The Three Sisters Part 63

Greatorex's face flamed and his eyes were brilliant. They declared a furious ecstasy. Ever and again he rose and struggled to stand upright and recover his grip of the reins. Ever and again he was pitched backward on to the seat where he swayed, perilously, with the swaying of the trap.

Behind him, in the bottom of the trap, two young calves, netted in, pushed up their melancholy eyes and innocent noses through the mesh.

Hurled against each other, flung rhythmically from side to side, they shared the blind trouble of the man and the torment of the mare.

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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sy 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 aa.s.sked 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 a.s.sy thot's freetened t' marry yo," she said.

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

"Dawn't I? There's more than mae thot knaws, Mr. Greatorex. a.s.sy 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 aa.s.sk Naddy. He med tall ye 'oo was with yo laa.s.st Soonda oop t' feald in t' girt byre."

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

"'T wasn' mae, Mr. Greatorex, an' 't was n' a.s.sy. Look yo 'ere. I tall yo a.s.sy'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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d as likely to take his getting drunk very seriously, any more than he had seemed to take Maggie and Essy seriously. For Greatorex measured G.o.d's reprobation by his own repentance.

His real offense against G.o.d 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 cla.s.s carriage and looked up and down the platform. She got out, handing her suit-case to a friendly porter. n.o.body 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 "f.a.n.n.y, 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, surrept.i.tiously 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.