in that yacht of his. Ask

him what's become of Maggie Forrest, the pretty work-girl who made the

embroidered frock for Mrs. Ransome's little girl. Tell him you want one

like it for your little girl; and see what he looks like."

Anne rose too. Her faint white face frightened Lady Cayley. She had

wondered how Mrs. Majendie would look if she told her the truth about her

husband. Now she knew.

"My dear lady," said she, "what on earth did you expect?"

Anne went blindly towards the chimney-piece where the bell was. Lady

Cayley also turned. She meant to go, but not just yet.

"One moment, Mrs. Majendie, please, before you turn me out. I wouldn't

break my heart about it, if I were you. He might have done worse things."

"He has done nothing."

"Well--not much. He has done what I've told you. But, after all, what's

that?"

"Nothing to you, Lady Cayley, certainly," said Anne, as she rang the

bell.

She moved slowly towards the door. Lady Cayley followed to the threshold,

and laid her hand delicately on the jamb of the door as Mrs. Majendie

opened it. She raised to her set face the tender eyes of a suppliant.

"Mrs. Majendie," said she, "don't be hard on poor Wallie. He's never been

hard on you. He might have been." The latch sprang to under her gentle

pressure. "Look at it this way. He has kept all his marriage vows--except

one. You've broken all yours--except one. None of your friends will tell

you that. That's why _I_ tell you. Because I'm not a good woman, and I

don't count."

She moved her hand from the door. It opened wide, and Lady Cayley walked

serenely out.

She had said her say.

CHAPTER XXXII

Anne sat in her chair by the fireside, very still. She had turned out the

light, for it hurt her eyes and made her head ache. She had felt very

weak, and her knees shook under her as she crossed the room. Beyond that

she felt nothing, no amazement, no sorrow, no anger, nor any sort of

pang. If she had been aware of the trembling of her body, she would have

attributed it to the agitation of a disagreeable encounter. She shivered.

She thought there was a draught somewhere; but she did not rouse herself

to shut the window.

At eight o'clock a telegram from Majendie was brought to her. She was not

to wait dinner. He would not be home that night. She gave the message in

a calm voice, and told Kate not to send up dinner. She had a bad headache

and could not eat anything.

Kate had stood by waiting timidly. She had had a sense of things

happening. Now she retired with curiosity relieved. Kate was used to her

mistress's bad headaches. A headache needed no explanation. It explained

everything.

Anne picked up the telegram and read it over again. Every week, for

nearly three years, she had received these messages. They had always been

sent from the same post office in Scale, and the words had always been

the same: "Don't wait. May not be home to-night."

To-night the telegram struck her as a new thing. It stood for something

new. But all the other telegrams had meant the same thing. Not a new

thing. A thing that had been going on for three years; four, five, six

years, for all she knew. It was six years since their separation; and

that had been his wish.

She had always known it; and she had always put her knowledge away from

her, tried not to know more. Her friends had known it too. Canon Wharton,

and the Gardners, and Fanny. It all came back to her, the words, and the

looks that had told her more than any words, signs that she had often

wondered at and refused to understand. They had known all the depths of

it. It was only the other day that Fanny had offered her house to her as

a refuge from her own house in its shame. Fanny had supposed that it must

come to that.

God knew she had been loyal to him in the beginning. She had closed her

eyes. She had forbidden her senses to take evidence against him. She had

been loyal all through, loyal to the very end. She had lied for him. If,

indeed, she _had_ lied. In denying Lady Cayley's statements, she had

denied her right to make them, that was all.

Her mind, active now, went backwards and forwards over the chain of

evidence, testing each link in turn. All held. It was all true. She had

always known it.

Then she remembered that she and Peggy would be going away to-morrow.

That was well. It was the best thing she could do. Later on, when they

were home again, it would be time enough to make up her mind as to what

she could do. If there was anything to be done.

Until then she would not see him. They would be gone to-morrow before he

could come home. Unless he saw them off at the station. She would avoid

that by taking an earlier train. Then she would write to him. No; she

would not write. What they would have to say to each other must be said

face to face. She did not know what she would say.

