Chapter 16

For the first two miles out of Morfe the trap charged, scattering men and beasts before it and taking the curves of the road at a tangent. With the third mile the pace slackened. The mare had slaked her thirst for the wind of her going and Greatorex's fury was appeased. At the risk of pitching forward over the step he succeeded in gathering up the reins as they neared the dangerous descent to Garthdale.

He had now dropped from the violence of his ecstasy into a dream-like state in which he was borne swaying on a vague, interminable road that overhung, giddily, the bottomless pit and was flanked by hills that loomed and reeled, that oppressed him with their horrible immensity.

He passed the bridge, the church, the Vicarage, the schoolhouse with its beckoning tree, and by the mercy of heaven he was unaware of them.

At the turn of the road, On Upthorne hill, the mare, utterly sobered by the gradient, bowed her head and went with slow, wise feet, taking care of the trap and of her master.

As for Greatorex, he had ceased to struggle. And at the door of his house his servant Maggie received him in her arms.

* * * * *

He stayed in bed the whole of the next day, bearing his sickness, while Maggie waited on him. And in the evening when he lay under her hand, weak, but clear-headed, she delivered herself of what was in her mind.

"Wall--yo may thank Gawd yo're laayin' saafe in yore bed, Jim Greatorex. It'd sarve yo right ef Daaisy 'd lat yo coom hoam oopside down wi yore 'ead draggin' in t' road. Soom daay yo'll bae laayin' there with yore nack brawken.

"Ay, yo may well scootle oonder t' sheets, though there's nawbody but mae t' look at yo. Yo'd navver tooch anoother drap o' thot felthy stoof, Jimmy, ef yo could sea yoreself what a sight yo bae. Naw woonder Assy Gaale wouldn't 'ave yo, for all yo've laft her wi' t' lil baaby."

"Who toald yo she wouldn't 'ave mae?"

"Naybody toald mae. But I knaw. I knaw. I wouldn't 'ave yo myself ef yo aassked mae. I want naw droonkards to marry mae."

Greatorex became pensive.

"Yo'd bae freetened o' mae, Maaggie?" he asked.

And Maggie, seeing her advantage, drove it home.

"There's more than mae and Assy thot's freetened t' marry yo," she said.

He darkened. "Yo 'oald yore tongue. Yo dawn't knaw what yo're saayin', my laass."

"Dawn't I? There's more than mae thot knaws, Mr. Greatorex. Assy isn't t' awnly woon yo've maade talk o' t' plaace."

"What do yo mane? Speaak oop. What d'yo mane----Yo knaw?"

"Yo'd best aassk Naddy. He med tall ye 'oo was with yo laasst Soonda oop t' feald in t' girt byre."

"Naddy couldn't sae 'oo 't was. Med a been Assy. Med a been yo."

"'T wasn' mae, Mr. Greatorex, an' 't was n' Assy. Look yo 'ere. I tall yo Assy's freetened o' yo."

"'Oo says she's freetened?"

"I saays it. She's thot freetened thot she'd wash yore sweet'eart's dirty cleathes sooner 'n marry yo."

"She doesn't wash them?"

"Shea does. T' kape yore baaby, Jim Greatorex."

With that she left him.

* * * * *

For the next three months Greatorex was more than ever uneasy in his soul. The Sunday after Maggie's outburst he had sat all morning and afternoon in his parlor with his father's Bible. He had not even tried to see Alice Cartaret.

For three months, off and on, in the intervals of seeing Alice, he longed, with an intense and painful longing, for his God. He longed for him just because he felt that he was utterly separated from him by his sin. He wanted the thing he couldn't have and wasn't fit to have. He wanted it, just as he wanted Alice Cartaret.

And by his sin he did not mean his getting drunk. Greatorex did not think of God as likely to take his getting drunk very seriously, any more than he had seemed to take Maggie and Essy seriously. For Greatorex measured God's reprobation by his own repentance.

His real offense against God was his offense against Alice Cartaret. He had got drunk in order to forget it.

But that resource would henceforth be denied him. He was not going to get drunk any more, because he knew that if he did Alice Cartaret wouldn't marry him.

Meanwhile he nourished his soul on its own longing, on the Psalms of David and on the Book of Job.

Greatorex would have made a happy saint. But he was a most lugubrious sinner.

XLVII

The train from Durlingham rolled slowly into Reyburn station.

