The Helpmate Part 73

When they rounded the point they saw her standing on the low inner sh.o.r.e, watching for them.

She stood on the bank, just above the belt of silt and sand that divided it from the river. The two men turned for a moment, and watched her from the yacht's deck. She waited till the big mainsail went up, and the yacht's head swung round and pointed up stream. Then she began to run fast along the sh.o.r.e, close to the river.

At that sight Majendie turned away and set his face toward the Lincolnshire side.

He was startled by an oath from Steve and a growl from Steve's father at the wheel. "Eh--the--little--!" At the same instant the yacht was pulled suddenly insh.o.r.e and her boom swung violently round.

Steve and the boatswain rushed to the ropes and began hauling down the mainsail.

"What the devil are you doing there?" shouted Majendie. But no one answered him.

When the sail came down he saw.

"My G.o.d," he cried, "she's going in."

Old Pearson, at the wheel, spat quietly over the yacht's side. "Not she,"

said old Pearson. "She's too much afraid o' cold water."

Maggie was down on the lower bank close to the edge of the river.

Majendie saw her putting her feet in the water and drawing them out again, first one foot, and then the other. Then she ran a little way, very fast, like a thing hunted. She stumbled on the slippery, slanting ground, fell, picked herself up again, and ran. Then she stood still and tried the water again, first one foot and then the other, desperate, terrified, determined. She was afraid of life and death.

The belt of sand sloped gently, and the river was shallow for a few feet from the sh.o.r.e. She was safe unless she threw herself in.

Majendie and Steve rushed together for the boat. As Majendie pushed against him at the gangway, Steve shook him off. There was a brief struggle. Old Pearson left the wheel to the boatswain and crossed to the gangway, where the two men still struggled. He put his hand on his master's sleeve.

"Excuse me, sir, you'd best stay where you are."

He stayed.

The captain went to the wheel again, and the boatswain to the boat.

Majendie stood stock-still by the gangway. His hands were clenched in his pockets: his face was drawn and white. The captain slewed round upon him a small vigilant eye. "You'd best leave her to Steve, sir. He's a good lad and he'll look after 'er. He'd give his 'ead to marry her. Only she wuddn't look at 'im."

Majendie said nothing. And the captain continued his consolation.

"_She's_ only trying it on, sir," said he. "_I_ know 'em. She'll do nowt.

She'll do nubbut wet 'er feet. She's afeard o' cold water."

But before the boat could put off, Maggie was in again. This time her feet struck a shelf of hard mud. She slipped, rolled sideways, and lay, half in and half out of the water. There she stayed till the boat reached her.

Majendie saw Steve lift her and carry her to the upper bank. He saw Maggie struggle from his arms and beat him off. Then he saw Steve seize her by force, and drag her back, over the fields, towards Three Elms Farm.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

Majendie landed at the pier and went straight to the office. There he found a telegram from Anne telling him of his child's death.

He went to the house. The old nurse opened the door for him. She was weeping bitterly. He asked for Anne, and was told that she was lying down and could not see him. It was Nanna who told him how Peggy died, and all the things he had to know. When she left him, he shut himself up alone in his study for the first hour of his grief. He wanted to go to Anne; but he was too deeply stupefied to wonder why she would not see him.

Later they met.

He knew by his first glance at her face that he must not speak to her of the dead child. He could understand that. He was even glad of it. In this she was like him, that deep feeling left her dumb. And yet, there was a difference. It was that he could not speak, and she, he felt, would not.

There were things that had to be done. He did them all, sparing her as much as possible. Once or twice she had to be consulted. She gave him a fact, or an opinion, in a brief methodic manner that set him at a distance from her sacred sorrow. She had betrayed more emotion in speaking to Dr. Gardner.

But for these things they went through their first day in silence, like people who respect each other's grief too profoundly for any speech.

In the evening they sat together in the drawing-room. There was nothing more to do.

Then he spoke. He asked to see Peggy. His voice was so low that she did not hear him.

"What did you say, Walter?"

He had to say it again. "Where is she? Can I see her?"

His voice was still low, and it was thick and uncertain, but this time she understood.

"In Edie's room," she said. "Nanna has the key."

She did not go with him.

When he came back to her she was still cold and torpid. He could understand that her grief had frozen her.

At night she parted from him without a word.

So the days went on.

Sometimes he would sit in the study by himself for a little while. His racked nerves were soothed by solitude. Then he would think of the woman upstairs in the drawing-room, sitting alone. And he would go to her. She did not send him away. She did not leave him. She did nothing. She said nothing.

He began to be afraid. It would do her good, he said to himself, if she could cry. He wondered whether it was wise to leave her to her terrible torpor; whether he ought to speak to her. But he could not.

Yet she was kind to him for all her coldness. Once, when his grief was heaviest upon him, he thought she looked at him with anxiety, with pity.

She came to him once, where he sat downstairs, alone. But though she came to him, she still kept him from her. And she would not go with him into the room where Peggy lay.

Now and then he wondered if she knew. He was not certain. He put the thought away from him. He was sure that for nearly three years she had not known anything. She had not known anything as long as she had had the child, when her knowing would not, he thought, have mattered half so much. It would be horrible if she knew now. And yet sometimes her eyes seemed to say to him: "Why not now? When nothing matters."

On the night before the funeral, the night they closed the coffin, he came to her where she sat upstairs alone. He put his hand on her shoulder and spoke her name. She shrank from him with a low cry. And again he wondered if she knew.

The day after the funeral she told him that she was going away for a month with Mrs. Gardner.

He said he was glad to hear it. It would do her good. It was the best thing she could do.

He had meant to take her away himself. She knew it. Yet she had arranged to go with Mrs. Gardner.

Then he was certain that she knew.

She went, with Mrs. Gardner, the next day. He and Dr. Gardner saw them off at the station. He thanked Mrs. Gardner for her kindness, wondering if she knew. The little woman had tears in her eyes. She pressed his hand and tried to speak to him, and broke down. He gathered that, whatever Anne knew, her friend knew nothing.