XXIX

Very early in the morning he told Mavis that he felt sure they ought

to send Norah away on a holiday for the good of her health.

"This hot weather has been a severe test for all of us," he said; "and

of course what I should consider equally advisable would be to send

you and the children along with her, but I suppose--"

"What, me go away just when you're going to cut the grass!"

"Very well," he said, "I won't urge it. But as to Norah, that's a

decision I've come to; so please don't question it. She's been working

too hard--"

"Did she complain to you yesterday, when you lectured her?"

"No. Not a word. An' she'll prob'ly resist the idea. But she must be

overruled, because my mind is made up. So now the only question that

remains is--where are you to send her? What about that place for

servants resting--at Bournemouth, the place Mrs. Norton collects

subscriptions for?"

"Yes, I might ask Mrs. Norton if she could spare us a ticket."

"No, send the girl as a paying guest. I don't grudge any reasonable

expense. Or again there's Mrs. Creech's daughter-in-law, over at

S'thaampton Water."

"Oh, there's half a dozen people I could think of--"

"All right," he said; "but I want it done now, straight away. And

look here, Mav. Take this thing off my shoulders, and don't let me be

bothered. I shouldn't have decided it, if I didn't know it was right.

I've a long and difficult day before me. You just hop into the gig,

and Tom'll drive you round--to see Mrs. Norton or anybody else. Only

let me hear by dinner-time that the arrangement is made."

"You shall," said Mavis cheerfully.

"Thank you, Mav. You're always a trump. You never fail one."

What had seemed an insuperable difficulty was thus in a moment

accomplished. His quietly authoritative tone had made Mavis accept the

thing not only easily but without a doubt or question, and he thought

remorsefully that, except for his sneaking, cowardly delay, all this

might have occurred a month ago. He felt a distinct lightening of the

trouble as he went back into his own room, and then the weight of it

fell upon him again. He had succeeded so far as Mavis was concerned;

but how about Norah?

He stood meditating in front of the looking-glass before he began to

shave. When he picked up the shaving-brush, he noticed that his hand

was trembling--not much, yet quite visibly. It never used to do that,

and he looked at it with disgust. It seemed to him like an old man's

hand.

Then he began to study his face in the glass. No one would have

guessed that this was a man who had been praying all night. The whole

face showed those signs of fatigue that come after base pleasures,

after riotous waste of energy, after long hours of debauch. It seemed

to him that his gray hair was finer of texture than it ought to be,

hanging straight and thin, with no strength in it; that his eyes were

too dim, that the flesh underneath them had puffed out loosely, and

that his lower lip was drooping slackly--and he shuddered in disgust.

It seemed to him that his face changed and grew uglier as he looked at

it. It was becoming like an old man's face he had seen years ago.

In spite of the slight shakiness of his hand he managed to shave

himself without a cut, and he was just about to wash the soap away

when he heard a sound of lamentation on the lower floor. It was Norah

loudly bewailing herself. Mavis had gone down-stairs and published his

sentence of banishment.

Suppose that the girl betrayed their secret. Suppose that she was even

now telling his wife what had happened in the wood. Well, he must go

down to them and flatly deny whatever Norah said. But he tingled and

grew hot with a most miserable shame; his heart quailed at the mere

notion of the sickening, disgraceful character of such a scene--he,

the highly respected Mr. Dale, the good upright religious man, being

accused by a little servant girl and having to rebut her accusations

in the presence of his wife.

He dipped his head in the basin, and even when under the cold water

the tips of his ears seemed as if they were on fire. He must go

down-stairs the moment he had cooled his face; but he would go as some

wretched schoolboy goes to the headmaster's room when he guesses that

his unforgivable beastliness has been discovered, and that first a

thrashing and then expulsion are awaiting him.

Some of the lying words that he must utter suggested themselves. "Oh,

Norah, this is a poor return you are making for all my kindness.

Aren't you ashamed to stand there and tell such ungrateful

false-hoods. Ma lass, your cheek surprises me. I wonder you can look

me in the face."

But it would be Mavis, and not Norah, who would look him in the

face--and she would read the truth there. She would see it staring at

her in his shifting eyes, his slack lip, and his weak frown. Her first

glance at him would be loyal and frank, just an eager flash of love

and confidence, seeming to say, "Be quick, Will, and put your foot on

this viper that we've both of us warmed, and that is trying to bite

me;" then she would turn pale, avert her head, and drop upon a chair.

