The vicar and his sister Eleanor were sitting at breakfast in the small
Georgian house, which, as the vicarage, played a still important
part in the village of Ipscombe. The Church may be in a bad way, as her
own children declare; revolution may be in sight, as our English
Bolshevists love to believe--not too seriously; but meanwhile, if a
stranger in any normal English village wants to lay his finger on the
central ganglion of its various activities, he will still look for the
church and the vicarage--or rectory, as the case may be. If the parson is
bad or feeble, the pulse of the village life will show it; and if he is
energetic and self-devoted, his position will give him a power in the
community--power, tempered of course by the necessary revolts and
reactions which keep the currents of life flowing--not to be easily
attained by other energetic and self-devoted persons. The parson may
still easily make himself a tyrant, but only to find, in the language of
the Greek poet, that it was "folly even to wish" to tyrannize.
The vicar had come downstairs that morning in a mood of depression,
irritable--almost snappish depression. His sister Eleanor had seldom seen
him so unlike himself. Being an affectionate sister, she was sorry for
him; though, as she rightly guessed, it was that very news which had
brought such great relief of mind to herself which was almost certainly
responsible for her brother's gloom. Miss Henderson was engaged to
Captain Ellesborough. There was therefore no question of her becoming
Mrs. Shenstone, and a weight was lifted from the spirits of the vicar's
sister. Towards Rachel, Eleanor Shenstone felt one of those instinctive
antipathies of life which are far more decisive than any of the ordinary
causes of quarrel. Miss Shenstone was thin, methodical, devoted; of small
speech and great virtue. Such persons so securely anchored and
self-determined can have but small sympathy for the drifters of this
world. And that Rachel Henderson was--at least as compared with herself
and her few cherished friends--morally and religiously adrift, Miss
Shenstone had decided after half an hour's conversation.
The vicar knew perfectly well that his sister was relieved. It was that
which had secretly affected a naturally sweet temper. He was suffering
besides from a haunting sense of contrast between these rainy November
days, and the glowing harvest weeks in which he had worked like a navvy
for and with Rachel Henderson. It was over, of course. None of the nice
things of life ever came his way for long. But he did feel rather sorely
that during his short spell of favour with her, Miss Henderson had
encouraged him a good deal. She had raised him up--only to cast him down.
He thought of her smiles, and her sudden softness, of the warm grip of
her hand, and the half mocking, half inviting look in her eyes, with the
feeling of a child shut out from a garden where he well knows the ripe
apples are hanging; only not for him. The atmosphere of sex which
environed her--was it not that which had beguiled the vicar, while it had
repelled his sister? And yet Eleanor Shenstone did most honestly wish
her brother to marry--only not--not anything so tempting, troubling, and
absorbing as Rachel Henderson.
"Haven't we a tiresome meeting to-night?" said the vicar with an
impatient sigh, as he sat languidly down to the couple of sardines which
were all his sister had allowed him for breakfast.
"Yes--Miss Hall is coming to speak."
Miss Hall was a lady who spoke prodigiously on infant welfare, and had a
way of producing a great, but merely temporary effect on the mothers of
the village. They would listen in a frightened silence while she showed
them on a blackboard the terrifying creatures that had their dwelling in
milk, and what a fly looks like when it is hideously--and in the mothers'
opinion most unnecessarily--magnified. But when she was gone came
reaction. "How can she know aught about it--havin' none of her own?"
said the village contemptuously. None the less the village ways were
yielding, insensibly, little by little; and the Miss Halls were after all
building better than they knew.
The vicar, however, always had to take the chair at Miss Hall's meetings,
and he was secretly sick and tired of babies, their weights, their foods,
their feeding-bottles, and everything concerned with them. His sister
considered him and like a wise woman, offered him something sweet to
make up for the bitter.
"Do you think you could possibly take a note for me to Miss Leighton this
morning--when you go to see old Frant?"
"Old Frant" was a labourer on the point of death to whom the vicar was
ministering.
He pricked up his ears.
"Great End's hardly in old Frant's direction."
_Camouflage_, of course. Miss Shenstone understood perfectly.
