Helen met Miriam in the hall.
"There's been a telegram and Notya's going to Italy."
"Ah!" Miriam said, but her bright looks faded when Helen added, "With
Uncle Alfred."
Miriam dropped her head and thrust her doubled fists under her chin, in
the angry movement of her childhood. "Oh, isn't that just my luck!" she
muttered fiercely. "I--I hadn't done with Uncle Alfred."
"Perhaps father hasn't done with life," Helen remarked.
"Oh, don't be pious! Don't be pious! You're always adorning tales.
You're a prig!"
"Well, I haven't time to think about that now," Helen said with the
excellent humour which made amends for her many virtues. "I'm helping
Notya to pack and I want you to ask George Halkett if he will drive her
down. The train goes at a quarter to three."
"I'm sorry," Miriam said, looking like the heroine in a play, "but I
can't go there. I--don't approve of George."
"Oh!" Helen cried, screwing up her face. "Has John been telling you
about Lily Brent?"
"No. What? Tell me!" Miriam answered with complete forgetfulness of her
pose.
"Some nonsense. George tried to kiss her."
"Did he?" There was a flat tone in Miriam's voice.
"And she hit him, and now John thinks he's wicked."
"So he is." She was hardly aware of what she said, for she was
hesitating between the immediate establishment of her supremacy and the
punishment of George, and having decided that his punishment should
include sufficient tribute, she said firmly, "I won't have anything to
do with him."
"Then I'll go. Help Notya if you can."
Miriam took a step nearer. "What is she like?"
"Oh--queer."
"Then perhaps I'd rather go to George," she whispered.
"I'm halfway there already," Helen said from the door.
She slipped across the moor with the speed which came so easily to her,
and her breathing had hardly quickened when she issued from the
larch-wood and stood on the cobble-stones before the low white house.
Already the leaves of a rose-tree by the door were budding, for in that
sheltered place the sun was gathered warmly. So, too, she thought,
darkness would lie closely there and rain would shoot down in thick
splinters with intent to hurt. She was oppressed by a sense of
concentration in this tree-lined hollow, and before she stepped across
the yard she lifted and shook her shoulders to free them of the weight.
She remembered one summer day when the air had been clogged by the scent
of marigolds, but this was not their season, and the smell of the
larches came healthfully on the winds that struggled through the trees.
She had raised her hand to knock on the open door when she heard a step,
and turned to see George Halkett.
"George," she said without preamble, "I've come to ask you to do
something for us. Our stepmother has unexpectedly to catch a train.
Could you, would you, drive her down--and a box, and our uncle, and his
bag?"
She found, to her surprise, that John's story had given George a new
place in her mind. She had been accustomed to see him as a mere part of
the farm which bore his name, and now she looked at him with a different
curiosity. She imagined him bending over Lily Brent and, with a strong
distaste, she pictured him starting back at her assault. It seemed to
her, she could not tell why, that no woman should raise her hand against
a man, and that this restraint was less for her dignity than for his.
"I'll do it with pleasure," George was saying.
"Thank you very much," she murmured, and named the time. "Is Mr. Halkett
better?"
"I'm afraid he's never going to get better, Miss Helen," he said, using
the title he had given her long ago because of a childish dignity which
amused him.
"I'm sorry," she said, and wondered if she spoke the truth.
Her gaze, very wide and serious, affected his, and as they looked at
each other she realized that, with those half-closed eyes of his, he was
considering her as he had never done before. She became conscious of her
physical self at once, and this was an experience strange to her; she
remembered the gown she wore, the fashion of her hair, her grey
stockings and worn, low shoes; slowly, almost imperceptibly, she shifted
a foot which was twisted inwards, and having done this, she found that
she did not like George's appraisement. With a broken word of farewell
and thanks she quickly left him.
"I didn't like that," she said emphatically to the broad freedom of the
moor. George's interest was like the hollow: it hemmed her in and made
her hot, but here the wide winds swept over her with a cleansing cold.
