Alice spoke next.
"What day of the month is it?"
"The thirtieth." Mary answered.
"Then we've been here exactly five months to-day."
"That's nothing," said Mary, "to the months and years we shall be
here."
"I can't think what possessed Papa to come and bury us all in this
rotten place."
"Can't you?" Mary's eyes turned from their brooding. Her voice was
very quiet, barely perceptible the significant stress.
"Oh, if you mean it's _me_ he wants to bury----. You needn't rub that
in."
"I'm not rubbing it in."
"You are. You're rubbing it in every time you look like that. That's
the beastly part of it. Supposing he does want to get back on me, why
should he go and punish you two?"
"If he thinks he's punishing me he's sold," said Gwenda.
"He couldn't have stuck you in a rottener hole."
Gwenda raised her head.
"A hole? Why, there's no end to it. You can go for miles and miles
without meeting anybody, unless some darling mountain sheep gets up
and looks at you. It's--it's a divine place, Ally."
"Wait till you've been another five months in it. You'll be as sick as
I am."
"I don't think so. You haven't seen the moon get up over Greffington
Edge. If you had--if you knew what this place was like, you wouldn't
lie there grizzling. You wouldn't talk about punishing. You'd wonder
what you'd done to be allowed to look at it--to live in it a day. Of
course I'm not going to let on to Papa that I'm in love with it."
Mary smiled again.
"It's all very well for you," she said. "As long as you've got a moor
to walk on _you're_ all right."
"Yes. I'm all right," Gwenda said.
Her head had sunk again and rested in the hollow of her arms. Her
voice, muffled in her sleeve, came soft and thick. It died for
drowsiness.
In the extreme immobility and stillness of the three the still house
stirred and became audible to them, as if it breathed. They heard the
delicate fall of the ashes on the hearth, and the flame of the lamp
jerking as the oil sputtered in the burnt wick. Their nerves shook to
the creeping, crackling sounds that came from the wainscot, infinitely
minute. A tongue of fire shot hissing from the coal. It seemed to them
a violent and terrifying thing. The breath of the house passed over
them in thick smells of earth and must, as the fire's heat sucked at
its damp.
The church clock struck the half hour. Once, twice; two dolorous notes
that beat on the still house and died.
Somewhere out at the back a door opened and shut, and it was as if the
house drew in its breath at the shock of the sound.
Presently a tremor crept through Gwenda's young body as her heart
shook it.
She rose and went to the window.