Chapter 9

Another year and she had left off asking him questions. She drew back into herself and became every day more self-willed, more solitary, more inaccessible.

And now, if he could have seen things as they really were, Mr. Cartaret would have perceived that he was afraid of Gwenda. As it was, he thought he was only afraid of what Gwenda might do.

Alice was capable of some things; but Gwenda was capable of anything.

* * * * *

Suddenly, to Gwenda's surprise, her father sighed; a dislocating sigh. It came between the Benediction and the Lord's Prayer.

For, even as he invoked the blessing Mr. Cartaret suddenly felt sorry for himself again. His children were no good to him.

By which he meant that his third wife, Robina, was no good.

But he did not know that he visited his wife's shortcomings on their heads, any more than he knew that he hated Essy and her sin because he himself was an enforced, reluctant celibate.

XXVII

The next day at dusk, Essy Gale slipped out to her mother's cottage down by the beck.

Mrs. Gale had just cleared the table after her tea, had washed up the tea-things and was putting them away in the cupboard when Essy entered. She looked round sharply, inimically.

Essy stood by the doorway, shamefaced.

"Moother," she said softly, "I want to speaak to yo."

Mrs. Gale struck an attitude of astonishment and fear, although she had expected Essy to come at such an hour and with such a look, and only wondered that she had not come four months ago.

"Yo're nat goain' t' saay as yo've got yoresel into trooble?"

For four months Mrs. Gale had preserved an innocent face before her neighbors and she desired to preserve it to the last possible moment. And up to the last possible moment, even to her daughter, she was determined to ignore what had happened.

But she knew and Essy knew that she knew.

"Doan yo saay it, Assy. Doan yo saay it."

Essy said nothing.

"D'yo 'ear mae speaakin' to yo? Caann't yo aanswer? Is it thot, Assy? Is it thot?"

"Yas, moother, yo knaw 'tis thot."

"An' yo dare to coom 'ear and tell mae! Yo dirty 'oossy! Toorn an' lat's 'ave a look at yo."

Now that the innocence of her face was gone, Mrs. Gale had a stern duty to perform by Essy.

"They've gien yo t' saack?"

"T' Vicar give it mae."

"Troost'im! Whan did 'e gie it yo?"

"Yasterda'."

"T'moonth's nawtice?"

"Naw. I aassked 'im t' kape me anoother two moonths an' 'e woonna. I aassked 'im t' kape me over Christmas an' 'e woonna. I'm to leaave Saturda'."

"Did yo expact 'im t' kape yo, yo gawpie? Did yo think you'd nowt to do but t' laay oop at t' Vicarage an' 'ave th yoong laadies t' do yore wark for yo, an' t' waait on yo 'and an' foot? Miss Gwanda t' mak' yore bafe-tae an' chicken jally and t' Vicar t' daandle t' baaby?

"'Oo's goan t' kape yo? Mae? I woonna kape yo an' I canna' kape yo. Yo ain' t' baaby! I doan' waant naw squeechin', squallin' brats mookin' oop t' plaace as faast as I clanes it, An' '_E_ woonna kape yo--ef yo're raakonin' on 'im. Yo need na tall mae oo t' maan is. I knaw."

"'Tis'n 'im, Moother. 'Tis'n 'im."

"Yo lil blaack liar! '_Tis_ 'im. Ooo alse could it bae? Yo selly! Whatten arth possessed yo t' goa an' tak oop wi' Jim Greatorex? Ef yo mun get into trooble yo medda chawsen battern Jim. What for did I tak' yo from t' Farm an' put yo into t' Vicarage ef 't wasn't t' get yo out o' Jimmy's road? '_E_'ll naver maarry yo. Nat 'e! Did 'e saay as 'e'd maarry yo? Naw, I warrant yo did na waat fer thot. Yo was mad t' roon affter 'im afore 'e called yo. Yo dirty cat!"

That last taunt drew blood. Essy spoke up.

"Naw, naw. 'E looved mae. 'E wanted mae bad."

"'E wanted yo? Coorse 'e wanted yo. Yo sud na 'ave gien in to 'im, yo softie. D'yo think yo're the only woon thot's tampted? Look at mae. I could 'a got into trooble saven times to yore woonce, ef I 'ad'n kaped my 'ead an' respected mysel. Yore Jim Greatorex! Ef a maan like Jim 'ad laaid a 'and on mae, 'e'd a got soomthin' t' remamber afore I'd 'a gien in to 'im. An' yo've naw 'scuse for disgracin' yoresel. Yo was brought oop ralegious an' respactable. Did yo aver 'ear saw mooch aa a bad woord?"

