ESCAPE
Was it a dream—a nightmare of her fevered brain? Was she back again in
the tortures of her long illness, with Lucy and Nell whispering behind
the screen, wondering how soon the end would come? Had she imagined that
dreadful struggle against overwhelming odds? If so, why was she lying
here, gazing at the fitful firelight on the oak rafters of the kitchen
instead of on her bed upstairs? Or was this too a dream—a strange,
illogical fantasy of her diseased imaginings?
She was very tired—that much she knew—sick with long delirium or too
great exertion. Her limbs were as lead. And at the back of her mind
there hovered that dreadful shadow—was it memory? Was it
illusion?—that filled her with a sense of terror indescribable.
But consciousness was returning. Her brain was groping for the truth,
and the truth was coming to her gradually, inevitably, inexorably. She
remembered her flight down the stairs, her headlong fall in the passage.
She remembered the coming of Arthur, the brief interview in the kitchen,
his terrible unspoken accusation. She remembered his kiss. . . .
Again the anguish burned her soul; she thrust it from her with a sick
shudder. It was more than she could bear.
Then she awoke to the fact that she was lying on the stones before the
fire with a man’s coat spread under her. Trembling, she raised herself
and found she was alone.
The moonlight filtered in through the bars of the unshuttered window,
mingling with the firelight. The lamp that had burned on the dresser was
gone. She found the table within her reach and dragged herself up by it,
but it was many seconds before she mustered strength to stand alone.
At last with difficulty she made her way to the door that led into the
passage, turned the handle and found it locked. Her heart stirred oddly
within her like a stricken thing too weak for violent emotion. She crept
round the room to the door into the yard. This also was locked and the
key gone. The window was barred. She was a prisoner.
She went to the window and stood before it. It looked on to thick laurel
bushes that successfully screened the farm-yard from view. Standing
thus, there came to her a sudden sound across the stillness of the
night, a sound that seemed to galvanize her to a more vivid
consciousness of tragedy—the report of a gun. It was followed
immediately by another, and then the silence fell again—a silence that
could be felt. Tensely, with every nerve stretched, she listened, but
though her ears sang with the effort she heard no more. The moonlight
and the silence possessed the world.
She began to think of the Stones, of Rotherby and his fruitless vigil,
of Oliver. And then—a thing of terror leaping out of the
darkness—another thought seized upon her. Oliver’s warning—Rotherby’s
danger—the gun-shot she had just heard. Following that, came the memory
of her letter, delayed and at length delivered. That brought
illumination. The letter had been opened and read. It was from that
letter that Arthur had framed his conclusions. Recalling it, she
realized that it had been couched in the terms of a lover. But what vile
impulse had induced him to open it? And by what means had Oliver become
aware of the danger? Her brain was alert now and leaping from point to
point with amazing rapidity. Oliver’s knowledge had come from Ruth. Then
there was some reason apart from that letter to herself for which
Montague Rotherby was accounted an enemy. Remembering Oliver’s very
obvious anxiety, she marvelled, seeking for an explanation. Was he aware
of Arthur’s passion for herself? Had he really feared that jealousy
might drive him to extremes? She found herself shivering again. What had
actually happened? Had Rotherby been surprised at the Stones, waiting
for her? Had Arthur——
A feeling of physical sickness came upon her so overwhelmingly that she
had to sit down to combat it.
Slowly the minutes crawled away, and again through her fainting soul
there beat the old, throbbing prayer: “From all evil and mischief, from
sin, from the crafts and assaults of the devil, Good Lord deliver us.”
Her lips were still repeating the words mechanically when through the
dreadful stillness there came at length a sound—the soft trying of the
handle and then the turning of the key.
Frances raised her head. In that night of dreadful happenings she had
not expected deliverance. The coming of it was like a dream. A small
white figure stood on the threshold, barefooted, with face upraised,
listening.
“Are you here?” whispered a childish voice.
“My dear!” Frances said.
The little figure came forward. The moonlight fell upon the upturned,
flower-like face. “Please will you take me to sleep with you to-night?”
she said.
Strength came back to Frances. The instinct to protect awoke within her,
reviving her. She got up and went to the child.
“What made you come to me here, Rosebud?” she said.
“I thought you called me,” Ruth answered. “But perhaps it was a dream. I
thought you were frightened, as you were that night at the Stones. You
are very cold. Are you frightened?”
“I have been,” Frances said.
Ruth pressed close to her. “Has someone been unkind to you? Is it—is it
Uncle Arthur?”
But Frances could not answer her. She was conscious of a weight of tears
at her heart to which she dared not give vent.
“Shall we go upstairs?” said Ruth, with soft fingers entwined in hers.
“And perhaps you will be able to sleep.”
She yielded to the child’s guidance as she had yielded before without
hesitation or misgiving. They went out into the passage. But here a
sudden sound made her pause—it was the opening of the door that led
into the garden.
Ruth pulled at her hand. “It is only Grandpa. He is always late to bed.”
But Frances drew back sharply. “You run up, darling!” she whispered. “I
can’t come yet.”
“Oh, please come!” said little Ruth.
But though she heard a piteous note in the child’s voice, she could not.
She freed her hand from Ruth’s clasp. “Run up!” she repeated. “I will
come afterwards—if I can.”
What impulse it was that urged her she could not have said, but it was
too strong to be resisted. She saw Ruth start obediently but somewhat
forlornly up the stairs, and she drew herself back into a deep recess
under the staircase and crouched there, not breathing.
Ruth was right. It was the old man who had entered. She discerned him
dimly as he came up the passage, moving with the weary gait of age. He
paused at the kitchen-door as though he were listening, and she shrank
more closely into her hiding-place, dreading discovery. But in a moment
he pushed open the door and entered, closing it behind him.
Then the impulse to escape came to her, or perhaps it had been there,
dormant against her breathless heart, the whole time. She saw the place
as a monstrous prison, stone-walled and terrible, herself a captive
guarded on all sides, helpless, beaten by circumstances, broken by Fate.
And then this chance—this solitary chance of freedom.
Swiftly upon the closing of that door, she left her retreat, stole along
the passage to the door, lifted the latch and was out upon the brick
path in the moonlight.
The hollyhocks looked tall and ghostly; the garden lay before her as if
asleep. She caught her shawl about her, and fled along the narrow path.
She reached the door in the wall, and opening it peered forth. There was
no weakness about her now. She was inspired by the strength that is
borne of utter need.
She saw no one, and so slipped out on to the lawn by the bed of
mignonette in front of the dairy-window. The scent of it rose up in the
night like incense. As a thief she crept along in the shadow of the
house to the gate that led into the farmyard.
And here Roger greeted her with loud yells of delight from his kennel.
She cowered back against the wall, but he continued to cheer and make
merry over her unexpected appearance for many seconds, till the
conviction that his enthusiasm had failed to elicit any response from
her suddenly dawned upon him, and he broke into howls of disappointment,
punctuated with urgent whines of encouragement and persuasion.
Discovery seemed inevitable, and the courage of despair entered into
Frances. Later she marvelled at herself, but at the time she was
scarcely aware of making any effort, either mental or physical. Quite
suddenly, as if propelled by a force outside her, she found herself
calmly walking forward to the gate. It opened at her touch so easily
that it might have been opened for her, and she walked through, hearing
it swing creaking behind her between the renewed shouts of jubilation
from Roger.
She passed him by, looking neither to right nor left, neither hastening
nor lingering, hearing his wails of grief again behind her as she went.
She reached the further gate and found it stood open to the lane. Very
steadily she passed through and began to walk down the hill between the
steep banks. The scent of honeysuckle came to her here, so
overpoweringly that she caught her breath with an odd feeling of hurt.
Then—and it seemed to her later that this was the very thing she had
been expecting—the one thing for which she had come—there sounded on
the hill behind her the whirr of an engine, the slipping of wheels in
the mud. Quite calmly still she turned and faced the lights of a small
car coming rapidly down upon her. She did not know how it happened, or
how near she was to death,—at that moment it would not have interested
her to know—but she heard a shout and the sharp grinding of a brake
applied to the utmost, followed by the ominous sound of locked wheels
that grated to a standstill within a yard of her. Afterwards she
remembered thinking that that hot, protesting engine was like a dragon
baulked of its prey.
“Who is it?” cried a man’s voice. “What the devil do you want? I’m in a
hurry.”
The voice was agitated; it had a desperate sound. This also she noticed,
but her own was clear and calm.
“Will you take me with you?” she said. “I am going your way.”
“Frances!” he said in amazement.
“Will you take me?” she repeated.
“Of course I will take you! Get in! Get in!”
She moved along the side of the car. His hand came out to her, the door
swung open.
The next moment they were rushing down the lane into a gulf of
blackness, and she knew that the prison-walls would menace her no more.
PART III
CHAPTER I
THE VICTIM
Of that wild rush through the night Frances never recalled any very
clear detail afterwards. She only knew a strange dazzle of moonlight
that filled the world, making all things seem unreal, and once she
fancied she caught a glimpse of the Stones grimly outlined upon a
distant hill.
Her companion never spoke to her, his whole attention apparently being
occupied in forcing the utmost speed from his car, despite the extreme
unevenness of the moorland road they travelled. In the end they ran into
a little town and straight up the one broad street in an inn, Frances
always remembered the sign-board of that inn, for it was the first thing
that made a definite impression upon her after her flight. The inn was
called _The Man in the Moon_, and the sign-board portrayed the same,
being an enormous yellow face with the most quizzing expression possible
to imagine—a face that would have provoked a smile from the least
humorous. Somehow that face served to jolt Frances back to the ordinary
and the commonplace. It enabled her to put the overwhelming sense of
tragedy away from her and assume something of her old brisk and
business-like attitude.
“Is this where you are staying?” she said.
“Yes,” said Rotherby. “It’s comfortable enough in a homely way. Will you
get out?”
She turned in the seat and faced him. By the light of the moon he looked
ghastly pale, but he managed to call up a smile.
“If there is another inn in the place I’ll go to it,” said Frances.
“I’m afraid there isn’t,” said Rotherby. “And you probably wouldn’t get
in if there were. But you needn’t be anxious on that account. I’ll call
you my sister if you like.”
His manner reassured her. Moreover, he had the look of a man at the end
of his strength. She wondered what had happened to affect him so.
She got out of the car without further discussion and waited while he
ran it under an archway into the stableyard. It seemed a long while
before he joined her again, and then she noticed that he moved with a
curiously halting gait, almost as if he were feeling his way.
