Moor Fires Part 86

She slid to the edge of the bed and out of it. The carpet was harsh to her feet, but, by the window, the bare boards soothed them.

There were dark clouds floating against the sky, and the larches looked like another cloud dropped down until she saw their crests, spear-like and piercing: they hid the moor in its livery of night.

She turned her head and listened to the sleeper, who did not stir except to breathe. She wanted to see her moor and the house where the Pinderwells were walking and wondering at its emptiness. George would not hear her if she dressed and left the room, and, having done so, she stood outside the door and listened before she fumbled her way along the pa.s.sages.

She sped through the larches, but when her feet touched the heather they went more slowly, and now it was she who might have been a cloud, trailing across the moor. So she went until she saw the house, and then she ran towards it, startling the rabbits, hearing the blur of wings, and feeling the ping or flutter of insects against her face.

The doors were locked, but the kitchen window was not hasped, and through it she climbed. The room had an unfamiliar look: it was dismantled, and ghostly heaps of straw and paper lay where the men had left them, yet this was still her home: nothing could exile her.

She went into the hall and into each bare room, but she could not go upstairs. It was bad enough to see Mr. Pinderwell walking up and down, and she could not face the children whom she had deserted. She sat on the stairs, and the darkness seemed to shift about her. She thought of the bedroom she had left, and it seemed to her that there would never be a night when she would not leave it to find her own, nor a day when, as she worked in the hollow, her heart would not be here. Yet she was Helen Halkett, and she belonged to Halkett's Farm.

She rose and walked into the kitchen and slipped her hand along the mantelshelf to find a box of matches she had left there.

She was going to end the struggle. She could not burn Zebedee, but she could burn the house. The rooms where he had made love to her should stand no longer, and so her spirit might find a habitation where her body lived.

She piled paper and straw against the windows and the doors, and set a lighted match to them; then she went to the moor and waited. She might have done it in a dream, for her indifference: it was no more to her than having lighted a few twigs in the heather; but when she saw the flames climbing up like red and yellow giants, she was afraid. There were hundreds of giants, throwing up hands and arms and trying to reach the roof. They fought with each other as they struggled, and the dark sky made a mirror for their fights.

The poplars were being scorched, and she cried out at that discovery.

Oh, the poplars! the poplars! How they must suffer! And how their leaves would drop, black and shrivelled, a black harvest to strew the lawn. She thought she heard the shouting of the Pinderwells, but she knew their agony would be short, and already they were silent. The poplars were still in pain, and she ran to the front of the house that she might not see them.

There was a figure coming up the track. It was John, with his trousers pulled over his night things.

"G.o.d! What's up?" he cried.

"It's the house--only the house burning. There's no one there."

He looked into the face that was all black and white, like cinders; then at the flames, red and yellow, like live coals, and he held her by the arm because he did not like the look of her.

A man came running up. It was Halkett's William.

"Have you seen the master? He went round by the back."

"Go and look for him. Tell him his wife's here. I'll search the front."

Both men ran, shouting, but it was Helen who saw George at the window of Mildred Caniper's room.

She rushed into the garden where the heat was scorching, she heard his joyful "Helen!" as he saw her, and she held out her arms to him and called his name.

She saw him look back.

"I'll have to jump!" he shouted.

"Oh, George, come quickly!"

There were flames all round him as he leapt, and there were small ones licking his clothes when he fell at her feet.

"His neck's broke," William said.

They carried him on to the moor, and there he lay in the heather. She would not have him touched. She crouched beside him, watching the flames grow and lessen, and when only smoke rose from the blackened heap, she still sat on.

"I'm waiting for Zebedee," she said.

John sent for him, and he came, flogging his horse as a merciful man may, and when she saw him on the road, she went to meet him.

She put both hands on the shaft. "I set the house on fire," she said, looking up. "I didn't think of George. He was asleep. I had to burn it.

But I've killed him, too. First there was Notya, and now George. I've killed them both. His neck is broken. William said, 'His neck's broke,'

that's all, but he cried. Come and see him. He hasn't moved, but he was too big to die. I've killed him, but I held my arms out to him when he jumped."