"It's doon, Moother, it's doon. There's naw good taalkin'."

"Eh! Yo saay it's doon, it's doon, an' yo think nowt o' 't. An' nowt yo think o' t' trooble yo're brengin' on mae. I sooppawse yo'll be tallin' mae naxt yo looved 'im! Yo looved'im!"

At that Essy began to cry, softly, in her manner.

"Doan' yo tall mae _thot_ taale."

Mrs. Gale suddenly paused in her tirade and began to poke the fire with fury.

"It's enoof t' sicken t' cat!"

She snatched the kettle that stood upon the hob; she stamped out to the scullery and re-filled it at the tap. She returned, stamping, and set it with violence upon the fire.

She tore out of the cupboard a teapot, a cup and a saucer, a loaf on a plate and a jar of dripping. Still with violence (slightly modulated to spare the comparative fragility of the objects she was handling) she dashed them one by one upon the table where Essy, with elbows planted, propped her head upon her hands and wept.

Mrs. Gale sat down herself in the chair facing her, and kept one eye on the kettle and the other on her daughter. From time to time mutterings came from her, breaking the sad rhythm of Essy's sobs.

"Eh dear! I'd like t' knaw what I've doon t' ave _this_ trooble!"--

--"'Tis enoof t' raaise yore pore feyther clane out of 'is graave!"--

--"'E'd sooner 'ave seed yo in yore coffin, Assy."--

She rose and took down the tea-caddy from the chimney-piece and flung a reckless measure into the tea-pot.

"Ef 'e'd 'a been a-livin', 'E'd a _killed_ yo. Thot's what 'e'd 'a doon."

As she said it she grasped the kettle and poured the boiling water into the tea-pot.

She set the tea-pot before Essy.

"There's a coop of tae. An' there's bread an' drippin'. Yo'll drink it oop."

But Essy, desolated, shook her head.

"Wall," said Mrs. Gale. "I doan' want ter look at yo. 'T mak's mae seek."

As if utterly revolted by the sight of her daughter, she turned from her and left the kitchen by the staircase door.

Her ponderous stamping could be heard going up the staircase and on the floor overhead. There was a sound as of drawers opening and shutting and of a heavy box being dragged from under the bed.

Essy poured herself out a cup of tea, tried to drink it, choked and pushed it from her.

She was still weeping when her mother came to her.

Mrs. Gale came softly.

All alone in the room overhead she had evidently been doing something that had pleased her. The ghost of a smile still haunted her bleak face. She carried on her arm tenderly a pile of little garments.

These she began to spread out on the table before Essy, having first removed the tea-things.

"There!" she said. "'Tis the lil cleathes fer t' baaby. Look, Assy, my deear--there's t' lil rawb, wi' t' lil slaves, so pretty--an' t' flanny petticut--an' t' lil vasst--see. 'Tis t' lil things I maade fer 'ee afore tha was born."

But Essy pushed them from her. She was weeping violently now.

"Taake 'em away!" she cried. "I doan' want t' look at 'em."

Mrs. Gale sat and stared at her.

"Coom," she said, "tha moos'n' taake it saw 'ard, like."

Between the sobs Essy looked up with her shining eyes. She whispered.

"Will yo kape mae, Moother?"

"I sail 'ave t' kape yo. There's nawbody 'll keer mooch fer thot job but yore moother."

But Essy still wept. Once started on the way of weeping, she couldn't stop.

Then, all of a sudden, Mrs. Gale's face became distorted.

She got up and put her hand heavily on her daughter's shoulder.

"There, there, Assy, loove," she said. "Doan' tha taake on thot road. It's doon, an' it caann't be oondoon."

She stood there in a heavy silence. Now and again she patted the heaving shoulder, marking time to Essy's sobs. Then she spoke.

"Tha'll feel batter whan t' lil baaby cooms."

Profoundly disturbed and resentful of her own emotion Mrs. Gale seized upon the tea-pot as a pretext and shut herself up with it in the scullery.

* * * * *

Essy, staggering, rose and dried her eyes. For a moment or so she stared idly at the square window with the blue-black night behind it.

Then she looked down. She smiled faintly. One by one she took the little garments spread out in front of her. She folded them in a pile.

Her face was still and dreamy.

She opened the scullery door and looked in.

"Good-night, Moother."

"Good-night, Assy."

* * * * *

It was striking seven as she passed the church.