Nevertheless, when she went to Notya's room, she took the opportunity of
scanning herself in the glass.
"You have been running," Mildred Caniper said.
"No, not lately."
"You are very pink."
"Yes."
Mildred Caniper's tone changed suddenly. "And I don't know where you
have been. I wish you would not run off without warning. And I could not
find Miriam anywhere." From anger she sank back to helplessness. "I
don't know what to take," she said, and her hands jerked on her lap.
"Let's see," Helen said cheerfully. "Warm things for the journey, and
cooler things for when you get there." She made no show of consulting
Notya and, moving with leisurely competence from wardrobe to chest of
drawers, she laid little heaps of clothing on the bed.
"Handkerchiefs: one, two, three, four--"
"I shan't need many."
"But you'd better take a lot."
"I shall soon come back."
"Five, six, seven," Helen counted on, and her whispers sounded loudly in
the room where Mildred Caniper's thoughts were busy.
"You haven't a very warm coat, so you must take mine," Helen said, and
when she looked up she discovered in her stepmother the extraordinary
stillness of a being whose soul has gone on a long journey. Her voice
came, as before, from that great distance, yet with surprising
clearness, as though she spoke through some instrument which reduced the
volume and accentuated the peculiarities of her tones.
"One ought never to be afraid of anything," the small voice
said--"never." Her lips tightened, and slowly she seemed to return to
the body which sat on the sofa by the window. "I don't know what to
take," she said again.
"I'm doing it," Helen told her. "You mustn't lose the train."
"No." She stood up, and, going to the dressing-table, she leaned on it
as though she searched intently for something lying there. "I expect he
will be dead," she said. "It's a long way. All those frontiers--"
Helen looked at the bent back, and her pity shaped itself in eager
words. "Shall I come with you? Let me! I can get ready--"
Mildred Caniper straightened herself and turned, and Helen recognized
the blue light in her eye.
"Your presence, Helen," she said distinctly, "will not reduce the number
of the frontiers." Her manner blamed Helen for her own lack of
self-control; but to this her stepchildren were accustomed, and Helen
felt no anger.
"Oh, no," she answered pleasantly; "it would not do that."
She packed on methodically, and while she feigned absorption in that
business her thoughts were swift and troubled, as they were when she was
a little girl and, suffering for Notya's sake, wept in the heather. It
was impossible to help this woman whose curling hair mocked her
sternness, whose sternness so easily collapsed and as easily recovered
at a word; it was, perhaps, intrusive to attempt it, yet the desire was
as quick as Helen's blood.
"You are much too helpful, Helen," Mildred Caniper went on, and softened
that harshness quickly. "You must learn that no one can help anybody
else." She smiled. "You must deny yourself the luxury of trying!"
"I shall remember," Helen said with her quiet acquiescence, "but I must
go now and see about your lunch. Would you mind writing the labels?
Uncle Alfred will want one for his bag. Oh, I know I'm irritating," she
added on a wave of feeling which had to break, "but I can't help it.
I--I'm like that." She reflected with humiliation that it was absurd to
obtrude herself thus on a scene shadowed by tragedy, yet when she saw a
glint of real amusement on Mildred Caniper's face, a new thought came to
her. Perhaps reserve was not so great a virtue as she had believed. She
must not forget; nor must she forget that Miriam considered her a prig,
that Mildred Caniper found her too helpful. She pressed her hands
against her forehead and concentrated her energies on the travellers'
food.
The minutes, busy as they were, dragged by like hours. Uncle Alfred ate
his luncheon with the deliberation of a man who cannot expect to renew
his digestive apparatus, and the road remained empty of George Halkett
and his trap. Mildred Caniper, calm now, and dressed for her journey,
had many instructions for Helen concerning food, the employment of Mrs.
Samson, bills to be paid, and other domestic details which at this
moment lacked reality.
"And," she ended, "tell Rupert not to be late. The house should be
locked up at ten o'clock."
