T B ARROW BY- VIOLA MEYNELL LOT BARROW LOT BAEEOW BY VIOLA MEYNELL RICHARD G. BADGER THE GORHAM PRESS BOSTON FIRST PUBLISHED, 1913 The Weitmintter Prett, 411a Harrow Road, London, W. DEDICATED TO MY MOTHER 2137172 ' CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE 1 THE FIRST NIGHT 1 2 LOT STOPS THE 'BUS 11 3 PARTIAL CONFIDENCES 21 4 THE SIGH 35 5 HUSBAND AND WIFE 40 6 ALIENS 44 7 THE BROKEN FLOWERS 60 8 JENNIE TO THE CAT 64 9 THUNDER AND LIGHTNING 70 10 ROUND THE FIELD 82 11 BETTER THAN TO BE UNHAPPY 91 12 MARJORIE CRIES 95 13 THE POST 105 14 THE STEP IN THE PASSAGE 114 15 HUMPHREY'S FIST 123 16 LOT'S TALE 132 17 A NICE PIECE OF FUR 140 18 MEMORY COTTAGE 145 19 THROUGH FIELDS 156 20 LOT'S SHOES 170 21 DISSOCIATION 178 22 "LOT THE RUNNER" 187 23 LOT IN THE EASY-CHAIR 203 CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE 24 HOUSE PROPERTY 217 25 NICE MANNERS 229 26 BY THE OCEAN 235 27 THE HOSTESS 244 28 BY THE FIRE 252 29 THE LAMP GOES OUT 263 30 BREAK OF DAY 270 31 LOT LOOKS OUT OF THE WINDOW 280 CHAPTER ONE: THE FIRST NIGHT WHEN Mr. Child came into the house at dusk he found his wife alone in the kitchen. " The new girl come yet ? " he asked. " Yes," said Mrs. Child, in a cautious whisper. " And for a young girl with a history like hers behind her, she came in with an air of great assurance." " Well, she won't come lording it here," said Mr. Child, with one of his tremendous yawns, as he stooped to turn his trousers higher up. To his wife's confidential tones he usually replied in a particularly emphatic voice, saying, if she remonstrated : "It won't harm any one to overhear the truth." " She wasn't cast down, as I expected," said Mrs. Child. " When I went to the door I said : * Good afternoon ; walk inside.' She said : 4 Good afternoon, Mrs. Child ; how glad I am to be here at last.' She said : ' I do hope we shall get on.' ' We're all hard workers here,' I said. ' It doesn't leave us much time to quarrel. 5 She's one of those big, strapping girls with a pretty face." " Has Humphrey been inside ? " LOT BARROW " He was in and out again. Have you finished before tea ? " " Good Lord, no. It'll take me another twenty minutes before I'm finished." He went out into the yard. Mrs. Child had been peeling potatoes, and now she carried her saucepanful over to the fire. She walked with a bad limp so bad that until you got used to it you thought that at each step she would fall. Someone was walking slowly towards the kitchen. Mrs. Child turned round from the fire and saw Charlotte Barrow standing in the doorway. She had lost that air of assurance now. She still had on the best dress she had travelled in, but it was almost covered by a holland apron. She wore a gold bracelet, and she had the habit of giving to the arm with the bracelet a little self-conscious prominence. But there was nothing self-conscious in her face, which was very beautiful. Mrs. Child was even a little startled to see her now without her hat, because her black hair and pale skin made a noticeable effect of colour. The hair was of a heavy, lax kind, which hung closely to the shape of her head. * You'll put me to some work, won't you ? " she said. " And I thought I'd teU you I'm always called Lot." THE FIRST NIGHT " There's plenty of work," said Mrs. Child. " I thought you might like to be quiet just at first, and set out your things." " Thank you," said Lot ; " I feel I'd rather be with you." " Ah, you're a bit homesick," said Mrs. Child. ' 'You would be, the first night or two. " " I was so glad you'd have me, and so anxious to be off," said Lot, " and now I can't help feeling strange." " Well, I thought I'd have you, and I thought I wouldn't. It's been my sole plan to have someone as I know is a good worker and knows the work. But my sister wrote you were in such trouble it kind of takes hold of me when I hear anybody wants help, and I can't rest until I've done my best." Lot began mechanically to deal with the potato-skins, but she was obviously think- ing of something else. " I suppose Mr. Child knows every- thing ? " she said, at once impressively and frightenedly. " I never act without him," said Mrs. Child. " But not anyone else ? " " No, indeed. I don't go about making repetitions." "It's only just that I want to start LOT BARROW fresh," said Lot, nervously. She was grateful for Mrs. Child's sturdy practical kindness, and }^et she longed for some more personal sign of good feeling and understanding and sympathy. She had counted so much on that. A kiss would almost have broken her heart with -happiness and gratitude that evening. She was a little hopeful to think of the coming of the husband and the son. Perhaps they would all grow merry and intimate over their tea. Perhaps then they would all look at her as though they liked her. But Humphrey Child, the son, came in with a slight scowl on his face. It was a common thing with him to lose temper just before meal-times, from an excessive hunger. He was a strong and fine-looking young man, evidently indifferent as to what impression he should make. He put down a pail with a clatter on the brick floor of the kitchen, and there was another jarring noise when he let go the loose handle and it fell against the side of the pail. ' Here's Lot Barrow," said his mother. " Good evening. Hurry up, mother. I'll no sooner take my tea than I'm off to bed ; it's a dead-and-alive evening." ' You'll never play a game of cards with your father now," said Mrs. Child, in a low THE FIRST NIGHT voice. " You'll be up in the dark in the mornings, but your father may spend his evenings alone." " I can't lie abed in the mornings," said Humphrey, impatiently ; " and of evenings I can't keep awake. It's how I'm made." " Lot, do step out into the yard where I showed you and speak to Mr. Child. Tell him his tea's ready." Lot went out into the darkness, and saw a lantern moving ahead. She stepped slowly and carefully towards it. She had given up hope of finding a congenial or admiring companion in Humphrey Child, and she had come to the conclusion that she could never be anything but afraid of Mrs. Child. There was now one left to whom she looked for the chance of some more personal relationship. The lantern was some distance away, but seemed to be jogging towards her. She did not hurry, only sauntering along on the uncertain ground, and occasionally standing still altogether. She could look right away over the yard-door to where a pale night sky was cut by the long, dark downs. She wished herself on those lonely hills ; on just such hills as those she had walked at night, in darkness or moonlight, quite at peace. Now the evening sky was LOT BARROW wind-swept and still too bright for stars ; but there was one blazing planet which barely topped the downs. It shone at the very brim, and soon dropped behind. The lantern-bearer was now very near her, and she walked towards him. Her longing to have found a friend made her tremulous. " Mrs. Child asked me I've come to " she stammered. " Mrs. Child asked you you've come to " imitated Mr. Child. " Come along, girl, let's have it ! " "It's tea," said Lot heavily. Mrs. Child was a woman very much afflicted in her body. She never sat down to meals with her husband and son, taking at odd times during the day the tea and gruel which kept her alive. She hovered over the table, attending to their wants with the most particular attention, and her distinguished face, in spite of being care- worn and deeply lined, had the peaceful homely look of domestic happiness. But there was something more than peace on her face there was distinct amusement and anticipation when she set out for one of the sitting-rooms, carrying there a meal which she had cooked with utmost care. " Come along, mother," said Mr. Child, when she returned, after a rather lengthy 6 THE FIRST NIGHT absence ; " when you've finished flirting with your young man I'll have another cup of tea." He had not allowed Lot to pour it out for him. Mrs. Child poured out the tea, and told what had passed in the sitting-room. " He said : ' What's for dinner ? ' I said, ' Bread and a worm, sir, for a change.' ' You've told me that before. I'll never grow fat on that, Mrs. Child,' he said." Mr. Child sucked his teeth noisily. He was at the end of his meal. While he was being spoken to he rarely made any sign that he heard. But after a slight pause he would say something which bore on the point. " Ah, well, mother, you see you must think of something new." It was eight o'clock, and Humphrey Child went straight to bed. His father, still making the wonderful noises, pushed back his chair and read the daily paper, while Lot washed up the tea things, and Mrs. Child dried them. " The strike's spreading, I'm told," said Mr. Child. He always took the daily paper's communications in this very personal manner. " Have you heard the latest ? " said Mrs. Child. LOT BARROW " I don't know if I have or I haven't." " Well, we wives is going on strike." Mr. Child chuckled with pleasure. "What's wrong ? " he asked. " Less work, more pay," said his wife. " No conciliations granted. General lock- out, and new hands taken on," said Mr. Child. " I suppose you mean new wives by that." " You've guessed right first time, my girl." " Why, you don't suppose you'd find anyone else so silly as to make my mistake, do you, my man ? " " Well, of course I can only judge by experience," said Mr. Child. " I know you was ready enough." " Listen to that ! " said Mrs. Child, addressing herself to the ceiling. " As if he didn't have to go down on his bended knee ! " They all went up to bed together, having made the doors fast and put out the lights, except the light that shone under the sitting-room door, where Mr. Bravery, lodging at the farm, sat at work. They went up past the first floor, where Mr. Bravery slept, to the large, airy attics in the roof, and the husband and wife wished Lot good-night in their simple, undemon- strative way, and they lit their candles and closed the doors. 8 THE FIRST NIGHT Lot had never left her home before, and she was fully aware of the strangeness and loneliness of her position. But her face now had a look singularly impassive as if she failed in sympathy towards herself for her own misfortunes. She could plainly hear the murmur of voices through the wall ; she heard them grow intermittent and cease altogether, and by that time she herself had blown out her light and lay in her fresh cold bed. It was very still then, and she did not stir or make a noise. Soon across the utter stillness there came the sound of a distant train the only thing in all that night with movement and a purpose and a voice. It grew loud or hushed, as the line turned, and once it screamed. And then there was the utter stillness again, but not for long. Mr. Child began to snore in a fairly peaceable way, but every breath he took was a louder advance towards some terrific, unthinkable crisis. With what apprehen- sion Lot followed that steady increase of volume, and with what a stress of attention she awaited the climax which, as it seemed to her in the contrasted silence of the night, must consist of nothing else but the bursting of Mr. Child's head ! She had a 9 LOT BARROW nightmare vision of a disfeatured face and scattered members on a pale, fat pillow. And then the climax indeed came ; but by the intervention of providence, apparently, Mr. Child escaped with a whole head, for very soon he started again with a humble, inoffensive sound, which, however, after the first two or three times, never deceived Lot with its wiles. The sounds compelled Lot's attention, especially at an impending crisis. She almost felt that to withdraw her notice would be to condemn Mr. Child to a burst head, as if it were her unfailing attention that held him together. And yet that strange impassivity had a hold on her still. She was coldly indifferent to her small hardships. A little tenderness in the midst of loneliness would have made her tempestuously happy, but to-night she did not actively mourn the absence of tenderness, or her solitary state, or her wakefulness. And the reason is not a happy one to tell. There was the memory of far greater griefs close upon her griefs lurking in a cruel past ; and her heart was not free for little lamentations. She would have liked to be able to grieve over little things but her heart was dreadfully cold to them. 10 CHAPTER TWO: LOT STOPS THE 'BUS WIGGONHOLT FARM stood a little way outside the village, and four times a day there passed the vehicle which met the trains at the station, two and a half miles awaj 7 ". It was called, by everyone, the 'bus. Though it was the private enterprise of Mr. Green, the con- fectioner, it made an official kind of start from outside the Wheatsheaves, where it loitered for ten minutes or so, to take up any stray passenger. In summer the 'bus was a little open wagonette, with navy-blue buttoned seats, and a door behind with an obstinate fastening the whole grown some- what shabby. In the winter it was a little old Noah's ark on wheels rambling, colourless, rusty. It had an arched roof, and it was indescribably narrow. If there were only two passengers in the 'bus, one on each side, they could put their knees slant-ways, and discuss the weather and the price of coal, or (a different class) the new piece at the Lewington theatre, with perfect ease. But when there were two people on each side, then pressing contact of knees 11 LOT BARROW was unavoidable and embarrassing, and the travellers gazed with rigid absorption out of the little square pane opposite to them, which was often misted and noisy with driving rain. The coming and going of the 'bus was an event all over the village, but especially, perhaps, was it watched for at Wiggonholt Farm. At the farm they were just a little outside the centre of village activity ; they did not see many happenings from their windows. Expectancy of the 'bus often made a reason to look up at the clock and comment on the time, with that valuable feeling that the hour was a matter of importance, in its relation to something imminent. Mrs. Child's comfortable arm- chair was always placed, summer and winter, in such a way that she could command a view of a piece of the road. Four times a day Mrs. Child saw the top of the driver's head and the heads of any passengers there might be (or in winter only the driver's head and a curved, scratched roof) for five or six seconds as they just topped the hedge that ran between her and the road. Four times a day there was one precious moment, when Mrs. Child took in the whole 'bus in the valuable little clear space between the abrupt hedge and the sharp turn of the road. Headgear and faces and 12 LOT STOPS THE 'BUS tantalising glimpses of lace collars or bodices could be seen over the hedge, and then there was that all too brief moment in which so much had to be discovered and reconciled faces joined to bodices, bodices to skirts, and children and parcels, perhaps, perceived for the first time. The passing of the 'bus, it will be seen, was a swift, momentous affair, and unless you are alert and watchful, this pleasing little incident in the day might as well not exist so far as you are concerned. Any lazy, inaccurate surmising as to whether the 'bus is not about due is pure folly : perhaps it has passed only this minute ago, but you cannot see it now ; the few brief moments are gone. The road and hedge tell no tale ; they appear precisely the same after as before. Every five or six weeks the morning 'bus was hailed outside Wiggonholt Farm by someone who had been stationed there for a good twenty minutes to perform the important task. These were the occasions of Mrs. Child's obligatory visits to a London hospital. She received her treatment, slept the night with a friend, and returned the next morning with a new lease of life. When, not long after she had come to the farm, Lot heard of the impending absence, 13 LOT BARROW and learned that it was a periodical affair, it seemed to her too good to be true that she should be relieved so frequently from the awe-inspiring presence of Mrs. Child. Just a little while after her arrival at Wiggonholt Farm, she was sent out to the gate one morning to hail the 'bus, while inside the house Mrs. Child was transforming herself into that hatted and coated person who looked unfamiliar even to her husband. This hat and coat were used only for the London visits : Mrs. Child otherwise rarely left the farm, not holding with church. Lot stood at the gate and looked across the road on to the village green, where the impressions of horses' hoofs were filled with rain and reflected the very bright light of the spring morning. The gusts of wind which blew on her were wonderfully cool and clean from the sea not that sea which lay due south five miles away, but the sea which, a little farther on, had crept into the coast so far that it was breathed by these villagers when they breathed their west winds. To one side of the green Lot could see the red roofs of the village. She swung her hands lazily to and fro, clapping them first in front and then be- hind, to warm them. She was tall enough to prevent a certain thickness of figure 14 LOT STOPS THE 'BUS from being ungainly, and her face was as beautiful and glowing as anything in that glowing day. This expedition of Mrs. Child's had been so placidly spoken of, so carelessly put off from one day to another (as if to Lot it was not the most important thing in the world whether she should go to-day or to-morrow !) that Lot had been in a fever of suppressed excitement and irritation. Strangely and unfortunately antagonistic, these two women were. Had they been neither better nor w^orse, but only slightly different, there might have been strong liking between them. As it was, Mrs. Child had fallen into the habit of a rather overbearing and scornful manner (it was a pity Lot had arrived when a visit to the hospital was due a time when Mrs. Child's temper, in company with her physical endurance, was at a very low ebb) and Lot into the habit of a powerless, frightened hatred. This exaggerated feeling on Lot's part will be better understood if the state of mind in which she came to Wiggonholt is realised. She came relying on a woman's pity and comfort the pity of a woman who knew her sad story, and had agreed to take her into her home, realising, assuredly, all 15 LOT BARROW the tragedy and suffering she carried in her heart. Every mile Lot had travelled on her journey to Wiggonholt had increased her expectation of a haven for one who had been too hardly used. Her reactionary revolt of feeling, when she found her ideal of sympathy unachieved, was all the more bitter because the truth was that, so far from having Mrs. Child's compassion, she could not help being very much afraid of her. Her fear was a conscious, unwilling fear ; she was humiliated and angered by it. But it was there, and it drove a shifty, sly look into her eyes sometimes, and she would jump to hear Mrs. Child's sudden speech or approach and Mrs. Child, aware of the tension, slightly despised her for an uneasy conscience. Coming out of the village, the 'bus-horse walked his incredibly slow walk up a rather hilly bit of road. He had not long re- covered from this ascent, and was just beginning to fling his limbs out in his strange, loose canter, when he had to be pulled up sharply at Lot's sign. Excite- ment indoors was now at a very high pitch. It always seemed doubtful at the last minute whether Mrs. Child would really catch the train. Humphrey and his father both stood by, anxious but helpless, while 16 LOT STOPS THE 'BUS Mrs. Child rushed from one drawer to another, and gave, in a hurried voice, various pressing instructions about domestic affairs, which always seemed to come to her in a sudden clarity of memory the minute before departure. Just before she came hurrying down the garden-path, with her swift, lame stride, the driver had taken out his watch, and he must have been in the kind of mood when a man wants to make a slight demonstra- tion, for it took him something like ten seconds to tell the time. And Lot was holding a piece of her dress tightly in one hand, and turning a dismayed face to and fro between the farm-door and the 'bus. Mrs. Child climbed up, and all the fluster and anxiety suddenly fell away from her as she stooped and kissed Mr. Child and Humphrey, each in turn, with a different passion. Then she waved eagerly to some- one up the garden path ; and Mr. Bravery, standing there in a striped coloured smoking- jacket, and with very neatly brushed hair, waved back, and did so with grace and friendliness. Lot went into the sitting-room, to clear away Mr. Bravery's breakfast. ; ' It seems as if the spring was coming on," she said. 17 LOT BARROW Mr. Bravery was standing by a table which was littered with papers. He was wondering