Above the strokes of the hour she heard through the half-open door a sound of organ playing and of a big voice singing.

And she began to weep again. She knew the singer, and the player too.

XXVIII

Christmas was over and gone.

It was the last week in January.

All through December Rowcliffe's visits to the Vicarage had continued. But in January they ceased. That was not to be wondered at. Even Ally couldn't wonder. There was influenza in every other house in the Dale.

Then, one day, Gwenda, walking past Upthorne, heard wheels behind her and the clanking hoofs of the doctor's horse. She knew what would happen. Rowcliffe would pull up a yard or two in front of her. He would ask her where she was going and he would make her drive with him over the moor. And she knew that she would go with him. She would not be able to refuse him.

But the clanking hoofs went by and never stopped. There were two men in the trap. Acroyd, Rowcliffe's groom, sat in Rowcliffe's place, driving. He touched his hat to her as he passed her.

Beside him there was a strange man.

She said to herself, "He's away then. I think he might have told me."

And Ally, passing through the village, had seen the strange man too.

"Dr. Rowcliffe must be away," she said at tea-time. "I wonder if he'll be back by Wednesday."

Wednesday, the last day in January, came, but Rowcliffe did not come. The strange man took his place in the surgery.

Mrs. Gale brought the news into the Vicarage dining-room at four o'clock.

She had taken her daughter's place for the time being. She was a just woman and she bore no grudge against the Vicar on Essy's account. He had done no more than he was obliged to do. Essy had given trouble enough in the Vicarage, and she had received a month's wages that she hadn't worked for. Mrs. Gale was working double to make up for it. And the innocence of her face being gone, she went lowly and humbly, paying for Essy, Essy's debt of shame. That was her view.

"Sall I set the tae here, Miss Gwanda," she enquired. "Sence doctor isn't coomin'?"

"How do you know he isn't coming?" Alice asked.

Mrs. Gale's face was solemn and oppressed. She turned to Gwenda, ignoring Alice. (Mary was upstairs in her room.)

"'Aven't yo 'eerd, Miss Gwanda?"

Gwenda looked up from her book.

"No," she said. "He's away, isn't he?"

"Away? 'El'll nat get away fer long enoof. 'E's too ill."

"Ill?" Alice sent the word out on a terrified breath. Nobody took any notice of her.

"T' poastman tell mae," said Mrs. Gale. "From what 'e's 'eerd, 'twas all along o' Nad Alderson's lil baaby up to Morfe. It was took wi' the diptheery a while back. An' doctor, 'e sat oop wi' 't tree nights roonin', 'e did. 'E didn' so mooch as taak 's cleathes off. Nad Alderson, 'e said, 'e'd navver seen anything like what doctor 'e doon for t' lil' thing."

Mrs. Gale's face reddened and she sniffed.

"'E's saaved Nad's baaby for 'm, right enoof, Dr. Rawcliffe 'as. But 'e's down wi't hissel, t' poastman says."

It was at Gwenda that she gazed. And as Gwenda made no sign, Mrs. Gale, still more oppressed by that extraordinary silence, gave her own feelings way.

"Mebbe wae sall navver see 'im in t' Daale again. It'll goa 'ard, look yo, wi' a girt man like 'im, what's navver saaved 'isself. Naw, 'e's navver saaved 'issel."

She ceased. She gazed upon both the sisters now. Alice, her face white and averted, shrank back in the corner of the sofa. Gwenda's face was still. Neither of them had spoken.

* * * * *

Mary had tea alone that afternoon.

Alice had dragged herself upstairs to her bedroom and locked herself in. She had flung herself face downward on her bed. She lay there while the room grew gray and darkened. Suddenly she passed from a violent fit of writhing and of weeping into blank and motionless collapses. From time to time she hiccoughed helplessly.

But in the moment before Mary came downstairs Gwenda had slipped on the rough coat that hung on its peg in the passage. Her hat was lying about somewhere in the room where Alice had locked herself in. She went out bareheaded.

There was a movement in the little group of villagers gathered on the bridge before the surgery door. They slunk together and turned their backs on her as she passed. They knew where she was going as well as she did. And she didn't care.

She was doing the sort of thing that Alice had done, and had suffered for doing. She knew it and she didn't care. It didn't matter what Alice had done or ever would do. It didn't matter what she did herself. It was quite simple. Nothing mattered to her so long as Rowcliffe lived. And if he died nothing would ever matter to her again.

