"I'm afraid, Paul dear," said Maggie, "I'm very ignorant."

"Don't know Partright? Oh, he's the great man of the last thirty

years--did the great East window of St. Martin's, Pontefract. We had a

job to get him I can tell you. Just look at that purple."

"On the right you'll see the Memorial Tablet to our brave lads who fell

in the South African War--Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori--very

appropriate. Brave fellows, brave fellows! Just behind you, Maggie, is

the Mickleham Font, one of the finest specimens of modern stone-work in

the county--given to us by Sir Joseph Mickleham--Mickleham Hall, you

know, only two miles from here. He used to attend morning service here

frequently. Died five years ago. Fine piece of work!"

Maggie looked at it. It was enormous, a huge battlement of a font in

dead white stone with wreaths of carved ivy creeping about it.

"It makes one feel rather shivery," said Maggie.

"Now you must see our lectern," said Paul eagerly.

And so it continued. There was apparently a great deal to be said about

the Lectern, and then about the Choir-Screen, and then about the

Reredos, and then about the Pulpit, and then about the Vestry, and then

about the Collecting-Box for the Poor, and then about the Hassocks, and

finally about the Graveyard ... To all this Maggie listened and hoped

that she made the proper answers, but the truth of the matter was that

she was cold and dismayed. The Chapel had been ugly enough, but behind

its ugliness there had been life; now with the Church as with the house

there was no life visible. Paul, putting his hand on her shoulder, said:

"Here, darling, will be the centre of our lives. This is our temple.

Round this building all our happiness will revolve."

"Yes, dear," said Maggie. She was taken then for a little walk. They

went down Ivy Road and into Skeaton High Street. Here were the shops.

Mr. Bloods, the bookseller's, Tunstall the butcher, Toogood the grocer,

Father the draper, Minster the picture-dealer, Harcourt the

haberdasher, and so on. Maggie rather liked the High Street; it

reminded her of the High Street in Polchester, although there was no

hill. Out of the High Street and on to the Esplanade. You should never

see an Esplanade out of the season, Katherine had once said to Maggie.

That dictum seemed certainly true this time. There could be no doubt

that this Esplanade was not looking its best under the blustering March

wind. Here a deserted bandstand, there a railway station, here a dead

haunt for pierrots, there a closed and barred cinema house, here a row

of stranded bathing-machines, there a shuttered tea-house--and not a

living soul in sight. In front of them was a long long stretch of sand,

behind them to right and left the huddled tenements of the town, in

front of them, beyond the sand, the grey sea--and again not a living

soul in sight. The railway line wound its way at their side, losing

itself in the hills and woods of the horizon.

"There are not many people about, are there?" said Maggie. Nor could

she wonder. The East wind cut along the desolate stretches of silence,

and yet how strange a wind! It seemed to have no effect at all upon the

sea, which rolled in sluggishly with snake-like motion, throwing up on

the dim colourless beach a thin fringe of foam, baring its teeth at the

world in impotent discontent.

"Oh! there's a boy!" cried Maggie, amazed at her own relief. "How often

do the trains come in?" she asked.

"Well, we don't have many trains in the off-season," said Paul. "They

put on several extra ones in the summer."

"Oh, what's the sand doing?" Maggie cried.

She had seen sand often enough in her own Glebeshire, but never sand

like this. Under the influence of the wind it was blowing and curving

into little spirals of dust; a sudden cloud, with a kind of personal

animosity rose and flung itself across the rails at Maggie and Paul.

They were choking and blinded--and in the distance clouds of sand rose

and fell, with gusts and impulses that seemed personal and alive.

"What funny sand!" said Maggie again. "When it blows in Glebeshire it

blows and there's a perfect storm. There's a storm or there isn't.

Here--" She broke off. She could see that Paul hadn't the least idea of

what she was speaking.

"The sand is always blowing about here," he said. "Now what about tea?"

They walked back through the High Street and not a soul was to be seen.

"Does nobody live here?" asked Maggie.

"The population," said Paul quite gravely, "is eight thousand, four

hundred and fifty-four."

"Oh, I see," said Maggie.

They had tea in the dusty study again.

"I'm going to change this house," said Maggie.

"Change it?" asked Paul. "What's my little girl going to do?"

"She's going to destroy ever so many things," said Maggie.

"You'd better wait," said Paul, moving a little away, "until Grace

comes back, dear. You can consult with her."

Maggie said nothing.

Next day Mrs. Constantine, Miss Purves, and Mrs. Maxse came to tea.

They had tea in the drawing-room all amongst the squashed strawberries.

Three large ferns in crimson pots watched them as they ate. Maggie

thought: "Grace seems to have a passion for ferns." She had been

terribly nervous before the ladies' arrival--that old nervousness that

had made her tremble before Aunt Anne at St. Dreot's, before the

Warlocks, before old Martha. But with it came as always her sense of

independence and individuality.

"They can't eat me," she thought. It was obvious at once that they did

not want to do anything of the kind. They were full of kindness and

curiosity. Mrs. Constantine took the lead, and it was plain that she

had been doing this all her life. She was a large black and red woman

with clothes that fitted her like a uniform. Her hair was of a raven

gleaming blackness, her cheeks were red, her manner so assured and

commanding that she seemed to Maggie at once like a policeman directing

the traffic. The policeman of Christian Skeaton she was, and it did not

take Maggie two minutes to discover that Paul was afraid of her. She

had a deep bass voice and a hearty laugh.

"I can understand her," thought Maggie, "and I believe she'll

understand me."

Very different Miss Purves. If Mrs. Constantine was the policeman of

Skeaton, Miss Purves was the town-crier. She rang her bell and

announced the news, and also insisted that you should tell her without

delay any item of news that you had collected.

In appearance she was like any old maid whose love of gossip has led

her to abandon her appearance. She had obviously surrendered the idea

of attracting the male, and flung on her clothes--an old black hat, a

grey coat and skirt--with a negligence that showed that she cared for

worthier things. She gave the impression that there was no time to be

lost were one to gather all the things in life worth hearing.

If Mrs. Constantine stood for the police and Miss Purves the

town-crier, Mrs. Maxse certainly represented Society. She was dressed

beautifully, and she must have been very pretty once. Her hair was now

grey, but her cheeks had still a charming bloom. She was delicate and

fragile, rustling and scented, with a beautiful string of pearls round

her neck (this, in the daytime, Maggie thought very odd), and a large

black hat with a sweeping feather. Her voice was a little sad, a little

regretful, as though she knew that her beautiful youth was gone and was

making the best of what she had.

She told Maggie that "she couldn't help" being an idealist.

"I know it's foolish of me," she said in her gentle voice, smiling her

charming smile. "They all tell me so. But if life isn't meant to be

beautiful, where are we? Everything must have a meaning, mustn't it,

Mrs. Trenchard, and however often we fail--and after all we are only

human--we must try, try again. I believe in seeing the best in people,

because then they live up to that. People are what we make them, don't

you think?"

"The woman's a fool," thought Maggie. Nevertheless, she liked her

kindness. She was so strangely driven. She wished to think of Martin

always, never to forget him, but at the same time not to think of the

life that was connected with him. She must never think of him as some

one who might return. Did that once begin all this present life would

be impossible--and she meant to make this new existence not only

possible but successful. Therefore she was building, so hard as she

could, this new house; the walls were rising, the rooms were prepared,

every window was barred, the doors were locked, no one from outside

should enter, and everything that belonged to it--Paul, Grace, the

Church, these women, Skeaton itself, her household duties, the

servants, everything and every one was pressed into service. She must

have so much to do that she could not think, she must like every one

else so much that she could not want any one else--that other world

must be kept out, no sound nor sight of it must enter ... If even she

could forget Martin. What had he said to her. "Promise me whatever I

am, whatever I do, you will love me always"--and she had promised. Here

she was married to Paul and loving Martin more than ever! As she looked

at Mrs. Constantine she wondered what she would say did she know that.

Nevertheless, she had not deceived Paul ... She had told him. She would

make this right. She would force this life to give her what she needed,

work and friends and a place in the world. Her face a little white with

her struggle to keep her house standing, she turned to her guests. She

was afraid that she did not play the hostess very well. She felt as

though she were play-acting. She repeated phrases that she had heard

Katherine Mark use, and laughed at herself for doing so. She suspected

that they thought her very odd, and she fancied that Mrs. Constantine

looked at her short hair with grave suspicion.

Afterwards, when she told Paul this, he was rather uncomfortable.

"It'll soon be long again, dear, won't it?" he said.

"Don't you like it short then?" she asked.

"Of course I like it, but there's no reason to be unusual, is there? We

don't want to seem different from other people, do we, darling?"

"I don't know," said Maggie. "We want to be ourselves. I don't think I

shall ever grow my hair long again. It's so much more comfortable like

this."

"If I ask you, dear," said Paul.

"No, not even if you ask me," she answered, laughing.

She noticed then, for the first time, that he could look sulky like a

small school-boy.

"Why, Paul," she said. "If you wanted to grow a beard I shouldn't like

it, but I shouldn't dream of stopping you."

"That's quite different," he answered. "I should never dream of growing

a beard. Grace won't like it if you look odd."

"Grace isn't my teacher," said Maggie with a sudden hot hostility that

surprised herself.

She discovered, by the way, very quickly that the three ladies had no

very warm feelings for Grace. They showed undisguised pleasure at the

thought that Maggie would now be on various Committees instead of her

sister-in-law.

"It will be your place, of course, as wife of the vicar," said Mrs.

Constantine. "Hitherto Miss Trenchard--"

"Oh, but I couldn't be on a Committee," cried Maggie. "I've never been

on one in my life. I should never know what to do."

"Never been on a Committee!" cried Miss Purves, quivering with

interest. "Why, Mrs. Trenchard, where have you been all this time?"

"I'm only twenty," said Maggie. They certainly thought it strange of

her to confess to her age like that. "At home father never had any

Committees, he did it all himself, or rather didn't do it."

Mrs. Constantine shook her head. "We must all help you," she said.

"You're very young, my dear, for the responsibilities of this parish."

"Yes, I am," said Maggie frankly. "And I'll be very glad of anything

you can tell me. But you mustn't let me be Treasurer or Secretary of

anything. I should never answer any of the letters, and I should

probably spend all the money myself."

"My dear, you shouldn't say such things even as a joke," said Mrs.

Constantine.

"But it isn't a joke," said Maggie. "I'm terribly muddleheaded, and

I've no idea of money at all. Paul's going to teach me."

Paul smiled nervously.

"Maggie will soon fit into our ways," he said.

"I'm sure she will." said Mrs. Constantine very kindly, but as though

she were speaking to a child of ten.

The bell rang and Mr. Flaunders the curate came in. He was very young,

very earnest, and very enthusiastic. He adored Paul. He told Maggie

that he thought that he was the very luckiest man in the world for

having, so early in his career, so wonderful a man as Paul to work

under. He had also adored Grace, but very quickly showed signs of

transferring that adoration to Maggie.

"Miss Trenchard's splendid," he said. "I do admire her so, but you'll

be a great help to us all. I'm so glad you've come."

"Why, how do you know?" asked Maggie. "You've only seen me for about

two minutes."

"Ah, one can tell," said Mr. Flaunders, sighing.

Maggie liked his enthusiasm, but she couldn't help wishing that his

knees wouldn't crack at unexpected moments, that he wasn't quite so

long and thin, and that he wouldn't leave dried shaving-soap under his

ears and in his nostrils. She was puzzled, too, that Paul should be so

obviously pleased with the rather naif adoration. "Paul likes you to

praise him," she thought a little regretfully.

So, for the moment, these people, the house and the Church, fitted in

her World. For the rest of the fortnight she was so busy that she never

went on to the beach nor into the woods. She shopped every morning,

feeling very old and grown-up, she went to tea with Mrs. Constantine

and Mrs. Maxse, and she sat on Paul's knee whenever she thought that he

would like her to. She sat on Paul's knee, but that did not mean that,

in real intimacy, they approached any nearer to one another. During

those days they stared at one another like children on different sides

of a fence. They were definitely postponing settlement, and with every

day Maggie grew more restless and uneasy. She wanted back that old

friendly comradeship that there had been before their marriage. He

seemed now to have lost altogether that attitude to her. Then on the

very day of Grace's return the storm broke. It was tea-time and they

were having it, as usual, in his dusty study. They were sitting someway

apart--Paul in the old leather armchair by the fire, his thick body

stretched out, his cheerful good-humoured face puckered and peevish.

Maggie stood up, looking at him.

"Paul, what's the matter?" she asked.

"Matter," he repeated. "Nothing."

"Oh yes, there is ... You're cross with me."