She dragged herself upstairs to the nursery, where the packing had been

begun. The room was empty. Nanna had gone down to her supper.

Anne's heart melted. Peggy had been playing at packing. The little lamb

had gathered together on the table a heap of her beloved toys, things

which it would have broken her heart to part from.

Her little trunk lay open on the floor, packed already. The embroidered

frock lay uppermost, carefully folded, not to be crushed. At the sight of

it Anne's brain flared in anger.

A bright fire burned in the grate. She picked up the frock; she took a

pair of scissors and cut it in several places at the neck, then tore it

to pieces with strong, determined hands. She threw the tatters on the

fire; she watched them consume; she raked out their ashes with the tongs,

and tore them again. Then she packed Peggy's toys tenderly in the little

trunk, her heart melting over them. She closed the lid of the trunk,

strapped it, and turned the key in the lock.

Then, crawling on slow, quiet feet, she went to bed. Undressing vexed

her. She, once so careful and punctilious, slipped her clothes like a

tired Magdalen, and let them fall from her and lie where they fell. Her

nightgown gaped unbuttoned at her throat. Her long hair lay scattered on

her pillow, unbrushed, unbraided. Her white face stared to the ceiling.

She was too spent to pray.

When she lay down, reality gripped her. And, with it, her imagination

rose up, a thing no longer crude, but full-grown, large-eyed, and

powerful. It possessed itself of her tragedy. She had lain thus, nearly

nine years ago, in that room at Scarby, thinking terrible thoughts. Now

she saw terrible things.

Peggy stirred in her sleep, and crept from her cot into her mother's bed.

"Mummy, I'm so frightened."

"What is it, darling? Have you had a little dream?"

"No. Mummy, let me stay in your bed."

Anne let her stay, glad of the comfort of the little warm body, and

afraid to vex the child. She drew the blankets round her. "There," she

said, "go to sleep, pet."

But Peggy was in no mind to sleep.

"Mummy, your hair's all loose," she said; and her fingers began playing

with her mother's hair.

"Mummy, where's daddy? Is he in his little bed?"

"He's away, darling. Go to sleep."

"Why does he go away? Is he coming back again?"

"Yes, darling." Anne's voice shook.

"Mummy, did you cry when Auntie Edie went away?"

Anne kissed her.

"Auntie Edie's dead."

"Lie still, darling, and let mother go to sleep."

Peggy lay still, and Anne went on thinking.

There was nothing to be done. She would have to take him back again,

always. Whatever shame he dragged her through, she must take him back

again, for the child's sake.

Suddenly she remembered Peggy's birthday. It was only last week. Surely

she had not known then. She must have forgotten for a time.

Then tenderness came, and with it an intolerable anguish. She was smitten

and was melted; she was torn and melted again. Her throat was shaken,

convulsed; then her bosom, then her whole body. She locked her teeth,

lest her sobs should break through and wake the child.

She lay thus tormented, till a memory, sharper than imagination, stung

her. She saw her husband carrying the sleeping child, and his face

bending over her with that look of love. She closed her eyes, and let the

tears rain down her hot cheeks and fall upon her breast and in her hair.

She tried to stifle the sobs that strangled her, and she choked. That

instant the child's lips were on her face, tasting her tears.

"Oh, mummy, you're crying."

"No, my pet. Go to sleep."

"Why are you crying?"

Anne made no sound; and Peggy cried out in terror.

"Mummy--is daddy dead?"

Anne folded her in her arms.

"No, my pet, no."

"He is, mummy, I know he is. Daddy! Daddy!"

If Majendie had been in the house she would have carried the child into

his room, and shown him to her, and relieved her of her terror. She had

done that once before when she had cried for him.

But now Peggy cried persistently, vehemently; not loud, but in an agony

that tore and tortured her as she had seen her mother torn and tortured.

She cried till she was sick; and still her sobs shook her, with a sharp

mechanical jerk that would not cease.

