"He must not. Ally doesn't want to marry him. He asked her long ago
and she wouldn't have him."
"Do you mean," said Rowcliffe, surprised out of his reticence, "before
this happened?"
"Yes."
"And she wouldn't have him?"
"No. She was afraid of him."
"She was afraid of him--and yet----" It was Mary who spoke now.
"Yes, Mary. And yet--she cared for him."
The Vicar turned on her.
"You're as bad as she is. How can you bring yourself to speak of
it, if you're a modest girl? You've just told us that your sister's
shameless. Are we to suppose that you're defending her?"
"I am defending her. There's nobody else to do it. You've all set on
her and tortured her----"
"Not all, Gwenda," said Rowcliffe. But she did not heed him.
"She'd have told you everything if you hadn't frightened her. You
haven't had an atom of pity for her. You've never thought of _her_ for
a minute. You've been thinking of yourselves. You might have killed
her. And you didn't care."
The Vicar looked at her.
"It's you, Gwenda, who don't care."
"About what she's done, you mean? I don't. You ought to be gentle with
her, Papa. You drove her to it."
Rowcliffe answered.
"We'll not say what drove her, Gwenda."
"She was driven," she said.
"'Let no man say he is tempted of God when he is driven by his own
lusts and enticed,'" said the Vicar.
He had risen, and the movement brought him face to face with Gwenda.
And as she looked at him it was as if she saw vividly and for the
first time the profound unspirituality of her father's face. She knew
from what source his eyes drew their darkness. She understood the
meaning of the gross red mouth that showed itself in the fierce
lifting of the ascetic, grim moustache. And she conceived a horror of
his fatherhood.
"No man ought to say that of his own daughter. How does he know what's
her own and what's his?" she said.
Rowcliffe stared at her in a sort of awful admiration. She was
terrible; she was fierce; she was mad. But it was the fierceness and
the madness of pity and of compassion.
She went on.
"You've no business to be hard on her. You must have known."
"I knew nothing," said the Vicar.
He appealed to her with a helpless gesture of his hands.
"You did know. You were warned. You were told not to shut her up. And
you did shut her up. You can't blame her if she got away. You flung
her to Jim Greatorex. There wasn't anybody who cared for her but him."
"Cared for her!" He snarled his disgust.
"Yes. Cared for her. You think that's horrible of her--that she should
have gone to him--and yet you want to tie her to him when she's afraid
of him. And I think it's horrible of you."
"She must marry him." Mary spoke again. "She's brought it on herself,
Gwenda."
"She hasn't brought it on herself. And she shan't marry him."
"I'm afraid she'll have to," Rowcliffe said.
"She won't have to if I take her away somewhere and look after her. I
mean to do it. I'll work for her. I'll take care of the child."
"Oh, you--_you----!_" The Vicar waved her away with a frantic flapping
of his hands.
He turned to his son-in-law.
"Rowcliffe--I beg you--will you use your influence?"
"I have none."
That drew her. "Steven--help me--can't you see how terrible it is if
she's afraid of him?"
"But _is_ she?"
He looked at her with his miserable eyes, then turned them from her,
considering gravely what she had said. It was then, while Rowcliffe
was considering it, that the garden gate opened violently and fell to.
They waited for the sound of the front door bell.
Instead of it they heard two doors open and Ally's voice calling to
Greatorex in the hall.
As the Vicar flung himself from his study into the other room he saw
Alice standing close to Greatorex by the shut door. Her lover's arms
were round her.
He laid his hands on them as if to tear them apart.
"You shall not touch my daughter--until you've married her."
The young man's right arm threw him off; his left arm remained round
Alice.
"It's yo' s'all nat tooch her, Mr. Cartaret," he said. "Ef yo' coom
between her an' mae I s'all 'ave t' kill yo'. I'd think nowt of it.
Dawn't yo' bae freetened, my laass," he murmured tenderly.
The next instant he was fierce again.
"An' look yo' 'ere, Mr. Cartaret. It was yo' who aassked mae t' marry
Assy. Do yo' aassk mae t' marry Assy now? Naw! Assy may rot for all
yo' care. (It's all right, my sweet'eart. It's all right.) I'd a
married Assy right enoof ef I'd 'a' looved her. But do yo' suppawss
I'd 'a' doon it fer yore meddlin'? Naw! An' yo' need n' aassk mae t'
marry yore daughter--(There--there--my awn laass)--"
"You are not going to be asked," said Gwenda. "You are not going to
marry her."