"No, I'm not. What an absurd idea!" He moved restlessly, turning half

away, not looking at her. She came close up to him.

"Look here, Paul. There is something the matter. We haven't been

married a fortnight yet and you're unhappy. Whatever else we married

for we married because we were going to be friends. So you've just got

to tell me what the trouble is."

"I've got my sermon to prepare," he said, not looking at her, but half

rising in his chair. "You'd better go, darling."

"I'm not going to," she answered, "until you've told me why you're

worrying."

He got up slowly and seemed then as though he were going to pass her.

Suddenly he turned, flung his arms round her, catching her, crushing

her in his arms, kissing her wildly.

"Love ... love me ... love me," he whispered. "That's what's the

matter. I didn't know myself before I married you, Maggie. All these

years I've lived like a fish and I didn't know it. But I know it now.

And you've got to love me. You're my wife and you've got to love me."

She would have given everything that she had then to respond. She felt

an infinite tenderness and pity for him. But she could not. He felt

that she could not. He let her go and turned away from her. She thought

for a moment wondering what she ought to say, and then she came up to

him and gently put her hand on his shoulder.

"Be patient, Paul," she said. "You know we agreed before we married

that we'd be friends at any rate and let the rest come. Wait ..."

"Wait!" he turned round eagerly, clutching her arm. "Then there is a

chance, Maggie? You can get to love me--you can forget that other man?"

She drew back. "No, you know I told you that I should never do that.

But he'll never come back nor want me again and I'm very fond of you,

Paul--fonder than I thought. Don't spoil it all now by going too fast--"

"Going too fast!" he laughed. "Why, I haven't gone any way at all. I

haven't got you anywhere. I can hardly touch you. You're away from me

all the time. You're strange--different from every one ..."

"I don't know anything about women. I've learnt a lot about myself this

week. It isn't going to be as easy as I thought."

She went up to him, close to him, and said almost desperately: "We MUST

make this all right, Paul. We can if we try. I know we can."

He kissed her gently with his old kindness. "What a baby you are. You

didn't know what you were in for ... Oh, we'll make it all right."

They sat close together then and drank their tea. After all, Grace

would be here in an hour! They both felt a kind of relief that they

would no longer be alone.

Grace would be here in an hour! Strange how throughout all these last

days Maggie had been looking forward to that event with dread. There

was no definite reason for fear; in London Grace had been kindness

itself and had shown real affection for Maggie. Within the last week

she had written two very affectionate letters. What was this, then,

that hung and hovered? It was in the very air of the house and the

garden and the place. Grace had left her mark upon everything and every

one, even upon the meagre person of Mitch the dog. Especially upon

Mitch, a miserable creeping fox-terrier with no spirits and a tendency

to tremble all over when you called him. He had attached himself to

Maggie, which was strange, because animals were not, as a rule,

interested in her. Mitch followed her about, looking up at her with a

yellow supplicating eye. She didn't like him and she would be glad when

Grace collected him again--but why did he tremble?

She realised, in the way that she had of seeing further than her nose,

that Grace was going to affect the whole of her relations with Paul,

and, indeed, all her future life. She had not realised that in London.

Grace had seemed harmless there and unimportant. Already here in

Skeaton she seemed to stand for a whole scheme of life.

Maggie had moved and altered a good many of the things in the house.

She had discovered a small attic, and into this she had piled pell-mell

a number of photographs, cheap reproductions, cushions, worsted mats,

and china ornaments. She had done it gaily and with a sense of clearing

the air.

Now as Grace's hour approached she was not so sure.

"Well, I'm not afraid," she reassured herself with her favourite

defiance. "She can't eat me. And it's my house."

Paul had not noticed the alterations. He was always blind to his

surroundings unless they were what he called "queer."

There was the rattle of the cab-wheels on the drive and a moment later

Grace was in the hall.

"Dear Paul--Maggie, dear ..."

She stood there, a very solid and assured figure. She was square and

thick and reminded Maggie to-day of Mrs. Noah; her clothes stood cut

out around her as though they had been cut in wood. She had her large

amiable smile, and the kiss that she gave Maggie was a wet, soft, and

very friendly one.

"Now I think I'll have tea at once without taking my hat off. In Paul's

study? That's nice ... Maggie, dear, how are you? Such a journey! But

astonishing! Just fancy! I got into Charing Cross and then--! Why!

Here's the study! Fancy! ... Maggie, dear, how are you? Well? That's

right. Why, there's tea! That's right. Everything just as it was.

Fancy! ..." She took off her gloves, smiled, seated herself more

comfortably, then began to look about the room. Suddenly there came:

"Why, Paul, where's the Emmanuel football group?"

There was a moment's silence. Maggie felt her heart give a little bump,

as it seemed to her, right against the roof of her mouth. Paul (so like

him) had not noticed that the football group had vanished. He stared at

the blank place on the wall where it had once been.

"Why, Grace ... I don't know. I never noticed it wasn't there."

"I took it down," said Maggie. "I thought there were too many

photographs. It's in the attic."

"In the attic? ... Fancy! You put it away, did you, Maggie? Well,

fancy! Shan't I make the tea, Maggie, dear? That tea-pot, it's an old

friend of mine. I know how to manage it."

They changed seats. Grace was as amiable as ever, but now her eyes

flashed about from place to place all around the room.

"Why, this is a new kind of jam. How nice! As I was saying, I got into

Charing Cross and there wasn't a porter. Just fancy! At least there was

a porter, an old man, but when I beckoned to him he wouldn't move.

Well, I was angry. I can tell you, Paul, I wasn't going to stand that,

so I-what nice jam, dear. I never knew Mitchell's had jam like this!"

"I didn't get it at Mitchell's," said Maggie. "I've changed the grocer.

Mitchell hasn't got anything, and his prices are just about double

Brownjohn's ..."

"Brownjohn!" Grace stared, her bread and jam suspended. "Brownjohn!

But, Maggie dear, he's a dissenter."

"Oh. Maggie!" said Paul. "You should have told me!"

"Why!" said Maggie, bewildered. "Father never minded about dissenters.

Our butcher in St. Dreot's was an atheist and--"

"Well, well," said Grace, her eyes still flashing about like goldfish

in a pool. "You didn't know, dear. Of course you didn't. I'm sure we

can put it right with Mitchell, although he's a sensitive man. I'll go

and see him in the morning. I am glad I'm back. Well, I was telling you

... Where was I? ... about the porter--"

Something drove Maggie to say:

"I'd rather have a good grocer who's a dissenter than a bad one who

goes to church--"

"Maggie," said Paul, "you don't know what you're saying. You don't

realise what the effect in the parish would be."

"Of course she doesn't," said Grace consolingly. "She'll understand in

time. As I was saying, I was so angry that I caught the old man by the

arm and I said to him, 'If you think you're paid to lean up against a

wall and not do your duty you're mightily mistaken, and if you aren't

careful I'll report you--that's what I'll do,' and he said--what were

his exact words? I'll remember in a minute. I know he was very

insulting, and the taxi-cabman--why, Paul, where's mother's picture?"

Grace's eyes were directed to a large space high above the mantelpiece.

Maggie remembered that there had been a big faded oil-painting of an

old lady in a shawl and spectacles, a hideous affair she had thought

it. That was now reposing in the attic. Why had she not known that it

was a picture of Paul's mother? She would never have touched it had she

known. Why had Paul said nothing? He had not even noticed that it was

gone.

Paul stared, amazed and certainly--yes, beyond question--frightened.

"Grace--upon my word--I've been so busy since my return--"

"Is that also in the attic?" asked Grace.

"Yes, it is," said Maggie. "I'm so sorry. I never knew it was your

mother. It wasn't a very good painting I thought, so I took it down. If

I had known, of course, I never would have touched it. Oh Grace, I AM

so sorry."

"It's been there," said Grace, "for nearly twenty years. What I mean to

say is that it's always been there. Poor mother. Are there many things

in the attic, Maggie?"

At that moment there was a feeble scratching on the door. Paul,

evidently glad of anything that would relieve the situation, opened the

door.

"Why, it's Mitch!" cried Grace, forgetting for the moment her mother.

"Fancy! It's Mitch! Mitch, dear! Was she glad to see her old friend

back again? Was she? Darling! Fancy seeing her old friend again? Was

she wanting her back?"

Mitch stood shivering in the doorway, then, with her halting step, the

skin of her back wrinkled with anxiety, she crossed the room. For a

moment she hesitated, then with shamefaced terror, slunk to Maggie,

pressed up against her, and sat there huddled, staring at Grace with

yellow unfriendly eyes.

CHAPTER IV

GRACE

Not in a day and not in a night did Maggie find a key to that strange

confusion of fears, superstitions, and self-satisfactions that was

known to the world as Grace Trenchard. Perhaps she never found it, and

through all the struggle and conflict in which she was now to be

involved she was fighting, desperately, in the dark. Fight she did, and

it was this same conflict, bitter and tragic enough at the time, that

transformed her into the woman that she became ... and through all that

conflict it may be truly said of her that she never knew a moment's

bitterness--anger, dismay, loneliness, even despair-bitterness never.

It was not strange that Maggie did not understand Grace; Grace never

understood herself nor did she make the slightest attempt to do so. It

would be easy enough to cover the ground at once by saying that she had

no imagination, that she never went behind the thing that she saw, and

that she found the grasping of external things quite as much as she

could manage. But that is not enough. Very early indeed, when she had

been a stolid-faced little girl with a hot desire for the doll

possessed by her neighbour, she had had for nurse a woman who rejoiced

in supernatural events. With ghost stories of the most terrifying kind

she besieged Grace's young heart and mind. The child had never

imagination enough to visualise these stories in the true essence, but

she seized upon external detail-the blue lights, the white shimmering

garments, the moon and the church clock, the clanking chain and the

stain of blood upon the board.

These things were not for her, and indeed did she allow her fancy to

dwell, for a moment, upon them she was besieged at once by so horrid a

panic that she lost all control and self-possession. She therefore very

quickly put those things from her and thenceforth lived in the world as

in a castle surrounded by a dark moat filled with horrible and slimy

creatures who would raise a head at her did she so much as glance their

way.

She decided then never to look, and from a very early age those

quarters of life became to her "queer," indecent, and dangerous. All

the more she fastened her grip upon the things that she could see and

hold, and these things repaid her devotion by never deceiving her or

pretending to be what they were not. She believed intensely in forms

and repetitions; she liked everything to be where she expected it to

be, people to say the things that she expected them to say, clocks to

strike at the right time, and trains to be up to the minute. With all

this she could never be called an accurate or careful woman. She was

radically stupid, stupid in the real sense of the word, so that her

mind did not grasp a new thought or fact until it had been repeated to

her again and again, so that she had no power of expressing herself,

and a deep inaccuracy about everything and every one which she

endeavoured to cover by a stream of aimless lies that deceived no one.

She would of course have been very indignant had any one told her that

she was stupid. She hated what she called "clever people" and never had

them near her if she could help it. She was instantly suspicious of any

one who liked ideas or wanted anything changed. With all this she was

of an extreme obstinacy and a deep, deep jealousy. She clung to what

she had with the tenacity of a mollusc. What she had was in the main

Paul, and her affection for him was a very real human quality in her.

He was exactly what she would have chosen had she been allowed at the

beginning a free choice. He was lazy and good-tempered so that he

yielded to her on every possible point, he was absolutely orthodox and

never shocked her by a thought or a word out of the ordinary, he really

loved her and believed in her and said, quite truly, that he would not

have known what to do without her.

It seems strange then that it should have been in the main her urgency

that led to the acquisition of Maggie. During the last year she had

begun to be seriously uneasy. Things were not what they had been. Mrs.

Constantine and others in the parish were challenging her authority,

even the Choir boys were scarcely so subservient as they had been, and,

worst of all, Paul himself was strangely restive and unquiet. He talked

at times of getting married, wondered whether she, Grace, wouldn't like

some one to help her in the house, and even, on one terrifying

occasion, suggested leaving Skeaton altogether. A momentary vision of

what it would be to live without Paul, to give up her kingdom in

Skeaton, to have to start all over again to acquire dominion in some

new place, was enough for Grace.

She must find Paul a wife, and she must find some one who would depend

upon her, look up to her, obey her, who would, incidentally, take some

of the tiresome and monotonous drudgery off her shoulders. The moment

she saw Maggie she was resolved; here was just the creature, a mouse of

a girl, no parents, no money, no appearance, nothing to make her proud

or above herself, some one to be moulded and trained in the way she

should go. To her great surprise she discovered that Paul was at once

attracted by Maggie: had she ever wondered at anything she would have

wondered at this, but she decided that it was because she herself had

made the suggestion. Dear Paul, he was always so eager to fall in with

any of her proposals.

