ON THE MOOR
After tea my father went to his study, for it was late in the week,
and he was a most conscientious writer of sermons. I read for an
hour, and then, tired alike of my book and my own company, I strolled
up and down the drive. This restlessness was one of my greatest
troubles. When the fit came I could neither work nor read nor think
connectedly. It was a phase of incipient dissatisfaction with life,
morbid, but inevitable. At the end of the drive nearest the road, I
met Alice, my youngest sister, walking briskly with a book under her
arm, and a quiet smile upon her homely face. I watched her coming
towards me, and I almost envied her. What a comfort to be blessed with
a placid disposition and an optimistic frame of mind!
“Well, you look as though you had been enjoying yourself,” I remarked,
placing myself in her way.
“So I have--after a fashion,” she answered, good humoredly. “Are you
wise to be without a hat, Kate? To look at your airy attire one would
imagine that it was summer instead of autumn. Come back into the house
with me.”
I laughed at her in contempt. There was a difference indeed between my
muslin gown and the plain black skirt and jacket, powdered with dust,
which was Alice’s usual costume.
“Have you ever known me to catch cold through wearing thin clothes or
going without a hat?” I asked. “I am tired of being indoors. There
have been people here all the afternoon. I wonder that your conscience
allows you to shirk your part of the duty and leave all the tiresome
entertaining to be done by me!”
She looked at me with wide-opened eyes and a concerned face. Alice was
always so painfully literal.
“Why, I thought that you liked it!” she exclaimed. I was in an evil
mood, and I determined to shock her. It was never a difficult task.
“So I do sometimes,” I answered; “but to-day my callers have
been all women, winding up with an hour and a half of Lady
Naselton. One gets so tired of one’s own sex! Not a single man all the
afternoon. Somebody else’s husband to pass the bread and butter would
have been a godsend!”
Alice pursed up her lips, and turned her head away with a look of
displeasure.
“I am surprised to hear you talk like that, Kate,” she said,
quietly. “Do you think that it is quite good taste?”
“Be off, you little goose!” I called after her as she passed on
towards the house with quickened step and rigid head. The little sober
figure turned the bend and disappeared without looking around. She was
the perfect type of a clergyman’s daughter--studiously conventional,
unremittingly proper, inevitably a little priggish. She was the right
person in the right place. She had the supreme good fortune to be
in accord with her environment. As for me, I was a veritable black
sheep. I looked after her and sighed.
I had no desire to go in; on the other hand, there was nothing to
stay out for. I hesitated for a moment, and then strolled on to the
end of the avenue. A change in the weather seemed imminent. A grey,
murky twilight had followed the afternoon of brilliant sunshine, and a
low south wind was moaning amongst the Norwegian firs. I leaned over
the gate with my face turned towards the great indistinct front of
Deville Court. There was nothing to look at. The trees had taken to
themselves fantastic shapes, little wreaths of white mist were rising
from the hollows of the park. The landscape was grey, colorless,
monotonous. My whole life was like that, I thought, with a sudden
despondent chill. The lives of most girls must be unless they are
domestic. In our little family Alice absorbed the domesticity. There
was not one shred of it in my disposition.
I realized with a start that I was becoming morbid, and turned from
the gate towards the house. Suddenly I heard an unexpected sound--the
sound of voices close at hand. I stopped short and half turned
round. A deep voice rang out upon the still, damp air--
“Get over, Madam! Get over, Marvel!”
There was the sound of the cracking of a whip and the soft patter of
dogs’ feet as they came along the lane below--a narrow thoroughfare
which was bounded on one side by our wall and on the other by the open
stretch of park at the head of which stood Deville Court. There must
have been quite twenty of them, all of the same breed--beagles--and
amongst them two people were walking, a man and a woman. The man was
nearest to me, and I could see him more distinctly. He was tall and
very broad, with a ragged beard and long hair. He wore no collar, and
there was a great rent in his shabby shooting coat. Of his features I
could see nothing. He wore knickerbockers, and stockings, and thick
shoes. He was by no means an ordinary looking person, but he was
certainly not prepossessing. The most favorable thing about him was
his carriage, which was upright and easy, but even that was in a
measure spoiled by a distinct suggestion of surliness. The woman
by his side I could only see very indistinctly. She was slim, and
wore some sort of a plain tailor gown, but she did not appear to be
young. As they came nearer to me, I slipped from the drive on to the
verge of the shrubbery, standing for a moment in the shadow of a tall
laurel bush. I was not seen, but I could hear their voices. The woman
was speaking.