Gradually she grew drowsy and fell asleep.

All night Anne lay awake beside her, driven to the edge of the bed, that

she might give breathing space to the little body that pushed, closer and

closer, to the warm place she made.

Towards dawn Peggy sighed three times, and stretched her limbs, as if

awakening out of her sleep.

Then Anne turned, and laid her hands on the dead body of her child.

CHAPTER XXXIII

The yacht had lain all night in Fawlness creek. Majendie had slept on

board. He had sent Steve up to the farm with a message for Maggie. He had

told her not to expect him that night. He would call and see her very

early in the morning. That would prepare her for the end. In the morning

he would call and say good-bye to her.

He had taken that resolution on the night when Gardner had told him about

Peggy.

He did not sleep. He heard all the sounds of the land, of the river, of

the night, and of the dawn. He heard the lapping of the creek water

against the yacht's side; the wash of the steamers passing on the river;

the stir of wild fowl at daybreak; the swish of wind and water among the

reeds and grasses of the creek.

All night he thought of Peggy, who would not live, who was the child of

her father's passion and her mother's grief.

At dawn he got up. It was a perfect day, with the promise of warmth in

it. Over land and water the white mist was lifting and drifting,

eastwards towards the risen sun. Inland, over the five fields, the drops

of fallen mist glittered on the grass. The Farm, guarded by its three

elms, showed clear, and red, and still, as if painted under an unchanging

light. A few leaves, loosened by the damp, were falling with a shivering

sound against the house wall, and lay where they fell, yellow on the

red-brick path.

Maggie was not at the garden gate. She sat crouched inside, by the

fender, kindling a fire. Tea had been made and was standing on the table.

She was waiting.

She rose, with a faint cry, as Majendie entered. She put her arms on his

shoulders in her old way. He loosened her hands gently and held her by

them, keeping her from him at arm's length. Her hands were cold, her

eyes had foreknowledge of the end; but, moved by his touch, her mouth

curled unaware and shaped itself for kissing.

He did not kiss her. And she knew.

Upstairs in the bedroom overhead, Steve and his mother moved heavily.

There was a sound of drawers opening and shutting, then a grating sound.

Something was being dragged from under the bed. Maggie knew that they

were packing Majendie's portmanteau with the things he had left behind

him.

They stood together by the hearth, where the fire kindled feebly. He

thrust out his foot, and struck the woodpile; it fell and put out the

flame that was struggling to be born.

"I'm sorry, Maggie," he said.

Maggie stooped and built up the pile again and kindled it. She knelt

there, patient and humble, waiting for the fire to burn.

He did not know whether he was going to have trouble with her. He was

afraid of her tenderness.

"Why didn't you come last night?" she said.

"I couldn't."

She looked at him with eyes that said, "That is not true."

"You couldn't?"

"I couldn't."

"You came last week."

"Last week--yes. But since then things have happened, do you see?"

"Things have happened," she repeated, under her breath.

"Yes. My little girl is very ill."

"Peggy?" she cried, and covered her face with her hands. Then with her

hands she made a gesture that swept calamity aside. Maggie would only

believe what she wanted.

"She will get better," she said.

"Perhaps. But I must be with my wife."

"You weren't with her last night," said Maggie. "You could have come

then."

"No, Maggie, I couldn't."

"D'you mean--because of the little girl?"

"Yes."

"I see," she said softly. She had understood.

"She will get better," she said, "and then you can come again."

"No. I've told you. I must be with my wife."

"I thought--" said Maggie.

"Never mind what you thought," he said with a quick, fierce impatience.

"Are you fond of her?" she asked suddenly.

"You know I am," he said; and his voice was kind again. "You've known it

all the time. I told you that in the beginning."

"But--since then," said Maggie, "you've been fond of me, haven't you?"

"It's not the same thing. I've told you that, too, a great many times.

I don't want to talk about it. It's different."

"How is it different?"

"I can't tell you."

"You mean--it's different because I'm not good."