Her mind misgave her a little when she saw that he was really in love.

What could he see in that plain, gauche, uncharming creature? See

something he undoubtedly did. However, that would wear off very

quickly. The Skeaton atmosphere was against romance and Paul was too

lazy to be in love very long. Once or twice in the weeks before the

wedding Grace's suspicions were aroused.

Maggie seemed to be an utter little heathen; also it appeared that she

had had some strange love affair that she had taken so seriously as

actually to be ill over it. That was odd and a little alarming, but the

child was very young, and once married-there she'd be, so to speak!

It was not, in fact, until that evening of her arrival in Skeaton that

she was seriously alarmed. To say that that first ten minutes in Paul's

study alarmed her is to put it mildly indeed. As she looked at the

place where her mother's portrait had been, as she stared at the

trembling Mitch cowering against Maggie's dress, she experienced the

most terrifying, shattering upheaval since the day when as a little

girl of six she had been faced as she had fancied, with the dripping

ghost of her great-uncle William. Not at once, however, was the battle

to begin. Maggie gave way about everything. She gave way at first

because she was so confident of getting what she wanted later on. She

never conceived that she was not to have final power in her own house;

Paul had as yet denied her nothing. She moved the pictures and the pots

and the crochet work down from the attic and replaced them where they

had been-or, nearly replaced them. She found it already rather amusing

to puzzle Grace by changing their positions from day to day so that

Grace was bewildered and perplexed.

Grace said nothing--only solidly and with panting noises (she suffered

from shortness of breath) plodded up and down the house, reassuring

herself that all her treasures were safe.

Maggie, in fact, enjoyed herself during the weeks immediately following

Grace's return. Paul seemed tranquil and happy; there were no signs of

fresh outbreaks of the strange passion that had so lately frightened

her. Maggie herself found her duties in connection with the Church and

the house easier than she had expected. Every one seemed very friendly.

Grace chattered on with her aimless histories of unimportant events and

patted Maggie's hand and smiled a great deal. Surely all was very well.

Perhaps this was the life for which Maggie was intended.

And that other life began to be dim and faint-even Martin was a little

hidden and mysterious. Strangely she was glad of that; the only way

that this could be carried through was by keeping the other out of it.

Would the two worlds mingle? Would the faces and voices of those

spirits be seen and heard again? Would they leave Maggie now or plan to

steal her back? The whole future of her life depended on the answer to

that ...

During those weeks she investigated Skeaton very thoroughly. She found

that her Skeaton, the Skeaton of Fashion and the Church, was a very

small affair consisting of two rows of villas, some detached houses

that trickled into the country, and a little clump of villas on a hill

over the sea beyond the town. There were not more than fifty souls all

told in this regiment of Fashion, and the leaders of the fifty were

Mrs. Constantine, Mrs. Maxse, Miss Purves, a Mrs. Tempest (a large

black tragic creature), and Miss Grace Trenchard--and they had for

their male supporters Colonel Maxse, Mr. William Tempest, a Mr. Purdie

(rich and idle), and the Reverend Paul. Maggie discovered that the

manners, habits, and even voices and gestures of this sacred Fifty were

all the same. The only question upon which they divided was one of

residence. The richer and finer division spent several weeks of the

winter abroad in places like Nice and Cannes, and the poorer contingent

took their holiday from Skeaton in the summer in Glebeshire or the Lake

District. The Constantines and the Maxses were very fine indeed because

they went both to Cannes in the winter and Scotland in the summer. It

was wonderful, considering how often Mrs. Constantine was away from

Skeaton, how solemn and awe-inspiring an impression she made and

retained in the Skeaton world. Maggie discovered that unless you had a

large house with independent grounds outside the town it was impossible

to remain in Skeaton during the summer months. Oh! the trippers! ...Oh!

the trippers! Yes, they were terrible-swallowed up the sands,

eggshells, niggers, pierrots, bathing-machines, vulgarity, moonlight

embracing, noise, sand, and dust. If you were any one at all you did

not stay in Skeaton during the summer months-unless, as I have said,

you were so grand that you could disregard it altogether.

It happened that these weeks were wet and windy and Maggie was blown

about from one end of the town to the other. There could be no denying

that it was grim and ugly under these conditions. It might be that when

the spring came there would be flowers in the gardens and the trees

would break out into fresh green and the sands would gleam with

mother-of-pearl and the sea would glitter with sunshine. All that

perhaps would come. Meanwhile there was not a house that was not

hideous, the wind tore screaming down the long beaches carrying with it

a flurry of tempestuous rain, whilst the sea itself moved in sluggish

oily coils, dirt-grey to the grey horizon. Worst of all perhaps were

the deserted buildings at other times dedicated to gaiety, ghosts of

places they were with torn paper flapping against their sides and the

wind tearing at their tin-plated roofs. Then there was the desolate

little station, having, it seemed, no connection with any kind of

traffic-and behind all this the woods howled and creaked and whistled,

derisive, provocative, the only creatures alive in all that world.

Between the Fashion and the Place the Church stood as a bridge.

Centuries ago, when Skeaton had been the merest hamlet clustered behind

the beach, the Church had been there-not the present building, looking,

poor thing, as though it were in a perpetual state of scarlet fever,

but a shabby humble little chapel close to the sea sheltered by the

sandy hill.

The present temple had been built about 1870 and was considered very

satisfactory. It was solid and free from draughts and took the central

heating very well. The graveyard also was new and shiny, with no bones

in it remoter than the memories of the present generation could

compass. The church clock was a very late addition--put up by

subscription five years ago-and its clamour was so up to date and smart

that it was a cross between the whistle of a steam-engine and a rich

and prosperous dinner-bell.

All this was rightly felt to be very satisfactory. As Miss Purves said:

"So far as the dear Church goes, no one had any right to complain about

anything."

When Maggie had first arrived in Skeaton her duties with regard to the

Church were made quite plain to her. She was expected to take one of

the classes in Sunday school, to attend Choir practice on Friday

evening, to be on the Committees for Old Women's Comforts, Our Brave

Lads' Guild, and the Girls' Friendly Society, to look after the flowers

for the Altar, and to attend Paul's Bible Class on Wednesdays.

She had no objection to any of these things-they were, after all, part

of her "job." She found that they amused her, and her life must be

full, full, full. "No time to think--No time to think," some little

voice far, far within her cried. But on Grace's return difficulties at

once arose. Grace had, hitherto, done all these things. She had, as she

called it, "Played a large part in the life of our Church." She was

bored with them all, the Choir practices, the Committees, the Altar

flowers, and the rest; she was only too pleased that Maggie should do

the hard work--it was quite fair that she, Grace, should have a rest.

At the same time she did not at all want to surrender the power that

doing these things had given her. She did not wish Maggie to take her

place, but she wanted her to support the burden-very difficult this

especially if you are not good at "thinking things out."

Grace never could "think things out." It seemed as though her thoughts

loved wilfully to tease and confuse her. Then when she was completely

tangled, and bewildered, her temper rose, slowly, stealthily, but with

a mighty force behind it; suddenly as a flood bursts the walls that

have been trying to resist it, it would sweep the chambers of her mind,

submerging, drowning the flock of panic-stricken little ideas.

She then would "lose her temper" so much to her own surprise that she

at once decided that some one else must be responsible. A few days

after her return she decided that she "must not let these things go,"

so she told Maggie that she would attend the Committee of Old Women's

Comforts and be responsible for the Choir practice. But on her return

to these functions she found that she was bored and tired and cross;

they were really intolerable, she had been doing them for years and

years and years. It was too bad that Maggie should suffer her to take

them on her shoulders. What did Maggie think she was a clergyman's wife

for? Did Maggie imagine that there were no responsibilities attached to

her position?

Grace did not say these things, but she thought them. She did not of

course admit to herself that she wanted Maggie both to go and not to

go. She simply knew that there was a "grievance" and Maggie was

responsible for it. But at present she was silent ...

The next factor in the rapidly developing situation was Mr. Toms. One

day early in April Maggie went for a little walk by herself along the

lane that led to Marsden Wood. Marsden Wood was the most sinister of

all the woods; there had once been a murder there, but even had there

not, the grim bleakness of the trees and bushes, the absence of all

clear paths through its tangles and thickets made it a sinister place.

She turned at the very edge of the wood and set her face back towards

Skeaton.

The day had been wild and windy with recurrent showers of rain, but now

there was a break, the chilly April sun broke through the clouds and

scattered the hedges and fields with primrose light.

Faintly and with a gentle rhythm the murmur of the sea came across the

land and the air was sweet with the sea-salt and the fresh scent of the

grass after rain. Maggie stood for a moment, breathing in the spring

air and watching the watery blue thread its timid way through banks of

grey cloud. A rich gleam of sunlight struck the path at her feet.

She saw then, coming towards her, a man and a woman. The woman was

ordinary enough, a middle-aged, prim, stiffly dressed person with a

pale shy face, timid in her walk and depressed in mouth and eyes. The

man was a stout, short, thick-set fellow with a rosy smiling face. At

once Maggie noticed his smile. He was dressed very smartly in a black

coat and waist-coat and pepper-and-salt trousers. His bowler was cocked

a little to one side. She passed them and the little round man, looking

her full in the face, smiled so happily and with so radiant an

amiability that she was compelled to respond. The woman did not look at

her.

Long after she had left them she thought of the little man's smile.

There was something that, in spite of herself, reminded her both of

Uncle Mathew and Martin. She felt a sudden and warm kinship, something

that she had not known since her arrival in Skeaton. Had she not

struggled with herself every kind of reminiscence of her London life

would have come crowding about her. This meeting was like the first

little warning tap upon the wall ...

On her return she spoke of it.

"Oh," said Paul, "that must have been poor little Mr. Toms with his

sister."

"Poor?" asked Maggie.

"Yes. He's queer in his head, you know," said Paul. "Quite harmless,

but he has the strangest ideas."

Maggie noticed then that Grace shivered and the whole of her face

worked with an odd emotion of horror and disgust.

"He should have been shut up somewhere," she said. "It's disgraceful

letting him walk about everywhere just like any one else."

"Shut up!" cried Maggie. "Oh, no! I don't think any one ought to be

shut up for anything."

"My dear Maggie!" said Paul in his fatherly protecting voice. "No

prisons? Think what would become of us all."

"Oh!" said Maggie impatiently, "I'm not practical of course, I don't

know what one should do, but I do know that no one should be shut up."

"Chut-chut--" said Grace.

Now this "Chut, chut," may seem a very little thing, but very little

things are sometimes of great importance. Marriages have been wrecked

on an irritating cough and happy homes ruined by a shuffle. Grace had

said "Chut, chut," for a great many years and to many people. It

expressed scorn and contempt and implied a vast store of superior

knowledge. Grace herself had no idea of the irritating nature of this

exclamation, she would have been entirely amazed did you explain to her

that it had more to do with her unpopularity in Skeaton than any other

thing. She had even said "Chut, chut," to Mrs. Constantine.

But she said it to Maggie more than to any other person. When she had

been in the house a few days she said to her brother:

"Paul, Maggie's much younger than I had supposed."

"Oh, do you think so?" said Paul.

"Yes, I do. She knows nothing about anything. She's been nowhere. She's

seen nobody ... Poor child."

It was the "poor child" position that she now, during these first

weeks, adopted. She was very, very kind to Maggie. As she explained to

Mrs. Maxse, she really was very fond of her--she was a GOOD girl. At

the same time ... Well! ... Mrs. Maxse would understand that Paul can

hardly have known what he was marrying. Ignorance! Carelessness!

Strange ideas! Some one from the centre of Africa would have known more

... and so on. Nevertheless, she was a GOOD girl ... Only she needed

guidance. Fancy, she had taken quite a fancy to poor Mr. Toms! Proposed

to call on his sister. Well, one couldn't help that. Miss Toms was a

regular communicant ... Nevertheless ... she didn't realise, that was

it. Of course, she had known all kinds of queer people in London. Paul

and Grace had rescued her. The strangest people. No, Maggie was an

orphan. She had an uncle, Grace believed, and two aunts who belonged to

a strange sect. Sex? No, sect. Very queer altogether.

Mrs. Maxse went home greatly impressed.

"The girl's undoubtedly queer," she told her husband.

"The parson's got a queer sort of wife," Colonel Maxse told his friends

in the Skeaton Conservative Club. "He rescued her from some odd sort of

life in London. No. Don't know what it was exactly. Always was a bit

soft, Trenchard."