"It won't take you far out of your way. I want Miss Leighton to send
those two girls to the Armistice dance to-night if they'd like to come.
Lady Alicia writes that several of her maids are down with the flu, and
she asks me to give away two or three more tickets."
"Why doesn't Lady Alicia let the servants manage the thing themselves
when she gives them a party? _They_ ought to invite. I wouldn't be bossed
if I were they," said the vicar, with vivacity.
"She's so particular about character, dear."
"So would they be. She hasn't been so very successful in her own case."
For the Shepherds' eldest daughter had just been figuring in a divorce
case to the distress of the Shepherds' neighbours.
Miss Shenstone showed patience.
"I'll have the note ready directly."
And when it was ready, the vicar took it like a lamb. He walked first to
Great End, meditating as he went on Miss Henderson's engagement. He had
foreseen it, of course, since the day of the Millsborough "rally." A fine
fellow, no doubt--with the great advantage of khaki. But it was to be
hoped we were not going to be altogether overrun with Americans--carrying
off English women.
At the gate of the farm stood a cart into which two young calves had just
been packed. Hastings was driving it, and Rachel Henderson, who had just
adjusted the net over the fidgety frightened creatures, was talking to
him.
She greeted Shenstone rather shyly. It was quite true that in the early
stages of her acquaintance with Ellesborough she had amused herself a
good deal with the vicar. And in his note of congratulation to her on her
engagement, she had detected just the slightest touch of reproach.
"I wish I had guessed it sooner." That meant, perhaps--"Why did you make
a fool of me?"
Meanwhile Miss Shenstone's note was duly delivered, and Rachel, holding
it in her hand, opened the wicket gate.
"Won't you come in?"
"Oh, no, I mustn't waste your time," said the vicar, with dignity.
"Perhaps you'll give me a verbal answer."
Rachel opened the note, and the vicar was puzzled by the look which
crossed her face as she read it. It was a look of relief--as though
something fitted in.
"Very kind of Lady Alicia. Of course the girls shall come. They will be
delighted. You really won't come in? Then I'll walk to the road with
you."
What was the change in her? The vicar perceived something indefinable;
and before they had walked half the distance to the road he had forgotten
his own grievance. She looked ill. Janet Leighton, meeting him in the
village a few days before, had talked of her partner as "done up." Was it
the excitement of falling in love?--combined perhaps with the worry of
leaving her work and the career just begun?
He asked a few questions about her plans. She answered him very gently,
with a subtle note of apology in her voice; but yet, as it seemed to him,
from rather far away. And when they parted, he realized that he had never
known more of her than an outer self, which offered but little clue to
the self within.
Rachel walked back to the farm with Miss Shenstone's note in her pocket.
She had told the vicar that her land-girls should certainly come to the
Shepherds' servants' party--but she said nothing about it to them--till
Janet Leighton had safely bicycled away in the early afternoon. The
invitation, however, was a godsend. For Rachel had begun to realize that
there was a good deal of watching going on--watching of the farm, and
watching over herself. She understood that Halsey had been scared by some
tramp or other whom he took for the ghost; and she saw that Janet was
unwilling that any one should be alone after dark in the farm. Nobody
had talked to her--Rachel--about it--no doubt by Ellesborough's
wish--because she was supposed to be out of sorts--run down. She had
accepted the little conspiracy of silence as a proof of his tenderness,
and had obediently asked no questions.
And it had not yet occurred to her to connect the stories floating
about the farm with Delane's reappearance. The stunning fact of the
reappearance, with all that it might mean to her, absorbed her mind--for
a few hours yet.
But as soon as Janet was safely off the premises, she hurried across to
the shippen, where Betty and Jenny were milking.
"Girls!--would you like to go to the Shepherds' dance to-night? I've got
an invitation for you?"
Stupefaction--and delight! The invitations had been very sparing and
select, and the two little maidens had felt themselves Cinderellas
indeed, all the sorer in their minds seeing that Dempsey and Betty's
young man were both going.