Gwenda Cartaret leaned from the window of a third class carriage and looked up and down the platform. She got out, handing her suit-case to a friendly porter. Nobody had come to meet her. They were much too busy up at the Vicarage.

From the next compartment there alighted a group of six persons, a lady in widow's weeds, an elderly lady and gentleman who addressed her affectionately as "Fanny, dear," and (obviously belonging to the pair) a very young man and a still younger woman.

There was also a much older man, closely attached to them, but not quite so obviously related.

These six people also looked up and down the platform, expecting to be met. They were interested in Gwenda Cartaret. They gazed at her as they had already glanced, surreptitiously and kindly, on the platform at Durlingham. Now they seemed to be saying to themselves that they were sure it must be she.

Gwenda walked quickly away from them and disappeared through the booking-office into the station yard.

And then Rowcliffe, who had apparently been hiding in the general waiting-room, came out on to the platform.

The six fell upon him with cries of joy and affection.

They were his mother, his paternal uncle and aunt, his two youngest cousins, and Dr. Harker, his best friend and colleague who had taken his place in January when he had been ill.

They had all come down from Leeds for Rowcliffe's wedding.

* * * * *

Rowcliffe's trap and Peacock's from Garthdale stood side by side in the station-yard.

Gwenda in Peacock's trap had left the town before she heard behind her the clanking hoofs of Rowcliffe's little brown horse.

She thought, "He will pass in another minute. I shall see him."

But she did not see him. All the way up Rathdale to Morfe the sound of the wheels and of the clanking hoofs pursued her, and Rowcliffe still hung back. He did not want to pass her.

"Well," said Peacock, "thot beats mae. I sud navver a thought thot t' owd maare could a got away from t' doctor's horse. Nat ef e'd a mind t' paass 'er."

"No," said Gwenda. She was thinking, "It's Mary. It's Mary. How could she, when she _knew_, when she was on her honor not to think of him?"

And she remembered a conversation she had had with her stepmother two months ago, when the news came. (Robina had seized the situation at a glance and she had probed it to its core.)

"You wanted him to marry Ally, did you? It wasn't much good you're going away if you left him with Mary."

"But," she had said, "Mary knew."

And Robina had answered, marvelously. "You should never have let her. It was her knowing that did it. You were three women to one man, and Mary was the one without a scruple. Do you suppose she'd think of Ally or of you, either?"

And she had tried to be loyal to Mary and to Rowcliffe. She had said, "If we _were_ three, we all had our innings, and he made his choice."

And Robina, "It was Mary did the choosing."

She had added that Gwenda was a little fool, and that she ought to have known that though Mary was as meek as Moses she was that sort.

She went on, thinking, to the steady clanking of the hoofs.

"I suppose," she said to herself, "she couldn't help it."

The lights of Morfe shone through the November darkness. The little slow mare crawled up the winding hill to the top of the Green; Rowcliffe's horse was slower. But no sooner had Peacock's trap passed the doctor's house on its way out of the village square, than the clanking hoofs went fast.

Rowcliffe was free to go his own pace now.

* * * * *

"Which of you two is going to hook me up?" said Mary.

She was in the Vicar's room, putting on her wedding-gown before the wardrobe glass. Her two sisters were dressing her.

"I will," said Gwenda.

"You'd better let me," said Alice. "I know where the eyes are."

Gwenda lifted up the wedding-veil and held it ready. And while Alice pulled and fumbled Mary gazed at her own reflection and at Alice's.

"You should have done as Mummy said and had your frock made in London, like Gwenda. They'd have given you a decent cut. You look as if you couldn't breathe."

"My frock's all right," said Alice.

Her fingers trembled as she strained at the hooks and eyes.

And in the end it was Gwenda who hooked Mary up while Alice held the veil. She held it in front of her. The long streaming net shivered with the trembling of her hands.

* * * * *

The wedding was at two o'clock. The church was crowded, so were the churchyard and the road beside the Vicarage and the bridge over the beck. Morfe and Greffington had emptied themselves into Garthdale. (Greffington had lent its organist.)

It was only when it was all over that somebody noticed that Jim Greatorex was not there with the village choir. "Celebrating a bit too early," somebody said.

And it was only when it was all over that Rowcliffe found Gwenda.

He found her in the long, flat pause, the half-hour of profoundest realisation that comes when the bride disappears to put off her wedding-gown for the gown she will go away in. She had come out to the wedding-party gathered at the door, to tell them that the bride would soon be ready. Rowcliffe and Harker were standing apart, at the end of the path, by the door that led from the garden to the orchard.