Maggie had no idea that Skeaton was discussing her. She judged other

people by herself. Meanwhile something occurred that gave her quite

enough to think about.

She had understood from Grace that it was expected of her that she

should be at home on one afternoon in the week to receive callers. She

thought it a silly thing that she should sit in the ugly drawing-room

waiting for people whom she did not wish to see and who did not wish to

see her, but she was told that it was one of her duties, and so she

would do it. No one, however, had any idea of the terror with which she

anticipated these Friday afternoons. She had never been a very great

talker, she had nothing much to say unless to some one in whom she was

interested. She was frightened lest something should happen to the tea,

and she felt that they were all staring at her and asking themselves

why her hair was cut short and why her clothes didn't fit better.

However, there it was. It was her duty.

One Friday afternoon she was sitting alone, waiting. The door opened

and the maid announced Mrs. Purdie. Maggie remembered that she had been

told that Mr. Alfred Purdie was the richest man in Skeaton, that he had

recently married, and was but now returned from his honeymoon.

Mrs. Purdie entered and revealed herself as Caroline Smith. For a

moment, as Maggie looked upon that magnificent figure, the room turned

about her and her eyes were dim. She remembered, as though some one

were reminding her from a long way off, that Caroline had once told her

that she was considering the acceptance of a rich young man in Skeaton.

She remembered that at the time she had thought the coincidence of

Caroline and Paul Trenchard strange. But far stronger than any such

memory was the renewed conviction that she had that fate did not intend

to leave her alone. She was not to keep the two worlds apart, she was

not to be allowed to forget.

The sight of Caroline brought Martin before her so vividly that she

could have cried out. Instead she stood there, quietly waiting, and

showed no sign of any embarrassment.

Caroline was dressed in peach-coloured silk and a little black hat. She

was not confused in the least. She seized Maggie's hand and shook it,

talking all the time.

"Well now, I'm sure you're surprised to see me," she said, "and perhaps

you're not too glad either. Alfred wanted to come too, but I said to

him, 'No, Alfred, this will be just a little awkward at first, for

Maggie Trenchard's got a grievance, and with some reason, too, so you'd

better let me manage it alone the first meeting.' Wasn't I right? Of

course I was. And you can just say right out now, Maggie, exactly

what's in your mind. It's not my fault that we're both in the same

town. I'm sure you'd much rather never set eyes on me again, and I'm

sure I can quite understand if you feel like that. But there it is. I

told you long ago in London that Alfred was after me, and I was in two

minds about it-but of course I didn't dream you were going to marry a

parson. You could have knocked me down with less than a feather when I

saw it in the Skeaton News, 'That can't be my Margaret Cardinal,' I

said, and yet it seemed so strange the two names and all. Well, and

then I found it really WAS the same. I WAS astonished. You of all

people the wife of a parson! However, you know your own mind best, and

I'm sure Mr. Trenchard's a very lucky man. So you can just start off

and curse me, Maggie, as much as you like."

The strange thing was that as Maggie listened to this she felt a desire

to embrace rather than curse. Of course Caroline had done her harm, she

had, perhaps ruined Martin's life as well as her own, but the mistake

had been originally Maggie's in trusting Caroline with more confidence

than her volatile nature would allow her to hold. And now, as she

looked at Caroline and saw that pretty pink and white face, the slim

beautiful body, the grace and gaiety, and childish amiability, her

whole soul responded. Here was a friend, even though an indiscreet one,

here was some one from home, the one human being in the whole of

Skeaton who knew the old places and the old people, the Chapel, and the

aunts--and Martin. She knew at once that it would have been far safer

had Caroline not been there, that the temptation to discuss Martin

would be irresistible, that she would yield to it, and that Caroline

was in no way whatever to be trusted-she realised all these things, and

yet she was glad.

"I don't want to curse you, Caroline," said Maggie. "Sit down. Tea will

be here in a minute. I was very unhappy about what you did, but that's

all a long time ago now, and I was to blame too."

"Oh, that's just sweet of you," said Caroline, running over and giving

Maggie an impulsive kiss. "I said to Alfred, 'Maggie may be angry. I

don't know how she'll receive me, I'm sure. She had the sweetest nature

always, and it isn't like her to bear a grudge. But whatever way it is,

I'll have to take it, because the fact is I deserve it.' But there you

are, simply angelic and I'm ever so glad. The fact is I was ridicilous

in those days. I don't wonder you lost your patience with me, and it

was just like your honest self to be so frank with me. But marriage has

just taught me everything. What I say is, every one ought to be

married; no one knows anything until they're married. It's amazing what

a difference it makes, don't you think so? Why, before I was married I

used to chatter on in the most ridicilous way (Caroline always said

ridicilous) and now-but there I go, talking of myself, and it's you I

want to hear about. Now, Maggie, tell me--" But the sudden entrance of

Grace and Paul checked, for the moment, these confidences. Caroline did

not stay long this first time. She talked a little, drank some tea, ate

a biscuit, smiled at Paul and departed. She felt, perhaps, that Grace

did not approve of her. Grace had not seen her before, certainly she

would not approve of the peach-coloured dress and the smile at Paul.

And then the girl talked too much. She had interrupted Grace in the

middle of one of her stories.

When Caroline had departed (after kissing Maggie affectionately) Grace

said:

"And so you knew her before, Maggie?"

"I knew her in London," said Maggie.

"I like her," said Paul. "A bright young creature."

"Hum!" said Grace.

That was a wonderful spring evening, the first spring evening of the

year. The ugly garden swam in a mist faintly cherry-colour; through the

mist a pale evening sky, of so rich a blue that it was almost white,

was shadowing against a baby moon sharply gold. The bottles on the wall

were veiled by the evening mist; a thrush sang in the little bush at

the end of the lawn.

Paul whispered to Maggie: "Come out into the garden."

She went with him, frightened; she could feel his arm tremble against

her waist; his cold hard fingers caught hers. No current ran from her

body to his. They were apart, try as she may. When they had walked the

length of the lawn he caught her close to him, put his hand roughly up

to her neck and, bending her head towards his, kissed her. She heard

his words, strangled and fierce.

"Love me, Maggie-love me-you must--"

When he released her, looking back towards the dark house, she saw

Grace standing there with a lamp in her hand.

Against her will she shared his feeling of guilt, as, like children

caught in a fault, they turned back towards the house.

CHAPTER V

THE BATTLE OF SKEATON

FIRST YEAR

Afterwards, when Maggie looked back she was baffled. She tried to

disentangle the events between that moment when Grace, holding the lamp

in her hand, blinked at them as they came across the lawn, and that

other most awful moment when, in Paul's study, Grace declared final and

irrevocable war.

Between those two events ran the history of more than two years, and

there was nothing stranger than the way that the scene in the garden

and the scene in the study seemed to Maggie to be close together. What

were the steps, she used to ask herself afterwards, that led to those

last months of fury and tragedy and disaster? Was it my fault? Was it

hers? Was it Paul's? What happened? If I had not done this or that, if

Grace had not said--no, it was hopeless. She would break off in

despair. Isolated scenes appeared before her, always bound, on either

side, by that prologue and that finale, but the scenes would not form a

chain. She could not connect; she would remain until the end bewildered

as to Grace's motives. She never, until the day of her death, was to

understand Grace.

"She was angry for such little things," she said afterwards.

"She hated me to be myself." The two years in retrospect seemed to have

passed with incredible swiftness, the months that followed them were

heavy and slow with trouble. But from the very first, that is, from the

moment when Grace saw Paul kiss Maggie in the evening garden, battle

was declared. Maggie might not know it, but it was so-and Grace knew it

very well.

It may be said, however, in Grace's defence that she gave Maggie every

chance. She marvelled at her own patience. For two years after that

moment, when she decided that Maggie was "queer," and that her beloved

Paul was in real danger of his losing his soul because of that

"queerness," she held her hand. She was not naturally a patient

woman-she was not introspective enough to be that--and she held no

brief for Maggie. Nevertheless for two whole years she held her hand...

They were, all three, in that ugly house, figures moving in the dark.

Grace simply knew, as the months passed, that she disliked and feared

Maggie more and more; Paul knew that as the months passed--well, what

he knew will appear in the following pages. And Maggie? She only knew

that it needed all her endurance and stubborn will to force herself to

accept this life as her life. She must-she must. To give way meant to

run away, and to run away meant to long for what she could not have,

and loneliness and defeat. She would make this into a success; she

would care for Paul although she could not give him all that he needed.

She would and she could... Every morning as she lay awake in the big

double-bed with the brass knobs at the bed-foot winking at her in the

early light she vowed that she would justify her acceptance of the man

who lay sleeping so peacefully beside her. Poor child, her battle with

Grace was to teach her how far her will and endurance could carry her...

Grace, on her side, was not a bad woman, she was simply a stupid one.

She disliked Maggie for what seemed to her most admirable reasons and,

as that dislike slowly, slowly turned into hatred, her

self-justification only hardened.

Until that moment, when she saw a faded patch of wall-paper on the wall

instead of her mother's portrait, she had no doubts whatever about the

success of what she considered her choice. Maggie was a "dear," young,

ignorant, helpless, but the very wife for Paul. Then slowly, slowly,

the picture changed. Maggie was obstinate, Maggie was careless, Maggie

was selfish, idle, lazy, irreligious--at last, Maggie was "queer."

Then, when in the dusk of that summer evening, she saw Paul kiss

Maggie, as the moths blundered about her lamp, her stolid unimaginative

heart was terrified. This girl, who was she? What had she been before

they found her? What was this strange passion in Paul isolating him

from her, his sister? This girl was dangerous to them all-a heathen.

They had made a terrible mistake. Paul had been from the first

bewitched by some strange spell, and she, his sister, had aided the

witch.

And yet, to her credit be it remembered, for two years, she fought her

fears, superstitions, jealousies, angers. That can have been no easy

thing for a woman who had always had her own way. But Maggie helped

her. There were many days during that first year at any rate when Grace

thought that the girl was, after all, only the simple harmless child

that she had first found her.

It was so transparently clear that Maggie bore no malice against any

one in the world, that when she angered Grace she did so always by

accident, never by plan-it was only unfortunate that the accidents

should occur so often.

Maggie's days were from the very first of the utmost regularity.

Breakfast at 8.30, then an interview with the cook (Grace generally in

attendance here), then shopping (with Grace), luncheon at 1.30,

afternoon, paying calls or receiving them, dinner 7.45, and after

dinner, reading a book while Paul and Grace played bezique, or, if Paul

was busy upon a sermon or a letter (he wrote letters very slowly),

patience with Grace. This regular day was varied with meetings, choir

practices, dinner-parties, and an occasional Penny Reading.

In this framework of the year it would have appeared that there was

very little that could breed disturbance. There were, however, little

irritations. Maggie would have given a great deal could she have been

allowed to interview the cook in the morning alone.

It would seem impossible to an older person that Grace's presence could

so embarrass Maggie; it embarrassed her to the terrible extent of

driving every idea out of her head.

When Maggie had stammered and hesitated and at last allowed, the cook

to make a suggestion, Grace would say. "You mustn't leave it all to

cook, dear. Now what about a nice shepherd's pie?"

The cook, who hated Grace, would toss her head.

"Impossible to-day, Mum ... Quite impossible."

"Oh, do you think so?" Maggie would say.

This was the cook's opportunity.

"Well, for you, Mum, I'll see if it can't be managed. Difficult as it

is."

Grace's anger boiled over.

"That woman must go," she insisted.

"Very well," said Maggie.

Cook after cook appeared and vanished. They all hated Grace.

"You're not very good at keeping servants, are you, Maggie, dear?" said

Grace.

Then there was the shopping. Grace's conversation was the real trouble

here. Grace's stories had seemed rather a joke in London, soon, in

Skeaton, they became a torture. From the vicarage to the High Street

was not far, but it was far enough for Grace's narrative powers to

stretch their legs and get a healthy appetite for the day's work. Grace

walked very slowly, because of her painful breathing. Her stout stolid

figure in its stiff clothes (the skirt rather short, thick legs in

black stockings and large flat boots), marched along. She had a

peculiar walk, planting each foot on the ground with deliberate

determination as though she were squashing a malignant beetle, she was

rather short-sighted, but did not wear glasses, because, as she said to

Maggie, "one need not look peculiar until one must." Her favourite

head-gear was a black straw hat with a rather faded black ribbon and a

huge pin stuck skewer-wise into it. This pin was like a dagger.