* * * * *

For she knew now what it was that had happened to her. She could no longer humbug herself into insisting that it hadn't happened. The thing had been secret and treacherous with her, and she had been secret and treacherous with it. She had refused to acknowledge it, not because she had been ashamed of it but because, with the dreadful instance of Alice before her eyes, she had been afraid. She had been afraid of how it would appear to Rowcliffe. He might see in it something morbid and perverted, something horribly like Ally. She went in terror of the taint. Where it should have held its head up defiantly and beautifully, it had been beaten back; it cowered and skulked in the dark places and waited for its hour.

And now that it showed itself naked, unveiled, unarmed, superbly defenseless, her terror of it ceased.

It had received a sanction that had been withheld from it before.

Until half an hour ago (she was aware of it) there had been something lacking in her feeling. Mary and Ally (this she was not aware of) got more "out of" Rowcliffe, so to speak, than she did. Gwenda had known nothing approaching to Mary's serene and brooding satisfaction or Ally's ecstasy. She dreaded the secret gates, the dreamy labyrinths, the poisonous air of the Paradise of Fools. In Rowcliffe's presence she had not felt altogether safe or altogether happy. But, if she stood on the edge of an abyss, at least she _stood_ there, firm on the solid earth. She could balance herself; she could even lean forward a little and look over, without losing her head, thrilled with the uncertainty and peril of the adventure. And of course it wasn't as if Rowcliffe had left her standing. He hadn't. He had held out his hand to her, as it were, and said, "Let's get on--get on!" which was as good as saying that, as long as it lasted, it was _their_ adventure, not hers. He had drawn her after him at an exciting pace, along the edge of the abyss, never losing _his_ head for a minute, so that she ought to have felt safe with him. Only she hadn't. She had said to herself, "If I knew him better, if I saw what was in him, perhaps I should feel safe."

There was something she wanted to see in him; something that her innermost secret self, fastidious and exacting, demanded from him before it would loosen the grip that held her back.

And now she knew that it _was_ there. It had been told her in four words: "He never saved himself."

She might have known it. For she remembered things, now; how he had nursed old Greatorex like a woman; how he had sat up half the night with Jim Greatorex's mare Daisy; how he kept Jim Greatorex from drinking; and how he had been kind to poor Essy when she had the face ache; and gentle to little Ally.

And now Ned Alderson's ridiculous baby would live and Rowcliffe would die. Was _that_ what she had required of him? She felt as if somehow _she_ had done it; as if her innermost secret self, iniquitously exacting, had thrown down the gage into the arena and that he had picked it up.

"He saved others. Himself he"--never saved.

He had become god-like to her.

And the passion she had trampled on lifted itself and passed into the phase of adoration. It had received the dangerous sanction of the soul.

* * * * *

She turned off the high road at the point where, three months ago, she had seen Mary cycling up the hill from Morfe. Now, as then, she descended upon Morfe by the stony lane from the moor below Karva.

It came over her that she was too late, that she would see rows of yellow blinds drawn down in the long front of Rowcliffe's house.

The blinds were up. The windows looked open-eyed upon the Green. She noticed that one of them on the first floor was half open, and she said to herself, "He is up there, in that room, dying of diphtheria."

The sound of the bell, muffled funereally, at the back of the house, fulfilled her premonition.

The door opened wide. The maid stood back from it to let her pass in.

"How is Dr. Rowcliffe?"

Her voice sounded abrupt and brutal, as it tore its way from her tense throat.

The maid raised her eyebrows. She held the door wider.

"Would you like to see him, miss?"

"Yes."

Her throat closed on the word and choked it.

Down at the end of the passage, where it was dark, a door opened, the door of the surgery, and a man came out, went in as if to look for something, and came out again.

As he moved there in the darkness she thought it was the strange doctor and that he had come out to forbid her seeing Rowcliffe. He would say that she mustn't risk the infection. As if she cared about the risk.

Perhaps he wouldn't see her. He, too, might say she mustn't risk it.

While the surgery door opened and shut, opened and shut again, she saw that her seems him was of all things the most unlikely. She remembered the house at Upthorne, and she knew that Rowcliffe was lying dead in the room upstairs.

And the man there was coming out to stop her.

* * * * *

Only--in that case--why hadn't they drawn the blinds down?

XXIX

She was still thinking of the blinds when she saw that the man who came towards her was Rowcliffe.

He was wearing his rough tweed suit and his thick boots, and he had the look of the open air about him.

"Is that you, Miss Cartaret? Good!"

He grasped her hand. He behaved exactly as if he had expected her. He never even wondered what she had come for. She might have come to say that her father or one of her sisters was dying, and would he go at once; but none of these possibilities occurred to him.