He came toward her. Harker drew back into the orchard. They followed him and found themselves alone.

For ten minutes they paced the narrow flagged path under the orchard wall. And they talked, quickly, like two who have but a short time.

"Well--so you've come back at last?"

"At last? I haven't been gone six months."

"You see, time feels longer to us down here."

"That's odd. It goes faster."

"Anyhow, you're not tired of London?"

She stared at him for a second and then looked away.

"Oh no, I'm not tired of it yet."

They turned.

"Shall you stop long here?"

"I'm going back to-morrow."

"To-morrow? You're so glad to get back then?"

"So glad to get back. I only came down for Mary's wedding."

He smiled.

"You won't come for anything but a wedding?"

"A funeral might fetch me."

"Well, Gwenda, I can't say you look as if London agreed with you particularly."

"I can't say you look as if Garthdale agreed very well with you."

"I'm only tired--tired to death."

"I'm sorry."

"I want a holiday. And I'm going to get one--for a month. _You_ look as if you'd been burning the candle at both ends, if you'll forgive my saying so."

"Oh--for all the candles I burn! It isn't such awfully hard work, you know."

"What isn't?"

"What I'm doing."

He stopped straight in the narrow path and looked at her.

"I say, what _are_ you doing?"

She told him.

His face expressed surprise and resentment and a curious wonder and bewilderment.

"But I thought--I thought----They told me you were having no end of a time."

"Tunbridge Wells isn't very amusing. No more is Lady Frances."

Again he stopped dead and stared at her.

"But they told me--I mean I thought you were in London with Mrs. Cartaret, all the time."

She laughed.

"Did Papa tell you that?"

"No. I don't know who told me. I--I got the impression." He almost stammered. "I must have misunderstood."

She meditated.

"It sounds awfully like Papa. He simply can't believe, poor thing, that I'd stick to anything so respectable."

"Hah!" He laughed out his contempt for the Vicar. He had forgotten that he too had wondered.

"Chuck it, Gwenda," he said, "chuck it."

"I can't," she said. "Not yet. It's too lucrative."

"But if it makes you seedy?"

"It doesn't. It won't. It isn't hard work. Only----" She broke off. "It's time for you to go."

"Steve! Steve!"

Rowcliffe's youngest cousin was calling from the study window.

"Come along. Mary's ready."

"All right," he shouted. "I'm coming."

But he stood still there at the end of the orchard under the gray wall.

"Good-bye, Steven."

Gwenda put out her hand.

He held her with his troubled eyes. He did not see her hand. He saw her eyes only that troubled his.

"I say, is it very beastly?"

"No. Not a bit. You must go, Steven, you must go."

"If I'd only known," he persisted.

They were going down the path now toward the house.

"I wouldn't have let you----"

"You couldn't have stopped me."

(It was what she had always said to all of them.)

She smiled. "You didn't stop me going, you know."

"If you'd only told me--"

She smiled again, a smile as of infinite wisdom. "Dear Steven, there was nothing to tell."

They had come to the door in the wall. It led into the garden. He opened to let her pass through.

The wedding-party was gathered together on the flagged path before the house. It greeted them with laughter and cries, cheerfully ironic.

The bride in her traveling dress stood on the threshold. Outside the carriage waited at the open gate.

Rowcliffe took Mary's hand in his and they ran down the path.

"He can sprint fast enough now," said Rowcliffe's uncle.

* * * * *

But his youngest cousin and Harker, his best friend, had gone faster. They were waiting together on the bridge, and the girl had a slipper in her hand.

"Were you ever," she said, "at such an awful wedding?"

Harker saw nothing wrong about the wedding but he admitted that his experience was small.

The youngest cousin was not appeased by his confession. She went on.

"Why on earth didn't Steven _try_ to marry Gwenda?"

"Not much good trying," said the doctor, "if she wouldn't have him."

"You believe that silly story? I don't. Did you see her face?"

Harker admitted that he had seen her face.

And then, as the carriage passed, Rowcliffe's youngest cousin did an odd thing. She tossed the slipper over the bridge into the beck.

Harker had not time to comment on her action. They were coming for him from the house.

Rowcliffe's youngest sister-in-law had fainted away on the top landing.

Everybody remembered then that it was she who had been in love with him.

XLVIII

Alice had sent for Gwenda.

