She was going up the schoolhouse lane towards Karva, because Roddy and
she had gone that way together on Friday, his last evening.
It was Sunday now; six o'clock: the time he used to bring Papa home. His
ship would have left Queenstown, it would be steering to the west.
She wondered how much he had really minded going. Perhaps he had only
been afraid he wouldn't be strong enough; for after he had seen the
doctor he had been different. Pleased and excited. Perhaps he didn't
mind so very much.
If she could only remember how he had looked and what he had said. He had
talked about the big Atlantic liner, and the Canadian forests. With luck
the voyage might last eleven or twelve clear days. You could shoot moose
and wapiti. Wapiti and elk. Elk. With his eyes shining. He was not quite
sure about the elk. He wished he had written to the High Commissioner for
Canada about the elk. That was what the Commissioner was there for, to
answer questions, to encourage you to go to his beastly country.
She could hear Roddy's voice saying these things as they walked over
Karva. He was turning it all into an adventure, his imagination playing
round and round it. And on Saturday morning he had been sick and couldn't
eat his breakfast. Mamma had been sorry, and at the same time vexed and
irritable as if she were afraid that the arrangements might, after all,
be upset. But in the end he had gone off, pleased and excited, with Jem
Alderson in the train.
She could see Jem's wide shoulders pushing through the carriage door
after Roddy. He had a gentle, reddish face and long, hanging moustaches
like a dying Gladiator. Little eyes that screwed up to look at you. He
would be good to Roddy.
It would be all right.
She stood still in the dark lane. A disturbing memory gnawed its way
through her thoughts that covered it: the way Roddy had looked at Mamma,
that Wednesday, the way he had spoken to her. "Oh wise. Oh right!"
That was because he believed she wanted him to go away. He couldn't
believe that she really cared for him; that Mamma really cared for
anybody but Mark; he couldn't believe that anybody cared for him.
"'Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell,
Rode the six hundred.'"
Roddy's chant pursued her up the lane.
The gate at the top fell to behind her. Moor grass showed grey among
black heather. She half saw, half felt her way along the sheep tracks.
There, where the edge of the round pit broke away, was the place where
Roddy had stopped suddenly in front of her.
"I wouldn't mind a bit if I hadn't been such a brute to little Mamma. Why
_are_ we such brutes to her?" He had turned in the narrow moor-track and
faced her with his question: "Why?"
"'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered'"--
Hunderd--blundered. Did Tennyson really call hundred hunderd?
The grey curve of the high road glimmered alongside the moor. From the
point where her track joined it she could see three lights, two moving,
one still. The still light at the turn came from the Aldersons' house.
The moving lights went with the klomp-klomp of hoofs on the road.
Down in the darkness beyond the fields Garthdale lay like a ditch under
the immense wall of Greffington Edge. Roddy hated Greffington Edge. He
hated Morfe. He _wanted_ to get away.
It would be all right.
The klomp-klomping sounded close behind her. Two shafts of light shot out
in front, white on the grey road. Dr. Kendal drove past in his dog-cart.
He leaned out over the side, peering. She heard him say something to
himself.
The wheels slowed down with a grating noise. The lights stood still. He
had pulled up. He was waiting for her.
She turned suddenly and went back up the moor by the way she had come.
She didn't want to see Dr. Kendal. She was afraid he would say something
about Roddy.