if he should work or go out and walk. " Yes," he said, absently, " a lovely day." " At home," said Lot, " on a day like this I'd sometimes go seven miles to a village where a person I knew lived, and seven miles back. People would say : ' You're never going to go all that way ! ' Of course it was just the going to and fro that I liked." " Well, you couldn't have a much better place than this to walk in," said Mr. Bravery. " Ah, but I haven't got the time." " No, not much time, I suppose." " And now when Mrs. Child is away," said Lot, happily, " I shall have to stick to it more than ever." " You'll find it dull without her," said Mr. Bravery. " I suppose Humphrey Child is still as gloomy as usual." Lot had never heard Humphrey's gloom referred to before. From being a vague impression it immediately became some- thing very real to her. " What's the matter with him, then ? " she asked, quickly. " Has he had a trouble, sir ? " 18 LOT STOPS THE 'BUS Mr. Bravery's face began to lose its absent-minded expression ; he was a little interested in telling what was the matter with Humphrey. Lot had had sufficient conversations with Mr. Bravery by now to recognise that passing of the vague, in- attentive look, which sometimes never lifted at all, but generally cleared, from one cause or another, when talk had been in progress for some little time. "It's just that Humphrey has one wish in the world, and that is to go to sea. He has wished it, I believe, ever since he was about twelve years old I suppose he is twenty-three or so now and time doesn't seem to lessen his disappointment." " Oh, dear," said Lot not, however, understanding that kind of grief. " And couldn't he have gone, sir ? " " Oh, well, imagine his father having to hire a man instead of having his own son to work with him. Here's his father and mother working up the farm for him, and he thinks he wants to go and leave it." ;< Teh, tch," said Lot, trying to make the sound seem shocked and sorry which was pure drama on her part ; for she was very young, and she thought there was only one kind of sorrow in the world. She had nearly finished her clearance 19 LOT BARROW when she gave one of the long, shuddering sighs that caught her breath at rare, un- foreseen times. She did not sigh because she had sad thoughts. It was, rather, a kind of automatic action, which was more likely to remind her of sadness than to be caused by it. She looked up quickly at Mr. Bravery when she had given that involuntary and tragic sigh, and the consciousness of it suffused her face. She found his eyes were on her, and she continued dumbly to look at him, as if she wished, by her expressive face, to confirm that intimation of the fact that she was a person who had known great trouble. And in a few moments he was made to feel that he had a power to make things bright for her, when she said, with every sign of unaffected happiness : " I shall bring your lunch to you all alone to-day." 20 CHAPTER THREE: PARTIAL CONFIDENCES WHEN Mrs. Child returned from her London expeditions, she was generally in a mood reminiscent of the various stages of her long illness. Anecdotes of the present visit were supplemented by ruminating memories of past visits; but in the end the talk would nearly always deal with that great time, nearly twenty years ago, when she had lain for some weeks in the London hospital and had been operated upon to save her life. Mrs. Child lay back in her comfortable padded chair, while her husband trussed chicken in the wide room-passage outside the kitchen door. This room or passage was bricked, and had a table and bench in it, and a collection of tools and pails and baskets. It was long and wide ; and, besides two outside doors, the kitchen, dairy and sitting-room doors opened from it. Lot had finished her work, and sat down with the paper. All the cheerfulness that had come with Mrs. Child's departure was 21 LOT BARROW fading away from her. At this stage in the evening Mrs. Child was dealing with twenty years ago. " I never minded it a bit, not when I got there," said Mrs. Child to her husband, while he worried a chicken into a fat shape. " I was only so glad to be at peace and rest. As I laid my head on the pillow I shouldn't have minded never to have got up again. Then as the afternoon came on, and they began to get me ready, I did feel a bit queer, and I wanted you." " Humphrey," said Mr. Child, " fetch me that pair of ducks." " I would have liked to be the first to go, but I had to wait my turn. And the last thing I said to the nurse that one you saw, Michael was, ' Has the authorities got a correct note of my husband's address ? ' " If anyone wants a plump bird, let 'em come now," said Mr. Child, finishing his fowl. " Well, mother, that's the hardest day's work I ever done, when I came away and left you in that hospital." Lot, in the grasp of that dreadful bitter- ness of hers, wondered that he could really have felt so. She did not want to hate, but her conscience did not condemn her. She thought she was the only person who really saw through Mrs. Child, and it was 22 PARTIAL CONFIDENCES an offence against justice that she should be loved and admired. Mrs. Child had returned with renewed good temper and activity, but a feeling of friendliness towards Lot did not make her a less severe critic of Lot's work. She was watchful and exacting. In her new strength she attacked house-cleaning with untiring energy, and her own enthusiasm and efficiency were such that it was difficult to satisfy her. Lot was a good, practical worker, but her fear of Mrs. Child put her at a disadvantage. Nervousness and resent- ment did not help her to be clever at her duties. She was eagerly defensive, and was sometimes so absorbed in bitterly and silently excusing herself from having merited some past rebuke, that she forgot her work and was reproached again. Two days after Mrs. Child's return, there had been a luxuriant dinner in the kitchen, and the pile of plates and knives and forks with which Lot had to deal at the end testified to its richness. Though the water in her basin was so hot that she could only just endure the touch of it, her hands became slippery with grease, and the plates she drew from the water were not really cleansed. She heard Mrs. Child's deliberate yet speedy approach down the passage. 23 LOT BARROW That sound always put her instinctively on her guard, and ready with her virtuous, indignant defence of whatever she might be doing. Her brain worked quickly in imagining the attack and the defence. She knew so well that Mrs. Child invariably touched the weak spot if there was one ; and on this occasion Lot fortunately dis- covered her mistake herself, just through having put herself in Mrs. Child's condem- natory mood, so as to rehearse her effectual answers. She anticipated the phrases of the enemy. She imagined Mrs. Child taking in with a swift glance the greasy backs of the plates which were waiting to be dried, and saying : "Is your water hot ? " " Yes," Lot would reply, indifferently (perhaps even doubtfully, for if Mrs. Child plunged in her hand to feel for herself, and got scalded, no one could say it was Lot's fault). " And have you got plenty of soda ? " Mrs. Child would ask next. Lot was just rehearsing her second indifferent " Yes," when sud- denly her face changed, and her body stiffened into activity. She reached out to the great jar of soda standing on the window-sill and put a generous allowance into her basin ; then she put back into the water the plates she had already taken out for clean. 24 PARTIAL CONFIDENCES She succeeded in doing this just before Mrs. Child came into the room ; and there was nothing unusual to see unless an expert in expression could have noticed on Lot's face a little look of subsiding fear. But she never guarded her expression in Mr. Bravery's room. On the contrary, she made a display there, by her mournful looks, of all her pent-up grievances. " Cheer up, Lot," Mr. Bravery said to her one morning, when she brought in his breakfast alone. It was market-day, and Mrs. Child was helping to pack the cart. " Sir," she said, with sudden tears, " I've been through a lot of trouble ; it's dreadful what I've been through." He looked at her with sympathy, which was not extended, however, to where he thought she probably exaggerated. " You have left your home for the first time ? " he questioned, consolingly. " Oh, yes, the first time." Her tears stopped suddenly. " And you feel thrown on the world, and everything is strange to you." " Yes," she agreed, almost as if she were relieved that he had assigned her grief to such a suitable cause. She could even im- prove on that. " And then in the nights I don't sleep sometimes, and feel afraid."^ .^i 25 LOT BARROW " Some special fear ? " " I don't know oh, yes, of death, I daresay." He said : " Ah, Lot ; that fear must come and go ... I wonder if it would help you to know that you are near some- one who does not fear death." " You, sir ? " She looked surprised. And then he noticed with a certain disappoint- ment that the surprise dropped away from her face. If this girl could so quickly and easily understand not fearing death, perhaps she had some worse thing in her mind to fear. On a sudden impulse of self-pity Lot had announced her unhappiness. Then with a shudder she had pulled herself up, for she dared not go so near that trouble as to speak of it. It was then necessary to find some other cause for grief. The fear of death ? Yes, that was pretty bad. But she was doubtful whether it was bad enough, and when Mr. Bravery said that he did not fear death, she felt she must find something a little worse than that. " Perhaps I don't fear being dead, sir perhaps it's dying something happening to your body." This was bad enough to put a certain horror into her voice. ' You die many deaths by your antici- 26 PARTIAL CONFIDENCES pations," he said. He thought he would try to be more clear. " Be brave enough to put it by. You have only one day in which to die, and all these days in which to live. Do not change them into death days." The sham trouble did not really absorb her. She was ready enough to be gay now, and she pounced quite cheerfully on the cover of his breakfast-dish. " Is it icy-cold, sir ? 5: " How could it be ?" he said, half kindly, half impatiently at her silly use of a word. But in a moment he was thinking again what a pity it was that this young girl should rehearse the part of death with fear at night. " Little things worry you during the day, I daresay, Lot ? " " Oh, yes, sir," she said at once, with a ready frown. " Of course Mrs. Child is very hard, sir." Mr. Bravery esteemed Mrs. Child. " She has been a sufferer," he said, in a tone which hinted that there were tangible griefs. He was a little surprised to hear Lot say, with a kind of unexpected direct sadness : " She ought to be kinder to me." Mr. Bravery was a man much employed 27 LOT BARROW at his writing-table, and what he wrote as he sat there day after day in the farm- room went, in a strictly limited sense, out into the world. That is, it went to London, and was printed and published, and the world could have had it if it wished. More about his work comes later ; it is sufficient now to say that he was not at all famous. At any rate, he had leisure to be faintly interested in the problem that Lot appeared to be. She was certainly outside the range of his close interests : it was as if he saw her from a considerable distance ; but the fact that this splendid-looking girl laboured under some sense of injury that was probably absurdly exaggerated did arouse a little feeling in one who had views on the unsubstantiality of human woes. One May morning when the day had started early and badly for Lot in a pas- sionate dispute with Mrs. Child as to how the great boiler standing on the kitchen stove had been allowed to go empty, she was in Mr. Bravery's room, passing her duster quickly and angrily over the fur- niture surfaces, when he came down. Her eyelids were red, and she had an indignant, unhappy expression. " Well, Lot, here's spring at last," he said, as he threw open the window. 28 PARTIAL CONFIDENCES She sighed " Yes," but did not raise her eyes to the sunny view. He tried again. " I daresay you often write home to your people ? " " Good lord, sir," said Lot ; " I haven't got any home." He looked surprised. He did not want to argue the point, but he had always understood that she had just left home. She explained. " I did have a home. There was me and father and Jessie that's my sister. But father died with his heart ; yes, sir, I had a lot of trouble come all together. And so I came here." " Is Jessie far away ? " " I should think she was, sir ! She married nearly a year ago, and she and her husband went out to Canada to try their luck. I missed her when she left home, but she didn't mind going, I can tell you ! " Lot smiled slightly ; she was cheering up. Mr. Bravery smiled too. " Well, I don't suppose she would, would she, with a brand new husband. . . . ? " " The joke of it was," said Lot, half- shyly, "she always thought her Frank would be after me. Of course Jessie's not a bit like me to look at. Well, as if I could ! A man like that ! You should have seen him, sir ; a funny little face, he had. I 29 LOT BARROW suppose she thought everyone must want him the same as she did." " I daresay you had plenty of admirers of your own if it comes to that," said Mr. Bravery, dryly. He was thinking : "A girl with a face like that would cheat a lot of fools into thinking that this world was a fine place." Lot tossed her head slightly. " Of course I had my young man," she said. " Jessie might have known that I didn't want hers." " Well, I'm sure your young man writes to you," said Mr. Bravery, feeling pleased with himself that he had brightened her, but with an air of finality, because he wanted to get to his letters. But Lot looked at him in sudden horror, and turned very pale. Up till now, she had enjoyed talking just because she was talking to him, and she had liked to impress him with the idea that she was a successful and sought-after young woman. But his remark brought back to her mind the fact that the happy, silly things she had been talking of were not all the past she was brought, as she always must be, to the other dreadful remembrances, with which all was involved. It was no good her ever trying to evade them. 30 PARTIAL CONFIDENCES " Oh oh " she said, gasping, and beginning to speak before she knew what she was going to say, " we fell out." She looked at him as if to see if he believed it, and then she gave a sudden sob and ran out of the room. He did believe it, of course, and he felt upset at her grief so upset that he was put off work for that morning, and went up on to the hills instead. He did not think there need be any such thing as grief, or torture of our human hearts, if only people would rate the world at its proper value. But his thinking that did not help the people who thought other- wise that was obvious. He consoled himself, as he passed through the village and began to climb the great hills. He had a theory that perhaps even those people who seem the unhappiest are probably not more unhappy in fact than those who appear to be happy. He thought people who continued to be unhappy about things were content with their own un- happiness they preferred to mourn their silly, imaginary blisses rather than face the fact that man was not meant for bliss. That was the kind of thing he wrote about when he sat at his table in the farm. And that was what got sent up to London, in 31 LOT BARROW the form of essays, for publication. Only he had to publish at his own expense. The village did not only consist of a thread of cottages lying in a waving line at the foot of the hills. This line had curious, unexpected tributaries ; it explored a little. Sometimes one cottage had a mysteriously-chosen position immediately behind another ; it might not be visible from the village street, but there it stood wall to wall, window to window, with the cottage in front. And sometimes a little narrow yard-like opening in the road would lead to quite an important group with a name of its own. Ford Street was one of these, and it housed some of the most prosperous of the villagers ; but its exis- tence would never have been suspected from the village street. A wanderer in the village would find it extensive and scattered, and come upon large walled gardens belonging to aged little cottages. But now from the great bare hill, which rose so sheerly up from behind the village that it put forward the sunset every evening by about an hour, Mr. Bravery looked down and saw only what seemed to be a little red hamlet of no importance and no pretensions ; it was diminished until it had no superiority of size. The humbler villages and hamlets 32 PARTIAL CONFIDENCES around must in proportion have disappeared altogether, had he had a view of them. And chief of wonders this seemed to be a hamlet nestling in trees, enveloped by them, and intersected, making a pattern in green and red. He could hardly remember a single tree in the village, and made this discovery that distance seems to gather together those trees that are separate and unremarkable near at hand. Even the church tower was behind trees. He looked for the farm, and looked too far away. That was another delusive effect of distance the farm and the village appeared so near together. He suddenly located the outbuildings in an unexpected spot. He had never looked down from just this spur before. The house was mostly hidden, but the outbuildings seemed to contribute handsomely to the length of the village. He was suddenly moved to think of Lot, who was doing something somewhere within that little huddled line of red. Even her body strangely seemed too big, as he thought of it, to be there then what about her great important griefs ? Yes, they were, important at any rate while she thought them so. A look on her face came back to him rather sickeningly. He thought he had never seen such a 33 D LOT BARROW stricken look on anyone's face as on hers when she had suddenly turned pale. It was a look of anguish too big for that little village, too big for this world. It seemed to demand a heaven to which to rise, and a hell to which to sink. He would try and make her see things differently. 34 CHAPTER FOUR: THE SIGH IT was market-day again, and every- one would be up early, but Lot was earlier than all. She came down quietly, and unfastened the door and went out into the brilliant early sunshine, which even promised heat later in the day. She went down the garden, and across the meadows into the wood. She crackled about in the little wood, branches catching her hair, and dried leaves beneath her feet. But if there were dead leaves there was another growth, linked to the earth by a fine thread of life a white, starry growth, with a delicate stem and a lowly bunch of green. There were other wild-flowers there, but it was the day of the wood-anemones. Lot crept about, to gather them. She was careful with her feet, because she did not like to feel her weight crushing the flowers. There were the closed buds of wild hyacinths there. " And it's not as if I was as light as a feather," she thought, on the slightly facetious terms with herself that were possible when she was not absorbed in her grief. 