“It’s all right,” he said, as he reached her. “The door’s open. Come
inside!”
He extended a hand to push it back for her, but very strangely the
intention was frustrated. It was as if he had found some obstacle in his
path. And as she turned towards him in surprise he suddenly uttered an
inarticulate exclamation and grabbed at her arm. She was aware of his
whole weight flung abruptly upon her, and she caught at him, supporting
him as best she could.
He staggered against the door-post, breathing heavily. “I shall be all
right in a minute—in a minute,” he gasped out. “Just hold me up—if you
can! I won’t faint.”
She held him up, exerting all her strength.
Several dreadful seconds passed, then he made a determined effort and
straightened himself. As he did so, she felt the sleeve of his coat at
the elbow and found it wet through. A ghastly doubt assailed her.
“What has happened?” she said through trembling lips. “Your arm! Is
it—is it——”
“Blood? Yes. I got it in the shoulder. Don’t be frightened! I shall get
over it. Can you open the door?”
He spoke jerkily, but with more assurance. Frances opened the door with
a sick wonder if the horrors of that night would ever pass.
Rotherby staggered in, and she followed him closely, half expecting him
to fall headlong. But he had mastered himself to a certain extent, and
she heard him speak with some authority to the shock-headed landlord who
came sleepily out of the bar-parlour to meet them.
“This lady is my sister. Can you give her a comfortable room for the
night?”
“There’s the room you told me to prepare, sir,” said the man, with a
loutish grin.
“That’ll do. Take her to it! See that she has everything she wants! Good
night, Frances! You follow him! I shall see you in the morning.”
Rotherby spoke calmly, but it was through clenched teeth.
Frances stood hesitating. The landlord waited at the foot of a steep,
ill-lighted staircase.
“That’s all,” said Rotherby. “I’m sorry I can’t do more to-night.”
He was obviously putting strong restraint upon himself. Frances waited a
moment longer, then spoke.
“I can’t—possibly—leave you like this. You have been hurt. You must
let me do what I can to help you.”
Again for an instant she saw his smile, and she saw the clenched teeth
behind it.
“I shall be all right,” he said again. “I don’t think there is anything
to be done. It isn’t serious. I’ll see a doctor in the morning if
necessary.”
But Frances was too practical to be thus reassured. “You must let me
help you,” she said. “You must.”
He yielded the point abruptly. “Very well—if you wish it. Get some hot
water, Jarvis! I’ve had a bit of an accident.”
He moved forward to the stairs, and Frances went with him, feeling
herself once more the victim of an inexorable Fate.
They went up together, Rotherby stumbling until she gave him her arm to
steady him. Reaching a small landing on which a gas-jet burned low, he
directed her into a room with an open door, and they entered, he leaning
upon her.
The moonlight flooded in through the uncovered window, and she saw that
it was a bedroom with an old four-poster bed. She helped Rotherby to it,
and he sank down upon the foot with a sigh of relief.
“Have you got any matches?” she said.
“In my pocket—on the right,” he said. “Can you get them?”
She felt for and found them. As she stood up again he surprised her by
catching her hand to his lips. She drew it quickly away, and he said
nothing.
She lighted the gas, that flared starkly in the shabby, old-fashioned
room, and turned round to him again, forcing herself to a calm and
matter-of-fact attitude.
“Shall I help you off with your coat?” she said.
He turned to her suddenly, and she was conscious of an unwilling
admiration of the man’s courage when she saw the effort of his smile.
“I say, don’t dislike me so!” he said. “I’ll make Jarvis help me. Don’t
you stay! There’s a room for you next-door—my room as a matter of fact,
but I’ll stay in here for to-night.”
Against her will she was softened. Something about him—something which
he neither uttered nor betrayed by look or gesture—appealed to her very
strongly. She found herself unable to comply with his suggestion and
abandon him to the mercy of the landlord who was even now lumbering
heavily up the stairs. She realized clearly that whatever came of this
night’s happenings, she was bound in common humanity to stand by
Rotherby now. No other course of action was open to her.
“I shall not leave you,” she said, “till I have done all I can to help
you—unless you make that impossible for me.”
“Heaven forbid!” said Rotherby, still smiling his twisted smile.
“Well, I am in earnest,” she said, as she bent to help him.
“I like you best that way,” said Rotherby.
She felt that in some fashion he had worsted her, but she put the matter
resolutely away from her. It was not the moment for close analysis of
the situation. She could only go as she was driven.
With the utmost care she helped him remove his coat, and was shocked to
find that the shirt-sleeve was soaked with blood from shoulder to elbow.
“Don’t let Jarvis see!” said Rotherby sharply, and she covered it while
the man was in the room.
Jarvis was too sleepy or too fuddled to be curious. He merely set down
the can, wished them good night and stumped away.
Then Frances bent to her work. She found a jagged wound in the shoulder,
from which the blood was still oozing, and she proceeded to bathe it
with a strip of linen torn from the shirt-sleeve. The means at her
disposal were wholly elementary, but she performed her task with a
deftness that was characteristic of her, finding with infinite relief
that the wound was not vitally deep. Rotherby endured her ministrations
with a stoicism that again stirred her to admiration. He seemed bent
upon making the business as easy for her as possible.
“Don’t mind me!” he said once. “Just go ahead! I’ll tell you if I can’t
stand it.”
And then when she had finished at last, he told her where to find some
handkerchiefs for bandaging purposes in the room that he occupied.
“You will go to a doctor in the morning, won’t you?” she said, pausing.
“I have only cleansed it. There is bound to be some shot in the wound.”
“Some what?” said Rotherby, and looked at her with one of his most
quizzical glances though his face was still drawn with pain. “Oh, didn’t
I tell you that I tore it on some barbed wire?”
She felt herself colour deeply, but she did not take up the challenge.
“I should go to a doctor all the same,” she said quietly.
He laughed at her with a touch of impudence that she could not resent.
“Very good, Sister Superior, I will. Now if you don’t mind tying me up,
I shall be grateful. Where would you like me to sleep—in this room, or
my own?”
“In your own,” she said firmly.
He sobered suddenly at her tone. “Look here, you won’t run away in the
night, will you? I promise you—I swear to you—I’ll play the game.”
What game, she wondered? But she did not put the wonder into words.
“I have nowhere to run to,” she said, and turned away from him that he
might not see the bitterness on her face.
When she returned with the handkerchiefs she was a practical self once
more. But she was beginning to be conscious of intense physical
weariness, and she felt a sense of gratitude to him for noticing it.
“I say, you are tired! You’ve been ill, haven’t you?”
“I am well again,” she said.
He swept the assurance aside. “You don’t look it. Don’t bother about me
any more! Oh, well, just tie a wet pad over it and then leave me to my
fate!”
He became urgent in his solicitude and the knowledge that he was
suffering considerably himself made her respond far more graciously than
would otherwise have been the case.
But when it was over at last, when she was alone in the strange room and
realized how completely that night’s happenings had changed the whole
course of her life, a blackness of despair came down upon her, more
overwhelming than any she had ever known. She cast herself down just as
she was and wept out her agony till sheer exhaustion came upon her and
she drifted at last into the merciful oblivion of dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER II
THE BARGAIN
It was late in the morning when she awoke in response to a persistent
knocking at the door, on the opening of which she found a bare-armed
country-girl who informed her without preamble that the gentleman was
waiting breakfast for her downstairs. Having delivered this message, she
retired, and Frances was left to perform what toilet she could with the
very limited means at her command.
Her long sleep had refreshed her and she reflected with relief that her
strength was certainly returning. The thought of meeting Montague
Rotherby gave her no dismay. Very strangely he had ceased to possess any
very great importance in her eyes, her only determination being to break
off all connection with him as soon as possible.
Somehow, as she entered the room where he awaited her, she had a feeling
that he had never really mattered very greatly in her life. It was only
what he had stood for—the realization of that part of her being which
had lain dormant for so long, the throbbing certainty that for her also
even the stones of the wilderness might be turned into bread.
She came forward to him, faintly smiling. “Are you better to-day?” she
said.
She did not offer her hand, but he took it. His face twitched a little
at her matter-of-fact greeting. She saw at a glance that he looked ill.
“I’ve had a foul night,” he said. “But it’s not serious. I’m going up to
town. Will you come with me?”
She looked at him, startled. “Oh, no!” she said.
He bit his lip. “Are you still disliking me?” he said.
It was a difficult question to answer, so little did he seem to matter
now. She replied after a moment without any conscious feeling of any
sort.
“No. But I am not coming up to town with you. Is there any particular
reason why I should? You are quite able to go alone, I suppose?”
He stared at her for a few seconds, at first frowningly, then with a
growing cynicism. At length: “What have they done to you at
Tetherstones?” he said. “Since you accepted my protection last
night—more, asked for it—I should have thought there was quite a good
reason why you should be willing to come to town with me to-day.”
“Then you are quite wrong,” she replied very clearly. “I am not prepared
to do anything of the kind.”
His frown deepened for a moment, then passed. “Shall we have breakfast?”
he said. “Then you can tell me what your plans are. I am quite willing
to fall in with them, whatever they may be.”
Her plans! What were her plans? The old pitiless problem presented
itself. Had he meant, she asked herself, thus to bring home to her the
fact of her dependence upon his good offices? What were her plans?
“I have got to think,” she said.
He nodded. “Perhaps I can be of use. I believe I can be. I’ll tell
you—when we’ve finished breakfast—what I meant by suggesting that you
should come up to London with me.”
She wondered if he were referring to the old plan of giving her
secretary work. Or perhaps—though she hardly dared to think it—he was
going to talk about her sketches and the possibilities therein
contained. Against her will, that thought remained with her throughout
the brief meal that they ate together. Upon one point only was she fully
decided. She could live on charity no longer. She was resolutely
determined to work for her living now, whatever that work might be.
She noticed that her companion ate very little, but he seemed fully
master of himself, and she put away the feeling of uneasiness that tried
to take possession of her. She would very thankfully have avoided any
discussion of the events of the previous night, but she knew this to be
inevitable. There were certain things that must be faced.
He pushed back his chair at length and spoke. “There’s only one way out
of this tangle,” he said. “You must realize that as I do. But perhaps I
have not made myself very clear. What I want you to do is to come up to
town and—marry me. Will you do that?” He smiled at her with the words.
“I’m sorry my courtship has hung fire for so long. But you will admit I
am hardly responsible for that. And I am quite ready to make up for lost
time now. What do you say to it?”