She peered around her as she walked, and for ever enquired of Maggie,

"who that was on the other Bide of the road." Maggie, of course, did

not know, and there began then a long cross-questioning as to colour,

clothes, height, smile or frown. Nothing was too small to catch Grace's

interest but nothing caught it for long. Maggie, at the end of her walk

felt as though she were beset by a whirl of little buzzing flies. She

noticed that Paul had, from, long habit, learnt to continue his own

thoughts during Grace's stories, and she also tried to do this, but she

was not clever at it because Grace would suddenly stop and say, "Where

was I, Maggie?" and then when Maggie was confused regard her

suspiciously, narrowing her eyes into little thin points. The shopping

was difficult because Grace would stand at Maggie's elbow and say:

"Now, Maggie, this is your affair, isn't it? You decide what you want,"

and then when Maggie had decided, Grace simply, to show her power,

would say: "Oh, I don't think we'd better have that ... No, I don't

think we'll have that. Will you show us something else, please?"-and so

they had to begin all over again.

Nevertheless, throughout their first summer Maggie was almost happy;

not QUITE happy, some silent but persistent rebellion at the very

centre of her heart prevented her complete happiness. What she really

felt was that half of her-the rebellious, questioning, passionate half

of her-was asleep, and that at all costs, whatever occurred, she must

keep it asleep. That was her real definite memory of her first

year-that, through it all, she was wilfully, deliberately drugged.

Every one thought Paul very strange that summer. Mr. Flaunders, the

curate, told Miss Purves that he was very "odd." "He was always the

most tranquil man-a sunny nature, as you know, Miss Purves. Well now, I

assure you, he's never the same from one minute to another. His temper

is most uncertain, and one never can tell of what he's thinking. You

know he took the Collects in the wrong order last Sunday, and last

night he read the wrong lesson. Two days ago he was quite angry with me

because I suggested another tune for 'Lead Kindly Light'-unlike

himself, unlike himself."

"To what do you attribute this, Mr. Flaunders?" said Miss Purves. "You

know our vicar so well."

"I'm sure I can't tell what it is," said Mr. Flaunders, sighing.

"Can it be his marriage?" said Miss Purves.

"I'm sure," said Mr. Flaunders, flushing, "that it can be nothing to do

with Mrs. Trenchard. That's a fine woman, Miss Purves, a fine woman."

"She seems a little strange," said Miss Purves. "Why doesn't she let

her hair grow? It's hardly Christian as it is."

"It's her health, I expect," said Mr. Flaunders.

Paul was very gentle and good to Maggie all that summer, better to her

than any human being had ever been before. She became very fond of him,

and yet it was not, apparently, her affection that he wanted. He seemed

to be for ever on the verge of asking her some question and then

checking himself. He was suddenly silent; she caught him looking at her

in odd, furtive ways.

He made love to her and then suddenly checked himself, going off,

leaving her alone. During these months she did everything she could for

him. She knew that she was not satisfying him, because she could give

him only affection and not love. But everything that he wanted her to

do she did. And they never, through all those summer months, had one

direct honest conversation. They were afraid.

She began to see, very clearly, his faults. His whole nature was easy,

genial, and, above all, lazy. He liked to be liked, and she Was often

astonished at the pleasure with which he received compliments. He had a

conceit of himself, not as a man but as a clergyman, and she knew that

nothing pleased him so much as when people praised his "good-natured

humanity."

She saw him "play-acting," as she called it, that is, bringing forward

a succession of little tricks, a jolly laugh, an enthusiastic opinion,

a pretence of humility, a man-of-the-world air, all things not very bad

in themselves, but put on many years ago, subconsciously as an actor

puts on powder and paint. She saw that he was especially sensitive to

lay opinion, liked to be thought a good fellow by the laymen in the

place. To be popular she was afraid that he sometimes sacrificed his

dignity, his sincerity and his pride. But he was really saved in this

by his laziness. He was in fact too lazy to act energetically in his

pursuit of popularity, and the temptation to sink into the dirty old

chair in his study, smoke a pipe and go to sleep, hindered again and

again his ambition. He had, as so many clergymen have, a great deal of

the child in him, a remoteness from actual life, and a tremendous

ignorance of the rough-and-tumble brutality and indecency of things. It

had not been difficult for Grace, because of his laziness, his

childishness, and his harmless conceited good-nature to obtain a very

real dominion over him, and until now that dominion had never seriously

been threatened.

Now, however, new impulses were stirring in his soul. Maggie saw it,

Grace saw it, before the end of the summer the whole parish saw it. He

was uneasy, dissatisfied, suffering under strange moods whose motives

he concealed from all the world. In his sleep he cried Maggie's name

with a passion that was a new voice in him. When she awoke and heard it

she trembled, and then lay very still ...

And what a summer that was! To Maggie who had never, even in London,

mingled with crowds it was an incredible invasion. The invasion was

incredible, in the first place, because of the suddenness with which it

fell upon Skeaton. One day Maggie noticed that announcements were

pasted on to the Skeaton walls of the coming of a pierrot troupe ...

"The Mig-Mags." There was a gay picture of fine beautiful pierrettes

and fine stout pierrots all smiling together in a semi-circle. Then on

another hoarding it was announced that the Theatre Royal, Skeaton,

would shortly start its summer season, and would begin with that famous

musical comedy, "The Girl from Bobo's."

Then the Pier Theatre put forward its claim with a West End comedy. The

Royal Marine Band announced that it would play (weather permitting) in

the Pergola on the Leas every afternoon, 4.20-6. Other signs of new

life were the Skeaton Roller-Skating Rink, The Piccadilly Cinema,

Concerts in the Town Hall, and Popular Lectures in the Skeaton

Institute. There was also a word here and there about Wanton's Bathing

Machines, Button's Donkeys, and Milton and Rowe's Char-a-bancs.

Then, on a sunny day in June the invasion began. The little railway by

the sea was only a loop-line that connected Skeaton with Lane-on-Sea,

Frambell, and Hooton. The main London line had its Skeaton station a

little way out of the town, and the station road to the beach passed

the vicarage. Maggie soon learnt to know the times when the excursion

trains would pour their victims on to the hot, dry road. Early in the

afternoon was one time, and she would see them eagerly, excitedly

hurrying to the sea, fathers and mothers and babies, lovers and noisy

young men and shrieking girls. Then in the evening she would see them

return, some cross, some too tired to speak, some happy and singing,

some arguing and disputing, babies crying-all hurrying, hurrying lest

the train should be missed. At first she would not penetrate to the

beach. She understood from Paul and Grace that one did not go to the

beach during the summer months; at any rate, not the popular beach.

There was Merton Sand two miles away. One might go there ... it was

always deserted. This mysterious "one" fascinated Maggie's imagination.

So many times a day Grace said "Oh, I don't think one ought to." Maggie

heard again and again about the trippers, "Oh, one must keep away from

there, you know."

In fact the Skeaton aristocracy retired with shuddering gestures into

its own castle. Life became horribly dull. The Maxses, the

Constantines, and the remainder of the Upper Ten either went away or

hid themselves in their grounds.

Once or twice there would be a tennis party, then silence ...

This summer was a very hot one; the little garden was stifling and the

glass bottles cracked in the sun.

"I want to get out. I want to get out," cried Maggie-so she went down

to the sea. She went surreptitiously; this was the first surreptitious

thing she had done. She gazed from the Promenade that began just beyond

the little station and ran the length of the town down upon the sands.

The beach was a small one compared with the great stretches of Merton

and Buquay, and the space was covered now so thickly with human beings

that the sand was scarcely visible. It was a bright afternoon, hot but

tempered with a little breeze. The crowd bathed, paddled, screamed,

made sand-castles, lay sleeping, flirting, eating out of paper bags,

reading, quarrelling. Here were two niggers with banjoes, then a stout

lady with a harmonium, then a gentleman drawing pictures on the sand;

here again a man with sweets on a tray, here, just below Maggie, a

funny old woman with a little hut where ginger-beer and such things

were sold. The noise was deafening; the wind stirred the sand curiously

so that it blew up and about in little wreaths and spirals. Everything

and everybody seemed to be covered with the grit of this fine small

sand; it was in Maggie's eyes, nose, and mouth as she watched.

She hated the place--the station, the beach, the town, and the

woods--even more than she had done before. She hated the place--but she

loved the people.

The place was sneering, self-satisfied, contemptuous, inhuman, like

some cynical, debased speculator making a sure profit out of the

innocent weaknesses of human nature. As she turned and looked she could

see the whole ugly town with the spire of St. John's-Paul's church,

raised self-righteously above it.

The town was like a prison hemmed in by the dark woods and the oily

sea. She felt a sudden terrified consciousness of her own imprisonment.

It was perhaps from that moment that she began to be definitely unhappy

in her own life, that she realised with that sudden inspiration that is

given to us on occasion, how hostile Grace was becoming, how strange

and unreal was Paul, and how far away was every one else!

Just below her on the sand a happy family played-some babies, two

little boys digging, the father smoking, his hat tilted over his eyes

against the sun, the mother finding biscuits in a bag for the youngest

infant. It was a very merry family and full of laughter. The youngest

baby looked up and saw Maggie standing all alone there, and crowed.

Then all the family looked up, the boys suspended their digging, father

tilted back his hat, the mother shyly smiled.

Maggie smiled back, and then, overcome by so poignant a feeling of

loneliness, tempted, too, almost irresistibly to run down the steps,

join them on the sand, build castles, play with the babies, she hurried

away lest she should give way.

"I must be pretending at being married," she thought to herself. "I

don't feel married at all. I'm not natural. If I were sitting on the

sand digging I'd be quite natural. No wonder Grace thinks me tiresome.

But how does one get older and grown up? What is one to do?"

She did not trust herself to go down to the sands again that summer.

The autumn came, the woods turned to gold, the sea was flurried with

rain, and the Church began to fill the horizon. The autumn and the

winter were the times of the Church's High Festival. Paul, as though he

were aware that he had, during these last months, been hovering about

strange places and peering into dark windows, busied himself about the

affairs of his parish with an energy that surprised every one.

Maggie was aware of a number of young women of whom before she had been

unconscious. Miss Carmichael, Misses Mary and Jane Bethel, Miss Clarice

Hendon, Miss Polly Jones ... some of these pretty girls, all of them

terribly modern, strident, self-assured, scornful, it seemed to Maggie.

At first she was frightened of them as she had never been frightened of

any one before. They did look at her, of course, as though they thought

her strange, and then they soon discovered that she knew nothing at all

about life.

Their two chief employments, woven in, as it were, to the web of their

church assistance, were Love and Mockery-flirtations, broken

engagements, refusals, acceptances, and, on the other hand, jokes about

everybody and everything. Maggie soon discovered that Grace was one of

their favourite Aunt Sallies; this made her very angry, and she showed

so plainly her indignation on the first occasion of their wit that they

never laughed at Grace in Maggie's presence again.

Maggie felt, after this, very tender and sympathetic towards Grace,

until she discovered that her good sister-in-law was quite unaware that

any one laughed at her and would have refused to believe it had she

been told. At the same time there went strangely with this confidence

an odd perpetual suspicion. Grace was for ever on guard against

laughter, and nothing made her more indignant than to come into a room

and see that people suddenly ceased their conversation. Maggie,

however, did try this autumn to establish friendly relations with

Grace. It seemed to her that it was the little things that were against

the friendliness rather than the big ones. How she seriously blamed

herself for an irritation that was really childish. Who, for instance,

a grown woman and married, could do other than blame herself for being

irritated by Grace's habit of not finishing her sentences. Grace would

say:

"Maggie, did you remember to-oh well, it doesn't matter--"

"Remember what, Grace?"

"No, really it doesn't matter. It was only that--"

"But Grace, do tell me, because otherwise you'll be blaming me for

something I ought to have done."

"Blaming you! Why, Maggie, to hear you talk any one would think that I

was always scolding you. Of course if that's what you feel--"

"No, no, I don't. But I'm so careless. I forget things so. I don't want

to forget something that I ought to do."

"Yes, you are careless, Maggie. That's quite true. It's one of your

faults."

(Strange how willing we are ourselves to admit a fault and irritated

when a friend agrees about it with us.)

"Oh, I'm not always careless," said Maggie.

"Often you are, dear, aren't you? You must learn. I'm sure you'll

improve in time. I wonder whether-but no, I decided I wouldn't bother,

didn't I? Still perhaps, after all--No, I daresay it's wiser to leave

it alone."

Another little thing that the autumn emphasised was Grace's inability

to discover when a complaint or a remonstrance was decently deceased.

One evening Paul, going out in a hurry, asked Maggie to give Grace the

message that Evensong would be at 6.30 instead of 7 that day. Maggie

forgot to give the message and Grace arrived at the Church during the

reading of the second lesson.

"Oh Grace, I'm so sorry!" said Maggie.