"No, my child, I'm afraid it's different because I'm bad. That's as near

as we can get to it."

She shook her head in persistent, obstinate negation.

"See here, Maggie, we must end it. We can't go on like this any more. We

must give it up."

"I can't," she moaned. "Don't ask me to do that, Wallie dear. Don't ask

me."

"I must, Maggie. _I_ must give it up. I told you, dear, before we took

this place, that it must end, sooner or later, that it couldn't last very

long. Don't you remember?"

"Yes--I remember."

"And you promised me, didn't you, that when the time came, you

wouldn't--"

"I know. I said I wouldn't make a fuss."

"Well, dear, we've got to end it now. I only came to talk it over with

you. There'll have to be arrangements."

"I know. I've got to clear out of this."

She said it sadly, without passion and without resentment.

"No," he said, "not if you'd rather stay. Do you like the farm, Maggie?"

"I love it."

"Do you? I was afraid you didn't. I thought you hated the country."

"I love it. I love it."

"Oh, well then, you shan't leave it. I'll keep on the farm for you. And,

see here, don't worry about things. I'll look after you, all your life,

dear."

"Look after me?" Her face brightened, "Like you used to?"

"Provide for you."

"Oh!" she cried. "_That_! I don't want to be provided for. I won't have

it. I'd rather be let alone and die."

"Maggie, I know it's hard on you. Don't make it harder. Don't make it

hard for me."

"You?" she sobbed.

"Yes, me. It's all wrong. I'm all wrong. I can't do the right thing,

whatever I do. It's wrong to stay with you. It's wrong, it's brutally

wrong to leave you. But that's what I've got to do."

"You said--you only said--just now--you'd got to end it."

"That's it. I've got to end it."

She stood up flaming.

"End it then. End it this minute. Give up the farm. Send me away. I'll go

anywhere you tell me. Only don't say you won't come and see me."

"See you? Don't you understand, Maggie, that seeing you is what I've got

to give up? The other things don't matter."

"Ah," she cried, "it's you who don't understand. I mean--I mean--see me

like you used to. That's all I want, Wallie. Only just to see you. That

wouldn't be awful, would it? There wouldn't be any sin in that?"

Sin? It was the first time she had ever said the word. The first time, he

imagined, she had formed the thought.

"Poor little girl," he said. "No, no, dear, it wouldn't do. It sounds

simple, but it isn't."

"But," she said, bewildered, "I love you."

He smiled. "That's why, Maggie, that's why. You've been very sweet and

very good to me. And that's why I mustn't see you. That's how you make it

hard for me."

Maggie sat down and put her elbows on the table and hid her face in her

hands.

"Will you give me some tea?" he said abruptly.

She rose.

"It's all stewed. I'll make fresh."

"No. That'll do. I can't wait."

She gave him his tea. Before he tasted it he got up and poured out a cup

for her. She drank a little at his bidding, then pushed the cup from her,

choking. She sat, not looking at him, but looking away, through the

window, across the garden and the fields.

"I must go now," he said. "Don't come with me."

She started to her feet.

"Ah, let me come."

"Better not. Much better not."

"I must," she said.

They set out along the field-track. Steve, carrying his master's luggage,

went in front, at a little distance. He didn't want to see them, still

less to hear them speak.

But they did not speak.

At the creek's bank Steve was ready with the boat.

Majendie took Maggie's hand and pressed it. She flung herself on him, and

he had to loose her hold by main force. She swayed, clutching at him to

steady herself. He heard Steve groan. He put his hand on her shoulder,

and kept it there a moment, till she stood firm. Her eyes, fixed on his,

struck tears from them, tears that cut their way like knives under his

eyelids.

Her body ceased swaying. He felt it grow rigid under his hand.

Then he went from her and stepped into the boat. She stood still, looking

after him, pressing one hand against her breast, as if to keep down its

heaving.

Steve pushed off from the bank, and rowed towards the creek's mouth. And

as he rowed, he turned his head over his right shoulder, away from the

shore where Maggie stood with her hand upon her breast.

