"You'll know, some day," Ally said and turned her back on her.
* * * * *
Mary went out, closing the door softly, as if she spared her sick
sister's unreasonably irritated nerves. She felt rather miserable as
she undressed alone in her bedroom. She was wounded in her sweetness
and her goodness, and she was also a little afraid of what Ally might
take it into her head to say or do. She didn't try to think what
Ally had meant. Her sweetness and goodness, with their instinct of
self-preservation, told her that it might be better not.
The August night was warm and tender, and, when Mary had got into bed
and lay stretched out in contentment under the white sheet, she began
to think of Rowcliffe to the exclusion of all other interests; and
presently, between a dream and a dream, she fell asleep.
* * * * *
But Ally could not sleep.
She lay till dawn thinking and thinking, and turning from side to
side between her thoughts. They were not concerned with Gwenda or with
Rowcliffe. After her little spurt of indignation she had ceased to
think about Gwenda or Rowcliffe either. Mary's news had made her think
about herself, and her thoughts were miserable. Ally was so far like
her father the Vicar, that the idea of Mary's marrying was intolerable
to her and for precisely the same reason, because she saw no prospect
of marrying herself. Her father had begun by forbidding Mary's
engagement but he would end by sanctioning it. He would never sanction
_her_ marriage to Jim Greatorex.
Even if she defied her father and married Jim Greatorex in spite of
him there would be almost as much shame in it as if, like Essy, she
had never married him at all.
And she couldn't live without him.
Ally had suffered profoundly from the shock that had struck her down
under the arcades on the road to Upthorne. It had left her more than
ever helpless, more than ever subject to infatuation, more than ever
morally inert. Ally's social self had grown rigid in the traditions
of her class, and she was still aware of the unsuitability of her
intimacy with Jim Greatorex; but disaster had numbed her once poignant
sense of it. She had yielded to his fascination partly through
weakness, partly in defiance, partly in the sheer, healthy
self-assertion of her suffering will and her frustrated senses. But
she had not will enough to defy her father. She credited him with an
infinite capacity to crush and wound. And for a day and a half the
sight of Mary's happiness--a spectacle which Mary did not spare
her---had made Ally restless. Under the incessant sting of it her
longing for Greatorex became insupportable.
On Sunday the Vicar was still too deeply afflicted by the same
circumstance to notice Ally's movements, and Ally took advantage of
his apathy to excuse herself from Sunday school that afternoon. And
about three o'clock she was at Upthorne Farm. She and Greatorex had
found a moment after morning service to arrange the hour.
* * * * *
And now they were standing together in the doorway of the Farmhouse.
In the house behind them, in the mistal and the orchard, in the long
marshes of the uplands and on the brooding hills there was stillness
and solitude.
Maggie had gone up to her aunt at Bar Hill. The farm servants were
scattered in their villages.
Alice had just told Greatorex of Mary's engagement and the Vicar's
opposition.
"Eh, I was lookin' for it," he said. "But I maade sure it was your
oother sister."
"So did I, Jim. So it was. So it would have been, only--"
She stopped herself. She wasn't going to give Mary away to Jim.
He looked at her.
"Wall, it's nowt t' yo, is it?"
"No. It's nothing to me--now. How did you know I cared for him?"
"I knew because I looved yo. Because I was always thinkin' of yo.
Because I watched yo with him."
"Oh Jim--would other people know?"
"Naw. Nat they. They didn't look at yo the saame as I did."
He became thoughtful.
"Wall--this here sattles it," he said presently. "Yo caann't be laft
all aloan in t' Vicarage. Yo'll _'ave_ t' marry mae."
"No," she said. "It won't be like that. It won't, really. If my father
won't let my sister marry Dr. Rowcliffe, you don't suppose he'll let
me marry you? It makes it more impossible than ever. That's what I
came to tell you."
"It's naw use yo're tallin' mae. I won't hear it."
He bent to her.
"Ally--d'yo knaw we're aloan here?"
"Yes, Jim."
"We're saafe till Naddy cooms back for t' milkin'. We've three hours."
She shook her head. "Only an hour and a half, Jim. I must be back for
tea."
"Yo'll 'ave tae here. Yo've had it before. I'll maake it for yo."
"I daren't, Jim. They'll expect me. They'll wonder."
"Ay, 'tis thot waay always. Yo're no sooner coom than yo've got to be
back for this, thot and toother. I'm fair sick of it."
"So am I."
She sighed.
"Wall then--yo must end it."
"How can I end it?"
"Yo knaw how."
"Oh Jim--darling--haven't I told you?"
"Yo've toald mae noothin' that makes a hap'orth o' difference to mae.
Yo've coom to mae. Thot's all I keer for."
He put his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward the house-place.
"Let me shaw yo t' house--now you've coom."
His voice pleaded and persuaded. In spite of its north-country accent
Ally loved his voice. It sounded musical and mournful, like the voices
of the mountain sheep coming from far across the moor and purified by
distance.
He took her through the kitchen and the little parlor at the end of
the house.
As he looked round it, trying to see it with her eyes, doubt came to
him. But Ally, standing there, looked toward the kitchen.
"Will Maggie be there?" she said.
"Ay, Maaggie'll be there, ready when yo want her."
"But," she said, "I don't want her."
He followed her look.
"I'll 'ave it all claned oop and paapered and paainted. Look yo--I
could have a hole knocked through t' back wall o' t' kitchen and a
winder put there--and roon oop a wooden partition and make a passage
for yo t' goa to yore awn plaace, soa's Maaggie'll not bae in yore
road."
"You needn't. I like it best as it is."
"Do yo? D'yo mind thot Soonda yo caame laasst year? Yo've aassked mae
whan it was I started thinkin' of yo. It was than. Thot daay whan yo
sot there in thot chair by t' fire, taalkin' t' mae and drinkin' yore
tae so pretty."
She drew closer to him.
"Did you really love me then?"
"Ay--I looved yo than."
She pondered it.
"Jim--what would you have done if I hadn't loved you?"
He choked back something in his throat before he answered her. "What
sud I have doon? I sud have goan on looving yo joost the saame.
"We'll goa oopstairs now."
He took her back and out through the kitchen and up the stone stairs
that turned sharply in their narrow place in the wall. He opened the
door at the head of the landing.
"This would bae our room. 'Tis t' best."
He took her into the room where John Greatorex had died. It was the
marriage chamber, the birth-chamber, and the death-chamber of all the
Greatorexes. The low ceiling still bulged above the big double bed
John Greatorex had died in.
The room was tidy and spotlessly clean. The walls had been
whitewashed. Fresh dimity curtains hung at the window. The bed was
made, a clean white counterpane was spread on it.
The death room had been made ready for the living. The death-bed
waited for the bride.
Ally stood there, under the eyes of her lover, looking at those
things. She shivered slightly.