The Green Bough Part 12

Yet something within her insisted upon her conviction that she had not been mistaken. Some one had left the house and, if they had turned the other way, could not possibly have been seen by her.

In that midnight silence, the fantastic shapes the beams of the candle cast, the heavy darkness of the night outside, slight as the incident was, grossly exaggerated it in her mind. She felt she must tell some one. Jane was the person to tell. Jane's fancies were slowly stirred.

She might turn it all to ridicule, but if anything were the matter, she would be practical at least.

Slipping her arms into her dressing gown, she went out onto the landing.

The door of Jane's room was at the further end. As she pa.s.sed Mary's door on her way, something came out of the recesses of her mind and took her heart and held it fast.

Mary's door was open. She stood there staring at it while all the pulses in her body accelerated to the stimulus of her imagination.

Always Mary slept with her door closed. It was not to be understood how she had departed from that habit now that she slept alone. Why had she chosen to sleep alone? Was it more definite a reason than f.a.n.n.y had supposed? What more definite than thoughts of love?

Scarcely aware of the change of her intentions or that Jane for the instant had dropped completely out of her thoughts, f.a.n.n.y pushed open the door and softly entered Mary's room.

Just within the threshold, she stopped, half held by darkness and whispered Mary's name.

"Mary--Mary--"

There was no reply. There was no sound of breathing. Never had the whole world seemed so still. She was faintly conscious that her eyes were staring wide in that darkness, staring to find softly what she knew now the dazzling glitter of a light would reveal to her in all its startling truth. All beating of her heart appeared to be arrested as she felt her way across the room to the bedside table where she knew the box of matches lay. Something fluttered in her thin breast, like a thing suspended in mid-air, but it had no relation to the pa.s.sage of the blood through her veins. It seemed to need purchase, a solid wall against it before it could beat again. Yet no solid wall was there.

Flesh and bones in all her substance, f.a.n.n.y felt as though in those moments her body were a floating thing in an ether of sensation. She found the matches. With fingers that were damp and cold, she struck one. It flamed up with blinding brightness into her staring eyes. She closed them swiftly and then she looked.

The bed was empty. Their Mary was away. With trembling fingers, she lit the candle; then gazed down at the crumpled bedclothes, the sheets thrown back, the pillow tossed.

With automatic calculation she leant down and felt the bedclothes with her hand as one feels a thing just dead.

They were warm--still warm. And where now was the body that had warmed them?

With a sudden catch in her throat that was not a sob and had no more moisture of tears in it than a thing parched dry with the sun, she flung herself down on the bed and leant her body against the warm sheets and buried her head in the warm pillow, fighting for her breath like some frightened beast that has been driven to the last of all its hiding places.

X

They met in silence on the worn path at the foot of Penlock Hill; two black figures joining in the darkness and, without word of greeting, without question of the way, turning by common consent towards the moors and vanishing into the pine trees.

Never was their silence broken while they climbed the hill. They had breath for that ascent, but no more. Coming to a steep place, he offered his hand to help her and then still held it till they reached the moors.

It was a late rising moon that crept up, shimmering wet with its pale light out of the sea. They stood with the heather about their knees and watched it, hand in hand, still silent; but he felt her trembling and she heard when he swallowed in his throat.

"It had to be a night like this," he said presently when the moon at last rose clear and the light seemed to fall from her in glittering drops that splashed like pieces of silver into the sea. "I know this is the one night of my life," he went on. "I know there'll never be moments like it again as long as I live. Perhaps you don't believe that.

You'll think I've said such things before; yet the whole of my existence, past, present and future, is all crowded into this hour. I know I shall realize it the more fully as I grow older and Time wipes Time away."

She clung to his arm. It was now she was most afraid. The moors were so still about them. Down in its hollow amongst the firs and the misshapen oaks, the farm lay silent and black. No light was there. She thought of them asleep in their beds. So sleeping, she thought of Hannah, Jane, and f.a.n.n.y. Only they two were awake in all the world it seemed. Only for some vague yet impelling purpose did the world exist at all and alone for them.

She did not feel at his mercy. She was not afraid of him. Indeed she clung to his arm as they stood in the heather, clung to his arm, trembling, appealing as though he alone were left between herself and Fate to soften it; as though to less terrible a note, he could still the sound of voices shouting in her ears.

These were sensations she had no words for.

"You stand there trembling," he said in a whisper. "What are you thinking of, my dear?"

"It's all so quiet," she whispered in reply, and a short laugh with no mirth in it escaped from her throat. "I don't know why I should expect or want it to be anything else."

"And do you want it to be anything else?"

"I suppose I must, or I shouldn't have said that."

"My dear, are you afraid?"

She jerked her head, reluctant to give a.s.sent to that.

No wonder, he thought. My G.o.d, no wonder women are afraid. If anything should happen, she'll have the brunt of it. Wouldn't I be afraid if I were her?

Such thoughts as these caught him to hesitation a moment stronger than the urging pa.s.sion in his blood.

Was it fair to her? This girl, who in that stagnating corner of the world knew so little, was it fair? Hadn't he strength to resist it even now; to turn their steps back; to let her go, the great-hearted thing she was, as he had found her? If it might be the one moment in his life to him, would it be the less for letting it pa.s.s by? Would realization make it the greater? Might it not make it the less?

A surging desire to be master of himself swept over him. A rushing inclination to protect her from the forces of Nature in himself took louder voice than all his needs. She was too wonderful to spoil with the things that might happen in a sordid world.

For what would they say and think, those sisters of hers, and what sort of h.e.l.l would life become for her in those narrow streets of little Bridnorth?

It was no good saying things might not happen.

What right had he to subject her to chance? She was too fine, too great of heart for that. With all the generosity of her soul she had placed herself in his hands, it was for him to save her even now, before it was too late. She was afraid. Then if there were a G.o.d who gave men strength, he could be strong enough to let her go.

He held her even the tighter with his fingers as in his mind he set her free.

"Mary," he said, "I told you it was strength, not weakness that made me kiss you. I expect you didn't believe that. It was true. And I feel stronger now than then. We're going back again, my dear, now, without waiting, I couldn't stay here longer. We're going back."

"Where?"

She said it in her breath.

"Back to Bridnorth--to our beds. I love you, my dear, that's why we're going back."

She felt a sudden chill and shivered.

"Back?" she whispered. No other word but that could her mind grasp.

As swiftly then the chill blew by. She felt as though she stood in scorching flames, as if the very heather were alight about her. There was pain and it gave her a fierce power she never thought she had possessed. It brought her anger to think she could suffer so much for such return.

Back? They could not go back! Not now! She had been through it all.

This that must happen was just a moment. It was nothing to the hours her mind had lived till then.

She took off her hat and flung it down beside her in the heather.

"It's stifling, this heat," she muttered. "Everything seems burning."

He saw her throw down her hat. He heard what she said. The blood that had been strong like a courageous wine, turned all to water in his veins. He felt his limbs trembling. Something in her was stronger than the greatest purpose he had ever had in his life. It was a purpose he felt might be even stronger than she, yet knew he could not make it so.