Frances was on her feet. He had roused her to feeling at last, but it
was not such feeling as would have moved her a few weeks earlier. She
had to stifle an almost overwhelming sense of indignation before she
could speak.
“It is quite impossible,” she said then, with the utmost emphasis. “It
is quite, quite impossible!”
“Impossible!” He stared at her. “But why? I understood it was what you
wanted. I have a distinct recollection of your telling me so.”
She gasped at the recollection. It stung like a scorpion. “But that was
long ago—long ago,” she said. “I don’t want it now! I
couldn’t—possibly—contemplate such a thing now.”
“But why?” Rotherby insisted in astonishment. Then: “Perhaps you think I
don’t love you. Is that it?”
“Oh, no!” She had begun to tremble. “That wouldn’t make any difference.
At least, it is not that that has made me change my mind.”
“Ah!” he said with a sudden grimness. “Something else has done that.”
She was aware of a sharp pain at her heart that was almost unendurable.
It took all her courage to meet his eyes. But she forced her voice to
steadiness. “Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that I have
come to know my own mind rather than that I have changed it. I thought I
loved you, but it was a mistake. As to whether you ever loved me, I have
no illusions at all. You never did.”
He got up. She saw his face twist as if he were in pain, but she knew
that it was nothing physical that brought that look to his eyes,
banishing the cynicism. “You seem very sure of that,” he said, and
turned from her to light a cigarette. “So I am struck off the list, am
I? Do you think you are altogether wise to do that—after what happened
last night?”
The question surprised her, but it was wholly without malice. She could
not take offence.
She answered him in a low voice, for the first time conscious of the
dread of giving pain. “I have really no choice. I couldn’t do anything
else.”
“What do you propose to do?” he said.
The old maddening question that she had had to answer so often. She
tried to summon the old battling spirit, but it did not respond to her
call. Her pride had been flung in the dust. What did she propose to do?
Was there anything left that could ever restore her self-respect?
With a gesture that was quite unconsciously pathetic, she turned and
went to the window in silence.
Rotherby smoked without speaking for a few seconds. If he felt the
appeal of her hopelessness, he did not show it.
It was she who spoke first at length, without turning, and it was as
though she uttered the words to herself with the dreary persistence of
despair.
“I have got to begin again.”
“What are you going to do?” said Rotherby.
There was a quality of ruthlessness in his voice that pierced her
despair. She swung round abruptly and faced him. There was majesty in
her bearing, though with it was mingled the desperation of the hunted
animal at bay.
“I will work,” she said. “I am not afraid of work. And I don’t care what
I do.”
He came and joined her at the window. “Yes, it sounds all right,” he
said. “But you haven’t the strength, and you know it.”
She shrank at the blunt words, for they struck her hard. She knew—it
was useless to dispute it—that she lacked the strength.
“What is the use of saying that?” she said, protesting almost in spite
of herself.
“Because I want you to see reason,” he rejoined, and she knew that he
recognized his advantage, and would press it to the utmost. “Why don’t
you want to marry me, Circe? You might do very much worse.”
She drew back from him. “Oh, don’t you see that it is out of the
question?” she said. “I couldn’t marry you. I don’t love you.”
She saw his face harden. “That is plain speaking,” he said. “But I want
to know why. What have I done to forfeit your love?”
“But I never loved you,” she said.
“Are you sure of that?” He spoke insistently. “You kissed me. You let me
hold you in my arms.”
She flinched at the recollection, but she compelled herself to face him.
“That was a mistake,” she said.
“You are sure of that?” said Rotherby.
“Quite sure,” she answered with simplicity.
He shifted his ground. “Are you also sure you know what love is?”
She clenched her hands as though in self-defence. “Every woman knows
that,” she said.
“Then how did you come to make a mistake?” he countered.
Again she drew back as from the thrust of a dagger. “Oh, I suppose any
woman might do that, but when once she has found it out—she doesn’t do
it again.”
“How did you come to find out?” said Rotherby.
The inquisition was becoming intolerable, but still she faced him with
resolution. “I have had a good many hours for thought,” she said. “And I
have thought a good deal.”
“At Tetherstones?” he said.
“Yes.”
She saw a gleam of something she did not understand in his look. He
seemed to be watching narrowly for something. He spoke abruptly.
“What I don’t understand—what I want to understand—is why you came
with me last night.”
She answered him with an effort. “I had to get away.”
“Ah!” he said. “It wasn’t on my account then? You weren’t coming to meet
me after all—in spite of my message? Did you get my message?”
She bent her head. “Yes. I had your message. Ruth told me. I was
coming—I was coming—to meet you.”
“Yes?” he said. “Why were you so late?”
She hesitated. She could not tell him of that awful interview in the
farm-kitchen. She could not bring herself so much as to mention Arthur’s
name.
“I was coming to meet you,” she said again. “I didn’t mean to be late.
But they are a strange family. I didn’t want them to know.”
“A very strange family!” said Rotherby. “Why should they know? Your
affairs are your own.”
“Yes. But they have been very kind to me. They might think they had a
right——”
“A right to shoot anyone from outside who wanted to speak to you?” he
said.
“Oh, no—no!” she protested, feeling the hot colour rise overwhelmingly
under his look. “That was a piece of madness.”
“You knew it was going to happen?” he questioned.
“No. I knew you were in some sort of danger. I didn’t know what. I was
coming to warn you.”
Reluctantly she uttered the brief sentences. It was like the betrayal of
her friends.
He seized upon the unwilling admission. “You knew? How did you know?”
She had to answer him. “One of the men on the farm told me. He didn’t
say why—merely that you were in danger—that I had better warn you to
go.”
“And then you decided to come with me?” said Rotherby.
“I decided that I couldn’t stay any longer,” she told him steadily. “You
came up at the right moment, that was all.”
“What?” His eyes searched her again, his expression slowly changing.
“You were running away too, were you?”
She wondered that he did not press the point of the mysterious attack
upon him further, but was thankful that he refrained. She turned from
the subject with relief. “I had to get away,” she said again.
“You’re not going back?” he questioned.
Something rose in her throat. Again she was conscious of that
intolerable pain. She forced her utterance. “Never, no, never!” she
said.
He made no comment, but turned away from her and paced the length of the
room before he spoke again. Then, with his back to her, he paused.
“And yet you would sooner work yourself to death than marry me!”
She answered him immediately with feverish insistence. “Yes, I must
work. I must work. I can’t go on being dependent. I can’t endure it.”
He turned round. “Perhaps—if you were independent—you might regard me
differently,” he said.
She was silent.
He came slowly back to her. “Circe! May I hope for that?”
She looked at him helplessly.
He stood before her. “I swear to you,” he said forcibly, “that no one on
this earth wants you as I do.”
A curious tremor of feeling went through her. She was stirred in spite
of herself.
He put out his hand to her. “Circe!” His voice came oddly uncontrolled.
“Won’t you—can’t you——”
She did not know what moved her—his obvious earnestness or her own
utter friendlessness. But somehow her mood answered his. Her hand went
into his grasp.
“But I must be independent first,” she said. It was the last effort of
her pride. “You’ll help me to be that?”
“I’ll help you,” he said.
CHAPTER III
THE TURN OF THE TIDE
The days that succeeded her flight from Tetherstones left an
ineradicable impression upon Frances. She maintained her steady refusal
to accompany Rotherby to London, but she did not remain at _The Man in
the Moon_. She found a bedroom over the little Post Office at
Fordestown, and here she established herself, after collecting her few
belongings from her former lodging at Brookside. She had very little
money left, but she built on the hope that her sketches might find a
market. Rotherby had undertaken to do his best to dispose of the one
which he had taken with him, and she had plans for making more while the
golden weather lasted.
On the second day of her sojourn at Fordestown she wrote to Dolly at
Tetherstones. She found it impossible to give any adequate reason for
her abrupt departure, so she barely touched upon it beyond begging her
to believe that in spite of everything she was and would ever be deeply
grateful for all the kindness that they had shown her. She ended the
letter with a request that the next time Oliver had to come to
Fordestown he might bring her sketching materials to her. She posted her
letter and went out on to the moor for the rest of the day.
The solitude of the great heather-clad space that she loved brought
soothing to her tired spirit. She was at last able to review the
situation deliberately and dispassionately; but the more she meditated
upon it, the more did she feel that the disposition of the future was no
longer in her own control.
Very curiously, and now it seemed inextricably, had her life been bound
up with Montague Rotherby’s. Neither attraction nor repulsion were
factors that counted any more. He had laid claim to her so persistently
that she had almost begun to feel at last that he had a claim. In any
case she was too tired, too dazed by the blows of Fate, to battle any
further. She who had fought so hard for her freedom was compelled to own
herself vanquished at last. Like a stormy dawn romance had come to her,
and by its light she had seen the golden vision of love. But the light
had swiftly faded and the vision fled. And she was left—a slave.
“I will never have any more dreams,” she said to herself, as she gazed
through tears at the dim blue tors. “None but a fool could ever imagine
that the stones could be made bread.”
And then she sought to brace herself with the thought that she had not
greatly suffered.
“It can’t have gone very deep,” she told herself very resolutely, “in so
short a time.”
But yet she knew—as we all know—that it is not by time or any other
circumstance that Love the Immeasurable can be measured, and that no
power on earth can ever obliterate the memory of Love.
Of Montague personally she thought but little during those days. Of
Arthur Dermot she thought ceaselessly. Against her will the
individuality of the man imposed itself upon her. Night and day she
thought of him, puzzled, distressed, humiliated, seeking vainly for a
solution to the mystery in which all his actions were wrapped. Why had
he misjudged her thus? What madness had driven him to attempt the other
man’s life? Was he actually mad, she asked herself? It might have
accounted for much, and yet somehow she did not believe it. The man’s
melancholy philosophy was the philosophy of reason, his cynical
acceptance of life the deliberate and trained conclusion of a balanced
mind. His love for herself she found harder to understand, but it moved
her to the depths, appealing to her as nothing had ever appealed before.
His violence, his brutality, had shocked her unspeakably, so that she
prayed passionately that she might never see him again. But yet,
strangely, the appeal still held. By that alone, he had entered the
inner shrine of her heart, and, strive as she might, she could not cast
him out. His love for her might be dead. Never for a moment did she
imagine that it could have survived that awful night. But the memory of
it—ah, the memory of it—it would go with her all through her life,
just as she would remember the purple flower upon the coping in the
Palace garden, a thing of beauty beloved for a while and then lost—the
gift that the gods had offered only to snatch away ere she had grasped
it.