"Gwenda," said the Vicar, "you will be good enough to leave this to
me."
"It can't be left to anybody but Ally."
"It s'all be laft to her," said Greatorex.
He had loosened his hold of Alice, but he still stood between her and
her father.
"It's for her t' saay ef she'll 'aave mae."
"She has said she won't, Mr. Greatorex."
"Ay, she's said it to mae, woonce. But I rackon she'll 'ave mae now."
"Not even now."
"She's toald yo'?"
He did not meet her eyes.
"Yes."
"She's toald yo' she's afraid o' mae?"
"Yes. And you know why."
"Ay. I knaw. Yo're afraid o' mae, Ally, because yo've 'eard I haven't
always been as sober as I might bae; but yo're nat 'aalf as afraid o'
mae, droonk or sober, as yo' are of yore awn faather. Yo' dawn't think
I s'all bae 'aalf as 'ard an' crooil to yo' as yore faather is. She
doosn't, Mr. Cartaret, an' thot's Gawd's truth."
"I protest," said the Vicar.
"Yo' stond baack, sir. It's for 'er t' saay."
He turned to her, infinitely reverent, infinitely tender.
"Will yo' staay with 'im? Or will yo' coom with mae?"
"I'll come with you."
With one shoulder turned to her father, she cowered to her lover's
breast.
"Ay, an' yo' need n' be afraaid I'll not bae sober. I'll bae sober
enoof now. D'ye 'ear, Mr. Cartaret? Yo' need n' bae afraaid, either.
I'll kape sober. I'd kape sober all my life ef it was awnly t' spite
yo'. An' I'll maake 'er 'appy. For I rackon theer's noothin' I could
think on would spite yo' moor. Yo' want mae t' marry 'er t' poonish
'er. _I_ knaw."
"That'll do, Greatorex," said Rowcliffe.
"Ay. It'll do," said Greatorex with a grin of satisfaction.
He turned to Alice, the triumph still flaming in his face. "Yo're
_nat_ afraaid of mae?"
"No," she said gently. "Not now."
"Yo navver were," said Greatorex; and he laughed.
That laugh was more than Mr. Cartaret could bear. He thrust out his
face toward Greatorex.
Rowcliffe, watching them, saw that he trembled and that the
thrust-out, furious face was flushed deeply on the left side.
The Vicar boomed.
"You will leave my house this instant, Mr. Greatorex. And you will
never come into it again."
But Greatorex was already looking for his cap.
"I'll navver coom into et again," he assented placably.
* * * * *
There were no prayers at the Vicarage that night.
* * * * *
It was nearly eleven o'clock. Greatorex was gone. Gwenda was upstairs
helping Alice to undress. Mary sat alone in the dining-room, crying
steadily. The Vicar and Rowcliffe were in the study.
In all this terrible business of Alice, the Vicar felt that his
son-in-law had been a comfort to him.
"Rowcliffe," he said suddenly, "I feel very queer."
"I don't wonder, sir. I should go to bed if I were you."
"I shall. Presently."
The one-sided flush deepened and darkened as he brooded. It fascinated
Rowcliffe.
"I think it would be better," said the Vicar slowly, "if I left the
parish. It's the only solution I can see."
He meant to the problem of his respectability.
Rowcliffe said yes, perhaps it would be better.
He was thinking that it would solve his problem too.
For he knew that there would be a problem if Gwenda came back to her
father.
The Vicar rose heavily and went to his roll-top desk. He opened it and
began fumbling about in it, looking for things.
He was doing this, it seemed to his son-in-law, for quite a long time.
But it was only eleven o'clock when Mary heard sounds in the study
that terrified her, of a chair overturned and of a heavy body falling
to the floor. And then Steven called to her.
She found him kneeling on the floor beside her father, loosening his
clothes. The Vicar's face, which she discerned half hidden between
the bending head of Rowcliffe and his arms, was purple and horribly
distorted.
Rowcliffe did not look at her.
"He's in a fit," he said. "Go upstairs and fetch Gwenda. And for God's
sake don't let Ally see him."