He didn't want to account for her coming to him. It was natural and beautiful that she should come.

Then, as she stepped into the lighted passage, he saw that she was bareheaded and that her eyelashes were parted and gathered into little wet points.

He took her arm gently and led her into his study and shut the door. They faced each other there.

"I say--is anything wrong?"

"I thought you were ill."

She hadn't grasped the absurdity of it yet. She was still under the spell of the illusion.

"I? Ill? Good heavens, no!"

"They told me in the village you'd got diphtheria. And I came to know if it was true. It _isn't_ true?"

He smiled; an odd little embarrassed smile; almost as if he were owning that it was or had been true.

"_Is_ it?" she persisted as he went on smiling.

"Of course it isn't."

She frowned as if she were annoyed with him for not being ill.

"Then what was that other man here for?"

"Harker? Oh, he just took my place for a day or two while I had a sore throat."

"You _had_ a throat then?"

Thus she accused him.

"And you _did_ sit up for three nights with Ned Alderson's baby?"

She defied him to deny it.

"That's nothing. Anybody would. I had to."

"And--you saved the baby?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. Some thing or other pulled the little beggar through."

"And you might have got it?"

"I might but I didn't."

"You _did_ get a throat. And it _might_ have been diphtheria."

Thus by accusing him she endeavored to justify herself.

"It might," he said, "but it wasn't. I had to knock off work till I was sure."

"And you're sure now?"

"I can tell you _you_ wouldn't be here if I wasn't."

"And they told me you were dying."

(She was utterly disgusted.)

At that he laughed aloud. An irresistible, extravagantly delighted laugh. When he stopped he choked and began all over again; the idea of his dying was so funny; so was her disgust.

"That," she said, "was why I came."

"Then I'm glad they told you."

"I'm not," said she.

He laughed again at her sudden funny dignity. Then, as suddenly, he was grave.

"I say--it _was_ nice of you."

She held out her hand.

"And now--as you're not dead--I'm off."

"Oh no, you're not. You're going to stay and have tea and I'm going to walk back with you."

She stayed.

* * * * *

They walked over the moor by Karva. And as they went he talked to her as he hadn't talked before. It was all about himself and his tone was very serious. He talked about his work and (with considerable reservations and omissions) about his life in Leeds, and about his ambition. He told her what he had done and why he had done it and what he was going to do. He wasn't going to stay in Garthdale all his life. Not he. Presently he would want to get to the center of things. (He forgot to mention that this was the first time he had thought of it.) Nothing would satisfy him but a big London practice and a name. He might--ultimately--specialise. If he did he rather thought it would be gynæcology. He was interested in women's cases. Or it might be nervous diseases. He wasn't sure. Anyhow, it must be something big.

For under Gwenda Cartaret's eyes his romantic youth became fiery and turbulent inside him. It not only urged him to tremendous heights, it made him actually feel that he would reach them. For a solid three-quarters of an hour, walking over the moor by Karva, he had ceased to be one of the obscurest of obscure little country doctors. He was Sir Steven Rowcliffe, the great gynæcologist, or the great neurologist (as the case might be) with a row of letters after his name and a whole column under it in the Medical Directory.

And Gwenda Cartaret's eyes never for a moment contradicted him. They agreed with every one of his preposterous statements.

She didn't know that it was only his romantic youth and that he never had been and never would be more youthful than he was for that three-quarters of an hour. On the contrary, to _her_ youth he seemed to have left youth behind him, and to have grown suddenly serious and clear-sighted and mature.

And then he stopped, right on the moor, as if he were suddenly aware of his absurdity.

"I say," he said, "what must you think of me? Gassing about myself like that."

"I think," she said, "it's awfully nice of you."

"I don't suppose I shall do anything really big. Do you?"

She was silent.

"Honestly now, do you think I shall?"

"I think the things you've done already, the things that'll never be heard of, are really big."

His silence said, "They are not enough for me," and hers, "For me they are enough."

"But the other things," he insisted--"the things I want to do----Do you think I'll do them?"

"I think"--she said slowly--"in fact I'm certain that you'll do them, if you really mean to."

"That's what you think of me?"

"That's what I think of you."

"Then it's all right," he said. "For what I think of _you_ is that you'd never say a thing you didn't really mean."

They parted at the turn of the road, where, as he again reminded her, he had seen her first.

Going home by himself over the moor, Rowcliffe wondered whether he hadn't missed his opportunity.