Those days of waiting were as the days spent by a prisoner awaiting
trial, only there was no hope on the horizon. Like one of the prisoners
of old of whom Arthur had told her, she was tethered to her stone and
the first effort she made for freedom would crush her. Though to a great
extent she had regained her strength, she knew that she was not equal to
hard work—such work as she had done for the Bishop. There were times of
faintness and inertia when she felt that the very heart within her must
be worn out, times of overwhelming depression also, when for hours the
tears would well up and fall and she lacked the power to restrain them.
No one knew what she was enduring. There was no one at hand to help her.
Chained to her stone, she waited day by day, not for deliverance but for
the coming of her fate.
And then one day there came a letter from Rotherby, and in that letter
was an enclosure that sent the blood tingling through her veins. He had
sold her sketch for five guineas, and he could dispose of more if she
cared to send them. “Couldn’t you do a companion picture to the
stepping-stones?” he said in conclusion.
His letter held no endearments. It was the most business-like epistle
she had ever received from him, and her gratitude was intense. She sent
him all the sketches she had by the next post, and with them a note
expressing her earnest thanks and asking how he fared.
Then she sat down to think. It seemed to her in the first flush of
excitement that this was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened
to her. It was like a tonic to her drooping spirits. Surely it was the
turning-point at last!
The bleatings and patterings of a flock of sheep passing up the street
brought to her mind the fact that it was market-day. She went to the
window with an eagerness she had not known for long with the thought
that Oliver might be coming at any time with her sketching materials.
She longed to take up her beloved pastime again. If indeed it were to
give her back her cherished independence, with what gladness would she
spend her utmost effort to achieve her best. But it seemed too good to
be true.
She looked in vain for Oliver or for any face she knew, and at length,
disappointed, she turned away. But Rotherby’s letter was close to her
hand, and she sat down to read it afresh.
It was while she was thus employed that she heard the trampling of a
horse’s hoofs outside, and looked forth once more in time to see Dr.
Square just rolling off his old white horse.
Her heart gave a leap at the sight, but the next moment she told herself
that he had patients in Fordestown and it was not likely that he had
come thither to seek her.
Nevertheless she listened anxiously, and presently heard the sound of
his heavy step upon the stairs. She went to her door then and opened it,
meeting him on the narrow landing outside.
She saw in a moment that his big face lacked its usual cheeriness though
he greeted her with outstretched hand. “Ah, here you are, Miss Thorold!
Dolly told me where to look for you, and they sent me up from
downstairs. May I come in?”
“Please do!” she said, and led the way back into her room. Her first
instinctive feeling of pleasure at sight of him had given way to one of
misgiving. She turned very quickly and faced him. “Please tell me what
is the matter! Something is wrong.”
He did not attempt to deny it. “They’re in bad trouble at Tetherstones,”
he said. “And when Dolly told me you were here, I said I’d come over and
see you.”
“Oh, what is the matter?” she said.
His kindly eyes looked into hers with a hint of concern. “Don’t you
upset yourself, Miss Thorold!” he said. “You’re not too strong,
remember. It’s the little girl—little Ruth. She’s had an accident, and
she’s very ill.”
“Oh, poor mite!” said Frances. “How did it happen?”
“It’s difficult to say. The child was lost for some hours the day after
you left. Then they found her up at the Stones. She had been looking for
you, she said. And that was all they could get out of her. She had had a
bad fall off the Rocking Stone, and couldn’t move.”
“Oh, poor little girl!” Frances’ voice was quick with anxiety. “Is she
much hurt?”
Dr. Square nodded slowly once or twice. “She has no strength—and I’m
afraid—very much afraid—there is some mischief to the spine. She keeps
on asking for you, Miss Thorold. I said I’d come and tell you.”
“Ah!” Frances said.
It came upon her like a blow—the cudgel-stroke of Fate. So there was to
be no escape after all! A sense of suffocation came upon her, and she
turned sharply to the window, instinctively seeking air. Blind for a
moment, she leaned there, gathering her strength.
Behind her she heard the doctor’s voice. “Now take it quietly! Don’t let
yourself be overcome! There’s no need. The little one isn’t suffering,
and—please God—she won’t suffer. It’s only her anxiety about you
that’s worrying her. She’s not used to worry, you know. She’s only a
baby.” His voice shook a little. “But if you could just go to her—set
her mind at rest—you’d never be sorry. You’ve had a hard life, Miss
Thorold, but you’ve got a soft heart. And sometimes, you know, when we
are throwing a line to others, the tide turns in our favour and we find
we’re drifting in to our own desired haven as well.”
His words reached her through a great chaos of emotions. She leaned
against the window-frame with closed eyes, seeing herself as driftwood
upon the tide of which he spoke. To go back to Tetherstones, to face
again the torment from which she had barely escaped, to feel the grey
walls enclosing her once more and all the sinister influences that had,
as it were, stretched out and around her to draw her down! She lifted
her face to the soft grey sky with an inarticulate prayer for help.
She heard again the doctor’s voice behind her, and realized that he was
pleading for something very near his heart. Was not little Ruth near to
the hearts of all who knew her?
“It won’t be for very long,” he was saying. “She’s fretting her heart
out for you because she had got hold of the idea that you are in
danger—frightened—unhappy. No one can set her mind at rest except you,
and it would be a kindness to them all at Tetherstones to go and do it.
You would like to do them a kindness, Miss Thorold?”
That moved her. Very suddenly all her doubt and hesitation were swept
away. To do them a kindness—these people who had brought her back from
the gates of death, who had sheltered her, cared for her, comforted her
in her extremity! What mattered anything besides? What was her pride
compared with this? What though her very heart were pierced by the
ordeal? She could not shirk it now. It was as though an answer had come
to that half-formed prayer of hers. Whatever the outcome, she had no
choice but to go back.
With a sharp, catching breath, she turned. “I will go—of course,” she
said. “How can I get there?”
He smiled at her with instant relief, and she realized that he had
hardly expected to gain his point. She wondered how much he knew
regarding her sudden departure. It was evident that he understood that
she had a very strong reason for not wishing to return.
He got up. “Well, as I said, you’ll never regret it,” he said. “As to
getting there, Oliver’s in the town now with the cart. Do you mind going
back with him? It may be for a few days, you know. You’re prepared for
that?”
“I will stay as long as little Ruth wants me,” she said.
“That’s right. That’s like you.” He held out his hand to her, “Good-bye,
Miss Thorold! You’re looking better. I believe the tide has turned
already.”
She tried to smile in answer, but she found no words. Driftwood!
Driftwood! And even if the tide turned, whither could it land her now?
CHAPTER IV
RUTH
“Pleased to see you, Miss Thorold,” Oliver touched his hat with his whip
and gave her his friendly smile of welcome. “A bad business this about
the little girl. They’re all very upset at Tetherstones.”
“I am sure they must be,” Frances said. “What a terribly sad business,
Oliver! Who was it found her?”
“I found her,” said Oliver. “But we thought she was with you and no one
missed her at first. She’d been lying there all night and a good part of
the day before she was missed. We’d been busy, you see—” he jerked the
reins—“busy with other things. Then Maggie came out to me and said you
were gone and the little one couldn’t be found, and I went straight away
to the Stones to look for her. She was lying just under the Rocking
Stone unconscious, and I carried her back. She’s come to herself since,
but they say she’s somehow different—that she’ll never be the same
again—that she—” He broke off to cough and flicked the horse’s ears
with his whip. They clattered over the rough stones of the street for
some distance in silence. After a while he spoke again. “She’s only a
child—a bit of a baby—but she isn’t like others I’ve ever seen. Maggie
is just breaking her heart over her.”
“Poor Maggie!” said Frances gently.
“Yes.” He nodded acquiescence. “Maggie and Nan—Ruth’s mother—were
always the pals, you see. There was only a year between them. Nan was
Arthur’s favourite sister too. He’s feeling it pretty badly—though he’d
sooner die than let anyone know.”
Frances felt her heart contract. She said nothing.
They were out upon the open moor road before Oliver volunteered anything
further. Then, somewhat abruptly, with a sidelong glance at her, he
said, “It’s decent of you to come back to us after the fright you had.”
“I am only coming for little Ruth’s sake,” Frances said.
“Yes, I know. The doctor told me. I didn’t think he’d get you to come,”
said Oliver frankly. “You’d had a pretty bad scare. But it might have
been worse, I suppose. The fellow wasn’t much damaged, was he?”
There was curiosity in his tone tempered with a reticence that she was
quick to detect. A sharp sense of anger surged within her.
“It was no thanks to—to—the man who shot him that he wasn’t killed,”
she said.
“No. I know,” said Oliver. He added after a moment, “Anyway I did my
best to prevent it. It wasn’t my fault that it happened.”
She turned upon him. “But—surely you didn’t know it was going to
happen?” she said.
He lifted his shoulders. “No, I didn’t know, Miss Thorold. But I did
know the chap was in danger. I told you so, didn’t I?”
“But why—why?” said Frances.
He gave her again that sidelong glance. “Can’t always account for
things,” he said. “We’re a good long way from towns and civilization
here.”
“But he might have been killed!” she said.
He nodded. “So he might. But he wasn’t. That’s all that matters. Where
is he now?”
“He has gone to town,” she said.
“Then, if he’s a wise man, he’ll stop there,” said Oliver with finality,
and whipped up his horse.
The day was soft and cloudy, the tors wrapped in mist. There was a
feeling of rain in the air and the sweetness of rain-filled streams. She
heard the rushing of unseen water as they trotted over the winding
moorland road. It filled her with a great sadness, a longing
indescribable to which she could give no name.
She asked no more questions of Oliver, for she knew instinctively that
she would receive no actual enlightenment from him. Moreover, something
within her shrank from discussing Arthur Dermot and Arthur Dermot’s
motives with a third person. Any explanation, she felt, must come from
the man himself.
They drove on up the stony road, drawing nearer and nearer to the great
boulder-strewn tors, hearing the vague bleatings of sheep in the
desolation but seeing no living thing upon their way. Again the eeriness
of the place began to possess Frances. It was a relief to her when
Oliver said abruptly, “We won’t go by the Stones.”
She believed it to be the quicker route, but it was rough, and she was
thankful that he proposed to avoid it. Her dread of Tetherstones was
growing with every yard they covered, but there was no turning back now.
She could only go forward to whatever might be in store.
The mist gradually descended to meet them and turned to a small rain,
drifting in their faces. The chill of the moor laid a clammy touch upon
them. Frances shivered in spite of herself.
