The Three Sisters Part 48

"I'd risk it. That sort of cleverness doesn't last long."

"It would last your time," she said.

She rose. It was as much as giving him his dismissal.

He stood a moment watching her. She and all her movements still seemed to him incredible.

"Do you mind telling me where you're going to?"

"I'm going to Mummy." She explained to his blankness: "My stepmother."

He remembered. Mummy was the lady who was "the very one," the lady of remarkable resources.

It seemed to him then that he saw it all. He knew what she was going for.

"I see. Instead of your sister," he sneered.

"Papa wouldn't let Ally go to her. But he can't stop _me_."

"Oh, no. n.o.body could stop _you_."

She smiled softly. She had missed the brutality of his emphasis.

He said to himself that Gwenda was impossible. She was obstinate and conceited and wrong-headed. She was utterly selfish, a cold ma.s.s of egoism.

"Cold?" He was not so sure. She might be. But she was capable, he suspected, of adventures. Instead of taking her sister away to have her chance, she was rus.h.i.+ng off to secure it herself. And the irony of the thing was that it was he who had put it into her head.

Well--she was no worse, and no better--than the rest of them. Only unlike them in the queerness of her fascination. He wondered how long it would have lasted?

You couldn't go on caring for a woman like that, who had never cared a rap about you.

And yet--he could have sworn--Oh, _that_ was nothing. She had only thought of him because he had been her only chance.

He made himself think these things of her because they gave him unspeakable consolation.

All the way back to Morfe he thought them, while on his right hand Karva rose and receded and rose again, and changed at every turn its aspect and its form. He thought them to an accompaniment of an interior, persistent voice, the voice of his romantic youth, that said to him, "That is her hill, her hill--do you remember? That's where you met her first. That's where you saw her jumping. That's her hill--her hill--her hill."

x.x.xIX

The Vicar had been fidgeting in his study, getting up and sitting down, and looking at the clock every two minutes. Gwenda had told him that she wanted to speak to him, and he had stipulated that the interview should be after prayer time, for he knew that he was going to be upset. He never allowed family disturbances, if he could help it, to interfere with the att.i.tude he kept up before his Maker.

He knew perfectly well she was going to tell him of her engagement to young Rowcliffe; and though he had been prepared for the news any time for the last three months he had to pull himself together to receive it. He would have to pretend that he was pleased about it when he wasn't pleased at all. He was, in fact, intensely sorry for himself.

It had dawned on him that, with Alice left a permanent invalid on his hands, he couldn't really afford to part with Gwenda. She might be terrible in the house, but in her way--a way he didn't altogether approve of--she was useful in the parish. She would cover more of it in an afternoon than Mary could in a month of Sundays.

But, though the idea of Gwenda's marrying was disagreeable to him for so many reasons, he was not going to forbid it absolutely. He was only going to insist that she should wait. It was only reasonable and decent that she should wait until Alice got either better or bad enough to be put under restraint.

The Vicar's pity for himself reached its climax when he considered that awful alternative. He had been considering it ever since Rowcliffe had spoken to him about Alice.

It was just like Gwenda to go and get engaged at such a moment, when he was beside himself.

But he smoothed his face into a smile when she appeared.

"Well, what is it? What is this great thing you've come to tell me?"

It struck him that for the first time in her life Gwenda looked embarra.s.sed; as well she might be.

"Oh--it isn't very great, Papa. It's only that I'm going away."

"Going--_away_?"

"I don't mean out of the country. Only to London."

"Ha! Going to London--" He rolled it ruminatingly on his tongue.

"Well, if that's all you've come to say, it's very simple. You can't go."

He bent his knees with the little self-liberating gesture that he had when he put his foot down.

"But," said Gwenda, "I'm going."

He raised his eyebrows.

"And why is this the first time I've heard of it?"

"Because I want to go without any bother, since I'm going to go."

"Oh--consideration for me, I suppose?"

"For both of us. I don't want you to worry."

"That's why you've chosen a time when I'm worried out of my wits already."

"I know, Papa. That's why I'm going."

He was arrested both by the astounding statement and by something unusually placable in her tone. He stared at her as his way was.

Then, suddenly, he had a light on it.

"Gwenda, there must be something behind all this. You'd better tell me straight out what's happened."

"Nothing has happened."

"You know what I mean. We've spoken about this before. Is there anything between you and young Rowcliffe."