35 LOT BARROW When she had gathered a bunch, and her feet were wet with dew, she went back to the house. The family had now been astir for some time, for in the passage Lot saw a big basket, or trug, filled with wallflowers and strong red rhubarb. The wallflowers were dark red that noble red with black in it. They had their tight little heads compactly pressed together in solid bunches. Mr. Child's idea of a bunch was not that a little should look like a lot. No, he packed with a firm hand, and one of his bunches, untied, spread itself to an astonishing extent. The April rhubarb was a firm thick growth : altogether the earth had not been idle. Lot did not meet anyone as she went through the passage. She looked in at Mr. Bravery's room, hardly hoping (except by a quick leap of her heart just before she looked) that he would be there. But he was there, with a bath-towel over his shoulders, and no collar on, and his hair very far from being the smooth, shining thing it generally was. She held out her bunch to him, with the impulse shining on her face. ' Would you like some of my favourite flowers, sir ? " she asked. " I mean, favourite for to-day." 36 " Thank you," lie said, but not taking them from her, so that her outstretching action ended a little nervously as she put them on the table. " Yes, one can only be faithless in that matter. I think your choice for to-day is good." " They won't last so very long, either," said Lot, her empty hands hanging rather awkwardly by her side, as if they should in reason and modesty still have held the flowers. " There'll be the bluebells soon ; and the little milk-cups come all over where the anemones have been." " And I suppose you will love them the best in their turn." " No, never," said Lot, nodding her head emphatically. " Let's see, I suppose the next thing I shall be saying I love the best is yellow wallflowers. I suppose I shall be saying I love them the best in the world until the next thing comes along." She was confident that her idiosyncracies were in- teresting, and yet it meant something like despair to her to see the aloof, unmoved look of his face. This certainly was one of the times when he did not feel interested in the rather fatiguing girl, happy with her flowers, and a little too talkative. He moved to the door, and just looked back to say, in order 37 LOT BARROW to cover his retreat, " I'm going to swim." And then as she looked up at him to make some bright response he saw her shudder unexpectedly, involuntarily. It made her smile seem a ghastly smile until it vanished, as it slowly did, to be replaced by a nervous, drawn look. Evidently that messenger from some past grief was per- sistent, and came at any time by night or day, and she was at its mercy. By night ? Perhaps she had cruel nights. Mr. Bravery continued to stand at the door, and now he gave her all his attention. ' Will you put the flowers in water ? " " Yes," she said, raising her eyes to him gratefully. " And believe me, Lot it is not wise to grieve." " No, sir ? " " No. Some day I will try and explain to you." " Could you tell me now, sir ? Because, you see well, I am grieving so dreadfully all the time." Sounds of bustle in the household were increasing. There were hurried steps, and voices, and the shifting of baskets ; and from outside there came the noise of a thousand birds singing in the sun. 38 THE SIGH Mr. Bravery leaned forward and spoke rather hurriedly. " The madness is, to expect to be happy. Realise that you were never meant to be happy, and then you will be indifferent ; you will not grieve." Lot did not altogether realise what he said, but she looked at his ardent face. Her own kindled, and he thought it was with understanding. 39 CHAPTER FIVE: HUSBAND AND WIFE IT was only occasionally that Humphrey Child gratified his father by walking down with him to the Wheatsheaves after the evening meal. Humphrey generally went to bed, or sat by the fire absorbed in some book about men who had had the common decent luck to be able to go to sea. And he would answer his father's invitation with a curt refusal : " No, I shan't be going out to-night." These persistent invitations from Mr. Child must have struck any outsider as being rather pathetic. Because they were always delivered with an attempt at an air of studious indifference. In their business dealings Mr. Child was invariably the cool authority and director ; but in anything personal or intimate, he inevitably wore a little air of apology (because he would not let his son go to sea) ; and if you are apologetic you cannot really be off-hand, however hard you try. One night when, in answer to his father's suggestion, Humphrey had merely muttered 40 HUSBAND AND WIFE that he was going to bed, the husband and wife were left early alone in the kitchen. Mrs. Child sat in her customary chair, working at her crochet. Mr. Child was unusually quiet ; he put his chair very near to hers, and she knew that he felt sad. She did not try to beguile his thoughts ; they always faced their troubles very squarely. Some instinct told her that Lot was in his mind. She had but just gone up to bed, and Mr. Child had watched her out of the door. " Mr. Bravery seems quite to take a fancy to that girl," she said. " So a man might do," said Mr. Child. " Do you know, when sister Maude first wrote and told me all about her, I thought it wouldn't do for us as had a grown-up son to take her ; but Maude said she thought she'd had her lesson once and for good. She took on so over it." " I had the same idea myself," said Mr. Child, " when first you put your sister's letter on the table there in front of me." He drank from a glass of beer : it seemed to be poor comfort to-night. " And then I thought again," he said, " and that time I thought different." Mrs. Child took this in slowly, and he was in no hurry to explain. He always 41 LOT BARROW felt that the importance of his words made a good deal of waiting not unprofitable. " I suppose you thought he'd never notice her any more than if she was that stool," suggested Mrs. Child. " No, you're wrong." " What, do you mean you thought it wouldn't matter so very much if he did like her ? " " Yes, my girl ; that's what I mean. . . . You see, supposing he'd have taken a liking for her, it 'ud have settled him down a bit. It isn't right, it isn't natural," said Mr. Child, with rising feeling, " that a boy with a comfortable home should think of nothing but the sea, just the same as if his mother had been a mackerel. If some one was to catch his fancy it 'ud show him as the land held something good. . . . What's his age ? " " Twenty-four now," sighed Mrs. Child. She felt that strange, hushed pain which so many men will sometimes inflict upon the finer sensibilities of their wives. She only half -expressed it when she said : " It never struck me like that. I should have been afraid she was too too flighty to do him any good." But Mr. Child reassured her by what he next said, and she was able to be happy 42 HUSBAND AND WIFE again in her faith in him as perfect husband and father. " Ah, and supposing she was Humphrey would have found that out, given the time to do it in," said Mr. Child. " You may fool Humphrey for a time, if you're clever, but you won't fool him for long. No, it would have settled him down for a bit, maybe, and then who knows but that he might never have had quite the same notion about the sea again." " He doesn't seem to take much notice of her, does he ? " Mr. Child sucked his teeth contemptu- ously and leaned back in his chair. " He doesn't know if she's in the room or out of it," he said. " And yet of course she's a fine-looking girl," said the mother humbly, as she thought with a kind of worship of the withholding goodness of her son. " She wants to look like the old hulk of a ship," he said. " Then he'd notice her fast enough." " Well, well, it wasn't to be," said Mrs. Child. 43 CHAPTER SIX: ALIENS THERE were busy times ahead at the farm. The rooms occupied by Mr. Bravery were not the only ones at the disposal of visitors ; along white-washed passages, up or down stray steps, and round corners, there were rooms and more rooms ; and the fortunate season of letting was drawing near. Mrs. Child was particularly lucky this year. In addition to having two rooms let permanently to the nicest gentleman that ever crossed a threshold ("he is a article," Mrs. Child would say in her high approval), she let other rooms for June, and when the June party left there were some relations of Mr. Bravery's to come and take their place. Mrs. Child spoke a great deal of the time when Mr. Bravery's cousin should be at the farm. " I think she can't but say he's comfortable," she said again and again to her husband ; and he said, to tease her, on the lines of his familiar joke : " Comfort- able, my dear ? She'll say you and he's a perfect scandal ! " But in the meantime less important 44 ALIENS guests had at least the quality of imminence to lend them excitement. The letter of the unknown applicant for June was discussed at endless length in the kitchen. If all you know about a person is that she writes and wants your rooms for June, for herself and her husband and her little boy and her nurse, and signs herself " E. Schneider," there is obviously a vast field left for speculation. " Now, you know it looks to me," said Mr. Child, who always had the happy knowledge that to his wife at least his words were words of peculiar wisdom, " as if this weren't an English name." He held the letter at some distance from him, and looked at the signature with his head on one side. " By what I can see of it, it's a foreign name." This cast a gloom. "I'm not against anyone because they weren't born English," said Mrs. Child. " For one thing, they couldn't help them- selves. But I don't know that I want them here." " Of course," said Mr. Child, " I may be wrong, but by what I can see of it this isn't an English name." " There was a man in our village called Schmidt," said Lot, impressively. " Father 45 LOT BARROW said that's just the same as our Smith really." She was shy at joining in the conversation, but felt impelled to do so by the interest of what she had to say. "As to that I can't say one way or the other," said Mr. Child. He turned to his wife. " But if you was to go in and ask Mr. Bravery in there, you'd see what he'd say about this name." Mrs. Child took the letter in to Mr. Bravery, and Mr. Child sat back in his chair with an expression on his face which seemed to suggest that he confidently expected to be proved triumphant in an opinion which he alone had held against the world. " German ! " said Mrs. Child, returning. " He'd no sooner looked at the name than he said : ' Mrs. Child, the Germans are coming.' ' Mr. Child looked at each of them in turn with ill-suppressed triumph. " Well," he said, " I told you that was no English name." " Now we'll have some cat-a-wauling," said Humphrey, getting up to go to bed. However, the Germans were allowed to come ; and so Mrs. Child, who was always specially weakly in the spring, foreseeing that there would be abundant work to be 46 ALIENS done, got in another girl from the village. Jennie Webster came " to oblige," be- cause she happened to be at home without employment. Lot conceived a secret won- dering admiration for Jennie, because that calm, self-possessed j r oung woman was not in the least afraid of Mrs. Child. The very terms on which she came struck Lot as the most daring thing she had ever heard. " To oblige ! " If only Lot herself could have begun her career at the farm with that moral assurance of having come to oblige, she thought things might have been different from the first. No, Jennie was quite cool. She and her employer seemed to have a kind of placid indifferent liking for each other, which Mrs. Child's occasional scolding and grumb- ling in no way interfered with. How Lot envied Jennie's coolness ! How she des- pised and hated herself for her own uneasi- ness ! When Jennie first came Lot had taken for granted that she must be afraid (she was so full of her own fear), and she even hoped that Jennie would hate as well as fear. But she soon bitterly realised that there was neither fear nor hate. When Jennie had been there not more than a few days she complained one day of having 47 left her purse at home, and just before she took her leave in the evening she said to Mrs. Child in a perfectly off-hand manner (yes, Lot had to own to herself that it was genuinely and not assumedly offhand) : " Could you lend me such a thing as a penny, Mrs. Child ? " That was only a little thing, it is true, but it helped to un- deceive Lot. She marvelled ; she knew she could not have done that herself. Mrs. Schneider, when she arrived, soon put at rest everyone's fears in regard to the alien invasion. Just imagine she could speak English ! (In spite of her having written an English letter, it had been impossible for the Childs not to picture her as communicating with them solely by sign and gesture when she arrived at the farm.) She turned out to be very English indeed. Whatever there was of German was in her husband, and that was an exceedingly remote strain. In her sur- prise, feeling that someone must be German, Mrs. Child half expected that little Gus Schneider, who hung fast asleep on his father's shoulder, was the alien. But this last illusion was shattered when from the fastness of his room little Gus shouted out in revolt against some cleansing measures that were evidently being taken against 48 ALIENS him. That fit of naughtiness had a purely English sound. Mr. Schneider was understood to be in a very good way of business in London. Mrs. Schneider was stout and red and fringed, and was vaguely reminiscent of the saloon bar. Could that be Mr. Schneider's very good business ? Was Mrs. Schneider a prosperous publican's wife not, of course, having any truck with such things as counters and glasses now, but acquainted with those things in the past ? Mrs. Schneider thought everything w T as very quaint, and kept appealing for con- firmation of that impression from Henry her husband, and from Flo the nurse. Not only quaint, but humorous. There was an endless store of fun for her in the bucolic habit of life. At the end of that first evening Mrs. Schneider said to the nurse, with whom she was on terms of a gay friendship : "Of course you'll be up early in the morning pickin' mushrooms ? " They were upstairs on the landing and were just going to bed, Lot carrying their hot water. " Oh, of course" said Flo, and then they burst into the laughter which, however, could do only suppressed justice to the joke, because of Gus. Mrs. Schneider must have been very 49 E LOT BARROW slow to undress, for Lot had actually fallen asleep and was awakened by a sound of fitful singing which came in to her through her open door. The song Mrs. Schneider sang as she undressed was a sentimental ballad. The tune went right to Lot's heart, and some words which were repeated from time to time struck her with a cruelly intense emotion : " I loved you in life too little, I love you in death too well." Lot writhed in her bed, and said : "I can't bear it." To say that it was sweet to her, or to say that it was sad, does not seem to say very much. Imagine sadness and sweetness carried to the point when they seem to need something more than a human heart to hold them. When Lot called Mrs. Schneider in the morning she was told to go and ask Flo how many mushrooms she had got. At first Lot carried the joke somewhat heavily, but when she took back the much-appre- ciated answer (" Say I've got a lovely basket for breakfast," Flo had said from her bed), she was infected by so much humour, and gave a little involuntary laugh. That morning was notable for the intro- duction of Gus. Gus fully awake was quite 50 ALIENS unlike Gus half-asleep. It was notable also, in a humbler manner, for the departure of Mr. Schneider who, having established his family, returned to London, to his very good way of business. He had enjoyed his brief excursion. " Well, it seems to be a very pretty part, all round this part." Thus he expressed himself before he went. At first the four-year-old Gus was a very popular character. He seemed to be every- where at once a little human machine made on purpose to touch everything it could reach. If something, such as a hen, attempted to elude his grasp, and made a desperate dash for life and dignity, Gus was so diverted that it was as much as he could do to give chase. He would frequently escape by himself out into the yard and, from the pure joy of giving chase, be so overcome with laughter, all alone out there, that he could only stumble along the ground, impeded by his breathless peals of laughter. Which gave the hen a gleam of hope. It was Mrs. Child who, at the end of a week or so, first lost patience, and Jennie speedily followed suit. Mr. Child was so much afield that he saw but little of the boy, and the day of his wrath was not yet. And it was no great agony of mind to Lot to see Mrs. Child's furniture scratched, and 51 LOT BARROW She led Gus into the sitting-room, and in a different tone suggested to his mother that he might be detained there. Mrs. Schneider, who had been sitting, stout and inactive, in her chair, now shook Gus with her many-ringed hands. " You little wretch ! " she said. " You've been troublesome again. What can become of such a wicked boy ? My lovely angel, what is it makes you naughty ? Tell mother. He's never like this at home, Mrs. Child. Do you want to send your blessed mother to the grave, Gussie ? Ah, here's dinner." Lot, in great dejection, was carrying in the dinner. At this very moment Mr. Bravery's dinner was being taken to him by Jennie. By Jennie ! When it might so easily have been arranged the other way. Lot felt very low. She was starved of human love and kindness. She had been so busy lately that she had seen little of Mr. Bravery. And yet if it had not been that she counted on seeing Mr. Bravery often, she would long ago have left the farm and gone somewhere far away, where she would have confided to someone all her past trouble, and been loved and pitied. But that afternoon, when Mrs. Child was in her room, and Mrs. Schneider was 54 ALIENS lying in the meadow in the sun, and Flo had taken little Gus for a walk, and all the house was very quiet, Lot, after much restless pacing to and fro, ventured to go to Mr. Bravery's door and knock. He called out to her in his heart-stirring voice to come in. " Are you all right ? " she asked. " I just thought I'd see if you wanted for anything." She smiled at him rather ner- vously. " Hallo, Lot ; isn't this Thursday, and don't you go out ? " " Yes, Thursday's my day, and I could go if I liked, but somehow I don't want to. I don't want to go alone." " You generally go off happily enough, don't you ? " he said. " Why, Lot, it seems to me that I have even heard whispers of your being back late." " Yes," she said. " I have had some good times up on the top of the hills there. I run, sir. I can run like lightning. . . . But to-day I am tired of being alone. I was alone all night." He looked surprised. *' Are you not always ? " " Oh, yes ; but I was awake, and so I noticed it." He grieved for her. 55 LOT BARROW " I would like to make you happier," he said. " You must let me try. I sup- pose there is no chance, Lot, of you and your young man being friends again ? ' : " I don't think so, sir." She looked miserable, and breathed hard. But sud- denly a startled wave of red colour came over her pale face, and she said : "I hear Mrs. Child moving, sir ; she will be coming down." She vanished and closed the door silently. That evening Mr. and Mrs. Child were standing at the door leading into the garden when Mrs. Schneider and Flo strolled by. Lot was sitting in the kitchen. She overheard Mrs. Schneider say : " Isn't the moon lovely ? What a white appear- ance it casts over everything ! " Mrs. Child, who had a kind of passionate feeling for Nature, replied ; and they all entered into friendly conversation and sauntered together down the garden-path to the meadow-gate, where the view of the sky was wider. Humphrey was in bed. Jennie had long gone home. Lot heard a step not very far from the kitchen door. Mr. Bravery had evidently come out of his room and was strolling about the passages, as he some- 56 ALIENS times did, to get movement and a change of scene. Perhaps he would come to the kitchen. Lot followed the sound of his footsteps as a traveller might listen in a jungle. He came and went, and she touched the extreme poles of joy and despair. But at last he came right to the kitchen door. He seemed surprised and glad to find her alone. She told him the others were down by the meadow-gate. " And you are all alone. Quite at peace, I hope, Lot ? " " Are you, sir ? " " Oh, yes, I am, and I always will be. So should everyone be." Lot thought for a moment. " But sadder things happen to some people than what happen to others," she argued. " Yes, and that's about as much as you can say," said Mr. Bravery. " I have had trouble, Lot. In many ways I have had what I suppose would be called a wretched life. But can I truly say I am unhappy ? Things outside me have happened, but inside I maintain a level. I draw my peace perhaps I should say my indifference somehow, from somewhere. Doesn't it strike you as a great thing to cease to care, and then an easy thing to cease to grieve?" 