Three months had gone by since her sister's wedding, and all her fears were gathered together in the fear of her father and of what was about to happen to her.

And before Gwenda could come to her, Rowcliffe and Mary had come to the Vicar in his study. They had been a long time with him, and then Rowcliffe had gone out. They had sent him to Upthorne. And the two had gone into the dining-room and they had her before them there.

It was early in a dull evening in February. The lamps were lit and in their yellow light Ally's face showed a pale and quivering exaltation. It was the face of a hunted and terrified thing that has gathered courage in desperation to turn and stand. She defended herself with sullen defiance and denial.

It had come to that. For Ned, the shepherd at Upthorne, had told what he had seen. He had told it to Maggie, who told it to Mrs. Gale. He had told it to the head-gamekeeper at Garthdale Manor, who had a tale of his own that he too had told. And Dr. Harker had a tale. Harker had taken his friend's practice when Rowcliffe was away on his honeymoon. He had seen Alice and Greatorex on the moors at night as he had driven home from Upthorne. And he had told Rowcliffe what he had seen. And Rowcliffe had told Mary and the Vicar.

And at the cottage down by the beck Essy Gale and her mother had spoken together, but what they had spoken and what they had heard they had kept secret.

"I haven't been with him," said Alice for the third time. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Ally--there's no use your saying that when you've been seen with him."

It was Mary who spoke.

"I ha--haven't."

"Don't lie," said the Vicar.

"I'm not. They're l-l-lying," said Ally, shaken into stammering now.

"Who do you suppose would lie about it?" Mary said.

"Essy would."

"Well--I may tell you, Ally, that you're wrong. Essy's kept your secret. So has Mrs. Gale. You ought to go down on your knees and thank the poor girl--after what you did to her."

"It _was_ Essy. I know. She's mad to marry him herself, so she goes lying about _me_."

"Nobody's lying about her," said the Vicar, "but herself. And she's condemning herself with every word she says. You'd better have left Essy out of it, my girl."

"I tell you that she's lying if she says she's seen me with him. She's never seen me."

"It wasn't Essy who saw you," Mary said.

"Somebody else is lying then. Who was it?"

"If you _must_ know who saw you," the Vicar said, "it was Dr. Harker. You were seen a month ago hanging about Upthorne alone with that fellow."

"Only once," Ally murmured.

"You own to 'once'? You--you----" he stifled with his fury. "Once is enough with a low blackguard like Greatorex. And you were seen more than once. You've been seen with him after dark." He boomed. "There isn't a poor drunken slut in the village who's disgraced herself like you."

Mary intervened. "Sh--sh--Papa. They'll hear you in the kitchen."

"They'll hear _her_." (Ally was moaning.) "Stop that whimpering and whining."

"She can't help it."

"She can help it if she likes. Come, Ally, we're all here----Poor Mary's come up and Steven. There are things we've got to know and I insist on knowing them. You've brought the most awful trouble and shame on me and your sister and brother-in-law, and the least you can do is to answer truthfully. I can't stand any more of this distressing altercation. I'm not going to extort any painful confession. You've only got to answer a simple Yes or No. Were you anywhere with Jim Greatorex before Dr. Harker saw you in December? Think before you speak. Yes or No."

She thought.

"N-no."

"Remember, Ally," said Mary, "he saw you in November."

"He didn't. Where?"

The Vicar answered her. "At your sister's wedding."

She recovered. "Of course he did. Jim Greatorex wasn't there, anyhow."

"He was _not_."

The stress had no significance for Ally. Her brain was utterly bewildered.

"Well. You say you were never anywhere with Greatorex before December. You were not with him in--when was it, Mary?"

"August," said Mary. "The end of August."

Ally simply stared at him in her white bewilderment. Dates had no meaning as yet for her cowed brain.

He helped her.

"In the Three Fields. On a Sunday afternoon. Did you or did you not go into the barn?"

At that she cried out with a voice of anguish. "No--No--No!"

But Mary had her knife ready and she drove it home.

"Ally--Ned Langstaff _saw_ you."

* * * * *

When Rowcliffe came back from Upthorne he found Alice cowering in a corner of the couch and crying out to her tormentors.

"You brutes--you brutes--if Gwenda was here she wouldn't let you bully me!"

Mary turned to her husband.

"Steven--will you speak to her? She won't tell us anything. We've been at it more than half an hour."

Rowcliffe stared at her and the Vicar with strong displeasure.

"I should think you had by the look of her. Why can't you leave the poor child alone?"