"Yes," Helen answered, but when she looked at her stepmother she could
see only the distressed figure which had sat on the sofa, with hands
jerking on its knee. Did she love Philip Caniper? Had they quarrelled
long ago, and did she now want to make amends? No, no! She shut her
eyes. She must not pry. She felt as though she had caught herself
reading a letter which belonged to some one else.
Not deterred by such squeamishness, Miriam watched the luncheon-party
with an almost indecent eagerness. Her curiosity about Mildred Caniper
was blurred by pleasure in her departure, and each mouthful unwillingly
taken by that lady seemed to minister to Miriam's freedom. Now and then
she went to the garden gate to look for George, yet with her hurry to
drive out her stepmother there was that luckless necessity to let Uncle
Alfred go. On him her dark gaze was fastened expectantly. Surely he had
something to say to her; doubtless he waited for a fitting opportunity,
and she was determined that he should have it, but she realized that he
was past the age when he would leap from an unfinished meal to whisper
with her. This put a disturbing limit to her power, and with an
instinct for preserving her faith in herself she slightly shifted the
view from which she looked at him. So she was reassured, and she waited
like an affectionate grand-daughter in the dark corner of the passage
where his coat and hat were hanging.
"Let me help you on," she said.
"Thank you. Thank you. This is a sad business."
She handed him his hat. She found that, after all, she could say
nothing, and though hope was dying in her, she made no effort to revive
it.
"Well--good-bye," Uncle Alfred was saying, and holding out his hand.
She gave hers limply. "Good-bye." She hardly looked at him. Uncle
Alfred, who had loved her mother, was going without so much as a
cheering word. He looked old and rather dull as he went on with his
precise small steps into the hall and she walked listlessly behind him.
"He's like a little performing animal," she thought.
Fumbling in his breast pocket, he turned to her. "If you should need
me," he said, and produced his card. "I'll write and tell you what
happens--er--when we get there."
She thanked and passed him coldly, for she felt that he had broken faith
with her.
Outside the gate George Halkett sat in his high dog-cart and idly laid
the whip across the horse's back. John stood and talked to him with the
courtesy exacted by the circumstances, but George's eye caught the
sunlight on Miriam's hair, and sullenly he bowed to her. She smiled
back, putting the venom and swiftness of her emotion into that salute.
She watched until his head slowly turned towards her again, and then it
happened that she was looking far beyond the chimneys of Brent Farm.
"Now he's angry," she told herself, and pleasure went like a creeping
thing down her back. She could see by the stubborn set of his head that
he would not risk another glance.
Behind her, on the step, Notya was still talking to Helen.
Uncle Alfred stopped swinging his eyeglass and clicked the gold case of
his watch. "We must be going," he said, and Miriam's heart cried out,
"Yes; go, go, go!"
Lightly and strangely, Mildred Caniper kissed the cheeks of Miriam and
Helen and shook John's hand, before she took her place beside George
Halkett, with a word of thanks. Uncle Alfred stiffly climbed to his
perch at the back, and, incommoded by his sister's box, he sat there,
clasping the handrail. A few shufflings of his feet and rearrangements
of his body told of his discomfort, and on his face there was the
knowledge that this was but the prelude to worse things. Mildred Caniper
did not look back nor wave a hand, but Uncle Alfred's unfortunate
position necessitated a direct view of his young relatives. Three times
he lifted his hat, and at last the cart swung into the road and he need
look no more.
Miriam fanned herself with her little apron. "Now, how long can we count
on in the most unfavourable circumstances?" she asked, but, to her
astonishment, the others walked off without a word. She set her teeth in
her under-lip and stared through tears at the lessening cart. She began
to sing so that she might keep down the sobs that hurt her throat, and
the words told of her satisfaction that Uncle Alfred was perched
uncomfortably on the back seat of the cart.
"And I wish he would fall off," she sang. "Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh,
dear!"