57 LOT BARROW " Then there's no such thing as saying you're unhappy," said Lot, pliably, thinking how far astray she had gone in the past. " Saying it and having sympathy may be a particular need with you. So say it if you must. But what a deceit it all is. I should have liked it to be different with you, Lot," he said, looking at her with the intensity of his enthusiasm in his eyes. " I have a feeling in regard to you that you might be brought to see things differently. With some people one cannot feel that- splendid people in their way, perhaps, like Mrs. Child, for instance. ..." Lot felt intensely gratified at this. " Oh, her ! " she agreed, interrupting. " But I would like you, Lot, to have the inner assurance that your peace of mind is really untouched by human events." " If something dreadful happened to you, wouldn't you worry to death ? ' : " Not I. Providence can do its worst with me," said Mr. Bravery. " I don't fear it. It would never even have the satisfaction of drawing a cry from me." " Oh," said Lot, " I cried for a whole day and a whole night. Yes, I did. Really. And, sir," she said, lowering her voice, " when they made me when they made me do something I screamed and screamed, 58 ALIENS almost to break my throat." She ran to him and took hold of his sleeve. " Oh, sir," she said, " I will try to do as you say. I want to be like you. Look, I won't cry now." She brushed her tears aw^ay. " If you will only help me ! " 59 CHAPTER SEVEN: THE BROKEN FLOWERS THE end of June was anxiously looked for by Mr. and Mrs. Child, who now both emphatically preferred little Gus's room to his company. Yes, Mr. Child thought so, too, now, having witnessed a dispute between Gus and his chickens, and discovered depredations in his garden. But the sight of the unruly, unattractive boy brought to Humphrey Child the first precious pang of desire for fatherhood. It became an exquisite thing to him just to think of venting stern discipline on a wayward child of his own. He pictured certain scenes or situations of a strange, deep attraction. One day he fancied him- self leading his child away by the hand, and a shadowy, startled woman standing by. " What are you going to do with him ? " that woman said. "I'm going to thrash him because he told a lie." " Let him off, just for this once. Do, because I ask you to," the woman pleaded, while tears ran down her beautiful, pale face. " A fine boy 60 THE BROKEN FLOWERS he'd turn out if I did ! " Humphrey fancied himself replying, with some scorn but kindly, because she was so unhappy, and so weak in comparison with his strength, and so wonderfully beautiful. " No, I'll thrash him this time, and then perhaps he won't do it again." Humphrey straightened himself up from his dreaming and looked through the window out into the garden, and there, strangely enough, saw on a woman's face just such a startled, fearful look as that which had been in his mind. Yes, and the aspect was the same as that of the woman he had involuntarily pictured. So identified was that face with the phantom of his dream that it took him a few seconds to recognise Lot. Lot had just been discovered at fault, and that was the look she always wore when Mrs. Child's sharp, protesting voice of discovery first smote on her ears. Some tall lilies lay broken on the garden bed. For Lot had hung out her washing too far down the line, and damp sheets had waved in the breeze and snapped the tall lily- stems. Humphrey wandered out into the garden, faintly interested to know what Lot had done now. Each woman was so angry, in LOT BARROW her own way, that his presence was scarcely observed. " Don't you suppose that Tm sorry too ? " Lot was saying, with strangely de- fiant words, considering that she looked thoroughly frightened. " Don't you think that I cared for those lilies too ? Per- haps I liked them even more than you did ! " " I hope you'll never like me, my girl," said Mrs. Child with some scorn. " Judging by appearances, I should say it wasn't safe to be liked by you." Perhaps there was a double meaning in this. Any colour in Lot's face vanished, and she looked almost plain now in her passion. " I loved them and I broke them," she said, loudly. " Your not believing things doesn't make them not true, you know." She smiled an ugly, taunting smile. Mrs. Child was conscious now that this girl was angrier than she herself ever was. She always had a respect for extremes, and even though this was an extreme of evil, she felt vaguely impressed, and only replied to Lot with a mild remark about the possibility of Mr. Child's binding up the flowers. As for Lot, she went up to her room and 62 THE BROKEN FLOWERS suffered the most cruel reaction from her outburst of temper. She was in that sad state of mind when little griefs served the deadly purpose of carrying her straight to the big grief like a sun fed by meteorites. So she lay and sobbed and moaned on her bed. LOT BARROW her own way, that his presence was scarcely observed. " Don't you suppose that Tm sorry too ? " Lot was saying, with strangely de- fiant words, considering that she looked thoroughly frightened. " Don't you think that I cared for those lilies too ? Per- haps I liked them even more than you did ! " " I hope you'll never like me, my girl," said Mrs. Child with some scorn. " Judging by appearances, I should say it wasn't safe to be liked by you." Perhaps there was a double meaning in this. Any colour in Lot's face vanished, and she looked almost plain now in her passion. " I loved them and I broke them," she said, loudly. " Your not believing things doesn't make them not true, you know." She smiled an ugly, taunting smile. Mrs. Child was conscious now that this girl was angrier than she herself ever was. She always had a respect for extremes, and even though this was an extreme of evil, she felt vaguely impressed, and only replied to Lot with a mild remark about the possibility of Mr. Child's binding up the flowers. As for Lot, she went up to her room and 62 THE BROKEN FLOWERS suffered the most cruel reaction from her outburst of temper. She was in that sad state of mind when little griefs served the deadly purpose of carrying her straight to the big grief like a sun fed by meteorites. So she lay and sobbed and moaned on her bed. CHAPTER EIGHT: JENNIE TO THE CAT " T OT ! Lot Barrow ! " Humphrey called I j at the foot of the stairs ; " mother says will you hurry down and clean those knives ! " It was on the verge of a certain blessed departure, and Mrs. Child, who was the most scrupulous and indefatigable hostess, wanted the Schneiders to have a sub- stantial, leisurely meal before they left to catch their train. A suitable send-off de- manded somehow that Lot should have changed her dress, and she was getting late. She came down while Humphrey was still at the foot of the stairs, fixing a rod which he had kicked loose. She was flushed with hurrying into a new starched bodice, which she had somewhat over- grown, and as Humphrey stood up to let her go by his eye was attracted by her unusual colour, and he was led to consider her strong young beauty. How indiffer- ently she was passing him on the stairs, without even so much as a glance from those eyes of hers with their strange, mixed 64 JENNIE TO THE CAT look of purposefulness and abstraction ! " Lot," he said awkwardly, in a tone that he had never used before, " there's a lot of knives to-day. Aren't they tiresome ? ' ' It did not take Lot a moment to recognise her power, even though she was so pleased at this sign of a human link of any kind as to be half-incredulous. Her head sunk a little to one side. She had stopped when he spoke and turned to look at him, but now she did something more effectual even than looking at him. Her eyelids dropped down over her eyes with incredible slowness. The air was full of the sweetest embarrassment. She said in a voice that was half a whisper : 'I do hate the knives." When the Schneiders had gone Lot and Jennie set to work to restore their rooms to order, and Mrs. Child, suffering from the want of a visit to London, which had necessarily been postponed, sat quietly in her chair in the kitchen, ready enough to utter a bitter comment, however, on any sample of inefficiency that should come under her notice. The two girls came back to the kitchen for their tea. Lot was feeling very uneasy in her mind, but she tried to look normally placid before Mrs. Child. 65 F LOT BARROW Every now and then, as she drank the tea she had been wanting for the last hour, Lot had an unpleasant little pang of memory. She knew exactly how she had slowly dropped her eyes before Humphrey. It had been an unpremeditated act, but not an unprecedented one. The reason that it had come naturally to her to do it was because she had done it once before when she felt a man's admiring eyes upon her. That was why she felt a strange, internal shuddering now. She swore that she would never do that again. But Jennie, on the other hand, was enjoying her tea in too light-hearted a fashion for Mrs. Child's overstrung nerves. " Do get outside and clean the boots, Jennie," she said. (To-morrow was market- day, and the boots of Mr. Child and Hum- phrey always had special treatment.) " I always think that nowadays an idle girl expects the work to do itself. When I was your age I took my tea standing." Jennie, quite unperturbed, went to the place outside the kitchen, and commenced a cheerful attack on the boots. Lot cleared the tea. The big grey cat, Tom, whom Mrs. Child, with a secret tenderness, toler- ated on her knees during her periods of enforced inactivity, jumped down on to 66 JENNIE TO THE CAT the floor, and, with many pausings and stretchings, followed Jennie outside. " That's right, dear ! " said Jennie, in a voice which was perfectly audible in the kitchen. " Come and comfort Jennie. Did you 'ear her, darlin' ? Did you 'ear what your cruel mother said to Jennie ? She said she was a idle girl ! There. Wasn't that a shame, darlin' ? She doesn't know how Jennie's been slavin' her fingers to the bone, does she, an' we shan't tell her either, shall we, darlin' ? )! Lot was amazed at this temerity, and glanced at Mrs. Child to see if an outburst was coming. But Mrs. Child only said : " What a fuss she does make over that animal ! " It was now Lot's duty to go down to the dairy and make up the butter into half-pound divisions ready for to-morrow. The dairy was always spoken of as " down," though it was only one worn stone step lower than the rest of the ground floor. " Down in the dairy " made a good round phrase. Lot, stepping into the cool, dark room with her lighted candle, found Hum- phrey waiting for her there. He had come in by the outside door. " Goodness ! " she said ; " you gave me a turn. Do you want a drink of milk ? " 67 LOT BARROW " No oh, well, yes, I'll have a drop." " Here you are, then. Hold the candle, just a minute. It would be a nice thing if I gave it to you from the wrong pan ! " " You taste it first," said Humphrey, when she passed it to him, " and then you can tell me whether it's creamy." " Oh, I never do ; I never touch it. I suppose it's seeing it so much." " Yes, but you would taste it just this once, because I ask you to." " That I won't," said Lot. " That's no reason." All her afternoon's horror of her- self cleared away after she had said that. Humphrey put down the cup on the long deal table. Lot saw with a dim feeling of gratification that he did not mean to drink it himself, in that case. " Are you disappointed ? " she asked, a little archly ; and then immediately her face stiffened, because she became once more dreadful to herself. " Oh, well, I'm used to disappointments," Humphrey answered, indifferently, and strolled away from the dairy. That evening he did not go to bed early to think of dark waves, and ropes, and a long wet deck. He went out alone. He crept out before Mr. Child had finished his evening meal, or his father would almost 68 JENNIE TO THE CAT inevitably have been only too glad to accompany him. He went and stood at the end of the village to see if any pretty girls should pass by. 69 CHAPTER NINE : THUNDER AND LIGHTNING WHEN the bell made its sudden, shrill sound in the kitchen, Mrs. Child always went to the front door herself ; she liked to see who came and went, and if anyone was to have that quite consider- able benefit of exchanging words with a fellow-being, why should it not be she ? During a whole afternoon, sometimes, she only got out of her chair when that sur- prising bell sounded. Though she often grumbled, as she went, that the ringing had been too short or too long, she was never anything but pleased and curious. She loved to exercise her tongue, both sharply and softly. It was pleasant enough to discuss the weather or the crops (both matters about which Mrs. Child had expert knowledge) with a friendly passer-by ; but perhaps what afforded her the keenest gratification was to exchange words with some business man who was bent on making rather too good a bargain for himself, or with the grocer who had sent bad sugar. Mrs. Child dealt with these slowly but 70 THUNDER AND LIGHTNING surely. Mr. Bravery, whose door, near the front door, often stood ajar, sometimes overheard these conversations ; and he and Mrs. Child would make their comments afterwards. If there had been a passage of arms, Mr. Bravery generally had occasion to congratulate Mrs. Child on a victory. One day, when a cart had stopped out- side, Mrs. Child went to the door in answer to the bell. " Can I take your order to-day for some oats, ma'am ? " said the man standing there. ' Well, we weren't at all well served by your people," said Mrs. Child, her enjoy- ment of the conversation mitigating the more conclusive severity with which she might otherwise have spoken. " Ah, I believe a very careless young man came on this round. Well, Mrs. Child, I'm happy to say we've sent him flying. Yes, I perfectly recollect the young man you must be thinking of : he's gone pack- ing." ' Well, that's why we left you," said Mrs. Child, settling herself comfortably against the door-post, but with an uncompromising expression on her face. " Of course / don't know much about it, but I've heard my husband speak of short measure and 71 LOT BARROW all sorts. What are you asking for oats now, then ? " " Nineteen shillings." " We've been paying sixteen," said Mrs. Child, and still she suppressed her enjoy- ment. " Then you haven't had oats. We could sell you some stuff for sixteen, but we couldn't guarantee it. No, we couldn't guarantee real good oats, not under nine- teen." " Well, of course I wouldn't know much about it, but I know my husband has expressed himself very satisfied. What I mean to say, it's a big difference sixteen and nineteen, isn't it ? ' : No doubt the traveller began to feel that he had failed to secure a customer, and he shifted on his feet. Mrs. Child observed these signs of departure with disappoint- ment. Such moderation as she had used should have secured a longer debate. " Well, perhaps you'll mention it to your husband, and I'll call again," said the traveller, as he turned and climbed into his cart. Mrs. Child shut the door and heard Mr. Bravery calling her. She went into his room. " Haven't they an impudence ? " she said. She began to regret that she had not 72 THUNDER AND LIGHTNING been more severe. She picked up some fallen petals by the window, and rearranged the curtains. She always did these two things when she came to talk to him. " I believe that man wouldn't mind if he never saw you again, Mrs. Child," said Mr. Bravery, smiling. " Oh, we haven't done with him," said Mrs. Child. " He'll be round next week saying he's got something new in at seven- teen." Mr. Bravery stretched himself in his chair. He had been very hard at work and enjoyed the relaxation. " What's the weather going to do ? " " Thunder, I shouldn't be surprised," said Mrs. Child, promptly. " Well, now, if they would give us a real storm ! " said Mr. Bravery. He went to the window and scanned the heavens. " I don't think I could keep away from the hills if it really came on badly." " Oh, sir, I beg you wouldn't go up there." Mr. Bravery was curiously without senti- ment, or he might have been touched by the keen solicitude in her voice. As it was, he quietly accepted the fact that in going he would alarm her, and he put the idea out of his head. It was only too easy to check his enthusiasms. 73 LOT BARROW " Are you afraid of the thunder ? " " Not to say frightened, sir, but I'm always glad when Mr. Child and Humphrey are safely inside." " Is Lot afraid ? " asked Mr. Bravery, feeling, somehow, that he wished to speak her name. " I couldn't say. I hope she doesn't w r orry you, sir ? ' : " No, no, Mrs. Child ; I'm sorry for her." "Yes," said Mrs. Child. "Well, she's got a comfortable home here, and I'm doing my best to make her into a good, useful girl." " I suppose you know the story of her unhappiness ? " Mr. Bravery asked. " Oh, yes. You see, my sister, Maude Cattermole, has lived for eighteen years in West Corning, where Lot comes from ; and when the father died Maude had Lot in to stop with her, and wrote to me to see if I wouldn't have her." " Well, she'll settle down, no doubt," said Mr. Bravery, not mentioning to Mrs. Child that, by enlightening Lot as to the unimportance of this world's griefs, he believed himself able to bring that result about. It was not until bed-time that the light- ning and thunder came ; and then it was 74 THUNDER AND LIGHTNING a violent, close storm. The thunder boomed between the hills, and the lights in the cottages of the low, quiet village stayed alight. At Wiggonholt Farm they had just been going up to bed when the first crash came, and they continued to sit in a quiet little group^inj^the kitchen, Mrs. Child still holding the clock and cup of gruel which she carried to bed with her. "Well," said Mrs. Child, "if anything gets struck it will be the big elm-tree." " Nothing won't get struck, my girl," said Mr. Child, reassuringly. "It's mostly out at sea that they get killed off like flies." He was not quite sure of his fact, but he could never let an opportunity go by. He did not look in Humphrey's direction ; he only trusted that the words had gone home. " I daresay I shall sleep soundly enough," said Mrs. Child. " What about you, Lot ? " " If the big elm gets struck," said Lot, " I daresay I shall get struck too, consider- ing my little room juts out almost touching it." " Archibald," said Mr. Child, addressing an imaginary footman, " prepare the blue boodwar for Miss Barrow ; she'll sleep there to-night." Even Lot laughed. She could take a 75 LOT BARROW joke from him which, coming from Mrs. Child, would have made her speechless with anger. But Humphrey remained grave, filled with a sudden resentment against his father for trifling with Lot's feelings. In the midst of a crash which sounded like the climax of heaven's anger venting itself on the roof of the farm, Lot looked up and saw Mr. Bravery standing at the door. His coming had been unheard, of course, and he was still seen by no one but herself. She faced him. His eyes, with a strange, slight smile in them, were fixed on Lot. Gradually the tense look which had been on her face as she listened to those shattering sounds melted away, and she smiled slowly back at him. She had an instinctive knowledge of what his look meant. He had felt this was an appropriate time to press his lesson home. It was as if she had heard him say : " You and I, Lot, don't mind much about anything, do we." And so she smiled at him her willing, whole- hearted response. If she could have put into adequate words that wave of acquies- cent feeling that came over her as their eyes still met, she would have said : " No, we don't mind about life or death." It was only rarely that she had doubts 76 THUNDER AND LIGHTNING of what he taught her. " I wonder if he would say that really dreadful things don't matter," she said to herself and then remembered that she had expressed that doubt to him. " Yes, he said anything. How wonderful to think that nothing matters ! Perhaps some day I shall stop worrying. I thought I never should stop till I died." Yes, it was splendid comfort, this ; and yet it actually needed some courage, some resolve, to repose in it. Because it was so impersonal. Because it had nothing to do with one person loving another, and helping and consoling. Mr. Bravery administered the comfort, it is true, and seemed to have a real desire to help her, but she knew that it was his ideas that he was chiefly interested in, and not in Lot as an individual made up of body as well as brain. Some- times after talking with him she had had a curious feeling of detachment from her own body, because she knew he had been so unaware of her as flesh and blood. " Does he know if I am a girl or a boy ? " she once asked herself. " Does he know that I am more beautiful than Jennie ? ' : But she firmly resolved to repose in that comfort in spite of the fact that it contained nothing of the personal tender love for 77 LOT BARROW which she hankered. She knew she had power over Humphrey to make him love her, but she did not exercise it. It seemed to her an infinitely nobler thing to follow Mr. Bravery. Even so, she had often been tempted to enjoy Humphrey's overtures, and it was a matter of stern conscience with her that she should not allow them. It would have been vaguely pleasant to let his admiration take the form of little secret smiles and hand-clasping, and services quietly performed for her. But she could never escape from a certain horror of herself lest she should allow a caress from one she did not love. Whatever happened, that must not be. Lot would be grateful that Mr. Bravery had enlightened her as to the unnecessity of grief. She would be satisfied with that benefit. If some day he should appear to notice more particularly what she was in herself, if he should ever seem to have a need of her, and like to spend time with her better than spending it alone ah, that would be too much happiness. Lot pondered on these things as she lay in bed on the night of the storm. The lightning was so bright that she could see it through her closed eyelids. The night 78 THUNDER AND LIGHTNING was very still ; there was no wind, and the rain had not begun yet. She heard a sound outside a cracking in the branches of the great tree, and the sudden stir of leaves. In the darkness and the stillness she had such an exaggerated notion of these sounds that she thought the lightning must have struck the tree ; and she immediately pictured it as a gaunt, dead stump that she had been used to see as a child. For some time she did not stir, but gradually her curiosity overcame the timid reluctance she felt to getting out of bed. She lit her candle and crept to the window. She could only see the reflection of her room, and so she opened the window. Just then the rain began to fall in a loud deluge. She could see nothing, and was going back to bed, when a vivid flash of lightning showed her the tree, with Humphrey clinging on to a branch not more than six feet below her window. She saw his up- turned face and crouching figure, and though it had only been raining for a few moments, his face was shining with wet and his clothes were drenched. Then it was dark again, and she heard him call : " Lot ! " She realised now, strangely enough, that she had heard that sound before, when she 79 LOT BARROW first came to the window, but had neglected to wonder what it was. " Humphrey ! " she said in alarm, " what are you doing ? 