Majendie did not look back. Neither he nor Steve saw that, as they neared

the mouth of the creek, Maggie had turned, and was going rapidly across

the field, towards the far side of the spit of land where the yacht lay

moored out of the current. As they had to round the point, her way by

land was shorter than theirs by water.

When they rounded the point they saw her standing on the low inner shore,

watching for them.

She stood on the bank, just above the belt of silt and sand that divided

it from the river. The two men turned for a moment, and watched her from

the yacht's deck. She waited till the big mainsail went up, and the

yacht's head swung round and pointed up stream. Then she began to run

fast along the shore, close to the river.

At that sight Majendie turned away and set his face toward the

Lincolnshire side.

He was startled by an oath from Steve and a growl from Steve's father at

the wheel. "Eh--the--little--!" At the same instant the yacht was pulled

suddenly inshore and her boom swung violently round.

Steve and the boatswain rushed to the ropes and began hauling down the

mainsail.

"What the devil are you doing there?" shouted Majendie. But no one

answered him.

When the sail came down he saw.

"My God," he cried, "she's going in."

Old Pearson, at the wheel, spat quietly over the yacht's side. "Not she,"

said old Pearson. "She's too much afraid o' cold water."

Maggie was down on the lower bank close to the edge of the river.

Majendie saw her putting her feet in the water and drawing them out

again, first one foot, and then the other. Then she ran a little way,

very fast, like a thing hunted. She stumbled on the slippery, slanting

ground, fell, picked herself up again, and ran. Then she stood still and

tried the water again, first one foot and then the other, desperate,

terrified, determined. She was afraid of life and death.

The belt of sand sloped gently, and the river was shallow for a few feet

from the shore. She was safe unless she threw herself in.

Majendie and Steve rushed together for the boat. As Majendie pushed

against him at the gangway, Steve shook him off. There was a brief

struggle. Old Pearson left the wheel to the boatswain and crossed to the

gangway, where the two men still struggled. He put his hand on his

master's sleeve.

"Excuse me, sir, you'd best stay where you are."

He stayed.

The captain went to the wheel again, and the boatswain to the boat.

Majendie stood stock-still by the gangway. His hands were clenched in his

pockets: his face was drawn and white. The captain slewed round upon him

a small vigilant eye. "You'd best leave her to Steve, sir. He's a good

lad and he'll look after 'er. He'd give his 'ead to marry her. Only she

wuddn't look at 'im."

Majendie said nothing. And the captain continued his consolation.

"_She's_ only trying it on, sir," said he. "_I_ know 'em. She'll do nowt.

She'll do nubbut wet 'er feet. She's afeard o' cold water."

But before the boat could put off, Maggie was in again. This time her

feet struck a shelf of hard mud. She slipped, rolled sideways, and lay,

half in and half out of the water. There she stayed till the boat reached

her.

Majendie saw Steve lift her and carry her to the upper bank. He saw

Maggie struggle from his arms and beat him off. Then he saw Steve seize

her by force, and drag her back, over the fields, towards Three Elms

Farm.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Majendie landed at the pier and went straight to the office. There he

found a telegram from Anne telling him of his child's death.

He went to the house. The old nurse opened the door for him. She was

weeping bitterly. He asked for Anne, and was told that she was lying down

and could not see him. It was Nanna who told him how Peggy died, and all

the things he had to know. When she left him, he shut himself up alone in

his study for the first hour of his grief. He wanted to go to Anne; but

he was too deeply stupefied to wonder why she would not see him.

Later they met.

He knew by his first glance at her face that he must not speak to her of

the dead child. He could understand that. He was even glad of it. In this

she was like him, that deep feeling left her dumb. And yet, there was a

difference. It was that he could not speak, and she, he felt, would not.

There were things that had to be done. He did them all, sparing her as

much as possible. Once or twice she had to be consulted. She gave him a

fact, or an opinion, in a brief methodic manner that set him at a

distance from her sacred sorrow. She had betrayed more emotion in

speaking to Dr. Gardner.