And Mary, as if doubt had only just occurred to her, made a sudden
little tremulous appeal.
"You don't really think Garth was the place for her?"
"I don't really think anything about it," Rowcliffe said.
Mary was pensive. Her brooding look said that she laid a secret fear
to rest.
"Garth couldn't satisfy a girl like Gwenda."
Rowcliffe said no, he supposed it couldn't satisfy her. His dejection
was by this time terrible. It cast a visible, a palpable gloom.
"She's a restless creature," said Mary, smiling.
She threw it out as if by way of lightening his oppression, almost as
if she put it to him that if Gwenda was restless (by which Rowcliffe
might understand, if he liked, capricious) she couldn't help it. There
was no reason why he should be so horribly hurt. It was not as if
there was anything personal in Gwenda's changing attitudes. And
Rowcliffe did indeed say to himself, Restless--restless. Yes. That was
the word for her; and he supposed she couldn't help it.
* * * * *
The study door opened and shut. Mary's eyes made a sign to him that
said, "We can't talk about this before my father. He won't like it."
But Mr. Cartaret had gone upstairs. They could hear him moving in the
room overhead.
"How is your other sister getting on?" said Rowcliffe abruptly.
"Alice? She's all right. You wouldn't know her. She can walk for
miles."
"You don't say so?"
He was really astonished.
"She's off now somewhere, goodness knows where."
"Ha!" Rowcliffe laughed softly.
"It's really wonderful," said Mary. "She's generally so tired in the
spring."
It _was_ wonderful. The more he thought of it the more wonderful it
was.
"Oh, well----" he said, "she mustn't overdo it."
It was Mary he suspected of overdoing it. On Ally's account, of
course. It wasn't likely that she would give the poor child away.
At that point Mrs. Gale came in with the tea-things. And presently the
Vicar came down to tea.
He was more than courteous this time. He was affable. He too greeted
Rowcliffe as if nothing had happened, and he abstained from any
reference to Gwenda.
But he showed a certain serenity in his restraint. Leaning back in
his armchair, his legs crossed, his hands joined lightly at the
finger-tips, his forehead smoothed, conversing affably, Mr. Cartaret
had the air of a man who might indeed have suffered through his
outrageous family, but for whom suffering was passed, a man without
any trouble or anxiety. And serenity without the memory of suffering
was in Mary's good and happy face.
The house was very still, it seemed the stillness of life that ran
evenly and with no sound. And it was borne in upon Rowcliffe as he sat
there and talked to them that this quiet and tranquillity had come
to them with Gwenda's going. She was a restless creature, and she had
infected them with her unrest. They had peace from her now.
Only for him there could be no peace from Gwenda. He could feel her in
the room. Through the open door she came and went--restless, restless!
He put the thought of her from him.
* * * * *
After tea the Vicar took him into his study. If Rowcliffe had a moment
to spare, he would like, he said, to talk to him.
Rowcliffe looked at his watch. The idea of being talked to frightened
him.
The Vicar observed his nervousness.
"It's about my daughter Alice," he said.
And it was.
The Vicar wanted him to know and he had brought him into his study in
order to tell him that Alice had completely recovered. He went into
it. The girl was fit. She was happy. She ate well. She slept well (he
had kept her under very careful supervision) and she could walk for
miles. She was, in fact, leading the healthy natural life he had hoped
she would lead when he brought her into a more bracing climate.
Rowcliffe expressed his wonder. It was, he said, _very_ wonderful.
But the Vicar would not admit that it was wonderful at all. It was
exactly what he had expected. He had never thought for a moment that
there was anything seriously wrong with Alice--anything indeed in the
least the matter with her.
Rowcliffe was silent. But he looked at the Vicar, and the Vicar did
not even pretend not to understand his look.
"I know," he said, "the very serious view you took of her. But I
think, my dear fellow, when you've seen her you'll admit that you were
mistaken."
Rowcliffe said there was nothing he desired more than to have been
mistaken, but he was afraid he couldn't admit it. Miss Cartaret's
state, when he last saw her, had been distinctly serious.
"You will perhaps admit that whatever danger there may have been then
is over?"
"I haven't seen her yet," said Rowcliffe. "But"--he looked at him--"I
told you the thing was curable."
"That's my point. What is there--what can there have been to cure
her?"
Rowcliffe ignored the Vicar's point.
"Can you date it--this recovery?"
"I date it," said the Vicar, "from the time her sister left. She
seemed to pull herself together after that."
Rowcliffe said nothing. He was reviewing all his knowledge of the
case. He considered Ally's disastrous infatuation for himself. In the
light of his knowledge her recovery was not only wonderful, it was
incomprehensible. So incomprehensible that he was inclined to suspect
her father of lying for some reason of his own. Family pride, no
doubt. He had known instances.
The Vicar went on. He gave himself a long innings. "But that does not
account for it altogether, though it may have started it. I really put
it down to other things--the pure air--the quiet life--the absence of
excitement--the regular _work_ that _takes_ her _out_ of herself----"
Here the Vicar fell into that solemn rhythm that marked the periods of
his sermons.