5: " Don't you be frightened." Lot could just hear his voice raised against the rain. She heard him scramble up until he was nearer to her ; she blew out her light, and could see more. At the same time the rain very suddenly became less loud. " You'll kill yourself ! " Lot said pas- sionately. " Pooh ! " said Humphrey ; " if I was on board ship I should have worse to do than this." " What did you do it for ? You must be mad." " I did it because you were afraid of the old tree going," said Humphrey. " Why should you be afraid, and everyone else safe and sound asleep ? " " I'm not afraid." Lot spoke again with passion. " Go away. Why should you come and disturb me ? " " I never meant to disturb you," said Humphrey, defensively. " I was only going to stay in the old tree till the lightning stopped. And I shan't go because you seem to hate me, either," he added, bitterly. 80 THUNDER AND LIGHTNING " I don't hate you," said Lot, excitedly. She clasped her hands and pressed them to her. Now all her emotion is revealed as being dread of herself lest she should be too much moved and excited by this deed of Humphrey's. She knows she can be carried away by the feeling of a moment. " Go, go," she says, while Humphrey at the same time is saying : " Lot, your hand !" And she leans out and stretches her arm to him. " Here is my hand. Kiss it quickly oh, now go." She fled to her bed, and Humphrey climbed down the tree, shaking streams of rain to the ground. 81 CHAPTER TEN : ROUND THE FIELD ALL the next day Lot was looking out for an opportunity of having a conversation with Humphrey, but that opportunity did not occur ; indeed, it did not occur for several days. It is true there were times when she met him in the passages, or he might hang round the dairy when she was there, or lurk in ambush in the garden if she was to gather vegetables ; but what she wanted was the chance of a quiet, uninterrupted talk a talk which would not necessarily take very long, but must be as secret as the grave. In the meantime, Lot was content to bide in comparative peace. She had taken a certain grim reso- lution; and her feeling of relief and self- righteousness did not delay until the reso- lution was accomplished, but she was comforted from the moment it was taken. The day after the storm was the day on which Mr. Bravery was expecting his cousin at the farm. Miss Marsy was a little old lady whom he met regularly every year ; they were used to take a summer excursion together, a custom pleasant to 82 ROUND THE FIELD them both. Mr. Bravery, singularly un- alive to new emotions, was unusually tenacious of those ties which had been consecrated by time or reverent association. Miss Marsy had been the beloved friend of his mother ; and any love-sick girl who might have come to the disappointed conclusion that Mr. Bravery was without a heart, would have been robbed of even the cold comfort of that opinion could she have observed his relation with this woman. Since Mr. Bravery had taken up his temporary abode at Wiggonholt, and was in love with the country, it had seemed a good idea for Miss Marsy to join him there ; the little watering-place of the last three years had begun to pall. And Miss Marsy was bringing with her a girl her niece who preferred our English country to the sea. That this was a girl who had travelled much abroad, for her health, and who had lately lost her mother, was nearly all that Mr. Bravery knew of Miss Marsy 's com- panion. The day after the storm was cold and intemperate with a wind that blew a cold, grey sky up from the north. And yet summer was very visible in the trees and flowers : it was a strange day. Lot was standing in the garden in her thin cotton LOT BARROW dress, taking down from the long line innumerable white garments, and throwing the wooden pegs into a basket, with a sure, careless aim. She did not shiver, because she was so firm and solid ; but she turned a little paler with the cold. Her heart leapt up when she saw that Mr. Bravery was near her ; but she tried always to be so circumspect before him ; and, thinking to preserve the secret of a quick-beating heart, she made no sign of having seen him. She continued to un- fasten the clothes, only smiling slightly and nervously to herself. But the pegs no longer went into the basket ; they scattered themselves on the grass around. And, in case Mr. Bravery should be observing this, she turned and spoke to him. " Does she like flowers, sir ? 5: A rich bed lay between them. " My cousin ? Oh, yes, particularly." Lot smiled shyly. " I meant the younger lady." " Miss Fulleylove. Well, as to her I can only guess, because, you see, I don't know her. I think we will guess that she does." " Yes," said Lot. " But she won't like the cold, perhaps." " No, that's unfortunate," said Mr. Bra- very, strolling on. 84 ROUND THE FIELD And indeed at that very time Marjorie Fulleylove was remarking to Miss Marsy, as they neared their journey's end : " Do you think they'll give us hot- water bottles to-night ? They can't be absolute heathens." Though she was a person of deep religious feeling, she was occasionally a little loose in her speech. It was now faintly amusing to her to pretend that the cult of the hot bottle was fully as important as a religion. Miss Marsy, who kept very watchful eyes upon Marjorie, said : " My dear, you must be warm. If the person does not provide you with one, I will speak to Raymond." Raymond ! That was the magic word which fell on Lot's ears when, helping Mrs. Child to carry in the dinner, she heard Mr. Bravery's cousin speak his name. It would be difficult to imagine what a strange grandeur there seemed to her to be in that name. She may have known the name before, but she had never heard it spoken ; and all the evening she made gentle in- ward repetitions of it, saying it with careful differentiation between the two syllables, and feeling it to be full of sweetness and light and gravity and romance. To speak his name seemed to bring her nearer to Mr. 85 LOT BARROW Bravery, and yet the name had some vague quality that kept her aloof. It was the last word that formed itself in her brain before she slept. The next day was Thursday the day on which Lot was allowed to go out for the afternoon. On this occasion she had a companion. Mrs. Child had ceased to be under an obligation to Jennie Webster with the departure of the Schneiders, but Jennie was still in the village, and had exacted a promise from Lot that they should climb the hills together. They came down from the hills, and Jennie walked home with Lot, and they arrived at Wiggonholt at six o'clock. They had come along at a good pace, but their faces, shone upon by the low sun, had the faint colour that looks like freshness rather than like heat. Two people were leaving the farm as they approached. Mr. Bravery and Miss Fulleylove were setting out for a walk, and they stopped Jennie and Lot in the road. " How far did you go ? " asked Mr. Bravery, who always took a practical interest in other people's walks. " Jennie is a friend of Lot's, Marjorie." Jennie, whose eyes had been glowing 86 ROUND THE FIELD with suppressed tidings, now burst out : " You should ha' seen her run ! Miss, she ran like the wind. When we got up on top there, she said, ' I'll race you,' and we started going, and in a minute she was so far away that she couldn't hear me call. An' I thought she'd never stop. An' then she ran back again, and she hadn't turned a hair." " It must be nice to run like that," said Marjorie. " I have sometimes dreamt that I was running without feeling tired. Now I believe I could get just about as far as that tree." She swung her delicate body round, to find her tree, and laughed a little, as if in apology for speaking of herself. She was beautifully clothed, and the two other girls stared impressively at her while she spoke. " You like running, Lot ? " Mr. Bravery said, in his kind, indifferent manner, as he began to think of moving on. " Oh, I was always known for it," said Lot, rather boastfully, in her desire to impress him. " At school they called me ' Lot the runner.' Running's nothing to me ; it's like walking." Lot, by design, entered the farm by a side door which led into the yard. She parted with Jennie, but did not go straight 87 LOT BARROW on into the house ; Mrs. Child would not be looking for her until half-past six. Humphrey was clattering about in the stable ; Lot heard him there, but she was cautious, in case Mr. Child should be with him. She stood by a pig-pen and listened for voices not that that was a decisive test, for Mr. Child and Humphrey often worked for an hour or two side by side without breaking silence, if Humphrey was in one of his sullen moods. While she waited she watched four young pigs sleeping in the pen, and tried to identify them by their respective names of Porker, Grunter, Bristles and Snout. Their distinguishing signs were hopelessly unremarkable in their merged slumber. Lot was calm, in spite of the fact that she was going to speak of intimate and dreadful things. Finding her opportunity, and speaking, and fulfilling thus the object she had at heart, were the things that filled her mind, rather than the horror itself. And so she would speak calmly and fully of what at another time had power to make her quake and shudder when a mere hint of a memory came into her mind. Humphrey came to one of the doors in the long line of outbuildings, and did not at first see Lot ; the broad sun was sinking 88 ROUND THE FIELD right in front of him, on his eye-level. He stretched his elbows out to the sides of the narrow door, and as he stretched himself he was so tall that his head barely escaped the lintel. Lot watched his lazy, unhappy, handsome face for a sign that she was seen ; and soon she began to saunter along towards the farther meadow, knowing that the movement of her light dress must attract his eye. As she did so, she turned and looked at him. She saw him start slightly, and perceived his intention to follow her even before he had actually taken a step. For Humphrey had a slow careless dignity of movement, and he paused slightly before he strolled after her. He caught her up in the meadow, and there they walked, out of view of the house, round and round, hardly conscious of the earth or the sky, only conscious of a voice which was Lot's voice. When they had been three times round the field Lot paused as they came to the gate. " That's all," she said. " Mrs. Child'll be at me if I'm late." " I don't care," said Humphrey, roughly. "I've not finished yet. Look here, Lot." He took hold of her arm rather cruelly. " What do you think all this is going to^do 89 LOT BARROW for me ? Do you think I'm going to want you any less ? " " I don't know," said Lot, a little be- wildered. " I've told you because I don't want you to come round making love to me." " Why shouldn't I do that, if you will love me and marry me ? " " Oh, but I don't love you," said Lot simply. " But you will, you will," said Humphrey, shaking her arm. Lot lifted her head with a rather super- cilious smile. " What makes you say that ? " She had a precious secret thought of Mr. Bravery, whom she loved. ** Because I want you to." " Oh," said Lot, with the same smile. " Do you always get what you want ? I understood you wanted to go to sea, but you haven't gone, have you ? ' : Humphrey looked at her powerlessly for a moment, and then turned and walked away across the field alone. 90 CHAPTER ELEVEN: BETTER THAN TO BE UNHAPPY BUT the memory of him stayed in Lot's mind. It must be remembered that she laboured always under the oppression of Mrs. Child's proximity, and suffered all the misery of the persistent fear and hatred that possessed her. And Humphrey's love would have been a welcome diversion, even though she could not love him in return. But to gratify herself by accepting promis- cuous attentions was the one thing Lot was resolved never to do never again. She could no longer conceal from herself that she loved Mr. Bravery. That could not be anything but a painful admission for her to make to herself ; for it was a complete deadlock ; her heart bruised itself against his superior station and gifts, and against his impenetrable indifference. So she made the admission as impersonally as possible. It was as if she said to herself : " Lot loves Mr. Bravery," rather than " I love Mr. Bravery;" But after her repulse of Humphrey she had all the more longing to substantiate 91 LOT BARROW and establish with Mr. Bravery her already precious relation, slight and impersonal though it was. She yearned that the little he did give her should be secure to her. And so the next morning she tried to pin him down to helping her. Miss Marsy and Marjorie both breakfasted in their room, and Mrs. Child attended to Mr. Bravery in the sitting-room. " You look very tired," he said to Mrs. Child to-day. He had a way of being suddenly and unexpectedly observant of other people's minor misfortunes, and in speaking of them he had a strange, unwilling, sensitive look on his face. " We had an awful night," Mrs. Child said. " We were up till one o'clock in the morning. It was Humphrey. He said he would go, and nothing should keep him now. He said the sea was the one thing he wanted, and he wouldn't spoil his life for anyone." " Ah, I am afraid that was hard for you," said Mr. Bravery. He would never have said to Mrs. Child: "What does it all matter in the end ? " because he instinct- ively felt that she was not likely to be persuaded to that view. Whereas with Lot he had been glad to feel that there was the possibility of the intelligent and wider view of things. 92 BETTER THAN TO BE UNHAPPY ' Yes, sir, it is hard," she said, brushing away a tear. " His father reasoned with him at first, and asked him what was we to look to in the future, with no son to carry on the business. Humphrey answered him back, and though his father isn't a violent man, I thought they might come to blows. But Michael's a good man, sir. I had only to give him a look, and he was quiet." Lot came in and stood by with a tray, which was to be loaded and carried upstairs. " Have you ever thought of his going to sea for a few years, and then settling down here again ? " asked Mr. Bravery. " Sir, we offered it him last night. But he says he'd never come back. He says we don't know what it is we don't under- stand the longing ! He'd sooner not go than have to leave it. Isn't it dreadful ? But last night he gave way to us in the end. He said : ' Very well ; you make it im- possible for me to go,' and went off to bed without so much as giving us another look." " Poor fellow ! Fancy caring like that," said Mr. Bravery. " Well, sir, it almost breaks his mother's heart to think he isn't happy. If only he could see it's for his good. Please God, he will, some day. It's no career for a man, what he wants, compared to what we 93 LOT BARROW can give him here. None at all. Now, Lot," she added in a different tone, " didn't you bring the bacon ? No, I'll fetch it myself now. It takes less time to do a thing yourself than talk about it." She went away. Mr. Bravery continued to think of Humphrey for a few moments ; then he looked up at Lot. " We know better than to be unhappy, don't we, Lot." " Yes, sir," she said in a low, thrilling voice ; "we know." He glowed inwardly at her acquiescence. He had never before come across such acquiescence. It gave him new hope of the world. "You see, it's such a dreadful, unnecessary waste," he said. " If Humphrey could only persuade himself to a proper in- difference he could get through life, what- ever happened, without the expense of all this feeling." " You don't know how you help me, sir," said Lot, with a little gasp. " If I can only have you to show me what's right I shan't worry the same as I used to." " That's right, Lot. We shall be friends, always remember that. And I will help you." 94 CHAPTER TWELVE : MARJORIE CRIES MARJORIE FULLEYLOVE was in a very delicate state of health, and when she had been for a week at the farm she went to bed with one of the chills she so easily contracted. She was chiefly waited upon by Lot, for with Mrs. Child the scaling of stairs was difficult. No difference in position would prevent two girls, both young, both refined in essentials, one ministering, the other being ministered to, from feeling that there was an elementary bond between them. At any rate, in this case artificial barriers were frequently and easily overturned to enable the two girls to converse in simple friend- ship. Friendship did not mean with them that they spoke of intimate things ; but they took pleasure in each other's presence and in their little haphazard conversations. One evening Lot pulled a big armchair out of the draught and laid a rug over it. Marjorie stepped somewhat dizzily out of bed and crept into the armchair, and Lot folded the rug round her. 95 LOT BARROW " Now you sit as still as still," said Lot, " while I make the bed." " Will you make it tuck in very well, please, Lot ? " " That I will. I know how the draughts get in. I always think myself that you can't be comfortable unless one of your blankets tucks right deep in." " Why, even that doesn't satisfy me," said Marjorie, smiling. " I think that would be only just about as good as having one blanket on the bed. I like them all to tuck." "Then I'll make them." There was determination and even excitement in Lot's voice. When Marjorie was in bed again she said : " Need you go just yet, Lot ? Can't you stay and talk a little ? " " I should like to stay," said Lot. " Put your arms in, miss." " Tell me about your family, Lot." " I haven't got one only a sister ; and she's in Canada with her husband. They went out there to try their luck." Marjorie was half -sitting up in bed. Her hair was of the finest kind, and fell only to her shoulders ; it stood out from her head, and was a delicate brown colour. Her face had great delicacy of feature and MARJORIE CRIES complexion, and though she was not beau- tiful, she had more charm than many beauties have. She said : "I have only my aunt and one brother." " But I suppose you and your brother are always together," said Lot. " Oh, no, not by any means," said Mar- jorie, smiling. Lot felt disappointed at the shattering of this romance, until she thought of something else. " Perhaps he's going to be married ? " she said, shyly. " Yes, he's engaged to someone very nice called Mary Creed ; and of course they are together a great deal." " Oh, dear," said Lot, with a kind of envious interest, " I suppose they hardly ever leave each other, really." Marjorie laughed. " Oh, I can imagine how it is," said Lot, nodding her head, and blushing a little. " They spend the day together, and then they are going out together in the evening. So they each go home and she puts on a lovely dress, and just before she starts out again to meet him a package comes to the door with some lovely flowers in it. And they are from him." 97 H LOT BARROW " Well, I daresay," said Marjorie, smiling again. " Only that isn't quite right, be- cause he works all day." " And what time does he leave off, miss?" " I suppose at about five ; I believe she goes to meet him sometimes." Lot sighed. That seemed to her even lovelier than that they should be together all day. And this talk helped to give rise to many pleasant, restless thoughts within her. She pictured herself in London with that un- known young man (whom she imagined to have a singular facial resemblance to Mr. Bravery) for a lover, whom she loved. And she was Mary Creed but Lot really, just as the man was really Mr. Bravery. Perhaps she would not even be called Mary ; no, she knew of a lovelier name than that. There had been a Dymphna in a cheap story she had read ; and she would be called Dymphna. And he he was Raymond. And so she stands in a little room with a fire in it, and long, rich curtains drawn, and she has on a rustling silk dress. And soon she is to go and meet her lover at the theatre. But in the meantime some- thing has come to the door, and a servant brings her in a bunch of flowers. 