Moor Fires Part 22

"No."

"What's the matter?"

"I--feel sick."

"Then mayn't I come in and look after you?" Helen asked in a voice which impelled Miriam to bark an angry negative.

It was Helen, who liked to help people, to whom this thing should have happened, yet Miriam possessed her experience jealously; it had broken into the monotony of life and to that extent she was grateful.

"And I must be very kind to George," she decided before she went to sleep.

She dropped her white eyelids the next morning when John gave the news of the old man's death, for she did not want to betray her knowledge.

"Oh!" Helen said, and Rupert remarked lightly and watchfully that Zebedee would now be less often on the moor.

"There's still the funeral," Helen said oddly.

"And let's hope they'll bury him soon," John added, and so finished with old Halkett.

Helen was still thoughtful. "Perhaps we ought to go and be nice to George. There won't be anything we can do, but we might ask him if there is."

"The less you have to do with George--" John began, and Miriam interrupted him, clicking her tongue.

"Helen, Helen, haven't you heard about George and Lily Brent? A dreadful story. Ask John."

"If you're not careful," he said menacingly, "I'll do what she did to him."

"No, no, you won't, Johnny; for, in spite of everything, you're a little gentleman."

"Oh, do be quiet, you two! Rupert's trying to say something."

"Send a note of condolence to George," he advised, "and I'll go to the funeral. It's no good asking John to do it. He wouldn't shine. Heavens!

it's late, and I haven't cleaned the boots!"

The boys went about their business and left the girls to theirs.

"I don't think a note is enough for George," Helen said as she rolled up her sleeves. "A man without a mother or a father, and only a Mrs.

Biggs!"

"H'm," Miriam commented. "Except for Mrs. Biggs, I don't know that he's to be pitied. Still, I'm quite willing to be agreeable, unless you mean to go and knock at the farm door?"

"No. Couldn't we catch him somewhere!"

"Yes," Miriam said too promptly. She made a cautious pause. "He won't be riding on the moor today, because there'll be undertakers and things. If we went down the road--or shall I go alone?"

"Both of us--to represent the family. And we can say we're sorry--"

"But we're not."

"Yes, in a way. Sorry he hadn't a nicer father to be sorry for."

"What about ours?" Miriam asked.

"He may be dead, too, by now."

"And that will matter less to us than old Halkett does to George."

"But the great thing," Helen said, "is to have people one can't be ashamed of."

"Oh!"

"I know; but it's true. And our father would always look nice and be polite, even when he was dying. Old Halkett--"

"Don't talk about him! Come along. We'll catch George on his way to that shop with the pictures of hea.r.s.es in the window. If I die before you, don't put me in one of those black carts."

"I don't think I could put you into anything," Helen said with simple fervour.

"Then you'd have to mummify me and stick me up in the hall beside the grandfather clock, and you'd think the ticking was my heart."

"There are hearts beating all over the house now," Helen said. "But this is not meeting George," she added, and rolled her sleeves down again.

They waylaid him successfully where the road met Halkett's lane, and from his horse he looked down on the two upturned faces.

"We've heard about Mr. Halkett," Helen said, gazing with friendliness and without embarra.s.sment into his eyes. "I suppose there's nothing we can do?"

"Nothing, thanks."

"And Rupert said he would like to go to the funeral, if he may."

"Thank you. I'll let him know about it." He glanced at Miriam and hesitated, yet when he spoke it was in a franker voice than the one she was used to hear. "I'm afraid you were upset last night."

Her answering look made a pact between them. "We didn't hear about it till this morning."

He nodded, watching her through his thick lashes. He gave her a strong impression that he was despising her a little, and she saw him look from her to Helen as though he made comparisons. Indeed, at that moment, he thought that these sisters were like thirst and the means to quench it, like heat and shade; and a sudden restlessness made him shift in his seat.

"I expect you have a lot to do," Helen said. "Good-bye."

"Good-bye. And thank you," he said gruffly, and caught the flash of Miriam's smile as he turned.

Helen stood looking after him. "Poor George!" she said. "I rather like him. I wish he wouldn't drink."

"Exaggerated stories," Miriam remarked neatly.

"Oh, yes, but he looks as if he had never had a chance of being nice."

"I don't believe he has ever wanted one," Miriam said.