And for why? Because she had seen the nauseating truth, and her heart

was almost broken.

Then he suddenly understood that there was no real danger of all this.

It was only his own sense of guilt that unnerved him. Nothing had

happened in the wood. If he behaved quietly and sensibly, he would be

altogether safe, and Mavis would never guess. Truly all that he had to

conceal was that he had been stopped on the very brink of his sin,

that but for a startling interference, an almost miraculous

interference, the wicked thoughts would infallibly have found their

outlet in wicked deeds.

If Norah said he took her on his knees and kissed her, Mavis would

think nothing of it--would not even think it undignified; would merely

take as one more evidence of his kindly nature the fact that, instead

of upbraiding the silly child, he had embraced her. If the girl howled

and said she did not want to go because she was fond of him, Mavis

would think nothing of that either. Mavis knew it already, and had

never thought anything of it.

Therefore if he did not betray himself, the girl could not betray him.

All that was required of him was just to maintain an ordinary air of

ingenuousness. He had done enough acting in his life to be at home

when dissimulating. He must do a little more successful acting now.

After a minute or so he went down-stairs, and was outwardly staid and

calm, looking as he had looked on hundreds of mornings: the good kind

father of a household, whose only care is the happiness and welfare of

those who are dependent on him.

Directly he entered the breakfast-room Norah ran sobbing to him and

clung to his hand.

"She is sending me away. Oh, don't let her do it. You promised you

wouldn't. Oh, why do you let her do it?"

"This is _my_ plan, Norah," he said gently; "not Mrs. Dale's. I wish

it--and I ask you not to make a fuss."

"I've told her," said Mavis, "that it's only for her own good; and

that she'll be back here in a fortnight or three weeks. But she seems

to think we want to be rid of her forever."

"No, no," said Dale. "Nothing of the sort. It's merely for the good of

your health--and not in any way as a punishment for your having been

rather disobedient."

"Why, I'm sure," said Mavis cheerfully, "most girls would jump for joy

at the chance. You'll enjoy yourself, and have all a happy time."

"No, I shan't," Norah cried. "I shall be miserable;" and she looked

up at Dale despairingly. "Do you promise I'm really and truly to come

back?"

"Of course I do. And it's all on the cards that Mrs. Dale and Rachel

and Bill may follow you before your holiday is over."

"Oh, I doubt that," said Mavis.

"No," cried Norah, "when I'm gone you'll turn against me, and forget

me. I shall never see you again, and I shall die. I can't bear it."

And she began to sob wildly.

Then Dale, standing big and firm, although each sob tore at his

entrails, pacified and reassured the girl. He said that she must not

be "fullish," she must be "good and sensible," she must fall in with

the views of those "older and wiser" than herself; finally, after his

arguments and admonitions, he laid his hand on her bowed head as if

silently giving a patriarchal blessing; and Mavis watched and admired,

and loved him for his noble generosity in taking so much trouble about

the poor little waif that had no real claim on him.

"There," she said, "dry your eyes, Norah. Mr. Dale has told you he

wishes it, and that ought to be enough for you."

And then Norah said she would do what Mr. Dale wished, even if she

died in doing it.

"Oh, stuff, stuff," said Mavis, laughing cheerily. "I never heard such

talk. Now come along with me, and get the breakfast things;" and she

took Norah down the steps into the kitchen.

Norah came back to lay the cloth presently, and would have rushed into

Dale's arms, if he had not motioned to her to keep away, and laid a

finger on his lips warningly. But he could not prevent her from

whispering to him across the table.

"Will you come and see me, wherever it is?"

"Perhaps."

"Come and see me without _her_. Come all for me, by yourself."

Dale did more work in that one morning than he had done for months.

The wet season had naturally postponed the hay-making, but negligence

was postponing it still further; now at last he gave all necessary

orders. But it was only his own grass that he had to deal with.

Letting everything drift, he had not made any of the usual

arrangements with his neighbors; this year he would not have to ride

grandly round and watch dozens of men and women laboring for him; and

there would be no farmers' banquet or speeches or cigar-smoking.