"It doesn't matter," said Grace; "but how you could forget, Maggie, is

so strange! Do try not to forget things. I know it worries Paul. For

myself I don't care, although I do value punctuality and memory--I do

indeed. What I mean is that it isn't for my own happiness that I mind--"

"I don't want to forget," said Maggie. "One would think to hear you,

Grace, that you imagine I like forgetting."

"Really, Maggie," said Grace, "I don't think that's quite the way to

speak to me."

And again and again throughout the long winter this little episode

figured.

"You'll remember to be punctual, won't you, Maggie? Not like the time

when you forgot to tell me."

"You'll forgive me reminding you, Maggie, but I didn't want it to be

like the time you forgot to give me--"

"Oh, you'd better not trust to Maggie, Paul. Only the other day when

you gave her the message about Evensong--"

Grace meant no harm by this. Her mind moved slowly and was entangled by

a vast quantity of useless lumber. She was really shocked by

carelessness and inaccuracy because she was radically careless and

inaccurate herself but didn't know it.

"If there's one thing I value it's order." she would say, but in

struggling to remember superficial things she forgot all essentials.

Her brain moved just half as slowly as everything else.

That winter was warm and muggy, with continuous showers of warm rain

that seamed to change into mud in the air as it fell.

The Church was filled with the clammy mist of its central heating.

Maggie, as she sat through service after service, watched one headache

race after another. The air was full of headache; she asked once that a

window might be kept open. "That would mean Death in Skeaton. You don't

understand the Skeaton air," said Grace.

"That's because I don't get enough of it," said Maggie. She found

herself looking back to the Chapel services with wistful regret. What

had there been there that was not here? Here everything was ordered,

arranged, in decent sequence, in regular symmetry and progression. And

yet no one seemed to Maggie to listen to what they were saying, and no

one thought of the meaning of the words that they used.

And if they did, of what use would it be? The affair was all settled;

heaven was arrayed, parcelled out, its very streets and courts mapped

and described. It was the destination of every one in the building as

surely as though they were travelling to London by the morning express.

They were sated with knowledge of their destiny--no curiosity, no

wonder, no agitation, no fear. Even the words of the most beautiful

prayers had ceased to have any meaning because the matter had been

settled so long ago and there was nothing more to be said. How that

Chapel had throbbed with expectation, with amaze, with curiosity, with

struggle! Foolish much of it perhaps, stifling it had seemed then in

its superstition. Maggie had been afraid then, so afraid that she could

not sleep at nights. How she longed now for that fear to return to her!

At this point she would discover that she was beckoning back to her the

figures of that other world. They must not come ... the two worlds must

not join or she was lost ... she turned her back from her memories and

her desires.

During this winter there were the two affairs of Mr. Toms and Caroline.

Maggie carried out her resolve of calling on Mr. Toms. She did it one

dark afternoon a few days before Christmas, moved, it must be

confessed, partly by a sense of exasperation with Grace. Grace had been

that day quite especially tiresome. She had a cold, and a new evening

dress had cost twice as much as it ought to have done. Mitch had broken

into eczema, and Mrs. Constantine had overruled her at a committee

meeting. With a flood of disconnected talk she had overwhelmed Maggie

until the girl felt as though her head had been thrust into a bag of

flour. Through it all there had been an undercurrent of complaint as

though Maggie were responsible.

Early in the afternoon Grace declared that her head was splitting and

retired to her bedroom. Maggie, in a state of blinded and deafened

exasperation, remembered Mr. Toms and decided to call on him. She found

a neat little house standing in a neat little garden near the sea just

beyond the end of the Promenade, or The Leas, as the real Skeatonian

always called it. Miss Toms and Mr. Toms were sitting in a very small

room with a large fire, a pale grey wallpaper, and a number of

brightly-painted wooden toys arranged on a shelf running round the

room. The toys were of all kinds--a farm, cows and sheep, tigers and

lions, soldiers and cannon, a church and a butcher's shop, little green

tufted trees, and a Noah's ark. Mr. Toms was sitting, neat as a pin,

smiling in an armchair beside the fire, and Miss Toms near him was

reading aloud.

Maggie saw at once that her visit embarrassed Miss Toms terribly. It

was an embarrassment that she understood perfectly, so like her own

feelings on so many occasions. This put her at once at her ease, and

she was the old, simple, direct Maggie, her face eager with kindness

and understanding. Mr. Toms smiled perpetually but shook hands like the

little gentleman he was.

Maggie, studying Miss Toms' face, saw that it was lined with

trouble--an ugly face, grave, severe, but brave and proud. Maggie

apologised for not coming before.

"I would have come--" she began.

"Oh, you needn't apologise," said Miss Toms brusquely. "They don't call

on us here, and we don't want them to."

"They don't call," said Mr. Toms brightly, "because they know I'm queer

in the head, and they're afraid I shall do something odd. They told you

I was queer in the head, didn't they?"

Strangely enough this statement of his "queerness," although it brought

a lump into Maggie's throat, did not disturb or confuse her.

"Yes," she said, "they did. I asked who you were after I had seen you

in the road that day."

"I'm not in the least dangerous," said Mr. Toms. "You needn't be

afraid. Certain things seem odd to me that don't seem odd to other

people--that's all."

"The fact is, Mrs. Trenchard," said Miss Toms, speaking very fast and

flushing as she spoke, "that we are very happy by ourselves, my brother

and I. He is the greatest friend I have in the world, and I am his. We

are quite sufficient for one another. I don't want to seem rude, and

it's kind of you to have come, but it's better to leave us alone--it is

indeed."

"Well, I don't know," bald Maggie, smiling. "You see, I'm a little

queer myself--at least I think that most of the people here are coming

to that conclusion. I'm sure I'm more queer than your brother. At any

rate I can't do you any harm, and we may as well give it a trial,

mayn't we?"

Mr. Toms clapped his hands with so sudden a noise that Maggie jumped.

"That's right," he said. "That's the way I like to hear people talk.

You shall judge for yourself, and WE'LL judge for ourselves." His voice

was very soft and pleasant. The only thing at all strange about him was

his smile, that came and went like the ripple of firelight on the wall.

"You'd like to know all about us, wouldn't you? Well, until ten years

ago I was selling corn in the City. Such a waste of time! But I took it

very seriously then and worked, worked, worked. I worked too hard, you

know, much too hard, and then I was ill--ill for a long time. When I

was better corn didn't seem to be of any importance, and people thought

that very odd of me. I was confused sometimes and called people by

their wrong names, and sometimes I said what was in my head instead of

saying what was in my stomach. Every one thought it very odd, and if my

dear sister hadn't come to the rescue they would have locked me

up--they would indeed!"

"Shut me up and never let me walk about--all because I didn't care for

corn any more."

He laughed his little chuckling laugh. "But we beat them, didn't we,

Dorothy? Yes, we did--and here we are! Now, you tell us your history."

Miss Toms had been watching Maggie's face intently while her brother

spoke, and the clear steady candour of Maggie's eyes and her calm

acceptance of all that the little man said must have been reassuring.

"Now. Jim," she said, "don't bother Mrs. Trenchard. You can't expect

her to tell us her history when she's calling for the first time."

"Why not expect me to?" said Maggie. "I've got no history. I lived in

Glebeshire most of my life with my father, who was a clergyman. Then he

died and I lived with two aunts in London. Then I met Paul and he

married me, and here I am!"

"That's not history," said Mr. Toms a little impatiently. "However, I

won't bother you now. You're only a child, I see. And I'm very glad to

see it. I don't like grown up people."

"How do you like Skeaton?" asked Miss Toms, speaking more graciously

than she had done.

"Oh I shall like it, I expect," said Maggie. "At least I shall like the

people. I don't think I shall ever like the place--the sand blows

about, and I don't like the woods."

"Yes, they're greasy, aren't they?" said Mr. Toms, "and full of little

flies. And the trees are dark and never cool--"

They talked a little while longer, and then Maggie got up to say

good-bye. When she took Mr. Tom's hand and felt his warm confident

pressure, and saw his large trusting eyes looking into hers, she felt a

warmth of friendliness, also it seemed to her that she had known him

all her life.

Miss Toms came with her to the door. They looked out into the dark. The

sea rustled close at hand, far on the horizon a red light was burning

as though it were a great fire. They could hear the wave break on the

beach and sigh in the darkness as it withdrew.

"I shall come again," said Maggie.

"Don't you be too sure," said Miss Toms. "We shall quite understand if

you don't come, and we shan't think the worse of you. Public opinion

here is very strong. They don't want to be unkind to Jim, but they

think he ought to be shut up ...Shut up!" Maggie could feel that she

was quivering. "Shut up!"

Maggie tossed her head.

"Anyway, they haven't shut me up yet," she said.

"Well--good-night," said Miss Toms, after a little pause in which she

appeared to be struggling to say more.

She told Grace and Paul at supper that night that she had been to see

the Toms. She saw Grace struggling not to show her disapproval and

thought it was nice of her.

"Do you really think--?" said Grace. "Oh, perhaps, after all--"

"Paul," said Maggie, "do you not want me to see the Toms?"

Paul was distressed.

"No, it isn't that ...Miss Toms is a very nice woman. Only--"

"You think it's not natural of me to take an interest in some one who's

a little off his head like Mr. Toms."

"Well, dear, perhaps there is something--"

Maggie laughed. "I'm a little off my head too. Oh! you needn't look so

shocked, Grace. You know you think it, and every one else here thinks

it too. Now, Grace, confess. You're beginning to be horrified that Paul

married me."

"Please, Maggie--" said Paul, who hated scenes. Grace was always

flushed by a direct attack. Her eyes gazed in despair about her while

she plunged about in her mind.

"Maggie, you mustn't say such things--no, you mustn't. Of course it's

true that you've got more to learn than I thought. You ARE careless,

dear, aren't you? You remember yesterday that you promised to look in

at Pettits and get a reel of cotton, and then of course Mr. Toms is a

good little man--every one says so--but at the same time he's QUEER,

you must admit that, Maggie; indeed it wasn't really very long ago that

he asked Mrs. Maxse in the High Street to take all her clothes off so

that he could see what she was really made of. Now, that ISN'T nice,

Maggie, it's odd--you can't deny it. And if you'd only told me that you

hadn't been to Pettits I could have gone later myself."

"If it isn't one thing," said Maggie, "it's another. I may be a child

and careless, and not be educated, and have strange ideas, but if you

thought, Grace, that it was going to be just the same after Paul was

married as before you were mistaken. Three's a difficult number to

manage, you know."

"Oh, if you mean," said Grace, crimsoning, "that I'm better away, that

I should live somewhere else, please say so openly. I hate this

hinting. What I mean to say is I can leave to-morrow."

"My dear Grace," said Paul hurriedly, "whoever thought such a thing? We

couldn't get on without you. All that Maggie meant was that it takes

time to settle down. So it does."

"That isn't all I meant," said Maggie slowly. "I meant that I'm not

just a child as you both think. I've got a life of my own and ideas of

my own. I'll give way to you both in lots of things so long as it makes

you happy, but you're not--you're not going to shut me up as you'd like

to do to Mr. Toms."

Perhaps both Grace and Paul had a sharp troubling impression of having

caught some strange creature against their will. Maggie had risen from

the table and stood for the moment by the door facing them, her short

hair, standing thick about her head, contrasting with her thick white

neck, her body balanced clumsily but with great strength, like that of

a boy who has not yet grown to his full maturity. She tossed her head

back in a way that she had and was gone.

The Caroline affair was of another sort. Some days after Christmas,

Maggie went to have tea with Caroline. She did not enjoy it at all. She

felt at once that there was something wrong with the house. It was full

of paintings in big gold frames, looking-glasses, and marble statues,

and there was a large garden that had an artificial look of having been

painted by some clever artist in the course of a night. Maggie did not

pay a long visit. There were a number of men present; there was also a

gramophone, and after tea they turned up the carpet in the dining-room

and danced.

Caroline, in spite of her noise and laughter, did not seem to Maggie to

be happy. She introduced her for a moment to the master of the house, a

stout red-faced man who looked as though he had lost something very

precious, but was too sleepy to search for it. He called Caroline

"Sweet," and she treated him with patronage and contempt. Maggie came

away distressed, and she was not surprised to hear, a day or two later,

from Grace that Mrs. Purdie was "fast" and had been rude to Mrs.

Constantine.

One day early in the spring Grace announced that Maggie ought not to go

and see Mrs. Purdie any more. "There are all sorts of stories," said

Grace. "People say--Oh, well, never mind. They have dancing on Sunday."

"But she's an old friend of mine," said Maggie.

"You have others to think of beside yourself, Maggie," said Grace. "And

there is the Church."

