Moor Fires Part 78

"Hateful! hateful!" were the words he heard and tried to understand. He sat, alert and troubled, while clouds rolled across the sky, and dark reflections of them made stately progress on the moor. Sheep, absorbed in feeding, drew near, looked up and darted off with foolish, warning bleats, but still his mistress kept her face hidden, and did not move until he barked loudly at the sight of Halkett riding towards them.

"I couldn't keep away," the man said, bending from his saddle.

She rose and leaned against his knee. "George, what do I look like?"

His fervent answer was not the one she wanted.

"But do I look the same?"

He held her by the chin. "Have you been crying?"

"No."

"What is it then?"

She looked beyond him at the magnificence of the clouds and her troubles dwindled. "I felt miserable. I was worried."

"And you're happier now?"

She nodded.

"Then give me a kiss."

She turned her cheek to him.

"No. I said, give me one."

"I can't reach you."

"You don't want to."

"I never want to kiss people."

"People! Then do it to please me."

His cheek hardly felt her pressure.

"It's the way a ghost would kiss," he said.

"That's how I shall haunt you when I'm dead."

"Nay, we'll have to die together."

She wrinkled her face. "But we can't do that without a lot of practice."

"What? Oh!" Her jokes made him uneasy. "I must go on. Helen, I'll see you tonight."

"Yes, you'll see the ghost who gives the little kisses."

"Don't say it!"

"But it's nice to be a ghost, you feel so light and free. There isn't any flesh to be corrupted. I'm glad I thought of that, George.

Good-bye."

"No. Come here again. Stand on my foot." He clinched her waist and kissed her on the mouth and let her drop. "You are no ghost," he said, and rode away.

She was indeed no ghost. Some instinct told him how to deal with her, and when he insisted on her humanity, her body thrilled in answer and agreement, and with each kiss and each insistence she became more his own; yet she was thrall less to the impulses of her youth than to some age-old willingness to serve him who possessed her. But her life had mental complications, for she dreaded in Zebedee the disloyalty which she reluctantly meted out to him when George had her in his arms. She would not have Zebedee love another woman, and she longed for a.s.surance of his devotion, but she could not pa.s.s the barrier he had set up; she could not try to pa.s.s it without another and crueller disloyalty to both men. Her body was faithful to George and her mind to Zebedee, and the two fought against each other and wearied her.

The signs of strain were only in her eyes; her body had grown more beautiful, and when Miriam arrived on a short visit to the moor, she stopped in the doorway to exclaim, "But you're different! Why are you different?"

"It is a long time since you went away," Helen said slowly. "Centuries."

"Not to me! The time has flown." She laughed at her recollections. "And, anyhow, it's only a few months, and you have changed."

"I expect it is my clothes," Helen said calmly. "They must look queer to you."

"They do. But nice. I've brought some new ones for you. I think you'll soon be prettier than I am. Think of that!"

They had each other by the hand and looked admiringly in each other's face, remembering small peculiarities they had half forgotten: there was the soft hair on Helen's temples, trying, as Zebedee said, to curl; there was the little tilt to Miriam's eyebrows, giving her that look of some one not quite human, more readily moved to mischief than to kindness, and never to be held at fault.

"Yes, it's centuries," Helen said.

"It's only a day!"

"Then you have been happy," Helen said, letting out a light sigh of content.

"Yes, but I'm glad to be here again, so long as I needn't stay. I've heaps to tell you." She stretched herself, like a cat. "I knew there was fun in the world. I had faith, my dear, and I found it."

Helen was looking at her with her usual confusion of feelings: she wanted to shake off Miriam's complacence roughly, while she was fondly glad that she should have it, but this remark would not pa.s.s without a word, and Helen shook her head.

"No; you didn't find it. Uncle Alfred gave it to you--he and I."

"You? Oh--yes, I suppose you did. Well--thank you very much, and don't let us talk about it any more. You're like a drag-net, bringing up the unpleasant. Don't let us quarrel."

"Quarrel! I couldn't," Helen said simply.

"Are you so pleased to see me?"

Helen's reluctant smile expanded. "I suppose it's that."

"Aha! It's lovely to be me! People go down like ninepins! Why?" Piously, she appealed to Heaven. "Why?"

"They get up again, though," Helen said with a chuckle.

"For instance?" Miriam demanded truculently.

"Oh, I'm not going to be hard on you," Helen said, and though she spoke with genuine amus.e.m.e.nt, she felt a little seed of anger germinating in her breast. That was what George had done to her: he had made her heart a fertile place for pa.s.sions which her mind disdained.