Oliver shot her his shrewd glance. “They’ll be awfully pleased to see
you,” he said, and added, “We’re nearly there.”
Yes, they were nearly there. The atmosphere of Tetherstones seemed to be
reaching out to receive them—the old grey place from which she had fled
as from a prison.
They turned down the steep lane, and the scent of wet honeysuckle came
to Frances mingling with the bog-myrtle of the moors. Something rose in
her throat and she turned her face aside. She had fled from the place as
from a prison, yet, returning, that exquisite scent came back to her as
the breath of home.
They reached the white gate, standing wide to receive them, and drove
through to the garden where Roger met them with extravagant antics of
delight. His welcome sent a warmth to her heart that in some fashion
eased the unacknowledged pain there. She approached the old stone
doorway with more assurance.
Oliver saluted and turned the horse; she heard him driving round to the
stables as she entered.
The door stood open according to custom. The passage was dark, but she
heard someone moving in the kitchen and directed her steps thither,
Roger bounding by her side. Then as she turned a corner there came the
sudden tread of feet, and she drew back sharply. She was face to face
with Arthur Dermot.
He also checked himself abruptly, and in a moment stood back against the
wall to let her pass.
He did not attempt to address her, but she could not pass him so in his
own house. She stood still.
But for a second or two her voice refused to serve her, and he made an
odd movement as if to compel her to pass on. Then with a sharp effort
she spoke.
“Little Ruth—I have come to see her. Is she—is she——”
“Dying—yes,” he said. “It was—good of you to come. Nell and Lucy are
in the kitchen. If you like, I will tell them you are here.”
“Oh no,” she said. “No. I will go to them.”
She passed him quickly, thankful to escape, hearing his heavy tread as
he went on, with that old fateful feeling at her heart. She wondered
what he really thought of her for returning thus.
She found the two girls in the kitchen, very subdued and troubled though
they gave her a ready welcome.
“We’ve missed you dreadfully,” said Nell. “And little Ruth has hardly
left off crying for you all these days.” Her lip quivered. “Dr. Square
said he should go and tell you after your letter came—but I didn’t
think you’d come.”
“I had to come,” Frances said.
“I thought you would if you really knew how badly you were wanted,” said
Lucy.
“I didn’t,” said Nell. “I knew you wouldn’t stay that day of the row. I
told you so, didn’t I? And I never thought you’d come back. I told
Arthur you wouldn’t. Only you would have done it.”
She looked at Frances with warm admiration in her eyes.
“You’re a brick,” she said. “And we’ll none of us forget it. You might
run and tell Dolly, Lucy. Now sit down, Miss Thorold, and I’ll get you a
glass of milk.”
She bustled round the old raftered kitchen, and Frances, sitting in the
horsehair arm-chair, tried to forget that awful night when she had
awaked as from a nightmare to find herself lying before the great
fireplace—a prisoner.
“Where are your mother and Maggie?” she asked, when Nell brought her the
milk.
“Mother is in the study with the old man,” said Nell. “Maggie is out
somewhere. She and Elsie were getting hay down from the loft a few
minutes ago. The work has got to go on, you know, whoever lives or
dies.” She checked a sob upon the words.
Frances leaned forward and held her hand. “Tell me about little Ruth!”
she said.
“Oh, there isn’t much to tell. She went to look for you the night you
left. You had a fright, didn’t you? So did we. There was a frightful row
after you were gone, and we all of us forgot to wonder where she was
till the morning. Then Oliver found her—found her—” Nell choked and
recovered herself. “It was up by the Stones. She’d been there heaps of
times before and never come to any harm. But this time she must have
gone right up on to the Rocking Stone and overbalanced. She was lying
under it, and she’d been there for twelve hours or more, poor little
darling. She was unconscious when Oliver found her, but she hadn’t been
all the time. She keeps on talking about it, about being a prisoner
under that stone and begging God to set her free so that she can go to
you. She has got a rooted idea that you are in trouble. You’re not, are
you? Everything’s all right with you?” She looked down at Frances
piteously, through tears.
“Don’t you bother your head about me, my dear!” said Frances. “My
affairs don’t count now.” She paused a moment, then, with some
hesitation: “Will you tell me why there was such a disturbance after I
went?” she asked.
“Oh, that!” said Nell, and also hesitated. “That’s one of the things
we’re not supposed to talk about,” she said, after a moment. “You don’t
mind, Miss Thorold? You’ll try to understand?”
“My dear, don’t you trouble!” said Frances very kindly. “I shall always
try to understand.”
But even as she spoke she felt again that cold misgiving at her heart.
What species of monster was this whom they all combined to shield?
Lucy came running down again with an eager message. Dolly said would she
go up at once? Little Ruth was in their mother’s room. She would show
her where it was.
Then, as they mounted the stairs together, she drew close to Frances and
slipped a shy hand into her arm. “We have missed you so much,” she said.
Frances patted the hand without speaking. The warmth of her welcome
touched her very deeply.
They traversed two or three rambling passages before they reached Mrs.
Dermot’s room. It was over the kitchen, a low, oak-raftered apartment
with an uneven floor. It contained two beds, and in one of these, close
to a narrow, ivy-grown window, lay Ruth.
Her face was turned towards the door, and—it came upon Frances with a
curious sense of shock—the eyes that had always till then been closed
were open, wide open, and burning with a fire so spiritual, so
unearthly, that for a moment she halted almost as one afraid. In that
moment she realized very fully and beyond all possibility of doubt that
little Ruth was dying.
Lucy’s soft touch drew her forward. She was aware of Dolly, pale and
restrained, somewhere in the background, but she did not actually see
her. She went to the child’s bedside as if she were entering a
sanctuary.
Ruth greeted her instantly, but she lay like a waxen image with tiny
hands folded on her breast.
“Have you come back at last, dear Miss Thorold?” she said, a thrill of
gladness in her voice. “God told me you would in a dream last night.”
Frances knelt down by the bed and closely clasped the little folded
hands that never stirred to her touch. “My little darling!” she said
softly. “Have you been wanting me?”
The burning eyes were fixed upon her. It was as though in them alone the
living spirit lingered. She was sure that the spirit saw her in that
hour.
“Yes, I have wanted you,” the child said. “I have been calling
you—crying for you—ever since that night. You said that you were
coming then, but you never came.”
“I couldn’t,” whispered Frances.
“No. You had to go,” Ruth agreed, in her tired voice. “I knew that. But
why didn’t you go to the Stones? You meant to go there, didn’t you?”
“I can’t tell you now, darling,” Frances said.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Ruth. “I think God didn’t want you to go. But
I didn’t know that when I went to look for you. I thought you might be
lost and frightened again—like you were that first night that I found
you. And then—when you weren’t there—I was afraid something had
happened to you. Did anything happen, dear Miss Thorold?”
“Nothing dreadful, sweetheart,” she answered softly.
“Then God took care of you,” Ruth said, with conviction. “There was
something dreadful very near you—very near you; but He sent it away.”
Those blind eyes—the eyes of a visionary—kindled afresh with the
words, and a sudden sense as of something vividly remembered smote
Frances. She had seen those eyes before. Where? Where? Then it came to
her—like a rending flash of lightning across a dark sky. The Bishop of
Burminster had had that inner flame as of prophecy in his eyes on the
night that he had denounced her. A great wave of feeling went through
her. She had an overwhelming desire to shield herself, shrinking as one
shrinks from the unsparing beam of a searchlight.
“We won’t talk of it now, darling,” she said almost pleadingly. “Try to
go to sleep!”
“I don’t want to sleep,” said the child. “I want to give you a message,
but it hasn’t come yet. And if I go to sleep, I shall forget it.”
“We will give her something to make her sleep presently,” said Dolly
gently. “She isn’t in any pain—only a little tired. Take this chair,
Miss Thorold! You must be tired too.”
So Frances sat down beside the bed to wait, as all in that house were
waiting, for the coming of the Angel of Death.
CHAPTER V
THE EXILE
Late in the afternoon Maggie came in, her plump, rosy face drawn and
sad. She came and hung over the bed for a space in silence. Ruth was
lying as she had lain throughout, with her eyes fixed upwards, as though
waiting for a sign, and still they burned with that fire of inner sight
which to Frances had been somehow terrible. Maggie straightened herself
at last with a deep sigh. She looked across at Frances with the glimmer
of a welcoming smile, but she did not speak. Softly she crept away.
The next to come was the white-haired mother, and to her Ruth spoke the
moment she entered the room though her entrance made no sound.
“My dear Granny!” she said.
Frances rose quickly and proffered her chair; but Mrs. Dermot shook her
head.
“No, no! I have only come for a moment.” She bent over the child. “Are
you happier now, my baby? Can you go to sleep?”
“Yes, I am quite happy,” said little Ruth, “now that Miss Thorold is
here. But I can’t go to sleep till I get the message for her. I might
die, dear Granny, and I shouldn’t be able to give it her then. We can
only send our love—after we are dead.”
“But Miss Thorold can’t stay here all the time, darling,” said Mrs.
Dermot, with a tender touch upon the child’s brow. “She will get so
tired sitting here. She has been ill, you know. She will want to rest.”
“Someone will call her when the message comes,” said Ruth. “I know she
won’t mind. She is always so good. Will you go and rest, please, Miss
Thorold? It won’t come yet.”
“Please do!” said Mrs. Dermot. “My son asks me to say that he hopes you
will regard Tetherstones as your home for as long as you care to stay in
it. I think I need not speak for myself, or tell you how grateful we all
are to you for coming back to set our little one’s mind at rest.”
There was infinite pathos to Frances in the quiet utterance. Mrs. Dermot
was looking at her with eyes that seemed too tired for tears.
“How she has suffered!” was the thought that passed through Frances’
mind, as she met them.
“You are much more than kind—as you always have been,” she said very
earnestly, as she rose to go. “Please remember that I am here to help,
if there is anything whatever that I can do! Don’t hesitate—ever—to
make use of me!”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Dermot. “I should like you to rest now. Your room
is quite ready for you. Perhaps—perhaps—in the night we may need you.”
Frances knew what she meant. She stooped to kiss little Ruth and turned
to go. “I shall be ready at any time,” she said.
In the doorway she encountered Dolly entering with a cup of milk in her
hand. Dolly stopped.
“Are you going downstairs for some tea? That’s right. It’s in the
kitchen. Maggie is there. She will look after you. We are so glad you
have come back.”