When he came in to dinner he found Mavis all hot and red, but pleased

with herself after her bustling activities. The whole business was

settled. Norah was to go as a paying guest to that place at

Bournemouth, and Mavis would drive her over to Rodchurch Road and put

her into the four-fifteen train. At the station they would meet a girl

called Nellie Evans, whom by a happy chance Mrs. Norton was

despatching to-day; and so the two girls could travel together, and

prevent each other from being a fool when they changed trains at the

junction; and altogether nothing could have turned out better or

nicer.

Mavis, babbling contentedly all through dinner, harped on the niceness

both of people and things. Mrs. Norton, and indeed everybody else, had

been so nice about it. All Rodchurch had seemed anxious to assist Mr.

and Mrs. Dale in contriving their little maid's holiday. "And it is

nice," said Mavis simply, "to be treated like that." Mrs. Norton had

taken her all round the vicarage garden, and she had never seen it

looking nicer. "Although the flowers aren't anything to boast of, any

more than ours are."

"And what _do_ you think? Here's a bit of news you'll be sorry to

hear, though it mayn't surprise you." Then Mavis related how it had

been necessary to procure some sort of trunk to hold Norah's things,

because there wasn't a single presentable bit of luggage in the house,

and she had discovered exactly what she wanted--something that was not

immoderate, appearing solid, yet not heavy--at the new shop that had

recently been opened at the bottom of the village near the Gauntlet

Inn. First, however, she had gone to their old friend the saddler's,

wanting to see if she could buy the box there. But Mr. Allen's shop

was empty, woe-begone, dirty with cobwebs, dead flies, and mud on the

window; and Mr. Allen himself was ill in bed, being nursed hand and

foot, and fed like a baby, by poor Mrs. Allen. He had been stricken

down by some dreadful form of rheumatism, and three doctors had said

the same thing--that he had brought this calamity upon himself by his

ridiculous, ceaseless tramping after the hounds.

Dale nodded and smiled, or made his face appropriately grave, while

Mavis prattled to him; but truly his mind was occupied only by Norah.

She came in and out of the room, looking pale and limp and resigned;

she knew all about the trunk, and that it was up-stairs and that

already the mistress and Ethel had begun to pack it; she was

submitting to destiny, but out of her soft blue eyes there shot a

glance now and then that made him quiver with pain.

He went out of the house the moment dinner was finished, and kept

moving about, now in the office, now in the yard, never still. Then,

when he was pottering round and round the office for the fiftieth time

in two hours, he heard a footstep, and Norah came--to whisper and

cling to him, to make him kiss her again; to penetrate him with her

ineffable sweetness; to plant the seeds of inextinguishable desire in

the last few cells and fibers of his brain that as yet she had not

reached.

"I don't ast you to stand in th' road when we drive away. I'd rather

not. Say good-by to me now, when there's nobody watchin'."

Then he had to take her in his arms once more; and they stood close to

the door, far from the window, pressed heart to heart, mute,

throbbing.

"I'm kissing you," she whispered presently, "but you're not kissing

me. Kiss me."

And he obeyed her.

"No," she whispered. "Different from that. Kiss me like you did

yesterday."

"Very well," he said hoarsely. "This is the good-by kiss. This is

good-by." And once again he felt the swift lambent ecstasy of a love

that he had never till now guessed at; a joy beyond words, beyond

dreams, beyond belief. "Now, you must go;" and he slowly released

himself, and held her at arm's length. "That was our good-by. Good-by,

my Norah--my darling--good-by." Then he went to the table in front of

the window, and sat down.

She came a little way from the door, and spoke to him before going out

and along the passage.

"I shan't mind now--however miserable I am--because I know it's all

right. An' I promise to be good, an' do all I'm told, an' always be

your own Norah."

Then she left him--the gray-haired respected Mr. Dale of Vine-Pits

Farm, sitting in his office window for all the world to see; looking

livid, shaky, old; and feeling like a Christian missionary in some

far-off heathen land, who, having preached to the gang of pirates into

whose hands he had fallen, lies now at the roadside with all his

inside torn away, and waits for birds with beaks or beasts with claws

to come and finish him.