But _frocks_! Jenny at least had nothing suitable. Rachel at once offered
a white frock. The milking and dairy work were hurried through, and then
came the dressing, as the dance began at seven. Betty, knowing herself to
be a beauty, except for her teeth, had soon finished. A white blouse, a
blue cotton skirt, a blue ribbon in her mop of brown hair--and she looked
at herself exultantly in Miss Henderson's glass. Jenny was much more
difficult to please. She was crimson with excitement, and the tip of her
little red tongue kept slipping in and out. But Rachel patted and
pinned--in a kind of dream. Jenny's red hair, generally worn in the
tightest wisps and plaits, was brushed out till it stood like a halo
round her face and neck, and she was secretly afraid that Dempsey
wouldn't know her.
Then Rachel wrapped them up in their land-army waterproofs, and saw them
off, carrying an electric torch to guide them safely through the bit of
lane under the trees. But there was a moon rising, and the fog was less.
"Ain't she just kind?--don't you just love her?" said Jenny ecstatically
to Betty, as they turned back to wave their farewells again to the figure
standing in the doorway.
Betty assented. But they were both greatly astonished. For Rachel did not
in general take much personal notice of them.
They were no sooner out of sight than Rachel went to look at the clock in
the kitchen. Ten minutes to seven. Two hours to wait. How were they
going to be got through?
She went out aimlessly into the farm-yard, where the farm buildings stood
in a faintly luminous mist, the hill-side behind them, and the climbing
woods. To her left, across the fields ran the road climbing to the
miniature pass, whence it descended steeply to the plain beyond. And on
the further side of the road lay her own fields, with alternating bands
of plough-land and stubble, and the hedge-row trees standing ghostly and
separate in the light haze.
She was alone in the farm, in all that landscape the only living thing at
the moment, except for the animals. A tense energy of will seemed to
possess her. She was defending herself--defending Ellesborough--and
their joint lives. How was she going to do it? She didn't know. But the
passion in her blood would give her strength--would see her through.
In the old barn, the cows were munching peacefully. The air was sweet
with their breath, and with the hay piled in their cribs. Rachel wandered
noiselessly amongst them, and they turned their large eyes slowly to look
at her, and the small lantern she carried. In the stables, too, not a
sound, but an occasional swishing and champing. Rachel hung up the
lantern, and sat down on a truss of hay, idly watching the rays of light
striking up into the cross-beams of the roof, and on the shining flanks
of the horses. Her mind was going at a great speed. And all in a
moment--without any clear consciousness of the strange thoughts that had
been running through her brain--an intuition struck through her.
_Roger_!--it was he who had been playing the ghost--he who had been seen
haunting the farm--who had scared Halsey--_Roger_! come to spy upon
her and her lover! Once the idea suggested itself, she was certain of
it--it must be true.
The appearance in the lane had been cleverly premeditated. She had been
watched for days, perhaps for weeks.
Ellesborough had been watched, too, no doubt.
She drew a shuddering breath. She was afraid of Roger Delane. From the
early days of her marriage she had been afraid of him. There was about
him the incalculable something which means moral insanity--abnormal
processes of mind working through uncontrolled will. You could never
reason with or influence him, where his appetites or his passions were
concerned. A mocking spirit looked out upon you, just before his blow
fell. He was a mere force--inhuman and sinister.
Well, she had got to fight it and tame it! She shut up the cow-house and
stable, and stood out awhile in the farm-yard, letting the mild wind play
on her bare head and hot cheeks. The moon was riding overhead. The night
seemed to her very silent and mysterious--yet penetrated by something
divine to which she lifted her heart. What would Ellesborough say over
there--in his forester's hut, five miles beyond the hills, if he knew
what she was doing--whom she was expecting? She shut her eyes, and saw
his lean, strong face, his look--
The church clock was striking, and surely--in the distance, the sound of
an opening gate? She hurried back to the house, and the sitting-room. The
lamp was low. She revived it. She made up the fire. She felt herself
shivering with excitement, and she stooped over the fire, warming her
hands.
She had purposely left the front door unlocked. A hand tried the handle,
turned it--a slow step entered.