She passed on into the room, and Frances went out alone.
The old house was full of shadows. She could hear the shrill cries of
swallows wheeling about the eaves. The scent of honeysuckle was
everywhere. How had she ever thought of it as a prison?
Slowly she went down the stairs, and turned towards the kitchen. As she
did so, she heard a sudden sound in the recess in which she had hidden
on the night of her flight, and started to see two figures emerge. They
were very closely locked together, and she saw that in the dimness she
was not observed. Involuntarily almost, she drew back.
“Don’t fret, sweetheart!” It was Oliver’s voice, pitched very low.
“It’ll be all right, you’ll see.”
“Oh dear, I do hope so,” came back in a whisper from Maggie. “It doesn’t
feel right though I suppose it is.”
“It is right,” the man confidently asserted. “If we can’t choose our
circumstances we must adapt ourselves to them. It’s the only way to
live.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Maggie somewhat dubiously.
They passed down the passage to the kitchen, leaving Frances standing at
the foot of the stairs.
So standing, down the passage to her left that led to the study, she
heard a voice—an old man’s voice, broken, pathetic, piteously pleading.
“I assure you—” it said—“I assure you—you are wrong. It is difficult
to conceive how you can permit yourself to harbour these monstrous and
terrible ideas. I sometimes think your brain is not normal. You are
causing the greatest grief both to your mother whom you profess to
love—and to myself, for whom I know but too well that all filial
affection has long ceased to exist. I am an old man and helpless. Your
behaviour is breaking my heart. I shall go down to my grave with the
knowledge that my son—my only son—will rejoice to see me laid there.”
There followed an agonized sound that pierced Frances like the cry of a
child. Almost before she knew what she was doing, she had turned in the
direction of the study. She went down the passage swiftly to the door
that stood half-open and knocked upon it quickly and nervously.
“Can I come in?” she said.
It was the impulse to help, to protect, that moved her, and though she
knew who was in the study with old Mr. Dermot, she did not hesitate.
Only as she entered did he realize that her heart was thumping almost
unendurably.
She paused just within the room. “Can I come in?” she said again, and
felt her breath come sharply with the words. It needed all her
resolution to control it.
A startled silence followed her appearance, and then very kindly and
courteously the old man greeted her.
“Come in, Miss Thorold! Come in! I am delighted to see you!”
He was sitting in a leathern armchair in the failing light, and she was
struck afresh by his frailty and the deathly whiteness of his face.
“Will you excuse my getting up?” he said. “I have had one of my bad
attacks and they leave my heart very weak. Come and sit down, Miss
Thorold, and give me the pleasure of a chat with you.”
She went forward, keenly aware of Arthur standing motionless before the
fireplace, but not glancing at him as she passed. She reached Mr.
Dermot, and took the hand he extended. It was icy-cold and trembling,
and it seemed to her that there was something almost appealing in the
way it clung to hers.
“I am so sorry you have been ill,” she said.
“Yes, we are a sad household—a sad household,” he made answer. “I am
told the little one is very ill—the little blind girl who lives with
us. Can you tell me what is the matter with her? Some childish ailment,
I suppose?”
As it were against her will, Frances glanced at Arthur. His eyes looked
straight back at her from under frowning brows. He spoke briefly,
coldly.
“I think you have been informed before, sir, that the child would not
live to grow up. Perhaps under the circumstances it is hardly to be
desired that she should.”
“Under what circumstances?” said Mr. Dermot, and his voice was as cold
as his son’s, but with an edge of satire that was to Frances even more
unbearable than the studied indifference of the younger man’s utterance.
“Since when, may I ask, have you been a qualified judge as to the
relative values of life and death?”
Arthur made a very slight movement that might have denoted either
protest or exasperation. “I referred to her infirmity,” he said.
Mr. Dermot laughed, a soft, bitter laugh, and Frances shivered. She felt
the tension between the two men to be so acute as to be near the
snapping point, and wondered desperately what mistaken impulse had
brought her thither and how she might escape. But in a moment the old
man addressed her again, and there came to her a curious conviction that
in some fashion she was needed.
“Will you not sit down, Miss Thorold,” he said, “and take tea with me? I
do not have my meals with my family as, on account of the weakness of my
heart, quiet is essential to me. You were just going”; he turned very
pointedly to his son; “will you be good enough to ask Elsie to bring tea
for Miss Thorold as well as for myself?”
He spoke with frigid politeness as if addressing a menial, but there was
a quaver in his voice that betrayed him. Frances realized very clearly
in that instant which of the two men had the upper hand, and the
realization was as a heavy weight laid upon her. She shook it off with
conscious effort, telling herself that it mattered nothing to her at
least since she had gained her freedom.
Arthur made no move of any sort in response to his father’s request. He
stood as before, grim as a gaoler, looking straight across at her.
Very steadily, with a certain stateliness that was hers upon occasion,
she took the chair the old man had indicated. “That is very kind of
you,” she said to him. “I should like it very much.”
His smile of pleasure warmed her heart. “I assure you it will be the
greatest treat to me,” he said. “It is hard to have to lead the life of
a hermit. I have my books, and I am also writing—or I should say I have
collected material to write—an exhaustive treatise upon the Stones. I
think I told you of my intention the last time we met, and you very
kindly offered to help me.”
“I would gladly do anything in my power,” said Frances, moved, as she
had been moved before, by a certain forlornness in his attitude.
“Ah!” He nodded with obvious gratification. “That is kind of you. And I
am sure you would be interested. There is so much that is strange and
indeed almost uncanny about this subject.” He turned again to his son
with elaborate courtesy. “We need not detain you here. I am aware that
this matter is one that holds no appeal for a brain like yours, and I
have no desire to bore you with it.”
“Very good, sir.” Arthur made a sudden movement as one who has come to a
decision. “I will go.” He went to the door, and there paused, looking
back, almost as if irresolute, then abruptly wheeled again. “I will send
in tea,” he said, and was gone.
They heard him tramp heavily down the passage, and it seemed to Frances
that a shudder went through the frail old man lying back in the
armchair. He made a weary movement with one hand as one who would
dismiss a distasteful subject.
“Tell me a little more about your book!” she said gently.
He looked at her, and she saw his eyes kindle in the dimness.
“I am going to ask you to tell me something first,” he said. “It all
bears upon the same subject. This illness of the little blind girl which
they say is so serious, is it in any way connected with the Stones—with
any so-called accident that occurred there?”
He leaned slowly forward with the words, and though they were
deliberately uttered there was an eagerness vibrating in them that made
her wonder.
“Has no one told you about it?” she said.
“No one—no one. I am treated as a nonentity always.” He spoke
fretfully, querulously. “I believe it is on account of my health, but I
often think my health would improve if I were allowed to lead a more
normal life. My son has relegated to himself the rulership of this
establishment, and everyone is made to bow down to him. I am
told—nothing. I am consulted—never.”
“He leads a hard life,” Frances said. “Perhaps it has made him hard.”
“No, no! It isn’t that. It is just the passion for ruling. Let me warn
you against him, Miss Thorold! Never allow him to attain any sort of
influence over you, for he is a difficult man to thwart. You would not
like to be bound to him for life. It would break your heart.” He paused
a moment and made again that gesture as of dismissing an unpleasant
topic. “But now,” he said, “about the little girl—you were going to
tell me. Something happened to her up at the Stones. What was it? Do you
know what it was?”
Frances looked at him. His voice was tremulous, and yet she had a
curious conviction that it was not solely anxiety for little Ruth that
made it so. She considered for a moment before replying.
“She had a fall,” she said then.
“Ah! Was it near the Rocking Stone?” Mr. Dermot sat slowly forward. “You
will tell me,” he said. “I am sure you will tell me.”
Again Frances hesitated. If the details of Ruth’s accident had purposely
been kept from him, was she justified in enlightening him?
“I only know what I have been told since,” she said. “They found her
lying unconscious, and it was evident that she had had a fall.”
“And that is all you know? You cannot tell me who found her or why she
went?” Suppressed excitement sounded in the words. Mr. Dermot was
gripping the arm of his chair, and the bones of his knuckles stood out
sharply. “I am very anxious to know all,” he said. “They try to keep it
from me, but it is wrong—it is wrong. She had a fall, you say? Was
she—was she—alone when she fell?”
“I believe so,” Frances said. “In fact, I am sure of it, for they say
she was not found for some hours after.”
“Ah!” The old man relaxed so suddenly that he almost fell back into his
chair. “That is what I wanted to know. She was alone. They say so.” He
broke off, panting a little; but in a moment or two recovered himself
sufficiently to smile at her. “Now that,” he said, “gives colour, does
it not, to the local rumour that the powers of evil are in some
mysterious way permitted to haunt the Stones. This is a very interesting
point, Miss Thorold. Can her fall have been due to something of this
nature? Are you a believer in the occult?”
“Not to that extent,” said Frances, suppressing a chill shiver. “I think
it was perfectly easy for the poor mite to fall, considering her
blindness.”
“Ah, yes. They should not have let her wander so far. There is always
the danger of a false step. But she is young. She may recover—she may
recover. While there is life, there is hope; and if not,—there is the
life beyond.”
He spoke gently, a faint smile on his grey features, and again Frances
was touched in a fashion she could hardly have explained. He was so old,
so tired, so near to the life beyond of which he spoke.
She said nothing, and in a few moments Elsie came in with a tea-tray.
She looked at Frances, round-eyed, as she sat it down, but somewhat to
her surprise she gave her no word of greeting.
“Arthur said you would like your tea in here,” she said. “Is that
right?”
“Yes, Miss Thorold is my guest to-night,” said the old man. “Will you
pour out, Miss Thorold?”
Frances complied. Elsie hovered about the room as if uncertain whether
to go or to remain.
Mr. Dermot paid no attention to her for some seconds, then very suddenly
he seemed to awake to the fact of her presence. He turned in his chair.
“Pray return to your work in the farmyard!” he said. “I am sure you have
no time to spare for the ordinary civilities of life.”
His tone was quite quiet, but the words amazed Frances. The girl to whom
they were addressed merely nodded and turned to the door. She went out
in silence, leaving it open behind her.
“They always do that,” said Mr. Dermot, with a sort of weary patience.
“I wonder, might I trouble you to shut it?”
Frances rose to do so, her mind still full of wonder at the curious
attitude he had adopted towards his daughter.