At the sound of his voice, the first voice of compassion that had yet spoken to her, Alice cried to him.

"Steven! Steven! They've been saying awful things to me. Tell them it isn't true. Tell them you don't believe it."

"There--there----" His voice stuck in his throat.

He put his hand on her shoulder, standing between her and her father.

"Tell them----" She looked up at him with her piteous eyes.

"She's worried to death," said Rowcliffe. "You might have left it for to-night at any rate."

"We couldn't, Steven, when you've sent for Greatorex. We _must_ get at the truth before he comes."

Rowcliffe shrugged his shoulders.

"Have you brought him?" said the Vicar.

"No, I haven't. He's in Morfe. I've sent word for him to come on here."

Alice looked sharply at him.

"What have you sent for _him_ for? Do you suppose _he'd_ give me away?"

She began to weep softly.

"All this," said Rowcliffe, "is awfully bad for her."

"You don't seem to consider what it is for us."

Rowcliffe took no notice of the Vicar.

"Look here, Mary--you'd better take her upstairs before he comes. Put her to bed. Try and get her to sleep."

"Very well. Come, Ally." Mary was gentler now.

Then Ally became wonderful.

She stood up and faced them all.

"I won't go," she said. "I'll stay till he comes if I sit up all night. How do I know what you're going to do to him? Do you suppose I'm going to leave him with you? If anybody touches him I'll _kill_ them."

"Ally, dear----"

Mary put her hand gently on her sister's arm to lead her from the room.

Ally shook off the hand and turned on her in hysteric fury.

"Stop pawing me--you! How dare you touch me after what you've said. Steven--she says I took Essy's lover from her."

"I didn't, Ally. She doesn't know what she's saying."

"You _did_ say it. She did, Steven. She said I ought to thank Essy for not splitting on me when I took her lover from her. As if _she_ could talk when _she_ took Steven from Gwenda."

"Oh--Steven!"

Rowcliffe shook his head at Mary, frowning, as a sign to her not to mind what Alice said.

"You treat me as if I was dirt, but I'd have died rather than have done what she did."

"Come, Alice, come. You know you don't mean it," said Rowcliffe, utterly gentle.

"I do mean it! She sneaked you from behind Gwenda's back and lied to you to make you think she didn't care for you----"

"Be quiet, you shameful girl!"

"Be quiet yourself, Papa. I'm not as shameful as Molly is. I'm not as shameful as you are yourself. You killed Mother."

"Oh--my--God----" The words were almost inaudible in the Vicar's shuddering groan.

He advanced on her to turn her from the room. Ally sank on her sofa as she saw him come.

Rowcliffe stepped between them.

"For God's sake, sir----"

Ally was struggling in hysterics now, choking between her piteous and savage cries.

Rowcliffe laid her on the sofa and put a cushion under her head. When he tried to loosen her gown at her throat she screamed.

"It's all right, Ally, it's all right."

"_Is_ it? _Is_ it?" The Vicar hissed at him.

"It won't be unless you leave her to me. If you go on bullying her much longer I won't answer for the consequences. You surely don't want----"

"It's all right, Ally. Lie quiet, there--like that. That's a good girl. Nobody's going to worry you any more."

He was kneeling by the sofa, pressing his hand to her forehead. Ally still sobbed convulsively, but she lay quiet. She closed her eyes under Rowcliffe's soothing hand.

"You might go and see if you can find some salvolatile, Mary," he said.

Mary went.

The Vicar, who had turned his back on this scene, went, also, into his study.

Ally still kept her eyes shut.

"Has Mary gone?"

"Yes."

"And Papa?"

"Yes. Lie still."

She lay still.

* * * * *

There was the sound of wheels on the road. It brought Mary and the Vicar back into the room. The wheels stopped. The gate clanged.

Rowcliffe rose.

"That's Greatorex. I'll go to him."

Ally lay very still now, still as a corpse, with closed eyes.

The house door opened.

Rowcliffe drew back into the room.

"It isn't Greatorex," he said. "It's Gwenda."

"Who sent for her?" said the Vicar.

"I did," said Ally.

She had opened her eyes.

"Thank God for that, anyhow," said Rowcliffe.

Mary and her father looked at each other. Neither of them seemed to want to go out to Gwenda. It struck Rowcliffe that the Vicar was afraid.

They waited while Gwenda paid her driver and dismissed him. They could hear her speaking out there in the passage.