“A new vicar, or curate-in-charge, here, isn’t there, Bruce? I fancy I
heard that one was expected.”
A sullen, impatient growl came from her side.
“Ay, some fellow with a daughter, Morris was telling me. The parson
was bound to come, I suppose, but what the mischief does he want with
a daughter?”
A little laugh from the woman--a pleasant, musical laugh.
“Daughters, I believe--I heard some one say that there were two. What
a misogynist you are getting! Why shouldn’t the man have daughters if
he likes? I really believe that there are two of them.”
There was a contemptuous snort, and a moment’s silence. They were
exactly opposite to me now, but the hedge and the shadow of the
laurels beneath which I was standing completely shielded me from
observation. The man’s huge form stood out with almost startling
distinctness against the grey sky. He was lashing the thistles by the
side of the road with his long whip.
“Maybe!” he growled. “I’ve seen but one--a pale-faced, black-haired
chit.”
I smothered a laugh. I was the pale-faced, black-haired chit, but it
was scarcely a polite way of alluding to me, Mr. Bruce Deville. When
they had gone by I leaned over the gate again, and watched them
vanish amongst the shadows. The sound of their voices came to me
indistinctly; but I could hear the deep bass of the man as he slung
some scornful exclamation out upon the moist air. His great figure,
looming unnaturally large through the misty twilight, was the last to
vanish. It was my first glimpse of Mr. Bruce Deville of Deville Court.
I turned round with a terrified start. Almost at my side some heavy
body had fallen to the ground with a faint groan. A single step, and
I was bending over the prostrate form of a man. I caught his hand and
gazed into his face with horrified eyes. It was my father. He must
have been within a yard of me when he fell.
His eyes were half closed, and his hands were cold. Gathering up my
skirts in my hand, I ran swiftly across the lawn into the house.
I met Alice in the hall. “Get some brandy!” I cried,
breathlessly. “Father is ill--out in the garden! Quick!”
She brought it in a moment. Together we hurried back to where I had
left him. He had not moved. His cheeks were ghastly pale, and his eyes
were still closed. I felt his pulse and his heart, and unfastened his
collar.
“There is nothing serious the matter--at least I think not,” I
whispered to Alice. “It is only a fainting fit.”
I rubbed his hands, and we forced some brandy between his
lips. Presently he opened his eyes, and raised his head a little,
looking half fearfully around.
“It was her voice,” he whispered, hoarsely. “It came to me through
the shadows! Where is she? What have you done with her? There was a
rustling of the leaves--and then I heard her speak!”
“There is no one here but Alice and myself,” I said, bending over
him. “You must have been fancying things. Are you better?”
“Better!” He looked up at both of us, and the light came back into his
face.
“Ah! I see! I must have fainted!” he exclaimed. “I remember the study
was close, and I came to get cool. Yet, I thought--I thought----”
I held out my arm, and he staggered up. He was still white and shaken,
but evidently his memory was returning.
“I remember it was close in the study,” he said--”very close; I was
tired too. I must have walked too far. I don’t like it though. I must
see a doctor; I must certainly see a doctor!”
Alice bent over him full of sympathy, and he took her arm. I walked
behind him in silence. A curious thought had taken possession of me. I
could not get rid of the impression of my father’s first words, and
his white, terrified face. Was it indeed a wild fancy of his, or had
he really heard this voice which had stirred him so deeply? I tried
to laugh at the idea. I could not. His cry was so natural, his terror
so apparent! He had heard a voice. He had been stricken with a sudden
terror. Whose was the voice--whence his fear of it? I watched him
leaning slightly upon Alice’s arm, and walking on slowly in front
of me towards the house. Already he was better. His features had
reassumed their customary air of delicate and reserved strength. I
looked at him with new and curious eyes. For the first time I wondered
whether there might be another world, or the ashes of an old one
beneath that grey, impenetrable mask.