“You think it strange,” he said, as she sat down again, “that there
should be so great a lack of sympathy between certain members of my
family and myself. But I assure you it did not originate with me. I am a
student, Miss Thorold, and perhaps it is not surprising that those who
devote the whole of themselves to manual labour on a farm should find it
difficult to keep in touch with me. It is said that if you associate
with the animals you will in time assimilate their characteristics. This
has already happened to Arthur, and some of the girls are following in
his footsteps. Milly is the only one who has shown no outward sign of
deterioration since we came to Tetherstones. It is a very insidious
evil, and it spreads—it spreads.” He sighed. “I foresaw it before we
came here. I was never in favour of the scheme, but—I was overruled. We
have a tyrant among us whose will is law.”
“Then you don’t like Tetherstones?” Frances said.
She saw again an extraordinary gleam in his eyes as he made reply. “You
might ask a convict how he likes Princetown,” he said. “My place is at
Oxford, but I have been torn from it and made to endure life in the
desert all these years.”
“But a very beautiful desert,” suggested Frances.
He made a wide gesture of repudiation. “What is that to an exile? When
you have been made to eat stones for bread, you will not notice if they
are beautiful to look at.”
“I can understand that,” she said. “Yet a sense of beauty is sometimes a
help. At least I found it so when I was at Burminster.”
“Ah! Burminster!” He repeated the name thoughtfully. “Did you ever meet
anyone there of the name of Rotherby?”
“Why, yes.” She started a little, remembering Arthur’s attitude. “I was
with Dr. Rotherby who is the Bishop of Burminster.”
“Yes—yes.” He nodded gravely. “We were at Oxford together. He left and
I remained. So he is at Burminster! You were not happy with him?”
Frances hesitated. “Not very,” she admitted.
He nodded again. “A hard man—a hard man! And did you ever meet his
nephew—Montague?”
She felt the colour leap to her face. “Yes, I have met him,” she said.
“Ah! He is a friend of yours,” said the old man, with quiet conviction.
“A close friend?”
She did not know how to answer him. No words would come. But in that
moment to her intense relief she heard a step outside. The door opened,
and Mrs. Dermot entered.
“Arnold,” she said, “I am sorry to disturb you, but Dr. Square is here.
He will be down immediately to see you. May he come in?”
The old man turned towards her with a fond smile. “My dear,” he said,
“any pretext is welcome that brings you to my side.”
Frances got up, thankful for the interruption. “I will go to the kitchen
if I may,” she said. “Maggie is there.”
“We need not drive you away,” protested Mr. Dermot.
But she was already at the door. “Perhaps—later,” she said, and was
gone before he could say any more. The closing of the door behind her
gave her a sense of escape from something terrible which she told
herself was utterly unreasonable.
CHAPTER VI
THE CHAIN
The kitchen-door was half-open. She pushed it open and entered. Then
sharply she drew back. It was raining and the place was in
semi-darkness. Only a red glow from the great open fireplace lighted it,
throwing into strong relief the old black rafters. And in this glow,
seated at the table facing her, but with his head upon his hands, was a
man.
He did not stir at her entrance. It was evident he did not hear her, and
for a moment her impulse was to go as suddenly and silently as she had
come. But something in that bowed silvered head checked her. She stood
still, and in a second a whine of greeting from under the table betrayed
her. Arthur sat upright with a jerk, and Roger came smiling out from his
place at his master’s feet to welcome her.
It was Roger who saved the situation. She stooped to fondle him, and in
so doing recovered her self-possession. Standing up again, she found
that Arthur also was on his feet. They faced each other once more in the
firelight, and the beating of the rain upon the thick laurel bushes
outside mingled with the dirge-like monotony of the dripping eaves
filled in that poignant pause.
Arthur spoke, his voice low and constrained. “Come and sit down! I’m
just going.”
The awful pallor of his face, the misery of the eyes that avoided hers,
went straight to her heart. She moved forward, urged by the instinct to
help, forgetful of everything else in the rush of pity that surged
through her.
“Don’t go because I am here!” she said.
He had turned already to the outer door. He paused with his back to her,
and took up his cap from a chair.
“It was not my fault you were sent for,” he said. “It was done against
my wish—without my knowledge.”
The words were curt, emotionless. Why did she feel as though she were in
the presence of a sorely-wounded animal?
“Don’t go!” she said again, and somehow the words seemed to utter
themselves; she was not conscious of any effort of her own by which they
were spoken. “There is no need for you to go.”
“No need!” He still stood with his back to her. His hand was on the
door, but he did not go. “Did you say that?” he said, after a moment.
“Yes.” She came forward slowly, and still it did not seem to be of her
own volition that she moved or spoke. “I haven’t come back to make
trouble—only to try and help—if I can.”
“Yes. I understand,” he said, and his voice came half-strangled, as
though he fought some obstruction in his throat. “Square told me.”
She stopped at the table. “Have you been having tea? I thought Maggie
was here.”
“She has gone out with Elsie. Milly went upstairs to Dolly. I don’t know
where the others are.”
Again curiously something in his voice pierced her. It had a deadened
quality—was it utter weariness—or smothered pain?
“Have you had tea?” she asked.
His hand wrenched at the door-handle. The door opened and a drift of
rain blew in. But still he paused.
“I haven’t had mine,” said Frances.
He turned almost with violence and the door shut behind him. “Why
haven’t you had yours? I thought Elsie brought it to you. I told her
to.”
He looked at her, heavily scowling, for a moment, then again averted his
eyes.
“Don’t be angry!” she said gently. “She did bring it, but I didn’t stay
to drink it because your mother said the doctor was here. Do you mind if
I have some now?” She looked round the table that had been cleared, then
turned to the fire. “The kettle is quite hot. It will soon boil.”
He came back into the room. There was something about him at that moment
upon which she could not look. He went to the dresser, and she heard the
clatter of cups and saucers. She knew he was laying the table behind
her, but she remained with her face to the fire.
Suddenly he was beside her. He took up the simmering kettle and forced
it down into the heart of the fire, keeping his hand upon it.
“You will burn yourself!” she said.
He answered nothing, merely stood doggedly bent over the glow till the
kettle spluttered and boiled. Then he lifted it, and turned back to the
table.
Frances turned also. Mutely she watched him pour water into the old
metal tea-pot. The haggardness of his face, the grim endurance of his
set jaw, struck her afresh. She wondered if he were ill.
He set down the kettle and drew up the horse-hair chair with the wooden
arms that she so well remembered.
“Sit down!” he said.
She obeyed him, finding no words.
He cut a slice from a loaf and began to toast it, Roger pressing closely
against his gaitered legs.
Very suddenly his voice came back to her again, hollow, strained, oddly
vibrant. “I should like you to know one thing. Though you have come back
here against my will, you have—nothing to fear. I recognize it was—an
act of—charity—and, so far as I am concerned, you are safe. I will
never get in your way.”
“Thank you,” Frances said quietly. “I am not afraid of that.”
He made a jerky movement, but instantly checked himself, and turning the
bread upon the fork, maintained his silence. She wondered what was
passing behind that tensely restrained front, what torment was at work
within him to produce the anguish of suffering which she sensed rather
than saw. But he gave her no clue of any sort. He remained bent and
silent till his task was finished.
Then he brought the toast and set it before her. “Can you pour out your
own tea?” he said.
She looked up at him, gravely resolute. “Mr. Dermot, please join me!”
He made a sharp gesture that was more of protest than refusal. “Afraid I
can’t stay. I’ve got to see Oliver.”
“You can if you will,” she said steadily. “That isn’t your reason. You
can see Oliver afterwards.”
He gave in abruptly, in a fashion that surprised her. He dropped down on
to the wooden chair he had occupied at her entrance, and propped his
head on his hands.
“My God!” he said, under his breath. “My God!”
Then she knew that his endurance was very near the breaking-point, and
the woman’s soul in her rose up in strength to support his weakness.
She got up to take another cup from the dresser, then poured out some
tea and took it to him on the other side of the table. He did not
attempt to stir at her coming, but the hands that supported his head
were clenched and trembling.
She bent over him, all thought of fear gone from her. “Here is your
tea,” she said. “Can you drink it?”
He moved then, reached out suddenly and grasped her wrist, drawing her
hand over his face till her palm was tightly pressed upon his eyes.
“My God!” he said again, almost inarticulately. “Oh, my God—my God!”
A dreadful sob broke from him, and he caught his breath and held it
rigidly till the veins in his temples stood out like cords.
Frances looked on mutely till she could bear it no longer. Then very
gently she laid her other hand upon his shoulder.
“Ah, don’t!” she said. “Don’t! Let it come! It will be easier to bear
afterwards. And what do I matter?”
She felt a great shiver go through him. His hold upon her hand was as
the clutch of a drowning man, and suddenly she felt his tears, slow and
scalding, oozing between her fingers. He bent his head lower and lower,
striving with himself, and she instinctively turned her eyes away,
averting them from his agony.
So, for what seemed an interminable space of time, they remained. Then
at last the man spoke, jerkily, with difficulty, yet with returning
self-mastery.
“It’s no good crying out. It’s got to be endured to the end.” He paused;
then: “I don’t often cry out,” he said and she thought she caught a note
that was almost of appeal in his voice.
“We are all human,” she said.
“Are we?” He raised himself abruptly with the words, and leaned back in
his chair, looking straight up at her, her hand still grasped in his.
“Are you human?” he said, as if challenging her. “I don’t believe you
are.”
His eyes were burning. They had the strained look that comes from lack
of sleep. A brief misgiving assailed her, but she put it firmly away.
She met his look unflinching.
“Yes, I am human,” she said.
“Then how you must hate me!” he said.
She shook her head in silence.
“Why do you do that?” he said. “Are you afraid to tell me so?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t hate you.”
“Why not?” he said.
She hesitated momentarily. Then: “It may be because I don’t know you
well enough,” she said.
There was something in his eyes that besought her. Again involuntarily
she thought of a wounded animal. “Not well enough to hate me?” he said.
“Not well enough to judge,” she answered quietly.
She saw his throat move spasmodically. His eyes left hers. “I would
rather be hated—than tolerated—by you,” he said, almost under his
breath.
His hold upon her had slackened; she slipped her hand away. “Won’t you
have your tea?” she said. “I am sure you will feel the better for it.”
He made an odd sound that might have been an effort at laughter, and
stretched out his hand for the cup.
She stood beside him while he drank, and took it from him when he had
finished. “Eat some toast while I pour you out some more!” she said.
“I made the toast for you,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter,” she returned.
“It does matter.” He leaned across the table for the loaf. “Bread will
do for me. And you will drink some tea yourself before you give me any
more.”