Before the horse was put into the wagonette and the trunk brought

down-stairs, Dale had left the house and gone some distance along the

road in the direction of the Barradine Arms. Even if Norah had not

said that he need not be there at the moment of departure, he would

have been unable to remain. He could not stand by and see her piteous

face, her slender figure, her forlorn gestures, while they carried her

off--the poor little weak thing sent away from hearth and home, cast

out among strangers because any spot on the earth, however bare or

hard, had become a better shelter for her than the place that should

have been sacredly secure.

He walked heavily, with a leaden heart and leaden feet; his eyes

downcast, not glancing at the dark trees on one side or the bright

fields on, the other. But after passing the first of the woodland

paths and before coming to the second, he looked up. He had heard the

sound of many footsteps and the murmur of many voices. All those

blue-cloaked orphans, two and two, an endless procession, were

advancing toward him.

Never had the sight and the sound of them been so horribly distasteful

to him. They were still a long way off, and he thought he could dodge

them, at any rate avoid meeting them face to face, if he hurried on to

the second footpath and dived into the wood there. But then it seemed

as if he had stupidly miscalculated the distance, or that his legs

were failing him, or that the girls came sweeping down the road at an

impossibly rapid pace; so that they were right upon him just as he

reached the stile. He drew aside, and, feeling that it was too late

now to turn his back, watched them as they passed.

The mistresses must have issued a sudden order of silence, for they

all went by without so much as a whisper. There were fifty of them,

but they seemed to be thousands. Dressed in their light blue summer

cloaks, golden-haired, brown-haired, a very few black-haired, they

passed two by two, with the little ones first, and bigger and bigger

girls behind--an ascending scale of size, so that he had the illusion

of seeing a girl grow up under his eyes, change in a minute instead of

in years from the small sexless imp that is like an amusing toy, to

the full-breasted creature that is so nearly a woman as to be

dangerous to herself and to everybody else.

Not one of them spoke, but all of them, little and big, looked at

him--very shyly, and yet with intense interest. He stood staring after

them, and presently their tuneful young voices sounded again, filled

the air with virginal music. He swung his leg over the stile, and

went along the path through the trees where he had followed Norah

yesterday.

He had not intended to leave the highroad, but it was as if that dead

man's girls had driven him into the wood to get away from their shyly

questioning eyes. He might meet them again if he stayed out there. In

here he could be alone with his thoughts.

To-day there was plenty of sunlight, and instead of turning off the

path he went straight on to the main ride. This too was bright with

sunshine, a splendid broad avenue that was shut close on either side

by the thickly planted firs; the mossy track seeming soft as a bed,

and the sky like an immensely high canopy of delicate blue gauze. A

heron crossed quickly but easily, making only three flaps of its

powerful wings before it disappeared; there was an unceasing hum of

insects; and two wood-cutters came by and wished Dale good afternoon

and touched their weather-stained hats.

"Good afternoon," he said, in a friendly tone. "A bit cooler and

pleasanter to-day, isn't it?"

"You're right, sir. 'Bout time too."

Then he walked on, alone with his thoughts again, along the wide

sunlit ride toward Kibworth Rocks; and a phrase kept echoing in his

ears, sounding as if he said it aloud. "It is the finger of God. It is

the finger of God." He was quoting himself really, because he had once

used that phrase in a pompously effective manner. Could one repeat it

as effectively in regard to what happened near here yesterday? Could

one dare to say that the finger of God interposed, touching his blood

with ice, making his muscles relax, forcing him to loosen his hold on

the delicious morsel that like a beast of prey he was about to devour

and enjoy.

He walked with hunched shoulders and lowered head, but there was great

resolution, even an odd sort of swaggering defiance in his gait. He

stopped short, raised his head, and looked about him at a certain

point of the ride. Here he was very near to the open glade where he

met Norah; but he was nearer still to the strewn boulders, jagged

ridges, and hollow clefts of Kibworth Rocks. If he left the ride, he

would see them, brown and gray, glittering in the sunshine.

And he thought again of those fifty orphans or waifs. Why weren't they

here to bow and do honor to him who had been the friend of girls in

life and who was the guardian angel of girls in death? This was the

hallowed spot, the benefactor's resting-place till devout hands raised

him and priests sang over him, the rocky shrine of their patron saint.

