Moor Fires Part 79

"And I'm so glad to have you here," she added, defying harsh emotions.

"Ah! You're rather nice--and, yes, you are much prettier. How have you done it? I should like to kiss you."

"Well, you may." She put her face close to Miriam's, and enjoyed the coolness of that sisterly salute.

"But," Miriam said, startled by a thought, "need I kiss--her?"

"No. You won't want to do that. She isn't very nice to look at."

Miriam shrank against the wall. "Not ugly?"

"You must come and see," Helen said. She was shaken again by a moment's anger as she looked on Miriam's lovely elegance and remembered the price that had been paid for it. "You must come and see her," she repeated.

"Do you think you are the only one who hates deformity?"

"Deformity?" Miriam whispered.

"Her face is twisted. Oh--I see it every day!"

"Helen, don't! I'll go, but don't make me stay long. I'll go now," she said, and went on timid feet.

Helen stayed outside the door, for she could not bring herself to witness Mildred Caniper's betrayal of her decay to one who had never loved her: there was an indecency in allowing Miriam to see it. Helen leaned against the door and heard faint sounds of voices, and in imagination she saw the scene. Mildred Caniper sat in her comfortable chair by a bright fire, though it was now late June of a triumphant summer, and Miriam stood near, answering questions quickly, her feet light on the ground and ready to bear her off.

Very soon the door was opened and Miriam caught Helen's arm.

"I didn't think she would be like that," she whispered. "Helen, she's--she's--"

"I know she is," Helen said deeply.

"But I can't bear it!"

"You don't have to."

They went into Phoebe's room and shut the door, and it was a comfort to Miriam to have two solid blocks of wood between her and the deterioration in the chair.

"I know I ought to stay with you--all alone in this house--no one to talk to--and at night--Are you afraid? Do you have to sleep with her?"

"Sometimes," Helen said, and drew both hands down her face.

"She might get up and walk about and say things. It isn't right for you, or for me and you, to have to live here. Why doesn't Zebedee do something? Why doesn't he take you away?"

"And leave her? I wouldn't go. The moor has hold of me, and it will keep me always. I'm rooted here, and I shall tell George to bury me on a dark night in some marshy place that's always green. And I shall make it greener. You're frightened of me! Don't be silly! I'm saner than most people, I think, but living alone makes one different, perhaps. Don't look like that. I'm the same Helen."

"Yes. I won't be frightened. But why did you say 'George'?"

Helen took a breath as though she lifted something heavy.

"Because he is my husband," she said clearly. She had never used the word before, and she enjoyed the pain it gave her.

There were no merciful shadows in the room: daylight poured in at the windows and revealed Helen standing with hands clasped before her and gazing with wide eyes at Miriam's pale face, her parted lips, her horrified amazement.

"George?" she asked huskily.

"Yes."

"But why?"

"Why does one marry?"

"Oh, tell me, Helen! You can't have loved him."

"Perhaps he loved me."

"But--that night! Have you forgotten it?"

"No. I remember."

"So do I! I dream about it! Helen, tell me. What was it? There's Zebedee. And it was me that George loved."

Helen spoke sharply. "He didn't love you. You bewitched him. He loves me."

"You haven't told me everything."

"There is no reason why I should."

Miriam spoke on a sob. "You needn't be unkind. And where's your ring?

You haven't said you love him. You're not really married, are you?"

"Yes, I am."

Crying without stint, Miriam went blindly to the window.

"I wish I hadn't come--!"

"You mustn't be unhappy. I'm not. It isn't very polite to George--or me."

"But when--when you think of that night--Oh! You must be miserable."

"Then you should be."

"I?"

"It was your doing. You tormented him. You played with him. You liked to draw him on and push him back. You turned a man into a--into what we saw that night. George isn't the only man who can be changed into a beast when--when he meets Circe! With me--" Her voice broke with her quickened breathing. Her indignation was no longer for her own maimed life: it was for George, who had been used lightly as a plaything, broken, and given to her for mending.

For a long time Miriam cried, and did not speak, and when she turned to ask a question Helen had almost forgotten her; for all her pity had gone out to George and beautified him and made him dear.

"Tell me one thing," Miriam said earnestly. "It hadn't anything to do with me?"

"What?"