98 MARJORIE CRIES That servant was the cause of endless annoyance to Lot. What an ironical ab- surdity it was that the servant who brought the flowers should be none other than Lot herself ! But Lot was standing in her splendid dress by the fire, ready to take the flowers. Yes, that was true ; but the fact remained that the servant looked like Lot, and could not be got to look like any one else. The beautiful creature by the fire Lot could never actually visualise ; she failed to create the mental picture of herself in the grand attire. She only knew that it was she. But it was all too easy to see that human beast of burden as herself. It was, indeed, strangely difficult to give her other features and another form. She tried to make her into Jennie, but, even if she succeeded, Jennie would say, with an appalling intimacy : " Good heavens, Lot, what's the game ? " which was not at all what was required of her. Therefore all that pleasant dream was apt to collapse with the entrance of the flowers. Mr. Bravery had been desperately busy finishing a book. The final essay was completed during those days Marjorie spent in bed. Miss Marsy had given him every chance of industry, for she sat silent for M LOT BARROW hours, only too proud to be in the same room with her author while he worked. She was so anxious he should know how well she understood the virtues of silence that even if he spoke to her she would only answer by a nod. One day when he asked her if she would like the window open she pointed ambiguously to the door an eco- nomy which led eventually to speech. Nearly always speech would have been a briefer thing than signs which were apt to be misunderstood. But when you are dealing with a sense of duty . . . The first evening Marjorie spent down- stairs was to be celebrated by Mr. Bravery's reading aloud from his book. He thought he had done something better than he had done before. He hoped, in all humility, that on this occasion his publisher would be glad to risk the undertaking. " He might not make a fortune out of the thing at first," thought Mr. Bravery, " but the world must come eventually to see things in the way in which that book suggests. Look at the way a simple village girl apprehends it and drinks it in ! " He had no personal ambition that the world should learn these things particularly from him as an individual, but his heart was wholly set on the world's learning them somehow, from somewhere. 100 MARJORIE CRIES At a very early age he had been over- whelmed by the presence of suffering around him. When in later years he had watched his mother die slowly of a dreadful disease, he had been first goaded into making Indifference his ideal. To watch her in- tolerable suffering as she died by inches was too cruel a fate for him with his keen sensibilities ; and only one thought had any healing power. It was a thought that had come to him one day with a sudden, most precious breath of alleviation. He felt as that poor invalid must have felt had she been miraculously able to get up and walk. He had been standing by his mother's bed, pouring out some medicine ; and as the liquid tinkled into the glass, across his dreadful uneasiness had suddenly come the thought : " What does it all matter really ? " He nursed the thought, until it rarely left him. He was then in a strange con- dition. For as he watched by his mother at her most crucial times, his own responsive outward state was still the same as ever : he sat rigid, with fixed eyes, and drops of perspiration on his forehead, but inwardly now he was saying to himself : "It would be dreadful if it mattered. But thank God it doesn't matter." 101 LOT BARROW His belief in this idea was so fixed that, as time went on, he came to think of grief as not only a mistake but an indulgence. By this means did people flatter themselves that the world was made for their enjoy- ment. They mourned the lack of happi- ness as though happiness should have been their lot, but by some error or per- version of things it had happened otherwise. Mr. Bravery perceived in people the notion that evil and suffering were a deviation from natural things. He wanted them to be considered as natural, expected things ; he wanted people to look for nothing differ- ent, and to be unmoved by them. Marjorie sat in a comfortable chair, put near the window so that she looked right across the dim garden to the eastern sky. She had on a white shawl, and her hair was loose. Her spirits, always gentle, were subdued by her weakness. Miss Marsy sat near her, patting her hand, or pushing her hair from her brow ; and opposite them, on the other side of the window- embrasure, Mr. Bravery sat at a little table, with his manuscript before him. He began to read aloud, and we shall hear a little of what he read. But, on the whole, no. Those who wish may discover it for themselves. It is true 102 MARJORIE CRIES that this particular manuscript was never published, but other essays by Mr. Bravery contain the nucleus of the same arguments, and are obtainable. Marjorie had her quiet eyes fixed on the scene outside. The sky was grey and low, broken only in rare places. Those breaks made it possible to perceive that the heavens were travelling with extraordinary slowness from the north. The earth was very colourless ; but just outside the window, a little apart from all the other tangled lanes of flowers, was a bank of tobacco- plant gleaming white stars, shining to the north and west and south and east ; large, loose, unfixed stars, which a breeze could stir. When Mr. Bravery had read his best essay, he looked up at his little audience. Miss Marsy was the first to speak. " It is very wonderful," she said. " I am sure I don't understand how you can think of it all, Raymond dear." Marjorie, who looked very tired by now, continued to gaze out of the window. " You'll never be a saint, cousin Ray- mond," she said at last with a slight, sensitive smile. Mr. Bravery drew his papers together. " I hope to get through life with dignity 103 LOT BARROW and peace," he said. " No, Marjorie, I suppose I shall not be a saint." " Because they did care about things," said Marjorie. " Only they cared for God more than anything. It seems to me it would be too dreadful never to surfer or rejoice, and to have no will to renounce " ; her eyes had been slowly filling with tears, and now suddenly she hid her face on Miss Marsy's shoulder and began to sob. Her companions were uneasy and alarmed. She struggled with herself until she could say: "It's only that I'm tired, aunt. Take me to bed." 104 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE POST IN the middle of that long, hot August Mr. Bravery still had no reply from his publishers as to the fate of the manu- script which he had despatched to them with every confidence. He left Wiggonholt with Miss Marsy and Mar jorie when they went to the sea, and he returned again after a week's absence. He was in rather sombre spirits, very anxious about his book. He carried with him the slightly exasperating re- membrance of Marjorie's parting injunction, given to him as they walked towards the station through streets that every now and then had the blue sea for their horizon. " Write about other things sometimes," she had said, shyly but earnestly. " There are things in nature that you love, and I think you see them a little differently from anyone else I have met." " I could do that," he had answered. " In fact, I have done so. But well, Mar jorie, would you sing Raff when you might sing Schumann ? " " No, I would not," she answered, smiling. She obviously thought that the parallel 105 LOT BARROW would be truer if Mr. Bravery's application of it were exactly reversed, but she left him to divine her mind. They had parted at the station-entrance ; he went to find his train, while Marjorie started out to walk back to the little lodgings whose windows were sometimes splashed by the sea. " Good-bye, Marjorie," he had said. " Get strong." And she said : " Yes, I am much stronger now ; good-bye." The two women were coming back to Wiggonholt in the late autumn, when they had paid some visits, for another brief stay. Miss Marsy took good care of Marjorie, and wanted to see her strong before they returned to London for the winter. Now Mr. Bravery spent many days up on his beloved hills, where there was always some breeze, and where the scent of the yellow gorse was warm in the sun. He was not inclined to settle down to fresh work in his present state of uncertainty. For the postman still denied him any tidings. Occasionally he did a thing he could not regard as work : he made notes of what he saw and heard up on those hills. It was such a particularly splendid year, and he was alone up there, and it was almost impossible to think in terms of ordinary appreciation. 106 THE POST Down in the valley it was very hot, and Lot was pale, and slow in her movements. She had been greatly tried by Mr. Bravery's absence from the farm, but the simple burst of thankfulness with which she had greeted him on his return had strengthened the bond between them. " Thank God you've come back, sir," she said. " I seem to lose all strength to bear anything when you're not here." " Yes, yes, I understand," he replied. " But you will learn, Lot." Mrs. Child was tortured by the heat. A cow died one night after making long, mournful sounds. And Mr. Child was harassed at this time by the loss of one of his best customers at Lewington. But the Childs had a quiet, dignified way of enduring adversity. One day when they sat lingering over the mid-day meal, Humphrey got up to pour some beer into glass pots that stood on the window-sill. These pots had been such effective lure to the wasps that there was a solid mass of little corpses inside, and newcomers could stand on firm ground to suck the sweetness, and fly away again. This was a kind of glaring injustice that offended Humphrey, so he poured in more beer. 107 LOT BARROW " There's something you've forgotten," said his father. " And that is ? " said Humphrey, after a moment's uninterested pause. " You're filling up them pots," said Mr. Child, " and not putting a drop inside yourself." " You're right," said Humphrey, after another little pause. ' I think I ought to have a drink first and last for doing this job." " Them little beggars knows what's good." Humphrey took up one of the jars, and, with his hand over the top, shook it so that the mixture inside swung round and caught in any stray insect wandering over the sides. He did this with a much greater air of interest and absorption than he ever showed in talking to his father. " Yes," he said, indifferently, " it seems as if I was studying the wasps better'n I study myself." The hall-door bell clanged over their heads. It was the postman's hour. Mrs. Child never insisted on going for the letters ; the postman had contracted an unsociable, time-saving habit of laying the letters on the doorstep and then standing in the road with one foot on his bicycle, all ready to mount, only waiting for the 108 THE POST first movement of the door-handle to ride off. Humphrey and Lot started up simul- taneously to go to the door. When she perceived his intention she immediately sat down again, a fact which suddenly exasperated Humphrey. " Go yourself, if you want to," he said sullenly, and turned out into the garden instead. So Lot went to the door. There was only one letter, which Lot took in to Mr. Bravery. He glanced at the inscription and opened it eagerly. " Just wait a moment, Lot," he said, in his hurry. He had a sudden, affectionate impulse towards her, and thought that he would tell her, when he had read his letter, that something had happened to please him. For he did not doubt that there was good news. But having read it, he put it down slowly on the table, and stood still in obvious dismay. Lot watched him miserably for a minute, and then touched his arm. " Don't you give way," she implored him. " Has something bad happened ? If you give way, what will become of me ? " " Oh, Lot, you exaggerate. I have had a disappointment, that is all. Why, my dear girl, you are trembling. Be more sure of yourself, Lot ; don't be so affected." 109 LOT BARROW " Listen, listen," she said in a whisper, stamping her feet in a kind of suppressed frenzy on the floor. " I had something dreadful happen to me, and I don't think I could bear it if it wasn't for you. You told me it didn't matter. And that's what I say to myself in the night. You know, sir, I get a kind of trembling in my spine in the night, and then I know I've got to think of what happened before I came here. But now when that comes on I think of you and what you told me. You're the only comfort I've got in the world. When I was coming here I thought Mrs. Child would comfort me and love me. You see, I didn't know then what she was," said Lot, hardly. " And now if you " " Yes, Lot, I understand," said Mr. Bravery, his heart moved towards her. ' You don't want me to fail you now." " Well, if you worry about anything that happens to you, I should have to worry about what happened to me. I should have to. And it's more than I can bear. I think I would go mad. Oh, sir," she sobbed, " pity me ! ' : He put his hand on her arm, and looked very kindly into her face, so that her heart suddenly throbbed because he was so near. " Now, listen, Lot. You saw me dis- 110 THE POST appointed. I think I perhaps had the biggest disappointment the world contains for me. Very well. But I wasn't so very upset, was I ? I didn't swear, or moan, or cry, did I, Lot ? " He shook her gently where he held her, and questioned her with his eyes smilingly. She had to answer : " No, sir," tremu- lously, and praised him with her eyes. " Well, now. You mustn't suppose I've gone back on anything I have said to help you. Far from it. And you will have me here, saying the same things, and being just as much a help as ever. So let me see you calm, Lot." She said: "Yes." " And the day will come when you are so sure of certain truths that you will be dependent on nobody in this world for help. You will need no help." She agreed again, obediently ; and then slipped quietly out of the room, and for a few hours she was happy. But in the evening she again saw Mr. Bravery in an attitude of great dejection in his sitting-room. He had forgotten for the minute that Lot was there, or he would have been more on his guard. He suffered more than he would have cared to own because of the summary refusal of his 111 LOT BARROW book. He mourned, in a way that was perfectly consistent with humility, the loss to the world. And Lot saw his face buried in his hands, and had a pang of horrible fear. She could say nothing to him, be- cause Mrs. Child was approaching, and she went back to the kitchen in the kind of misery that hangs too heavily on a young heart. When Mr. Child announced, as he did every night : " Well, it can't be far off roosting-time " (the signal for everyone to go to bed), Lot gave one of her rare displays of feeling. The prospect of going to her solitary room was too much for her. " It's no good me going to bed," she said, " because I shan't sleep a wink." She spoke pettishly, but her eyes were slightly dilated with the nobler emotion of fear. "Why's that?" said Mrs. Child. Lot did not answer. " Well, they often sleep the best who say that." " I tell you I won't sleep a wink," said Lot, angrily. " Well, if you can't rest, and feel lonely, you come and knock at our door," said Mrs. Child. " It's not as if it hadn't turned cooler with the rain," said Mr. Child, evidently 112 THE POST not particularly looking forward to the threatened disturbance of his night. Lot went up to her room and undressed herself very slowly. " The rain comes down faster than ever," she thought, " and the wind is rising. That is what I have got to listen to all night. Oh, God, have pity on me ! " 113 CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE STEP IN THE PASSAGE YES, all night the rain drenched the dark leaves of the elm, and trickled from a water-spout down on to the ground just beneath Lot's window ; and all night the wind roared on an upward and ever upward note. But Lot was asleep. And then to wake and find it was dawn ! The quiet, prosaic light filtered through the blind. A terrified awakening in the dark would have seemed inevitable even if the possibility of sleep had been admitted ; but now there could be no such thing. Few awakenings are as merciful as that. Lot was almost incredulously grateful when she saw the light. She found, too, as the day wore on, that Mr. Bravery was not seriously oppressed by any grief. In- deed, he took an opportunity to say to her : " Having slept on my disappointment, Lot, I find it considerably reduced. You did me good, childie ; you reminded me to be wise." He flattered himself that she was a most creditable pupil. And it seemed to 114 THE STEP IN THE PASSAGE Lot as if her heart must burst with pride and joy. She carried his little name for her about with her all the day. It had been said half tenderly, half playfully ; it was more happiness than Lot had ever dreamed of. She realised solemnly that whatever life might bring her that was sweet, it could bring her nothing more sweet than that. That evening the Childs went to play whist in the village. It was one of the rare convivial events to which the enterprise of the villagers periodically soared, and even Humphrey, perhaps to perpetuate his reputation of being a very superior player, was not unwilling to exercise his skill. Lot was not making use of her own permission to go ; a few hours spent quite away from Mrs. Child were more acceptable to her than most forms of entertainment. But she almost regretted her decision when, just as the Childs started, Mr. Bravery came out into the passage and said : " I'll come along with you." When Lot had washed up the tea-things, and, in Mrs. Child's arm-chair, had made a leisurely examination of the halfpenny illustrated paper (the coveted paper which Mr. Child was so often absorbing just when Lot had a free half-hour in the evening), 115 LOT BARROW she wandered round the kitchen a little listlessly, quite inclined for some active task, so long as it was a task for herself and not for the Childs. Suddenly she became busy. The fire had been left to get very low, but the water in the great urn was still nearly boiling. Lot turned the tap and drew a large basin- ful, and carried it in her easy, effortless way into the broad passage-place outside the kitchen, and put it on the table there. She lit a candle and went up to her bedroom and took off her dress. Soon she came down in her bodice and petticoat, and with a large towel over her arm. She tempered the water, and loosened her hair. Lot was clever in getting all that mass of hair, very dark in the water, well washed in a few minutes. It was a pleasing feeling to be doing something well and efficiently for herself, when the habit of her life was to do things for other people. She rubbed her hair with the great towel until it was dry, scorning to use the heat of the fire, and she combed it and brushed it free of tangle a long performance. Now, lest she should catch cold if she went straight to bed, she sat by the fire, low on Mrs. Child's footstool, and spread out her hair. Just to air it, she thought. 