"She's an old friend of mine," repeated Maggie, her mouth set

obstinately.

"I will ask Paul what he thinks," said Grace.

"Please," said Maggie, her colour rising into her cheeks, "don't

interfere between Paul and me. I'll speak to him myself."

She did. Paul maintained the attitude of indifference that he had

adopted during the last six months.

"But would you rather I didn't go?" asked Maggie, aggravated.

"You must use your judgment," said Paul.

"But don't you see that I can't leave a friend just because people are

saying nasty things."

"There's your position in the parish," said Paul.

"Oh, Paul!" Maggie cried. "Don't be so aggravating! Just say what you

really think."

"I'm sorry I'm aggravating," said Paul patiently.

It was this conversation that determined Maggie. She had been coming,

through all the winter months, to a resolution. She must be alone with

Paul, she must have things out with him. As the months had gone they

had been slipping further and further apart. It had been Paul who had

gradually withdrawn into himself. He had been kind and thoughtful but

reserved, shy, embarrassed. She understood his trouble, but at her

first attempt to force him to speak he escaped and placed Grace between

them. Well, this summer should see the end of that. They must know

where they stood, and for that they must be alone ...

One day, early in June, Paul announced that he thought of exchanging

duties, for the month of August, with a Wiltshire clergyman. This was

Maggie's opportunity. Finding him alone in his study, she attacked.

"Paul, did you mean Grace to come with us to Little Harben in August?"

"Of course, dear. She has nowhere else to go."

"Well, she mustn't come. I've given way about everything since we were

married. I'm not going to give way about this. That month we are to be

alone."

"Alone!" said Paul. "But we're always alone."

"We're never alone," said Maggie, standing with her legs apart and her

hands behind her back. "I don't mean to complain about Grace. She's

been very good to me, I know, and I've got much to be grateful for. All

the same she's not coming to Little Harben. She's got you all the rest

of the year. She can give you up for a month."

"But Maggie--" said Paul.

"No, I'm quite determined about this. I may be a child and a fool, but

I know what I'm talking about this time. You're not happy. You never

talk to me as you used to. There are many things we ought to have out,

but Grace is always there in the daytime and at night you're too tired.

If we go on like this we'll be strangers in another six months."

He turned round to stare at her, and she saw in his eyes an odd excited

light.

"Maggie," he said in a low voice. "If we go alone to Little Harben does

it mean that you think--you can begin to love me?"

She turned her eyes away. "I don't know. I don't know about myself, I

only know that I want us to be happy and I want us to be close

together--as we were before we were married. It's all gone wrong

somehow; I'm sure it's my fault. It was just the same with my father

and my aunts. I couldn't say the things to them I wanted to, the things

I really felt, and so I lost them. I'm going to lose you in the same

way if I'm not careful."

He still looked at her strangely. At last, with a sigh, he turned back

to his desk.

"I'll speak to Grace," he said. That night the storm broke.

During supper Grace was very quiet. Maggie, watching her, knew that

Paul had spoken to her. Afterwards in the study the atmosphere was

electric. Grace read The Church Times, Paul the Standard, Maggie

Longfellow's Golden Legend, which she thought foolish.

Grace looked up. "So I understand, Maggie, that you don't want me to

come with you and Paul this summer?"

Maggie, her heart, in spite of herself, thumping in her breast, faced a

Grace transfigured by emotion. That countenance, heavily, flabbily

good-natured, the eyes if stupid, also kind, was now marked and riven

with a flaming anger.

But Maggie was no coward. With her old gesture of self-command she

stilled her heart. "I'm very sorry, Grace," she said. "But it's only

for a month. I want to be alone with Paul."

Grace, her hands fumbling on the arms of her chair as though she were

blind, rose.

"You've hated my being here, Maggie ... all this time I've seen it.

You've hated me. You don't know that you owe everything to me, that you

couldn't have managed the house, the shops, the servants--nothing,

nothing. This last year I've worked my fingers to the bone for you and

Paul. What do you think I get out of it? Nothing. It's because I love

Paul ... because I love Paul. But you've hated my doing things better

than you, you've wanted me to fail, you've been jealous, that's what

you've been. Very well, then, I'll go. You've made that plain enough at

any rate. I'll leave to-morrow. I won't wait another hour. And I'll

never forgive you for this--never. You've taken Paul away from me ...

all I've ever had. I'll never forgive you--never, never, never."

"Grace, Grace," cried Paul.

But she rushed from the room.

Maggie looked at her husband.

"Why, Paul," she said, "you're frightened. Grace doesn't mean it. She

won't go to-morrow--or ever. There's nothing to be frightened of."

His red cheeks were pale. His hands trembled.

"I do so hate quarrels," he said.

Maggie went up to him and rather timidly put her hand on his arm.

"We'll have a lovely time at Harben," she said. "Oh, I do want you to

be happy, Paul."

CHAPTER VI

THE BATTLE OF SKEATON

SECOND YEAR

Strangely enough Maggie felt happier after this disturbance. Grace, in

the weeks that followed, was an interesting confusion of silent and

offended dignity and sudden capitulations because she had some news of

fussing interest that she must impart. Nevertheless she was deeply

hurt. She was as tenacious of her grievances as a limpet is of its

rock, and she had never been so severely wounded before. Maggie, on her

side, liked Grace better after the quarrel. She had never really

disliked her, she had only been irritated by her.

She thought it very natural of her to be angry and jealous about Paul.

She was determined that this month at Little Harben should put

everything right. Looking back over these past years she blamed herself

severely. She had been proud, self-centred, unfeeling. She remembered

that day so long ago at St. Dreot's when Aunt Anne had appealed for her

affection and she had made no reply. There had been many days, too, in

London when she had been rebellious and hard. She thought of that night

when Aunt Anne had suffered so terribly and she had wanted only her own

escape. Yes--hard and unselfish that was what she had been, and she had

been punished by losing Martin.

Already here, just as before in London, she was complaining and angry,

and unsympathetic. She did care for Paul--she could even love Grace if

she would let her. She would make everything right this summer and try

and be a better, kinder woman.

Then, one morning, she found a letter on the breakfast table. She did

not recognise the handwriting; when she opened it and saw the signature

at the end for a moment she also did not recognise that. "William

Magnus." ... Then--why, of course! Mr. Magnus! She saw him standing

looking down at her with his mild eyes, staring through his large

spectacles.

Her heart beat furiously. She waited until breakfast was over, then she

took it up to her bedroom.

The letter was as follows:

Dear Miss Maggie,

I know you are not "Miss Maggie" now, but that is the only way that I

can think of you. I expect that you have quite forgotten me, and

perhaps you don't want to hear from me, but I must not lose sight of

you altogether. I haven't so many friends that I can lose one without a

word. I don't know quite what to begin by telling you. I ought to ask

you questions about yourself, I suppose, but I know that your aunts

hear from you from time to time and they give me news from your

letters. I hear that you are happily married and are quite settled down

to your new life. I'm very glad to hear that, although it isn't quite

the life that I would have prophesied for you. Do you like Skeaton?

I've never cared much for seaside resorts myself, but then I'm a queer

cranky old man, and I deserve all I get. I wish I could tell you

something cheerful about all your friends here, but I'm afraid I can't.

Your aunt is so brave and plucky that probably she said nothing to you

in her last letter about how ill she has been, but she's just had a

very bad bout, and at one time we were afraid that we were going to

lose her. You can imagine how anxious we all were. But she is better

again now, although very much shattered. The Chapel is closed. There's

a piece of news for you! It never recovered from poor Warlock's death;

he was the spirit that gave it life, and although he may have had his

dreams and imaginations that deceived him, there was some life in that

building that I have never found anywhere else and shall never find

again. You remember that Amy Warlock married that scamp Thurston. Well,

she has left him and has come back to live with her mother. She had a

rather bad experience, I'm afraid, poor woman, but she says nothing to

any one about it. She and the old lady have moved from this part of

London and have gone to live somewhere in Kensington. Some one saw

Martin Warlock in Paris the other day. I hear that he has been very

seriously ill and is greatly changed, looking years older. I can say,

now that you are happily married, that I am greatly relieved that you

were not engaged to him. You won't think this presumptuous of a man old

enough to be your father, will you? I am sure he had many good things

in him, but he was very weak and not fitted to look after you. But he

had a good heart, I'm sure, and his father's death was a great shock to

him. Thurston, I hear, is having revival meetings up and down the

country. Miss Avies, I believe, is with him. You remember Miss

Pyncheon? She and many other regular attendants at the Chapel have left

this neighbourhood. The Chapel is to be a cinematograph theatre, I

believe. There! I have given you all the gossip. I have not said more

about your aunts because I want you to come up one day to London, when

you have time, and see them. You will do that, won't you? I expect you

are very busy--I hope you are. I would like to have a line from you,

but please don't bother if you have too much to do.

Always your friend,

WILLIAM MAGNUS.

When Maggie saw Martin's name the other writing on the page transformed

itself suddenly into a strange pattern of webs and squares.

Nevertheless she pursued her way through this, but without her own

agency, as though some outside person were reading to her and she was

not listening.

She repeated the last words "Always your friend, William Magnus" aloud

solemnly twice. Her thoughts ran in leaps and runs, hurdle-race-wise

across the flat level of her brain. Martin. Old. Ill. Paris. Those

walls out there and the road-man with a spade--little boy walking with

him--chattering--it's going to be hot. The light across the lawn is

almost blue and the beds are dry. His room. The looking-glass. Always

tilts back when one tries to see one's hair. Meant to speak about it.

Martin. Ill. Paris. Paris. Trains. Boats. How quickly could one be

there? No time at all. Paris. Never been to Paris. Perhaps he isn't

there now ...

At that definite picture she controlled her mind again. She pulled it

up as a driver drags back a restive horse. Her first real thought was:

"How hard that this letter should have come now when I was just going

to put everything right with Paul." Her next: "Poor Paul! But I don't

care for him a bit ... I don't care for any one but Martin. I never

did." Her next: "Why did I ever think I did?" And her next: "Why did I

ever do this?" She knew with a strange calm certainty that from this

moment she would never be rid of Martin's presence again. She had

maintained for more than a year a wonderful make-believe of

indifference. She had fancied that by, pushing furiously with both

hands one could drive things into the past. But Fate was cleverer than

that. What he wanted to keep he kept for you--the weaving of the

pattern in the carpet might be your handiwork, but the final design was

settled before ever the carpet was begun. Not that any of these fine

thoughts ever entered Maggie's head. All that she thought was "I love

Martin. I want to go to him. He's ill. I've got to do my duty about

Paul." She settled upon that last point. She bound her mind around it,

fast and secure like thick cord. She put Mr. Magnus' letter away in the

shell-covered box, the wedding-present from the aunts; in this box were

the programme of the play that she had been to with Martin, the ring

with the three pearls, Martin's few letters, and some petals of the

chrysanthemum, dry and faded, that she had worn on the great day of the

matinee. Something had warned her that it was foolish to keep Martin's

letters, but why should she not? She had never hidden her love for

Martin. Then, standing in the middle of the room, close beside the

large double-bed, with a football-group and "The Crucifixion" staring

down upon her, she had her worst hour. Nothing in all life could have

moved her as did that picture of Martin's loneliness and sickness. Wave

after wave of persuasion swept over her: "Go! Go now! Take the train to

Paris. You can find out from Mr. Magnus where he was living. He is

sick. He needs you. You swore to him that you would never desert him,

and you have deserted him. They don't want you here. Grace hates you,

and Paul is too lazy to care!"

At the thought of Paul resolution came to her. She looked up at the

rather fat, amiable youth with the stout legs and the bare knees in the

football photograph, and prayed to it: "Paul, I'm very lonely and

tempted. Care for me even though I can't love you as you want. Don't

give me up because I can't let you have what some one else has got.

Let's be happy, Paul--please."

She was shivering. She looked back with a terrified, reluctant glance

to the drawer where Mr. Magnus' letter was, then she went downstairs.

Soon after they started for Little Harben. The last days in Skeaton had

scarcely been happy ones. Grace had erected an elaborate scaffolding of

offended dignity and bitter misery. She was not bitterly miserable,

indeed she enjoyed her game, but it was depressing to watch Paul give

way to her. He was determined to leave her in a happy mind. Any one

could have told him that the way to do that was to leave her alone

altogether. Instead he petted her, persuading her to eat her favourite

pudding, buying her a new work-box that she needed, dismissing a boy

from the choir (the only treble who was a treble) because he was

supposed to have made a long-nose at Grace during choir-practice.

He adopted also a pleading line with her. "Now, Grace dear, don't you

think you could manage a little bit more?"

