Harvest Part 27

Then Rachel wrapped them up in their land-army waterproofs, and saw them off, carrying an electric torch to guide them safely through the bit of lane under the trees. But there was a moon rising, and the fog was less.

"Ain't she just kind?--don't you just love her?" said Jenny ecstatically to Betty, as they turned back to wave their farewells again to the figure standing in the doorway.

Betty a.s.sented. But they were both greatly astonished. For Rachel did not in general take much personal notice of them.

They were no sooner out of sight than Rachel went to look at the clock in the kitchen. Ten minutes to seven. Two hours to wait. How were they going to be got through?

She went out aimlessly into the farm-yard, where the farm buildings stood in a faintly luminous mist, the hill-side behind them, and the climbing woods. To her left, across the fields ran the road climbing to the miniature pa.s.s, whence it descended steeply to the plain beyond. And on the further side of the road lay her own fields, with alternating bands of plough-land and stubble, and the hedge-row trees standing ghostly and separate in the light haze.

She was alone in the farm, in all that landscape the only living thing at the moment, except for the animals. A tense energy of will seemed to possess her. She was defending herself--defending Ellesborough--and their joint lives. How was she going to do it? She didn't know. But the pa.s.sion in her blood would give her strength--would see her through.

In the old barn, the cows were munching peacefully. The air was sweet with their breath, and with the hay piled in their cribs. Rachel wandered noiselessly amongst them, and they turned their large eyes slowly to look at her, and the small lantern she carried. In the stables, too, not a sound, but an occasional swis.h.i.+ng and champing. Rachel hung up the lantern, and sat down on a truss of hay, idly watching the rays of light striking up into the cross-beams of the roof, and on the s.h.i.+ning flanks of the horses. Her mind was going at a great speed. And all in a moment--without any clear consciousness of the strange thoughts that had been running through her brain--an intuition struck through her.

_Roger_!--it was he who had been playing the ghost--he who had been seen haunting the farm--who had scared Halsey--_Roger_! come to spy upon her and her lover! Once the idea suggested itself, she was certain of it--it must be true.

The appearance in the lane had been cleverly premeditated. She had been watched for days, perhaps for weeks.

Ellesborough had been watched, too, no doubt.

She drew a shuddering breath. She was afraid of Roger Delane. From the early days of her marriage she had been afraid of him. There was about him the incalculable something which means moral insanity--abnormal processes of mind working through uncontrolled will. You could never reason with or influence him, where his appet.i.tes or his pa.s.sions were concerned. A mocking spirit looked out upon you, just before his blow fell. He was a mere force--inhuman and sinister.

Well, she had got to fight it and tame it! She shut up the cow-house and stable, and stood out awhile in the farm-yard, letting the mild wind play on her bare head and hot cheeks. The moon was riding overhead. The night seemed to her very silent and mysterious--yet penetrated by something divine to which she lifted her heart. What would Ellesborough say over there--in his forester's hut, five miles beyond the hills, if he knew what she was doing--whom she was expecting? She shut her eyes, and saw his lean, strong face, his look--

The church clock was striking, and surely--in the distance, the sound of an opening gate? She hurried back to the house, and the sitting-room. The lamp was low. She revived it. She made up the fire. She felt herself s.h.i.+vering with excitement, and she stooped over the fire, warming her hands.

She had purposely left the front door unlocked. A hand tried the handle, turned it--a slow step entered.

She went to the sitting-room door and threw it open--

"Come in here."

Roger Delane came in and shut the door behind him. They confronted each other.

"You've managed it uncommonly well," he said, at last. "You've dared it.

Aren't you afraid of me?"

"Not the least. What do you want?"

They surveyed each other--with hatred, yet not without a certain pa.s.sionate curiosity on both sides. When Delane had last seen Rachel she was a pale and care-worn creature, her youth darkened by suffering and struggle, her eyes still heavy with the tears she had shed for her lost baby. He beheld her now rounded and full-blown, at the zenith of her beauty, and breathing an energy, physical and mental, he had never yet seen in her. She had escaped him, and her life had put out a new flower.

He was suddenly possessed as he looked at her, both by the poisonous memory of old desire, and by an intolerable sense of his impotence, and her triumph. And the physical fever in his veins made self-control difficult.

On her side, she saw the ruin of a man. When she married him he had been a moral wreck. But the physical envelope was still intact, still splendid. Now his clothes seemed to hang upon a skeleton; the hollows in the temples and cheeks, the emaciation of the face and neck, the scanty grey hair, struck horror, but it was a horror in which there was not a trace of sympathy or pity. He had destroyed himself, and he would, if he could, destroy her. She read in him the thirst for revenge. She had to baffle it, if she could.

