The Three Sisters Part 17

"If I could live on air!" said Alice.

"You can--you do to a very large extent. You certainly can't live without it."

Downstairs he lingered. But he refused the tea that Gwenda offered him. He said he hadn't time. Patients were waiting for him.

"But I'll look in next Wednesday, if I may."

"At teatime?"

"Very well--at teatime."

"How's Alice?" said the Vicar when he returned from Upthorne.

"She's better."

"Has that fellow Rowcliffe been here again?"

"He called--on you, I think."

(Rowcliffe's cards lay on the table flap in the pa.s.sage, proving plainly that his visit was not professional.)

"And you made him see her?" he insisted.

"He saw her."

"Well?"

"He says she's all right. She'll be well if only she'll go out in the open air."

"It's what I've been dinning into her for the last three months. She doesn't want a doctor to tell her that."

He drew her into the study and closed the door. He was not angry. He had more than ever his air of wisdom and of patience.

"Look here, Gwenda," he said gravely. "I know what I'm doing. There's nothing in the world the matter with her. But she'll never be well as long as you keep on sending for young Rowcliffe."

But his daughter Gwendolen was not impressed. She knew what it meant--that air of wisdom and of patience.

Her unsubmissive silence roused his temper.

"I won't have him sent for--do you hear?"

And he made up his mind that he would go over to Morfe again and give young Rowcliffe a hint. It was to give him a hint that he had called on Monday.

But the Vicar did not call again in Morfe. For before he could brace himself to the effort Alice was well again.

Though the Vicar did not know it, Rowcliffe had looked in at teatime the next Wednesday and the next after that.

Alice was no longer compelled to be ill in order to see him.

XIX

"'Oh Gawd, our halp in a-ages paa.s.st, Our 'awp in yeears ter coom, Our shal-ter from ther storm-ee blaa.s.st, And our ee-tarnal 'oam!'"

"'Ark at 'im! That's Jimmy arl over. T' think that 'is poor feyther's not in 'is graave aboove a moonth, an' 'e singin' fit t' eave barn roof off! They should tak' an' shoot 'im oop in t' owd powder magazine," said Mrs. Gale.

"Well--but it's a wonderful voice," said Gwenda Cartaret.

"I've never heard another like it, and I know something about voices,"

Alice said.

They had gone up to Upthorne to ask Mrs. Gale to look in at the Vicarage on her way home, for Essy wasn't very well.

But Mrs. Gale had shied off from the subject of Essy. She had done it with the laughter of deep wisdom and a shake of her head. You couldn't teach Mrs. Gale anything about illness, nor about Essy.

"I knaw a.s.sy," she had said. "There's nowt amiss with her. Doan't you woorry."

And then Jim Greatorex, though unseen, had burst out at them with his big voice. It came booming from the mistal at the back.

Alice told the truth when she said she had never heard anything like it; and even in the dale, so critical of strangers, it was admitted that she knew. The village had a new schoolmaster who was no musician, and hopeless with the choir. Alice, as the musical one of the family, had been trained to play the organ, and she played it, not with pa.s.sion, for it was her duty, but with mechanical and perfunctory correctness, as she had been taught. She was also fairly successful with the village choir.

"Mebbe yo 'aven't 'eard anoother," said Mrs. Gale. "It's rackoned there isn't anoother woon like it in t' daale."

"But it's just what we want for our choir--a big barytone voice. Do you think he'd sing for us, Mrs. Gale?"

Alice said it light-heartedly, for she did not know what she was asking. She knew nothing of the story of Jim Greatorex and his big voice. It had been carefully kept from her.

"I doan knaw," said Mrs. Gale. "Jim, look yo, 'e useter sing in t'

Choorch choir."

"Why ever did he leave it?"

Mrs. Gale looked dark and tightened up her face. She knew perfectly well why Jim Greatorex had left. It was because he wasn't going to have that little milk-faced la.s.s learning _him_ to sing. His pride wouldn't stomach it. But not for worlds would Mrs. Gale have been the one to let Miss Alice know that.

Her eyes sought for inspiration in a crack on the stone floor.

"I can't rightly tall yo', Miss Olice. 'E sang fer t' owd schoolmaaster, look yo, an' wann schoolmaaster gaave it oop, Jimmy, 'e said 'e'd give it oop too."

"But don't you think he'd sing for _me_, if I were to ask him?"

"Yo' may aask 'im, Miss Olice, but I doan' knaw. Wann Jim Greatorex is sat, 'e's sat."