"Do you think you ought to go out in all this rain, Grace dear?"

"Grace, you look tired to death. Shall I read to you a little?"

He listened to her stories with a new elaborate attention. He laughed

heartily at the very faintest glimmer of a joke. Through it all Grace

maintained an unreleased solemnity, a mournful superiority, a grim

forbearance.

Maggie, watching, felt with a sinking heart that she was beginning to

despise Paul.

His very movement as he hurried to place a cushion for Grace sent a

little shiver down her back. "Oh, don't do it, Paul!" she heard herself

cry internally, but she could say nothing. She had won her victory

about Harben. She could only now be silent. Still, she bore no grudge

at all against Grace. She even liked her.

Grace made many sinister allusions to her fancied departure. "Ah, in

November ... Oh! of course I shall not be here then!" or, "That will be

in the autumn then, won't it? You'd better give it to some one who will

be here at the time." With every allusion she scored a victory. It was

evident that Paul was terrified by the thought that she should leave

him. He did not see what he would do without her. His world would

tumble to pieces.

"But she hasn't the remotest intention of going," said Maggie. "She'll

never go."

"Well, I don't know. It would be strange without her, Maggie, I must

confess. You see, all our lives we've been together--all our lives."

Nevertheless he felt perhaps some relief, in spite of himself, when

they were safely in a train for Little Harben. It was rather a relief,

just for a day or two, not to see Grace's reproachful face. Yes, it

was. He was quite gay, almost like the boy he used to be. Little Harben

was one of the smallest villages in Wiltshire and its Rectory one of

the most dilapidated. The Rectory was sunk into the very bottom of a

green well. Green hills rose on every side above it, green woods

pressed in all around it, a wild, deserted green garden crept up to the

windows and clambered about the old walls. There was hardly any

furniture in the house, and many many windows all without curtains.

Long looking-glasses reflected the green garden at every possible angle

so that all the lights and shadows in the house were green. There was a

cat with green eyes, and the old servant was so aged and infirm that

she was, spiritually if not physically, covered with green moss.

From their bedroom they could see the long green slope of the hill.

Everywhere there was a noise of birds nestling amongst the leaves, of

invisible streams running through the grass, of branches mysteriously

cracking, and, always, in the distance some one seemed to be chopping

with an axe. If you pushed a window open multitudes of little insects

fell in showers about you. All the roses were eaten with green flies.

"What a place!" said Maggie; nevertheless it was rather agreeable after

the sand of Skeaton.

During the first three days they preserved their attitude of friendly

distance. On the fourth evening Maggie desperately flung down her

challenge. They were sitting, after supper, in the wild deserted

garden. It was a wonderful evening, faintly blue and dim crocus with

flickering silver stars. The last birds twittered in the woods; the

green arc of the hill against the evening sky had a great majesty of

repose and rest. "Now, Paul!" said Maggie.

"What is it, dear?" but he slowly changed colour and looked away from

her, out into the wood.

"We've got to face it some time," she said. "The sooner, then, the

better--"

"Face what?" he asked, dropping his voice as though he were afraid that

some one would overhear.

"You and me." Maggie gathered her resources together. "Before we were

married we were great friends. You were the greatest friend I ever had

except Uncle Mathew. And now I don't know what we are."

"Whose fault is that?" he asked huskily. "You know what the matter is.

You don't love me. You never have ... Have you?" He suddenly ended,

turning towards her.

She saw his new eagerness and she was frightened, but she looked at a

little bunch of stars that twinkled at her above the dark elms and took

courage.

"I'm very bad at explaining my feelings," she said. "And you're not

very good either, Paul. I know I am very fond of you, and I feel as

though it ought to be so simple if I were wiser or kinder. I've been

thinking for weeks about this, and I want to say that I'm ready to do

anything that will make you happy."

"You'll love me?" he asked.

"I'm very fond of you, and I always will be."

"No, but love."

"A word like that isn't important. Affection--"

"No. It's love I want."

She turned away from him, pressing her hands together, staring into the

wood that was sinking into avenues of dark. She couldn't answer him. He

came over to her. He knelt on the dry grass, took her head between his

hands, and kissed her again and again and again.

She heard him murmur: "Maggie ... Maggie ... Maggie. You must love

me. You must. I've waited so long. I didn't know what love was. God in

His Mercy forgive me for the thoughts I've had this year. You've

tormented me. Tantalised me. You're a witch. A witch. You're so

strange, so odd, so unlike any one. You've enchanted me. Love me.

Maggie ... Love me ... Love me."

She caught his words all broken and scattered. She felt his heart

beating against her body, and his hands were hot to the touch of her

cold cheek. She felt that he was desperate and ashamed and pitiful. She

felt, above all else, that she must respond--and she could not. She

strove to give him what he needed. She caught his hands, and then,

because she knew that she was acting falsely and the whole of her

nature was in rebellion, she drew back. He felt her withdraw. His hands

dropped.

She burst into tears, suddenly hiding her face in her hands as she used

to do when she was a little girl.

"Oh, Paul," she wept. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm wicked. I

can't--"

He got up and stood with his back to her, looking towards the night sky

that flashed now with stars.

She controlled herself, feeling desperately that their whole future

together hung on the approaching minutes. She went up to him, standing

at first timidly behind him, then putting her hand through his arm.

"Paul. It isn't so hopeless. If I can't give you that I can give you

everything else. I told you from the first that I couldn't help loving

Martin. All that kind of love I gave to him, but we can be friends. I

want a friend so badly. If we're both lonely we can come together

closer and closer, and perhaps, later on--"

But she could not go on. She knew that she would never forget Martin,

that she would never love Paul. These two things were so clear to her

that she could not pretend. As the darkness gathered the wood into its

arms and the last twitter of the birds sank into silence, she felt that

she too was being caught into some silent blackness. The sky was pale

green, the stars so bright that the rest of the world seemed to lie in

dim shadow. She could scarcely see Paul now; when he spoke his voice

came, disembodied, out of the dusk.

"You'll never forget him, then?" at last he asked.

"No."

"You're strange. You don't belong to us. I should have seen that at the

beginning. I knew nothing about women and thought that all that I

wanted--oh God, why should I be so tempted? I've been a good man ..."

Then he came close to her and put his hand on her shoulder and even

drew her to him. "I won't bother you any more, Maggie. I'll conquer

this. We'll be friends as you want. It isn't fair to you--"

She felt the control that he was keeping on himself and she admired

him. Nevertheless she knew, young though she was, that if she let him

go now she was losing him for ever. The strangest pang of loneliness

and isolation seized her. If Paul left her and Martin wasn't there, she

was lonely indeed. She saw quite clearly how his laziness would come to

his aid. He would summon first his virtue and his religion, and twenty

years of abstinence would soon reassert their sway; then he would slip

back into the old, lazy, self-complacent being that he had been before.

Staring into the dark wood she saw it all. She could completely capture

him by responding to his passion. Without that she was too queer, too

untidy, too undisciplined, to hold him at all. But she could not lie,

she could not pretend.

She kissed him.

"Paul, let's be friends, then. Splendid friends. Oh! we will be happy!"

But as he kissed her she knew that she had lost him.

Paul was very kind to her during their stay at Little Harben, but they

recovered none of that old friendship that had been theirs before they

married. Too many things were now between them. By the end of that

month Maggie longed to return to Skeaton. It was not only that she felt

crushed and choked by the strangling green that hemmed in the old

house--the weeds and the trees, and the plants seemed to draw in the

night closer and closer about the windows and doors--but also solitude

with Paul was revealing to her, in a ruthless, cruel manner, his

weaknesses. They were none of them, perhaps, very terrible, but she did

not wish to see them. She would like to shut her eyes to them all. If

she lost that friendly kindness that she felt for him then indeed she

had lost everything. She felt as though he were wilfully trying to tug

it away from her.

Why was it that she had never shrunk from the faults of Martin and

Uncle Mathew--faults so plain and obvious--and now shrunk from Paul's?

Paul's were such little ones--a desire for praise and appreciation, a

readiness to be cheated into believing that all was well when he knew

that things were very wrong, an eagerness to be liked even by quite

worthless people, sloth and laziness, living lies that were of no

importance save as sign-posts to the cowardice of his soul. Yes,

cowardice! That was the worst of all. Was it his religion that had made

him cowardly? Why was Maggie so terribly certain that if the necessity

for physical defence of her or some helpless creature arose Paul would

evade it and talk about "turning the other cheek"? He was so large a

man and so soft--a terrific egoist finally, in the centre of his soul,

an egoist barricaded by superstitions and fears and lies, but not a

ruthless egoist, because that demanded energy.

And yet, with all this, he had so many good points. He was a child, a

baby, like so many clergymen. Even her father could have been defended

by that plea ...

He was not radically bad, he was radically good, but he had never known

discipline or real sorrow or hardship. Wrapped in cotton wool all his

life, spoilt, indulged, treated by the world as men treat women. His

effeminacy was the result of his training because he had always been

sheltered. Now his contact with Maggie was presenting him for the first

time with Reality. Would he face and grapple with it, or would he slip

away, evade it, and creep back into his padded castle?

The return to Skeaton and the winter that followed it did not answer

that question. Maggie, Grace, and Paul were figures, guarded and

defended, outwardly friendly. Grace behaved during those months very

well, but Maggie knew that this was a fresh sign of hostility. The

"Chut-Chut," "My dear child," and the rest that had been so irritating

had been after all signs of intimacy. They were now withdrawn. Maggie

made herself during that winter and the spring that followed as busy as

possible. She ruthlessly forbade all thoughts of Martin, of the aunts,

of London; she scarcely saw Caroline, and the church was her fortress.

She seemed to be flung from service to service, to be singing in the

choir (she had no voice), asking children their catechism, listening to

Paul's high, rather strained, voice reading the lessons, talking

politely to Mrs. Maxse or one of the numerous girls, knitting and

sewing (always so badly), and above all struggling to remember the

things that she was for ever forgetting. Throughout this period she was

pervaded by the damp, oily smell of the heated church, always too hot,

always too close, always too breathless.

She had many headaches; she liked them because they held back her

temptation to think of forbidden things.

Gradually, although she did not know it, the impression gained ground

that she was "queer." She had not been to the Toms' often, but she was

spoken of as their friend. She had seen Caroline, who was now

considered by the church a most scandalous figure, scarcely at all, but

it was known that she was an old friend. Above all, it was understood

that the rector and his wife were not happy.

"Oh, she's odd--looks more like a boy than a woman. She never says

anything, seems to have no ideas. I don't believe she's religious

really either."

She knew nothing of this. She did not notice that she was not asked

often to other houses. People were kind (the Skeaton people were

neither malicious nor cruel) but left her more and more alone. She said

to herself again and again: "I must make this a success--I must"--but

the words were becoming mechanical. It was like tramping a treadmill:

she got no further, only became more and more exhausted. That spring

and summer people noticed her white face and strange eyes. "Oh, she's a

queer girl," they said.

The summer was very hot with a little wind that blew the sand

everywhere. Strange how that sand succeeded in penetrating into the

very depth of the town. The sand lay upon the pavement of the High

Street so that your feet gritted as you walked. The woods and houses

lay for nearly two months beneath a blazing sun. There was scarcely any

rain. The little garden behind the Rectory was parched and brown; the

laurel bushes were grey with dust. They saw very few people that

summer; many of their friends had escaped.

Maggie, thinking of the green depths of Harben a year ago, longed for

its coolness; nevertheless she was happy to think that she would never

have to see Harben again.

As she had foretold, laziness settled upon Paul. What he loved best was

to sink into his old armchair in the dusty study and read old volumes

of Temple Bar and the Cornhill. He had them piled at his side; he read

article after article about such subjects as "The Silkworm Industry"

and "Street Signs of the Eighteenth Century." He was very proud of his

sermons, but now he seldom gave a new one. He always intended to.

"Don't let any one disturb me to-night, Maggie," he would say at supper

on Fridays. "I've got my sermon." But on entering the study he

remembered that there was an article in Temple Bar that he must finish.

He also read the Church Times right through, including the

advertisements. Grace gradually resumed her old functions.

She maintained, however, an elaborate pretence of leaving everything to

Maggie. Especially was she delighted when Maggie forgot something. When

that happened she said nothing; her mouth curled a little. She treated

Maggie less and less to her garrulous confidences. They would sit for

hours in the drawing-room together without exchanging a word. Maggie

and Paul had now different bedrooms. Early in the autumn Maggie had a

little note from Mr. Magnus. It said:

"You have not written to any of us for months. Won't you come just for

a night to see your aunts? At least let us know that you are happy."