He perorated. "The _simple_ following _out_ of _my_ prescription. You
will remember" (he became suddenly cheery and conversational) "that it
_was_ mine."
"It certainly wasn't mine," said Rowcliffe.
He saw it all. _That_ was why the Vicar was so affable. That was why
he was so serene.
And he wasn't lying. His state of mind was obviously much too simple.
He was serenely certain of his facts.
* * * * *
By courteous movement of his hand the Vicar condoned Rowcliffe's
rudeness, which he attributed to professional pique very natural in
the circumstances.
With admirable tact he changed the subject.
"I also wished to consult you about another matter. Nothing" (he again
reassured the doctor's nervousness) "to do with my family."
Rowcliffe was all attention.
"It's about--it's about that poor girl, Essy Gale."
"Essy," said Rowcliffe, "is very well and very happy."
The Vicar's sudden rigidity implied that Essy had no business to be
happy.
"If she is, it isn't your friend Greatorex's fault."
"I'm not so sure of that," said Rowcliffe.
"I suppose you know he has refused to marry her?"
"I understood as much. But who asked him to?"
"I did."
"My dear sir, if you don't mind my saying so, I think you made a
mistake--if you _want_ him to marry her. You know what he is."
"I do indeed. But a certain responsibility rests with the parson of
the parish."
"You can't be responsible for everything that goes on."
"Perhaps not--when the place is packed with nonconformists. Greatorex
comes of bad dissenting stock. I can't hope to have any influence with
him."
He paused.
"But I'm told that _you_ have."
"Influence? Not I. I've a sneaking regard for Greatorex. He isn't half
a bad fellow if you take him the right way."
"Well, then, can't you take him? Can't you say a judicious word?"
"If it's to ask him to marry Essy, that wouldn't be very judicious,
I'm afraid. He'll marry her if he wants to, and if he doesn't, he
won't."
"But, my dear Dr. Rowcliffe, think of the gross injustice to that poor
girl."
"It might be a worse injustice if he married her. Why _should_ he
marry her if he doesn't want to, and if she doesn't want it? There
she is, perfectly content and happy with her baby. It's been a little
seedy lately, but it's absolutely sound. A very fine baby indeed, and
Essy knows it. There's nothing wrong with the baby."
Rowcliffe continued, regardless of the Vicar's stare: "She's
better off as she is than tied to a chap who isn't a bit too sober.
Especially if he doesn't care for her."
The Vicar rose and took up his usual defensive position on the hearth.
"Well, Dr. Rowcliffe, if those are your ideas of morality----?"
"They are not my ideas of morality, only my judgment of the individual
case."
"Well--if that's your judgment, after all, I think that the less you
meddle with it the better."
"I never meddle," said Rowcliffe.
But the Vicar did not leave him. He had caught the sound of the
opening and shutting of the gate. He listened.
His manner changed again to a complete affability.
"I think that's Alice. I should like you to see her. If you--"
Rowcliffe gathered that the entrance of Alice had better coincide
with his departure. He followed the Vicar as he went to open the front
door.
Alice stood on the doorstep.
She was not at first aware of him where he lingered in the
half-darkness at the end of the passage.
"Alice," said the Vicar, "Dr. Rowcliffe is here. You're just in time
to say good-bye to him."
"It's a pity if it's good-bye," said Alice.
Her voice might have been the voice of a young woman who is sanely and
innocently gay, but to Rowcliffe's ear there was a sound of exaltation
in it.
He could see her now clearly in the light of the open door. The Vicar
had not lied. Alice had all the appearances of health. Something had
almost cured her.
But not quite. As she stood there with him in the doorway, chattering,
Rowcliffe was struck again with the excitement of her voice and
manner, imperfectly restrained, and with the quivering glitter of her
eyes. By these signs he gathered that if Alice was happy her happiness
was not complete. It was not happiness in his sense of the word. But
Alice's face was unmistakably the face of hope.
Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with him. He saw that Alice's
eyes faced him now with the light, unseeing look of indifference, and
that they turned every second toward the wall at the bottom of the
garden. She was listening to something.
* * * * *
He was then aware of footsteps on the road. They came down the hill,
passing close under the Vicarage wall and turning where it turned
to skirt the little lane at the bottom between the garden and the
churchyard. The lane led to the pastures, and the pastures to the
Manor. And from the Manor grounds a field track trailed to a small
wicket gate on the north side of the churchyard wall. A flagged path
went from the wicket to the door of the north transept. It was a short
cut for the lord of the Manor to his seat in the chancel, but it was
not the nearest way for anybody approaching the church from the high
road.
Now, the slope of the Vicarage garden followed the slope of the road
in such wise that a person entering the churchyard from the high road
could be seen from the windows of the Vicarage. If that person desired
to remain unseen his only chance was to go round by the lane to the
wicket gate, keeping close under the garden wall.
Rowcliffe heard the wicket gate click softly as it was softly opened
and shut.
And he could have sworn that Alice heard it too.
* * * * *
He waited twenty minutes or so in his surgery. Then, instead of
sending at once to the Red Lion for his trap, he walked back to the
church.
Standing in the churchyard, he could hear the sound of the organ and
of a man's voice singing.
He opened the big west door softly and went softly in.