Dale grunted, shook himself, and went off the ride in the opposite

direction--to tread the moss that had been crushed by Norah's

footsteps, to push against the branches that had touched her

shoulders, to see the dead flowers that had dropped from her hands. He

found a shriveled sprig or two of her woodland posy, and carried them

to the fallen beech tree.

She was gone now--already a long way from him--at the railway station,

with ticket bought, and box labeled, waiting for the train to take her

still farther from him. Only a heron could fly fast enough to get to

her now before the train possessed her. And he quoted himself again,

really saying the words aloud this time. "Good-by--my darling--good-by,

good-by."

That was what he meant when he gave her the last kiss. He had said so.

He had called it the last kiss. But she--poor lamb--thought it was the

last kiss till next time; that it was good-by for three weeks, not

good-by forever. He must never see her again. There could be no two

ways about _that_ decision. He mustn't palter, or trifle, or

shilly-shally about that iron certainty. But how without Heaven's

unceasing aid would he have strength to keep such a vow?

And sitting on the tree, and thinking for a little while about himself

rather than about her, he endeavored to survey his situation in the

logical clear-sighted way that had once been customary with him. To

what a blank no-thoroughfare he had brought himself. What a damnable

mess he had made of his peaceful, happy home.

Of course he had known for a long time what was the matter with him.

His disgust with himself at the revelation of his own weakness dated

from a long time ago; but the progress of his passing from perfectly

pure and normal thoughts about the girl to cravings that he struggled

with as morbid impurities was so subtle that it defied analysis. At

first when he put his hand on her head, or patted her shoulder, every

thought behind the fatherly gesture was itself fatherly; and then,

without anything to startle one by a recognition of change, the time

had come when he felt a slight thrill in touching her, when he was

always seeking occasions or excuses for doing it, when the wider the

contact the more massive was his satisfaction. Her white neck, her

round fore-arms, her thin wrists, irresistibly attracted a caress. He

could not keep his hands off her--and it distressed and worried him

whenever he saw anybody else doing quite innocently what he did with

an unavowable purpose. Perhaps this was the real cause of his dislike

for the new pastor. After Mr. Furnival's initial appearance at the

chapel, they all three walked a little way together, and the

good-looking young man paid Norah compliments about her singing, and

held her hand and patted it. Nothing could have been more innoxious,

more completely ministerial; and yet Dale had felt that he would like

to take the clerical gentleman by the collar of his black coat and the

seat of his gray trousers, and send him sprawling over a quick-set

hedge into a ploughed field.

He knew then the nature of the poison that had crept insidiously into

his blood and was beginning to spread and rage with deadly power. He

fought against it bravely, he fought against it despairingly. He hoped

that chance would cure him, he prayed that heaven would cleanse him.

He would not believe that his ruin was irretrievable. That would be

too monstrous and absurd. Because, except for this expanding trouble,

everything inside him, all the main component parts that made up the

vast and still solid thinking organism which had been labeled for

external observers by the name of William Dale, remained quite

unchanged. His religious faith stood absolutely firm, was strengthened

rather than shaken; he regarded his wife with exactly the same

affection; he loved his children as much as, more than ever; only this

astounding dreadful new thing was added to him: he worshiped Norah.

In his struggles to free himself from the new mental growth, he had

turned to his children. Instinct seemed to say that from them and

through them should come an influence sufficiently potent to resist

temptation, however tremendous. He felt so proud of the boy. Billy was

never afraid of him, looked at him so firmly even when threatened,

holding up the pink and white face, with its soft unformed features

and yet a determined set to the chin and mouth already--a real little

man. Dale took his son's hand in his, took Billy with him into the

granary, the hay loft, or across the fields, cut bits of willow and

showed how to make a whistle, took a hedge sparrow's nest and blew the

eggs; and the boy was proud and happy in such noble society, but he

could not exorcise the evil spell for his grand companion.

Nor could Rachel give freedom. Dale embraced his daughter with the

truest paternal fervor, pumping up sweet clean love from deep

unsullied wells, thinking honestly and as of old so long as she stood

by his side. At such moments he forced himself to imagine a man

playing the fool with Rachel, and immediately there came a full normal

explosion of parental rage; and he knew, without the possibility of

doubt, that such a man had better never have been born than encounter

Rachel's father. But these imaginations could not help him. Thoughts

about Rachel and thoughts about Norah, which once had mingled, were

now like two rivers running side by side but never meeting.