She heard the dominant note returning in his voice. “I shall do as I
think best,” she said, but she complied, for something in the glance of
those fevered eyes compelled.
They ate and drank together thereafter in unbroken silence until he rose
to go. Then, his cap once more in his hand, he paused, looking across at
her.
“So you have decided to reserve judgment for the present?” he said.
She met his look steadily, though her heart quickened a little.
“For the present—yes,” she said.
He still looked at her. “And if you find—some day—that I can behave
other than as a brute-beast, will you perhaps—manage to forget?”
To forget! The word, uttered so humbly, brought the quick tears to her
eyes. She turned her face aside.
“Why don’t you ask me to—forgive?” she said, her voice very low.
“Because I won’t ask the impossible,” he answered. “Because you tell me
you are human, and—well, some things are past forgiveness. I know
that.”
He swung round with the words. She heard him open the door, heard again
the drip and patter of the rain outside, heard the heavy tread of his
feet as he went out.
Then, when she knew that she was alone, her strength went from her. She
covered her face and wept.
In that hour she knew that she was chained indeed, beyond all hope of
escape. Brute-beast as he described himself—murderer at heart as she
believed him to be—yet had he implanted that within her heart which she
could never cast out. Whatever he was, whatever he did, could make no
difference now. She loved him.
CHAPTER VII
THE MESSAGE
“The doctor says it can’t possibly go on much longer.”
“But if it does—if it does——”
“Oh, Lucy, do stop crying! What’s the good? You’ll make yourself ill,
child, if you go on.”
“I can’t help it—I can’t help it. Mother looked like death just now.”
“That’s only because of something the Beast said. Oliver told me——”
The voice sank to a lower whisper as in the old days behind the screen,
and Frances, seated in a low chair beside the bed, tried not to strain
her ears to listen. She wished the two girls would leave the adjoining
room and go to bed, but they had been placed there by Dolly while she
snatched a brief rest, and she did not like to intervene. So she sat
there motionless, watching a great moth that had come in from the night
and was fluttering round and round the ceiling in the arc of light cast
upwards by the shaded lamp at her side, and listening to Lucy’s fitful
sobbing in the other room and Nell’s somewhat rough and ready efforts to
comfort her.
The very thought of tears seemed out of place in that quiet room, for
Ruth was as still and as peaceful as an effigy upon a tomb. She was not
asleep; of that Frances was fully convinced. But she was utterly at
rest, content so long as her friend remained beside her to lie in that
trance-like repose and wait.
The soft night air blew softly in upon them, laden with the scent of the
moors. The magic of it went to Frances’ inmost soul. She felt as if in
some fashion the message of which the child had spoken was being wafted
in from those star-lit spaces, but as yet it had no words. Only the
burden of it was already in her heart.
A long time passed thus; then there came a movement in the adjoining
room. The whispering was renewed for a moment, and ceased. The
white-haired mother entered, and as before, Ruth spoke.
“My dear Granny!” she said softly.
Mrs. Dermot motioned to Frances not to move. She came to the other side
of the bed and knelt down. “Shall we say our prayers, darling?” she
said.
Abruptly Frances realized that someone else had entered also, though she
had heard no sound, and looking up she saw Arthur standing just within
the doorway between the two rooms.
He stood there motionless until his mother began to murmur the Lord’s
Prayer, then noiselessly he crept forward and knelt close to the foot of
the bed.
It came to Frances then, and she never questioned the impulse, to slip
to her knees beside him. And in the hush of that quiet room, she prayed
as she never prayed before.
Mrs. Dermot’s gentle voice went unfaltering on to the evening hymn.
“Abide with me, fast falls the eventide,
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide,
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O, abide with me.”
Verse after verse very softly she repeated to the dying child, and at
the last Ruth’s voice joined hers, low and monotonous, murmuring the
words.
“Hold Thou Thy Cross before my closing eyes,
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies,
Heaven’s morning breaks and earth’s vain shadows flee,
In life—in death—O Lord, abide with me.”
The two voices ceased, and there fell a deep silence. How long it lasted
Frances never knew. She was as one kneeling in a holy place, too near to
the spiritual to reck of time. But gradually, as she knelt, there dawned
upon her the consciousness of another presence in that chamber of Death.
It did not surprise her when Ruth’s voice, quiet and confident, spoke in
the stillness. “This is my mother!” she said. “She came to me that night
at the Stones and stayed with me so as I shouldn’t be frightened. She
said she would come again if God would let her. Isn’t He kind?” An odd
little quiver of rapture ran through the words.
“He is always kind to His little ones, my darling,” said Mrs. Dermot
very tenderly. “‘He shall gather the lambs with His arm and carry them
in His bosom.’”
“That is what my mother told me,” said the child. “She says—she
says—that if we only knew how beautiful it is on beyond, we should
never mind going, or cry—ever—for those who went. You won’t cry when
I’ve gone, dear Granny, will you?”
“Not for you, darling,” Mrs. Dermot whispered back.
“Nor for my mother any more,” said little Ruth. “She is quite happy. Do
you see her? She is standing close to you and smiling. Don’t you see
her, Granny?”
“I know that she is here,” said Mrs. Dermot.
“She is very, very pretty,” said Ruth in a hushed voice, “much prettier
than anyone else I know. Her hair is dark, and her eyes are lovely, like
hare-bells. No one else has eyes like that.” Again the thrill of
gladness was in her voice. “I can see her, Granny! I can see her!” said
little Ruth. Then in a lower voice, slightly mystified: “I wonder why
Uncle Arthur and Miss Thorold are so unhappy. I can see them too, but
they are not so clear. I wish they were happy. I should see them more
easily then.”
Frances raised her head, but the blue eyes were fixed upwards; it was
the eyes of the soul that saw her, the voice of the soul that spoke.
“Miss Thorold,” said the child, “the Stones are waiting for you. Don’t
ever be afraid! They are going to give you something that you’re
wanting—something that you’ve wanted always. I don’t know what it is,
but that doesn’t matter. You’ll know it when you find it, because it’s
very big—bigger even than the Rocking Stone. And if you can’t find it
by yourself, Uncle Arthur will help you. Only you’ll have to ask
him—because it’s the only way.” Her voice began to drag a little. “He’s
so lonely and so sad, and he never thinks anybody wants him. Often when
you think he is cross, he is just unhappy. He has been unhappy for ever
so long, and it’s getting worse. Grandpa doesn’t understand, but then he
is so often away now. He has been away ever since that night I went to
look for you at the Stones. I don’t know where he goes to, do you?”
Frances hesitated, but at once Mrs. Dermot spoke in answer.
“Granny knows where he is, darling. He is coming back soon. Don’t
trouble your little head about him!”
“Give him my love!” said Ruth. “I shan’t see him again, but he is too
old to mind, and I am not big enough to matter. Will you ask Uncle
Arthur to come quite close to me just for a minute? I want—I want to
tell him something.”
Arthur rose from his knees and moved to the head of the bed. His arm
went round his mother as he stooped to the child.
“I am here, Ruth. What is it?”
There came a little gasp from the bed. “Will you—hold my hand?” said
Ruth. “I—can’t see you quite well yet. Thank you, Uncle Arthur. Now I
can tell you. Do you remember that night I found my dear Miss
Thorold—up by the Stones—when she was frightened—and lost?”
“I remember,” he said.
“I found her—for you,” said the child. “God sent me and I went. I
brought her back to Tetherstones—for you. I told her it was home
because you were here—because I knew—somehow—that you wanted her. You
do want her, don’t you, Uncle Arthur?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want,” he said.
“It does matter,” said Ruth very earnestly. “Because when people want
each other and haven’t got each other they are very unhappy—same as
you, Uncle Arthur. And I don’t think she’ll ever find that big thing by
the Stones unless you help her. You see—you see—” again the child’s
voice flagged, she seemed to seek for words—“You see, there is—someone
else. And if—if anyone else helps her, p’raps they won’t find the real
thing at all, but something—something quite different. Don’t you see,
Uncle Arthur? Don’t you understand? It’s hidden, and you’ll have to hunt
and hunt before you find it. I shall know when you find it. But I shan’t
be able to tell you how pleased I am. I shall only—be able—to send
you—my love.”
The tired voice trailed off drowsily. Frances was anxiously watching the
little white face on the pillow, but suddenly something drew her look
upwards. She met the man’s eyes across the bed, and was conscious of a
sense of shock. They were grim with a desperate endurance that pierced
her like a cry. Though they met her own, they were fixed and desolate.
Scarcely even did they seem to see her.
Then again Ruth spoke with that soft thrill of gladness that made her
think of the first faint call of a bird in the dawning.
“My mother is waiting for me,” she said. “She is going to take me out to
the stars. Do you mind if I go, dear Granny? I would like to go so
much.”
There was a brief pause. Then: “I don’t mind, my darling,” Mrs. Dermot
answered very softly, and added as if to herself, “God knows best.”
“I shall always be happy with my mother,” said little Ruth. “And when
you come, we shall all be happy together.”
She sank into silence again, and for a space no one moved or spoke.
Frances realized that Ruth’s breathing was getting feebler, but there
was no distress of any sort. Like the flame of a spent candle the little
life was slowly flickering out.
She heard the soft stirring of the night-wind in the trees of the garden
and the patter of falling rain-drops. And the great peace in which the
world was wrapped came into the quiet room like a benediction, so that
presently she was scarcely aware of any other presence there than that
of the Angel upon the threshold.
It seemed to her a long while before Ruth spoke again, and then it was
to utter her own name.
“Dear Miss Thorold, are you there?”
She rose up quickly. “Yes, darling, yes. What is it?”
The blue eyes with their mysterious fire gazed straight up to hers.
“You’ll find it up by the Stones,” said the child, “where the giant
hare-bells grow. That is the message, dear Miss Thorold. And when you
find it, keep it—always—always—always!” Her breath caught suddenly,
stopped, went on again with a gasp. “Because God sent it for you—and He
wants you to have it. Do you understand? If you don’t, it doesn’t
matter—so long as you keep on looking. You’ll know it when you find it,
because it’s—it’s the most precious thing in the world.” She broke off,
and for a few seconds it was as if she had forgotten to breathe, so
still was she, so utterly without any suggestion of pain. Then, very
faintly, her voice came again.
“I’m very tired. Is my dear Granny there?”
“I am here, darling,” came the patient answer from the bedside.
“Will you kiss me good night?” said little Ruth. “I am going to sleep
now.”