116 THE STEP IN THE PASSAGE However much she was enjoying her leisure, she was nevertheless all the time just conscious that she was alone in the house and when the others came in she would feel safer. All the doors were locked, and the windows closed she had seen to that ; and she knew she had no cause for alarm. But to youth solitude is very like alarm the watching, listening sister. As she bent close to the fast-cooling fire, and with both hands stirred her hair before it, she heard a distant sound, followed by a step in the passage-way. She stiffened to stone, so that she could not move an eyelid, and yet thought was painfully quick and active in her brain. An entrance must have been forced, and he who forced an entrance could have no good intent in coming. She recognised the faint possibility that the whist-party might have come home early and let them- selves in with their key, but she thought of that without a ray of real hope. But the step was coming nearer and nearer, and now she must turn her head to watch. She did this with a conscious effort, and the muscles at the back of her neck ached, as if she had used strength against strength. The kitchen door was closed, but there were panes of glass in the upper part of it. 117 LOT BARROW If what she saw through the glass was too terrible, she would spring across the kitchen and put all her weight against the door to keep it shut. She watched the very point where the man's head would appear, though she had never consciously taken note of where the average head reached to. By sound she knew the coming was now imminent. She waited to see, and just before she saw, she knew who it was. It was as if she had eyes more seeing than the wide, frightened ones of her face. Yes, she saw it was Mr. Bravery a small part of a second before he was in her sight. Curiously enough, it still seemed as if her alarm must reach its climax, even after she had seen him. The climax was reached, for some arbitrary reason, in seeing Mr. Bravery put his hand to the handle of the door and hearing the little noise he made as he turned it. " Oh oh oh ! " said Lot, on three in- drawn breaths. Mr. Bravery came to her quickly. " I have frightened you. Oh, Lot, I am sorry. I should have considered. I went with them as far as the door, and I thought I would sooner walk than go inside. They gave me why do you keep looking at the door ? " 118 THE STEP IN THE PASSAGE " Oh, I was so frightened, sir ! I still feel as if there must be something dreadful there. It doesn't seem as if it could only be you." She tried to smile her little apology, resolved to look anywhere but at the door again. " The night is wonderful. I strolled along. The sky is blue, Lot. There are only two stars one in the west and one in the south." Mr. Bravery watched her with remorse and uneasiness. " You don't feel frightened now, Lot ? " " No, thank you." Lot struggled with herself, and then quietly buried her face in her hands and cried. "Lot, hold my hand. There! Hold it close, and feel the human presence. I would give anything not to have troubled you so. It is your friend." He spoke to her until she was still again, and then, because he was full of uneasiness, he said : " Tell me why you cried, Lot." She hesitated. "I don't know, sir," and then immediately gave her reasons. " I had been so frightened. And then for you to see me like this," she said, looking down. Mr. Bravery turned away his head from the sight of her, but with one swift, unin- tended look as he turned, and that look told him how beautiful she was. 119 LOT BARROW ' Well, now you are not frightened any more and as for that other trouble, that doesn't last either, for I can go away. No, I don't want to go just yet. What is to be done, Lot ? " He glanced at her. She was looking down, but did not look un- happy. " Here you are," he said. " Catch this." She put the big towel round her like a shawl, and then pulled out her long hair. " I was just going to bed when I heard that noise," she remarked. She still seemed not to connect that terrible approach with him. He smiled at that little foolishness, for he was indulgent. " You were not going to wait up for them, then." " Oh, no ; Mrs. Child told me to go to bed ; we're up early to-morrow. I will go now, sir. The fire's out. Did you shut the front door behind you ? " * Yes, I shut it right enough," he said, in his good-humour. " What do you take me for ? " " Sometimes you forget it, you know, sir," said Lot, enjoying this new sensation of freedom in little things with him. " Mrs. Child laughs in here about it when you forget to fasten the door, and to wipe your feet, and things like that." 120 THE STEP IN THE PASSAGE "It is nice of her to do nothing worse than laugh." " Yes, but if I did the same thing, of course she would be at me for an hour," said Lot, quickly. She got up from her stool. " Bed-time," she said, feeling shy now. But she had the sudden temerity to take hold of his hand, her heart beating wildly. She had remembered his phrase. " I have felt the human presence," she said, " and I don't want to go." " And I want you to stay." " What, wrapped up in this damp old towel ? " she said happily. But she was thinking with a most uneasy fear that Mrs. Child might come. " Why, I should catch my death." He felt the towel with both hands where it lay on her shoulders. " Yes, go to bed, dear Lot ; it is damp." But he did not let her go. " You must never be so frightened again." " No," she whispered. " And if you are ever frightened or troubled, you must come to me. Am I able to help you ? Do I comfort you, Lot ? " " Oh, you do," she said with passion. " All that I have taught you is true. 121 LOT BARROW I have taught you great truths, but it has been great of you to receive them. I can't tell you what great gratification that has given me. So remember that you are to come to me. And if things were very bad for you ... I might take you away." She lifted her eyes. " You would take me away ? " " Yes, Lot. You would like that ? " Lot thought for a moment. These things were almost too big for her. "To be with you always ? " " Always." ' To marry me ? " " Yes." He was thinking : "If she is not able to take her life easily here, I will take her away and marry her. The world doesn't want to hear what I want to teach. But Lot wants it and needs it." Lot's simple instinct was to put her arms up round his neck ; and Mr. Bravery could have kissed the reddened face that was turned so ardently up to him. But he, dead to any wish, gently drew away ; and Lot, always quick to imitate him, managed to make herself do so even now. " Good-night, Lot," he said. Her hand still clung to his. " Good-night, dear sir" she stammered, and turned to the door. 122 CHAPTER FIFTEEN : HUMPHREY'S FIST MR. BRAVERY, feeling somewhat gloomy the next day, worked assi- duously at his nature essays, raking out old material that had been cast aside as soon as it had been written, and changing, and incorporating, and adding. He began to get absurdly interested in these trivial things, and was almost impatient of the interruption that came. He had to go into the kitchen for a knife to sharpen his pencil. Mrs. Child was alone there ; she had been crying ; the marks were on her face. Mr. Bravery said : " Are you in pain ? " "It's not that," she said. " I am dread- fully worried about Humphrey." "Is it any good going on like this ? " asked Mr. Bravery. " Let him go, Mrs. Child. Let him shape his life. You have done your best to keep him. If I were you I should send him off to-morrow." "I'm not thinking about whether he shall go to sea or not. It would break his father's heart if he was to go, I know that. 123 LOT BARROW But I shouldn't be sorry now, for my own sake. There's worse things than deserting your father and mother to go to sea." Mr. Bravery sat down. " Tell me about it, Mrs. Child. Would it be any help ? " " I believe you could help me, sir. I have sent Lot into the village ; Michael is out with the cart ; we shall not be dis- turbed." Mr. Bravery put his pencil into his pocket. " Well, now, Mrs. Child, we'll pull him through, whatever it is." " It's about the girl, Lot," "About Lot?" " Yes, sir ; I'm afraid he's after Lot." " Well ? " " I don't trust her : she won't do him any good." " What do you mean ? " said Mr. Bravery, sharply. " Why do you say that ? " " I know all about her," said Mrs. Child. " And you see Humphrey doesn't know. I daresay he thinks she's like a pretty, innocent child. That's where it goes to my heart. I told my husband last night how I'd noticed that he was hanging round after her. He thought Humphrey wouldn't come to any harm. And when I went on pressing him about it, and wanting him to 124 HUMPHREY'S FIST tell Humphrey of her, he said it would do more harm than good. ' We've thwarted him over one thing,' he said ; ' he won't take it from us to thwart him over another.' ' " She is like a pretty, innocent child," said Mr. Bravery. " I wouldn't like to bring it up against her, what she's done in the past. But when it's your own son ! Will you tell him all about her, so that he will know ? Will you tell Humphrey ? I think he would listen to you, and not be turned against you." Mr. Bravery was unconsciously holding the arms of his chair very tightly, and his face looked rather drawn as he said to Mrs. Child : " And what should I have to tell him ? " " Tell him she's wicked," said Mrs. Child, excitedly. " Tell him she made a man shoot himself dead." Mr. Bravery was silent, and passed a cold hand over his forehead. " You know, sir, she comes from down at West Corning. That's over the other side of the county, thirty miles away. My sister, Maude Cattermole, has lived there ever since she married ; her husband runs the mill there Cattermole and Lee. She's seen Lot grow up from a child. Of course she wrote and told me all about her." 125 LOT BARROW " Who's that outside ? " asked Mr. Bra- very, listening. " Is anyone there ? " They heard the clattering of pails. " Oh, it must be Humphrey. Perhaps he won't come in." " Speak quietly. What did your sister tell you about her ? v " She had a young man ; he lived in a village just over the downs, seven miles away. Lot was supposed to be a great runner ; they say that when she went over the hills to meet him, she would run for miles. That wasn't natural, was it ? The poor young man was very gone on her. But she was a bad girl, and one day when she thought he was safely away she took up with someone else." " How do you know ? ' : " Know ? Her young man caught her at it. Yes, sir. He saw her in a barn, with another man. He saw her kiss him. Her father was lying at death's door at the time, but that didn't check her." 'What happened ? " " Lot suddenly saw his face at the door, and she ran to speak to him. But he didn't wait. That poor young man turned straight round and walked home. It appeared afterwards that someone met him as he was going out of the village and spoke to 126 HUMPHREY'S FIST him. But he didn't answer, and walked straight on, like as if he was deaf. He went home and shot himself dead." " Are you sure ? Lot never told me. She gave me to understand that she had merely quarrelled with someone who was still living. The wildest stories get about. Of course I know you speak in good faith, Mrs. Child but somehow I don't fancy she would have given me a false im- pression." " She gave you a false impression if she said anything different from what I've told you. I know, sir," said Mrs. Child humbly, " that you wouldn't like to believe harm of anyone young and handsome like Lot. No more wouldn't Humphrey. He'd not take it well from his father or me." "I see that point," said Mr. Bravery, trying to be very clear-headed. " Yes, quite so." Mrs. Child was sitting with her back to the window, so she did not see what Mr. Bravery now saw that Humphrey came and leaned on the sill and looked inside. So she said : " Tell Humphrey about her for me, and I shall always be grateful to you, sir." Humphrey had come to ask his mother to pass him out a glass of water to drink 127 LOT BARROW a thing she had to do very often during these long summer days. But instead he said : " What's this he's got to tell me ? " " Come inside, Humphrey," said his mother, in an awed tone. ' Yes, I'll come inside," said Humphrey, in a voice that sounded threatening, to his mother's apprehension. He came round slowly, with his indolent stride. He took no notice of his mother, and sat down opposite to Mr. Bravery. "I'm not asking you for any information, sir," he said. " But if you want to tell me anything I don't know, I'll listen." " Humphrey ! " said his mother, ex- postulating ; for she was not afraid to scold him when she thought he was wrong. " Anything Mr. Bravery says to you, he'll say it for your good. Be more civil." But her son took as little notice as if he had not heard her. " I was going to take you into my confidence in regard to certain matters concerning Lot," said Mr. Bravery, slowly. " I can't help thinking, however, Mrs. Child, that Lot herself should be in some way consulted first. I should at least like to hear her confirm the story." " If you speak out I daresay I can tell you if it's true or not true," said 128 HUMPHREY'S FIST Humphrey, still with some kind of antagon- ism in his voice. Mr. Bravery again put his hand to his head. " I think," he said, in the same slow voice, " that, apart from Lot, the only people who could do that are those to whom she has personally related her story." -M "Yes," said Humphrey. "Well, she's told me the whole business." He stood up and held his fist over the table. The others waited for that fist to descend. " And damn me," said Humphrey, with a tremendous bang, "if I'm going to hear it from anybody else." Lot had been sent to the village, and Mrs. Child had added : "It won't matter if you're not back for an hour or two." And having done her commissions, Lot went by the quickest, steepest path up on to the hills. It was a grey day, with a noisy wind. She bounded up, to be more and more blown upon. At the top, her straggling hair was like a score of whips to sting her cheek. The shortest grass was quivering. She sat down and took off her shoes and stockings. As she did so, she looked down and away, over a thousand fields, lying 129 K LOT BARROW under the quick sky. The hedges looked dark and sombre ; the brightest crop made no show to-day, lost in the flat, grey fields. ' There's running against the wind, and there's running with the wind," Lot was thinking. " I can have my way. Running with the wind is like flying, but then run- ning against the wind you have to take such grand, deep breaths." That last was what she chose for her mood of exaltation. She longed for the most arduous movement, the most penetrating breath, to accord her body with the rare ecstasy of her mind. Ever since her wonderful talk with Mr. Bravery last night all speech had been too meaningless for her, all movement had been too slow, and Nature too universal. Now she ran to face the wind, swift and straight, her body slightly lowered by bending, her white legs moving quicker than vision, and her skirt fluttering stiffly about her. She ran untiringly, and then drifted back to where her little heap of discarded footgear lay. Coming again to the farm, she wondered if she would have any talk with Mr. Bravery that evening. She found no one in the kitchen. She went into the front passage to see if Mr. Bravery's door was open or shut. The outside of that door was the 130 HUMPHREY'S FIST thing she most loved to look upon, when she could not be in Mr. Bravery's room itself. The door was open, and her step had no sooner sounded in the passage than she heard her name called. Mr. Bravery had been listening for her. 131 CHAPTER SIXTEEN: LOT'S TALE " OIT down, will you, Lot ? Perhaps O you would like to take off your hat. I want to talk to you." ' Yes, sir." Her young, eager face was still bright with her exercise, and she had a joyous look. She took off her hat, and gave her hair a furtive stroke, longing, as always, to impress him with beauty. " It has happened, Lot, that Mrs. Child had reason to tell me this afternoon what she knows of your history before you came here " She told you ! " whispered Lot, pale to the lips. It seemed to her that it was for this she had so long hated Mrs. Child. " I think if you knew what she had in her mind you would not particularly blame her. But whether you blame her or not, whether she was right or wrong, doesn't matter now. It is of something else that I wish to speak." Mr. Bravery had been looking away from her, but now he almost broke her heart with a cold, angry look from his eyes. " You seem to have chosen me out to 132 LOT'S TALE deceive me, Lot. Somehow that hurts me. You see I thought you had chosen me out to be your friend." "So I did" said Lot. She longed to throw herself on his breast and sob out all her grief ; but she remained still, in her fear. " Over and over again you must have said little untrue things to me. To me ! Why to me ? " " You're the only one I cared for." " You appear to have told Humphrey Child, who, so far as I know, bore no special relation to you. Why should you tell him and not me ? " If Lot had simply told her reason for enlightening Humphrey, Mr. Bravery's resentment on that score must have vanished. But she did not make out the best case for herself : she nattered him. " Oh, because you see I didn't mind so much his knowing," she said, smiling at Mr. Bravery in a way which tried to be winning, in spite of her dreadful nervous- ness. He turned away his head from the silly, meaningless smile, feeling sick at heart. " I see," he said. " Yes, I see. Poor Lot how hard things have been for you." 133 LOT BARROW " Hard ! " she echoed, in bitter excite- ment. " There's no good talking about hard. You want to live through it. I thought it was getting past, but of course it can't ; it's all on me again now. What did she tell you ? " she asked, fiercely. " Did she tell you how I tried not to to no, she wouldn't tell you that. Oh, how I hate her ! How I hate her ! " " I knew you tried not to do wrong, Lot," said Mr. Bravery, feeling a little less hardly towards her. " I knew that without her telling me." " No one knows. I'll tell you now, and then you'' II know." Lot was swaying to and fro in her chair. She locked her hands together. She made a great effort to swallow ; her throat ached and was dry. " I loved my John you know, John Frean, my young man. We'd known each other from children, and I'd always liked him more than anyone, and we were going to get married. He was jealous of me, though I never gave him cause. I never even had a bit of fun with anyone, though I might have done. Then up at the Rectory they started having some building done, and one of the men, him that was the master- builder, was always looking after me. He was only a young fellow, sir, but he'd come 134 LOT'S TALE on in his work. I tried not to notice him oh, I tried so hard, and I don't believe I ever would have given way to him if it hadn't been for something that happened." " Yes, Lot, tell me what happened." " They had a school- treat, sir, and sports. It was in the winter. Oh, yes, it was the twenty-fifth of January. Father was managing Scutt's farm for him, and we lived there. You wouldn't know, sir, but there's a great big barn there ever so big, it is. And they borrowed this big barn off father, to have the treat in. Father was lying ill in bed, but they asked him, and he said * Yes.' Father was proud of that barn, sir ; it measured eighty feet long. And all these builders, when they'd finished they came along and joined in. ... They'd put the lights out of the way of the children, but there was one girl was much taller than the others all body and no brains, the school-teacher used to say she was. And her hair caught in the light, her hair and her pinafore. And it made a little blaze ; I saw it, and I screamed. And, sir, he was standing by, and he put it out. I saw him do it. I saw him put his hands on the fire. She might have been killed, but he saved her . . . And then he looked across at me where I was standing, and I looked 135 LOT BARROW back at him ; and then I looked down, and I was all trembling. Then late that night I went out to shut the barn doors. He was there, waiting for me. He didn't say anything, and I tried to pass him by, but I couldn't. I ran up to him, sir. At first I tried to kiss his hands, but they were wrapped up. And so I kissed him. It was dark, but I saw someone just outside the door. I couldn't see his face, but I knew the shape of his hat. It was John. He had pretended to go home, but he had been watching really." " Now, now Lot, don't cry so. It is too hard for you to tell." " No, I must tell you. I won't cry. At first I wanted to hide. I stood still, wondering for a moment, and then I went to try and find him. But I could never find him ; I don't know which way he went. . . . And the next day Mrs. Catter- mole that's Mrs. Child's sister came and told me he had shot himself. And I said straight out : ' He saw me kissing another man in the barn ; that's why he's gone and done that.' You know, sir, at first I didn't seem to understand. Perhaps I never loved