Again, what had rendered the fight hopeless was his recognition of the

overwhelming fact that the spell was mutual. It was not only that he

wanted her, Norah wanted him. There lay the sweetly venomous throb of

the poison. In her eyes he was _not_ old; his gray hair did not appall

her, his rugged frame did not repel her. All night and all day,

during months, yes, during years, she had told him: "You are _not_

old; you _need_ not be old; _I_ can make you young."

He thought, as he had thought again and again, of her artlessness, her

ignorance, and her total absence of compunction. It seemed so

wonderful. She drifted toward him as the petal of a flower comes on

running water, as corn seeds blow through the air, as anything small

and light obeying a natural law. She did not in the least understand

social conventions. She was not troubled with one thought of right or

wrong; she neither meditated nor remembered. How wonderful. The ten

commandments and the catechism that she knew by heart, all the hymns

she had sung and all the sermons she had heard, did not exert the

faintest restraining influence. They had no real meaning for her

probably, and she could not therefore bring them into relation with

concrete facts. In her innocence, in her virginal simplicity, she

would keep the book of life close--sealed until he opened it roughly

for her at its ugliest page.

He, or somebody else!

Suddenly he threw away the faded wood-blossoms, sprang up from the

tree, and paced to and fro. A wave of revolt came sweeping through and

through him. Was he not making mountains out of mole-hills?

If he could trample down all this sentimental fiddle-de-dee, what was

the plain English of the case so far as she was concerned? Unbidden,

innumerable circumstances stored from local knowledge offered

themselves as guides for argument. Take any girl of that class--well,

what are her chances? Why, you are lucky if you keep 'em straight

until the time comes to send 'em out into domestic service; their

parents scarcely expect it, barely seem to desire it. But after that

time, when they get among strangers and there's nobody with an eye on

them, they fall as victims--if you choose to call it so--to the first

marauder--to the young master, the nephew home for his Christmas

holidays, or the man who comes to tune the piano. If not himself, it

would be somebody else.

And he thought. "Blast it all, am I a man or a mouse? Who's to judge

me, or stan' in my way, if I do what I please? Suppose it's found out,

well, it must be smoothed over, covered up, and put behind the

fireplace. I shan't be Number One that's bin th' same road!" and he

remembered how lightly other married men, his neighbors, country

farmers, or town tradesmen, amused themselves with their servants, and

how their middle-aged wives just had to grin and bear it. "An' Mavis,"

he thought, "can do the same. Heavens an' earth, I've got an answer

ready if she tries to make a fuss, or wants to take the dinner-bell

and go round as public crier--an answer that ought to flatten her as

if a traction engine had bin over her. 'My lass, who began it? Bring

out your slate and put it alongside mine, an' we'll see which looks

dirtiest, all said and done.'" While he was thinking in this manner,

his face became very ugly, with hard deep lines in it, and about the

mouth that cruel pouting expression once seen by Mavis.

He came back to the tree; and sat down, letting his hands hang loose,

his head droop, and his shoulders contract. The fire had gone cold

again.

Now he felt only disgust and horror. Norah's ignorance and disregard

of moral precepts, or readiness to yield to the snares of unlicensed

joy, were summed up in the better and truer word innocence. The

greater her weakness, the greater his wickedness. If he could not save

her from others, he could save her from himself. Then if she fell, it

would at least be a natural fall. It would not be a foul betrayal of

youth by age; it would not be the sort of degraded crime that makes

angels weep, and ordinary people change into judges and executioners.

When a man has reached a certain time of life he must not crave for

forbidden delights, he must not permit himself to be eaten up with new

desire, he must not risk destroying a girl's soul for the

gratification of his own body. If he does, he commits the unpardonable

sin. And there is no excuse for him.

The Devil's reasonings to which a few minutes ago he had listened

greedily were specious, futile, utterly false. That sort of argument

might do for other men--might do for every other man in the wide

world--but it would not do for _him_, William Dale. Its acceptance

would knock the very ground from under his feet.

For, if there could be any excuse, why had he killed Everard

Barradine?