Moor Fires Part 42

"But I," Helen said, smiling to herself, "wish him to come."

"And no doubt the discussion of what primarily concerns me is what kept Dr. Mackenzie so long this afternoon."

"How did you know he stayed?"

"My good Helen, though I am in bed, I am neither deaf nor an imbecile."

"Oh, I know," Helen said with a seriousness which might as well have been mockery as stupidity. "I gave him--I gave Dr. Mackenzie tea. He was driving further, and it's such a stormy day."

"Quite right. He looks overworked--ill. I don't suppose he is properly cared for."

"He has a cough. He says he often gets one," Helen almost pleaded, and she went, at the first opportunity, from the room.

She encountered Jane's solemn and sympathetic stare. "I can't have neglected him, can I?" she asked of the little girl in the pinafore, and the shadows on the landing once more became alive with the unknown. "He does cough a lot, Jane, but he says it's nothing, and he tells the truth." She added involuntarily and with her hand at her throat, "I've been so happy," and immediately the words buzzed round her with menace.

She should not have said that; it was a thing hardly to be thought, and she had betrayed her secret, but it comforted her to remember that this was nearly the end of January, and before long the Easter fires would burn again and she could pray.

Between the present and that one hour in the year when she might ask for help, Zebedee's cough persisted and grew worse. He had to own to a weakness of the lungs; he suffered every winter, more or less, and there had been one which had driven him to warmer climes.

"And you never told me that before!" she cried, with her hand in that tell-tale position at her throat.

"My dear, there has been no time to tell you anything. There hasn't been one day when we could be lavish. We've counted seconds. Would I talk about my lungs?"

"Perhaps we don't really know each other," Helen said, hoping he would not intercept this hostage she was offering to fortune, and she looked at him under her raised brows, and smiled a little, tempting him.

"We don't," he said firmly, and she drew a breath. "We only know we want each other, and all the rest of our lives is to be the adventure of finding each other out."

"But I'm not adventurous," she said.

"Oh, you'll like it," he a.s.sured her, smiling with his wonderfully white teeth and still more with the little lines round his eyes. He looked at her with that practical air of adoration which was as precious to her as his rare caress; she felt doubly honoured because, in his love-making, he preserved a humour which did not disguise his worship of her. "You'll like it," he said cheerfully. "Why don't you marry me now and take care of me?"

She made a gesture towards the upper room. "How can I?"

"No, you can't. Not," he added, "so much on that account, as simply because you can't. I'd rather wait a few months more--"

"You must," she said, and faintly irritated him. She looked at her clasped hands. "Zebedee, do you feel you want to be taken care of?" Her voice was anxious and, though he divined how much was balanced on his answer, he would not adjust it nicely.

"Not exactly," he said honestly, and he saw a light of relief and a shadow of disappointment chase each other on her face.

"After all, I think I do know you rather well," he murmured, as he took her by the shoulders. "Do you understand what I am doing?"

"You're telling me the truth."

"And at what a cost?"

She nodded. "But you couldn't help telling me the truth."

"And if I bemoaned my loneliness, how my collars get lost in the wash, how tired I am of Eliza's cooking and her face, how bad my cough is, then you'd let me carry you away?"

"I might. Zebedee--are those things true, too?"

"Not particularly."

"And your cough isn't bad?"

He hesitated. "It is rather bad."

"And you're a doctor!"

"But my dear, darling, love--I've no control over the weather."

"You ought to go away," she said in a low voice.

"I hope it won't come to that," he said.

It was Rupert who asked her a week later if she had jilted Zebedee.

"Why?" she asked quickly.

"He's ill, woman."

"I know."

"But really ill. You ought to send him away until the spring."

Her lips moved for a few seconds before she uttered "Yes," and after that sound she was mute under the double fear of keeping him and parting from him, but, since to let him go would give her the greater pain, it was the lesser fear, and it might be that the powers who were always waiting near to demand a price would, in this manner, let her get her paying done. She welcomed the chance of paying in advance and she kept silence while she strengthened herself to do it bravely.

Because she did not speak, Rupert elaborated. "When Zebedee loses his temper, there's something wrong."

"Has he done that?"

"Daniel daren't speak to him."

"He never speaks to people: he expounds."

"True; but your young man was distinctly short with me, even me, yesterday. Listen to your worldly brother, Helen. Why don't you marry him and take him into the sun? It's shining somewhere, one supposes."

"I can't."

"Why not? There's Miriam."

"What good is she?"

"You never give her a chance. You're one of those self-sacrificing, selfish people who stunt other people's growth. It's like not letting a baby learn to walk for fear it falls and hurts itself, or tumbles into the best flower-beds and ruins 'em. Have you ever thought of that?"

"But she's happier than she used to be," Helen said and smiled as though nothing more were needed. "And soon she will be going away. She won't stay after she is twenty-one."

"D'you think that fairy-tale is going to come true?"