As she defied him, indeed, she saw his hand steal to his coat-pocket, and it occurred to her that the pocket might contain a revolver. But the thought only nerved her--gave her an almost exultant courage.

"What do I want?" he repeated, at last with-drawing his eyes. "I'll tell you. I've come--like Foch--to dictate to you certain terms, which you have only to accept. We had better sit down. It will take time."

Rachel pointed to a chair. He took it, crossed one knee over the other, rested his arm on the table near, and watched her with a sneering smile, while she seated herself.

He broke the silence.

"I confess you were very clever about d.i.c.k Tanner--and I was a precious fool! I never suspected."

"I have not the least idea what you mean."

"A lie!" he said, impetuously. "You were in d.i.c.k Tanner's house--staying with him alone--at night--after I left you. You were seen there--by a man--a Canadian--from whom I had the story--only two days ago. He doesn't know my name, nor I his. We met on the common, two nights ago, after dark. And by the merest chance he was coming to the farm, and he began to talk of you. Then this came out. But of course I always knew that it--or something like it--would come out. Your puritanical airs never deceived me--for a moment."

"I suppose you are talking of John Dempsey?" The scorn in her voice enraged him.

"I know nothing about John Dempsey. Of course I can track the man who told me, if I want to--with the greatest ease. He was coming here to call. He saw either you or your partner. And I shall track him--if you force me."

She was silent--and he smiled.

"a.s.sume, please, that I have my witness at hand. Well, then, he saw you alone--at night--in d.i.c.k Tanner's charge, a few days apparently, after you and I quarrelled. What were you doing there?"

"It was during that great snowstorm, I suppose," she said, in her most ordinary voice, taking up her knitting. "I remember going over to the Tanners' to ask for something--and being snow-bound. Lucy Tanner was always ready to help me--and be sorry for me."

At this he laughed out, and the note of the laugh dismayed her.

"Lucy Tanner? Yes, that's good. I thought you'd play her! Now, I'll tell you something. The day after I left you, I was on the train going to Regina. We stopped a long time. I don't remember why--at Medicine Hat--and walking up and down the platform was--_Lucy Tanner_! Does that surprise you? She told me she couldn't stand the Manitoba climate, and was going to a friend at Kamloops for the winter. Is that news to you?"

Rachel had turned white, but he saw no other sign of discomposure.

"Not at all. Naturally, I went over expecting to find her. But as you say, she was gone, and Mr. Tanner drove me back, when the storm went down."

Then she threw down her knitting and faced him.

"What's the use of talking like this, Roger? You won't make anything out of this story you're so proud of. Hadn't you better come to business?

Why have you been spying on me, and d.o.g.g.i.ng me like this? You know, of course, I could give you in charge to-morrow, or I could get Captain Ellesborough to do it. And I will--unless you give me your solemn promise to leave this place, to go out of my life altogether, and stop molesting me in this scandalous way. Now, of course, I understand who it is that has been prowling about the farm all these weeks. And I warn you the police too know all about it, and are on the watch. They may have tracked you here to-night for all I know."

"Not they! I pa.s.sed one bobby fellow on the hill, going safely away north, as I came down. I was scarcely three yards from him, and he never twigged. And the other's gone to Millsborough. You could hardly be more alone, more entirely at my mercy--than you are at this moment, Miss Henderson!" He laid an ironic emphasis on the name.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"All the same the people who live with me in this house will soon be back. I recommend you to make haste. I ask you again--what is it you want?"

She had stood up pluckily--he admitted it. But, as he observed her closely it seemed to him that the strain on her nerves was telling. She was beginning to look pinched, and her hand as it lay beside her knitting shook.

"Well, I'll tell you," he said coolly. He took a half sheet of note-paper out of the breast-pocket of his coat, drew the lamp on the table towards him, and looked at certain figures and notes written on the paper.

"I went this morning in town to look up your uncle's will. Of course I remember all about that old chap at Manchester. I often speculated on what he was going to leave you. Unfortunately for me he lived just a little too long. But I find from the copy of the will that he left you--three--thousand--pounds. Not bad, considering that you were never at all civil to him. But three thousand pounds is more than you require to run this small farm on. You owe me damages for the injury you inflicted on me by the loss of--first, your society; second, your financial prospects. I a.s.sess it at five hundred pounds. Pay me that small sum, and--well, I engage to leave you henceforth to the Captain,--and your conscience."

He bent forward across the table, his mocking eyes fixed intently upon her. There was silence a moment--till she said:--

"And if I refuse?"

"Oh, well, then--" he lifted a paper-knife and balanced it on his hand as though considering--"I shall of course have to work up my case. What do you call this man?--John Dempsey? A great fool--but I dare say I shall get enough out of him. And then--well, then I propose to present the story to Captain Ellesborough--for his future protection."