Jane made the discovery for herself, but by chance.
One morning when Mary had gone out, indicating the likelihood of her
playing a game of golf, Jane put on her oldest hat, took the path
through the marshes which avoided the necessity of going through the
village where she would be seen and criticized for her clothes, and went
alone up onto the cliffs beyond Penlock.
These were rare, but definite, occasions with her. She felt the
necessity of them at unexpected intervals as a Catholic, apart from
Saints' days and Holy days, feels the necessity of confession and
straightway, in the midst of business hours or household duties, seeks
out the priest and speaks his mind.
To Jane, those lonely walks with the solemn solitude of those cliffs,
were confessional moments when, setting herself at a distance which that
wide environment could lend her, she could look on at herself, could
calmly inspect and almost dispassionately criticize.
She went without knowledge of her purposes. It was just for a walk, she
said, and if questioned why she insisted upon going alone, she would
find herself becoming angry at their curiosity.
"Mayn't I sometimes like my own company better than anybody else's?" she
would ask shortly and that was about all she knew definitely of these
confessional calls. If she was aware of any mental exercise during
those walks, it was in momentary observations of Nature, a lark soaring,
a flight of gulls upon the water, the life of that farm in the hollow
above Penlock. Of that inquisitorial examination of herself,
practically she knew nothing. It took place behind the bolts of doors,
all sound of it shut out, barring admittance to her conscious self.
Coming back for the midday meal she would say to Hannah across the
table--
"How you can stick in the house all day, one week after another, beats
me. It was perfectly lovely this morning up there on the moors. We all
make life so automatic here that one might as well put a penny in the
slot and have finished with it. It's only a pennyworth we get."
From this they received the impression she had also given to herself,
that she had been drinking in the beauties of the countryside. If she
had, it was but a sip of wine at the altar where she had been kneeling
in inmost meditation.
This morning, feeling the sun too hot for energy, she had found for
herself a sheltered bed in the heather where, through a gap in the
jungle it became as she lay in the midst of it, she could see the farm
in its hollow, the sea of cerulean beyond and, nearer in the foreground,
a belt of pine trees standing up amongst their surrounding gorse and
bracken.
It was there upon a path leading through the bracken to a gate in one of
the farmer's hedges, she caught her first glimpse of Mary and Liddiard.
The mere fact of her not being on the golf links as she had said drove
the suspicion hot, like a branding iron, on Jane's thoughts.
She watched them pass by below the hill on which she had found her bed
and her eyes followed them like a bird's, alert and keen. When they
stopped at the gate and Liddiard seated himself on it with his feet
resting on the bar beneath while Mary stood below him, Jane made for
herself a window in that secreting wall of heather and lay there,
watching them, with all her blood fermenting to a biting acid that
tasted in her mouth and smarted in her eyes, becoming even, as it were,
a self-righteous irritation beneath her skin.
To her it was obvious enough. Their Mary who read so many books, who
seemed to care so little what destiny the fateful coach to Bridnorth
brought her, was sport of Fate and surely now. Their Mary was in love.
Jane angered at the realization of it to think what a fool her sister
was. It would be talked about the whole village over, especially then,
during the holidays when the summer visitors were there. One visitor
there was in particular who came every year and spent most of her
mornings after bathing drying her hair on the beach and talking scandal
till hunger and the mid-day meal called her homewards.
What a fool she was! This story of herself and a married man would
linger long whiles in Bridnorth. They had not much to talk of. They
preserved their gossipings with assiduous care. Each year it would be
whispered about her and men would keep her at a greater distance than
ever.
They talked there together for an hour and more. For an hour and more,
Jane lay and watched them. What were they talking of? Sometimes by the
way he spoke, leaning down and riveting each word upon Mary's attention,
it seemed as though their conversation were of the most serious nature.
How could it be serious? What a fool she must be if she thought it was!
It was an idle flirtation with him, a married man, alone on his
holidays, amusing himself with the most likely girl that offered
herself. Yet never with all her astuteness would Jane have considered
that Mary was the most likely. Always Mary had seemed, except for her
games, insensible to the attractions of men. What had come over her?
Fanny was the one whom men with inclination for harmless passing of
their time had singled out for semi-serious interchange of ideas. Fanny
was romantic. Men liked that when it did not become too serious to
interfere with the free pursuit of their enjoyments.
But this, as she watched them there through her curtain of heather,
looked more romantic than anything she could ever have imagined about
Fanny. Had they been strangers and had she come across them thus she
would have felt herself in the presence of something not meant for her
to see and, passing them by, she would have given all impression of
looking the other way, however covertly she might have observed.
Yet here it was her own sister and, to herself, calling it her duty, she
watched them both with every sense stretched forth to clutch each sign
or movement that might give evidence to her impulsive mind how far the
thing had gone between them.
She was not long in learning the utmost truth. After a long silence,
Liddiard slipped down off the gate and stood in the bracken looking
directly into Mary's eyes. Jane felt that look. She held her breath as
it pierced into her own eyes. Then, when he laid his hands upon Mary's
shoulders and for an instant held her so as he spoke, Jane swallowed in
her throat and against the roots of heather felt her heart beating like
a trapped bird in her breast.
At that distance, more sure than Mary, she knew what was going to
happen. More sure than either of them, she knew. When suddenly, as
though some leaping power had swept upon him unexpectedly, he took her
in his arms and their heads were one together, linked with his kisses,
Jane had known of it more surely than he.
Feeling those kisses on her own lips, on her eyes, her throat, and like
hammers beating in her heart, Jane buried her face in the heather but
did not know that she moaned with pain.
When she looked up, they had gone.