him properly oh, no, I'm sure now I didn't love him properly. And so they all knew in the village why he'd shot 136 LOT'S TALE himself. And all that morning it seemed dreadful yes, but not more than I could bear. And then suddenly I thought I'd go mad. It began with my back trembling. And I couldn't get it to stop. And that night father died, in the middle of the night. Oh, my God ! Oh, my God ! " Mr. Bravery went and put his arm round her. " That was more than you could bear. Hush, Lot ; don't cry so. No, my dear, don't cry." " Oh, sir, let me tell you everything. And then you will never think again that I am deceiving you. . . . Mrs. Cattermole came and took me to her house. I was so glad to go to be with anyone. But she said we must go over to John's funeral. We started out early in the morning, and she said I must see John for the last time. I asked her not to make me see him. She said nothing could make up for what I'd done, but I'd only show myself to be more wicked if I didn't do what was right and natural now. And when we got to the house where he used to lodge, she took me into the room, and then she went away and closed the door. . . . " I'd never thought he'd look any dif- ferent. I didn't know where he'd shot himself. And I screamed and screamed, 137 LOT BARROW and they came running back. And they took me away, but I never stopped scream- ing not until my throat wouldn't sound." Lot sank to one side of her chair. She was very pale, and her body was limp and nerveless. " Will you still talk to me sometimes when I bring in your dinner ? " said Lot, breaking into convulsive sobs. " Of course I will. Why, of course." " Because if not I will go away. I was glad to leave home, because everyone knew about me even the children. But I can go somewhere else." " There is no question of such a thing. You must stay here while this is where you like to be." " I am glad," said Lot, more happily. " Because you see you help me so." He smiled a little vaguely at her, and then went to his own chair again. " When you first told me there was no need to mind about things, or to be unhappy, it seemed as if it couldn't be true. And then afterwards it seemed as if it made me into a different girl. I haven't minded about him lately the same as I used to." Mr. Bravery shifted in his chair. " That's right, Lot," he said, a little uneasily. Her face was looking almost complacent now ; but he marvelled at 138 LOT'S TALE himself that he should even prefer to see it tortured. Did it seem to him unsuitable that she should come to think lightly of that tragedy ? He had done his best in the past to make her think lightly of it. All that day he was somewhat dismayed by the extent of his own revulsion of feeling. He could not clear his mind from a thought of her dishonesty with him. He could not forget her reserve with himself, and her rather vulgar confidence in such a compara- tive stranger as Humphrey Child. But perhaps Humphrey was not such a stranger, after all. Mr. Bravery tried to be gratified that it was from him alone that she had tried to conceal what she counted for shame. That meant that she held him differently from everyone else. Ah, but how poor a comfort that thought allowed him ; it even seemed to add to an immovable uneasiness of heart. He was uneasy because he felt a fetter. If only he could think that Lot realised a change in their position ! Perhaps she did. Yes, surely she did for had she not asked only that he should sometimes speak to her. The smallness of that demand most surely acknowledged change abolishing what had been established on that strange, distant night before. 139 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: A NICE PIECE OF FUR WHEREVER Mrs. Child was mistress, there surely would the birthday of any member of the household be punc- tiliously celebrated. There was a kind of gravity or heaviness about these celebra- tions perhaps because a consciousness of grim duty in the air is not complimentary to the festive spirit. For Mrs. Child so loved birthdays that observing them was a strict and serious matter, admitting of no laxity or reprieve. Supposing you were there at the farm and had a birthday, none of your usual off-hand speeches would be at all suitable as a reply to Mrs. Child's formal good wishes. You may be in the habit of saying (with an entirely proper wish to be sprightly over a rather bad business) : " Oh, don't talk to me about birthdays ! When a man has passed forty he should be spared these distressing reminders." But such a state of mind would be entirely incomprehensible to Mrs. Child. Why a birthday should be less of a birthday because it is the forty-fifth, she would fail to see. 140 A NICE PIECE OF FUR Two birthdays occurred at the farm within a few days of each other. Mrs. Child was sure to see to it that the second should not suffer from the priority of the first. She was safe to see justice done. The second should be just as ceremonious as the first, even though it was in no way so important an event. For the first birthday was Mr. Bravery's, and the second was Lot's. Lot herself was deeply excited by these two events. The evening before his birth- day Mr. Bravery found an unprofessional- looking parcel on the dinner-table, and he opened it to find himself the richer by a box of pink note-paper, labelled : "A happy birthday, from Lot." Lot herself came in shortly afterwards with a look of shyness shyness which tried to find relief in an assumption of innocence of all know- ledge that anything exceptional had taken place. " Oh, did you find it, sir ? " she asked, on a false note of surprise when she was thanked as if the parcel had been hidden in some difficult place instead of being put conspicuously on the table. All that was a very pleasant and even thrilling affair for Lot, to be lived over and over again in her mind. A pity, 141 LOT BARROW perhaps, that she had been utterly unable to postpone the presentation until the day itself, for the birthday suffered slightly from a certain sense of accomplished joys. But she still had her own birthday to look forward to. Her heart throbbed to think of herself receiving the slightest present, no matter from whom. Mr. and Mrs. Child made her a present of money, and Mr. Bravery gave her such a box of sweets as she had never seen before, sweets so gorgeous that Mrs. Child was led to insinuate at frequent intervals during the day that they were far too good for the purpose to which they had been applied. But the present which in her secret heart Lot loved the best was a bit of fur for her neck, which was sent to her from London by Jennie Parker. It was a poor piece of fur, arguable as to its species only by those unfamiliar with our domestic pets ; but it had a strange fascination for Lot, who tried it on again and again, and was thrilled to feel the touch of it on her neck. During the next few weeks she wore it even to go down the garden to hang out the clothes. " It's come over so cold," she would say, having developed a rather acute sensibility, evidently. 142 A NICE PIECE OF FUR On her birthday Lot had her favourite cold pudding for tea, and when she went up to bed she carried her treasures with her, and disposed them lovingly in her room, feeling that the world was a store-place of happiness. Mr. and Mrs. Child downstairs discussed events. " She's a fortunate young girl," said Mr. Child, " and I hope she knows it." He was conscious of having given Lot sixpence more than her predecessors had received on similar occasions. Mrs. Child's mind embraced not only that extra sixpence, but the handsome box of sweets as well. " She gave him a little box of notepaper which she bought over at Webb's," she said. " It looks to me very much like as though she'd set a sprat to catch a mackerel, though I daresay if I was to say so she'd just as soon strike me dead." Many days after, Mrs. Child came into the kitchen and found Lot stooping by the fire, mopping something with her hand- kerchief. " Well, it's done for now, anyway," said Mrs. Child, not without a little good-natured malice, as she caught sight of the unpleasant wet substance that Lot was tending. " I 143 LOT BARROW told you it would come on to rain, but you wouldn't believe me." " Oh, no," said Lot, not looking up, as she breathed hard over her task ; "it will come up nicely." 144 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: MEMORY COTTAGE MR. BRAVERY packed up his essays and sent them to town, feeling rather scornful of a world capable, perhaps, of accepting such stuff and at the same time of rejecting the real thing. And on the day when he posted the essays he went for a long walk. Ever since he came to Wiggonholt he had rather neglected the plain for the hills. The hills are very exacting, if you love them at all. But now to-day he took a long walk through roads and lanes and field-paths to the north, and the sun was shining, and blackberry-blossom falling ; there was an unfitful, just perceptible breeze from the east. It was a very rich world, very full of things. In every ten yards of hedge Mr. Bravery might find ten things of peculiar interest to him. His feeling was not so much that which comes from conscious admiration, as that which comes from knowledge and experience. He had kept open eyes in the country all his life ; it 145 L LOT BARROW was pure habit with him to discern an unusual growth or a low nest or an early flower, and to stop, and investigate, and pass on. He played with himself a kind of serious, speculative game as regards footpaths. He could not resist them, but they are surprising and deceptive, and sometimes they were master, sometimes he was. It is a good game for a tireless walker. You must, of course, have a journey's end in view, else obviously there is no matter for con- tention between you and the path. Mr. Bravery had set himself the mark of a village fifteen miles away. That would be thirty miles when he reached home. He had, therefore, at least one of the desirable conditions for that game with the foot- paths he had the sense that a mile saved here and there would be a welcome con- cession to his limbs. But, as a matter of fact, it does not do to be too honest with yourself if you are a footpath-finder. You may tell your legs that here is a delightful opportunity to save them some beastly fag. But you know in your heart that a hole in the hedge, or an uncertain path, or the dry way through a bog (which is probably somewhere, if one could only find it) does not save the miles. 146 MEMORY COTTAGE But Mr. Bravery was almost tireless ; and sometimes he forgot all about economy of distance, and went out of his way to walk by water, or mounted little grassy hills merely to be at the top. It was when he was returning at dusk, and was not much more than a mile from the farm, that he saw something even more alluring than anything he had seen that day. It was a cottage standing in a field strong, square and white. It made no pretension to beauty its beauty was all accidental to its use ; its walls seemed to lay claim to nothing but thickness, and its large sash-windows to nothing but the capability of passing light, plenty of light. No ground was enclosed round it, and a man who lived there must step out from his door straight into the fields of England. A few yards from the cottage there was an ancient well, with an old stone piece of roofing over it. It chanced that Mr. Bravery was face to face with his ideal dwelling-place. He w r alked to what must be called the back, if a modest little door in the other side gives to that the dignity of front. The house was so unembellished bv road or / path or tree that its position in the field had a kind of arbitrary charm ; there was 147 LOT BARROW no garden-entrance to emphasise its placing and direction. He looked in through the curtainless windows ; the rooms were bare ; he tried the door, and that was locked. At the farm Mr. Child had finished his work early, and was sitting in the garden outside the kitchen door, waiting for his tea. Mrs. Child had taken the opportunity of Mr. Bravery's long day's absence to establish certain reforms in his room. At present she was renewing the flower-pots in the window. Lot was peeling potatoes in the kitchen. She did the potatoes mechanically and quickly, turning every now and then to gaze out of the window with a dreamy stare while her fingers still worked. Her thoughts were perpetually with Mr. Bravery, and she was happy. Happy, but anxious at the same time. Because she wanted the bonds strengthened ; she wanted to know that her dreadful story had not changed him towards her. He had been wonderful to her, and gentle ; but she was anxious lest there might not be in him some thought turned against her either because she had been slow to tell, or because of what she had told. She could only hope and trust and, when the occasion offered, show him 148 MEMORY COTTAGE how blindly she followed him, and how wildly she loved him. She heard Mrs. Child limp into the room, and then the sharp voice spoke just behind her. " Good gracious, Lot, you haven't got to peel them potatoes. Do you suppose we can afford to throw away good food ? You've got to clean those ! " " They won't clean," said Lot, passion- ately. She had been startled by the sudden, sharp remonstrance at her back, and when she was startled she always relapsed into anger. " Look here, young girl ; we don't peel potatoes in beginning of September. We clean them. That's the custom here ; I don't know what they did where you come from." She took the knife from Lot's wet hand, and a potato from the basin, and her expert fingers seemed to scrape it with little trouble. " You couldn't have cleaned the one I tried," said Lot, a world of anger and offended dignity in her eyes. " Guessing's nobody's business," said Mrs. Child, "but I shouldn't think you ever had much praise for kitchen work." Unhappy Lot then laid the table. At every meal she must carry to and fro from 149 LOT BARROW its home in the cupboard in the passage a weighty ornamental cruet, too good for vinegar and oil and pepper, but never deprived of its place in the centre of the table. Mrs. Child liked to see plenty of cutlery, for she regarded it as little short of a tragedy if any one lacked something and had to get up to fetch it. And so Lot always laid in Mr. Child's place the fork which he rarely used, for he never enjoyed his food so much as when he skilfully plied his knife. Numerous little glass bottles of salt and pepper and mustard were placed at the corners of the table for all the meals. There were gilded tin stands for the teapot and hot- water jug indeed, a host of ob- jects, which made their numerous daily pilgrimages at the hands of Lot. When they had finished tea, Mr. Bravery came and knocked at the door. He was so much a friend that he came and went with little ceremony. But Lot always marvelled to see him with other people to see him with men, for whom he had no exquisite glamour, with whom he was an ordinary human being. It was such a strange, strange thing to realise that they did not have to look at him when he spoke, that they were careless whether he came or went, indifferent if they brushed his 150 MEMORY COTTAGE shoulder. For Lot those things were the wild breath of life. Mr. and Mrs. Child were respectfully amused at Mr. Bravery's walking for the sake of walking, and eager to hear where he had been. They were both very familiar with the country-side, having lived all their lives in neighbouring parts of it. Poor Mr. Bravery was sadly taxed, however, to make it clear to them what his route had been. They pondered together as to which road he meant, or which path, or which stream. They generally began by having a difference of opinion, but really only because Mrs. Child had a kind of habit of supplying the occasion for Mr. Child triumphantly to prove his point. Mr. Bravery was rather bored with all these explanations : there was one point he really did want to get at, and eventually he was able to put his question. "Well, now, Child," he said, "there's an empty white cottage up beyondBrewster's fields, not more than a mile from this spot. Can you tell me about that ? " Mr. Child considered carefully, not to commit himself. His wife looked hope- fully and a little anxiously at him, knowing well in her loving heart how exceedingly he should dislike not to be able to answer. 151 LOT BARROW " He wouldn't mean Dow's cottage ? " she said, tentatively, to her husband. She did not mind being wrong herself ; in fact if, at this difficult juncture, she at least gave her husband an opportunity to dis- play superior judgment, so much the better. "Now, my girl," said Mr. Child, patiently, " didn't you hear Mr. Bravery mention Brewster's fields ? It's the first time I've been led to understand that Dow's cottage was up by Brewster's fields." He paused carefully. " Would it stand right by the road ? " he asked. Mr. Bravery tried to explain more par- ticularly the situation. " It was all very quiet," he ended, " and there was a horse rubbing his back against the side of the house." " Yes, it's a quiet little place," said Mr. Child, coolly. " Very quiet. But it's water- tight, so far as I'm aware of." It might now reasonably be supposed that Mr. Child had identified the house at its first mention, and had merely been playing with their curiosity. His audience was willing enough to be impressed with this theory. - " Yes, it's quite compact," continued Mr. Child. " But it wouldn't do, not for a man who wanted to grow. There's no 152 land attaching." He then explained to his wife, who was looking at him in triumphant admiration. " Mr. Bravery's been speaking of Memory Cottage, my dear what those family of Fitches have just come out of." " Is that what it's called ? Well, Mrs. Child, if ever I could make up my mind to leave you, that's where I should go. Just learn anything you can about it, will you, Child ? I may end my days there." Poor Mrs. Child now took an unaccount- able dislike to Memory Cottage. " I've no doubt it's very unsanitary," she said. " You've no call to say so, my girl. No call at all," said Mr. Child. For he did not understand his wife's little weaknesses as she understood his. Lot also had received this first hint of departure with dismay. And because she felt herself so large and obvious, sitting idle at the table, she got up and quietly cleared the things away. But as she drew hot water from the boiler on the fire, a sudden wave of joy came over her with a new aspect of the matter. She believed that cottage Memory Cottage was for him and for her together. He had said : "I would take you away " and he had found the place. 153 LOT BARROW Mr. Bravery went back and back to the cottage a habit which Mrs. Child viewed with the greatest uneasiness. She was not in the least concerned to think she would forego the monetary advantage of Mr. Bravery's presence ; but he happened to have her rare, deep affection, and she dreaded the time when she should cease to serve him. The time when he should no longer be in his accustomed place at the farm seemed to come near at a double pace. Not only were days passing to reach that dreadful day, but in another sense the dreadful day itself was moving towards them at a rapid rate. At first Mr. Bravery would only end his days there. And then he spoke of the spring ! And then he wondered how he should fare in cold weather among the winter fields. And finally he considered that if he cleared away from the farm before Miss Marsy and Marjorie Fulleylove re- turned, it would be all the nicer and cosier for them, and he could come over every day. Finally, in case there might be a demand for the empty cottage, he walked one morning seven miles to the owner's house, and did business. When he had to choose whether he would buy or hire, he chose to buy, because he knew how he loved it. 154 MEMORY COTTAGE His next move was to go into Lewington and buy deal chairs and tables and thick crockery, from a list prepared for him with a pitiful mixture of feelings by Mrs. Child. She liked to be of use to him, but she only wished he could have been content to stay at the farm. All last winter the evenings had not seemed so long and dull as they used, because it had been so nice to feel he was there, and to take care of him, and exchange a joke. But this winter she would not have him. Now if only it had been with a bride, she would not so have minded his going off, for there would have been reason in that. 155 CHAPTER NINETEEN: THROUGH FIELDS LOT spoke a blessed truth when she told Mr. Bravery that she no longer was so troubled about the tragedy of her past. There had indeed come an allevia- tion, which seemed marvellous and almost incredible to her, who had thought to carry that horror all her life. She lived now very urgently in her present ; that tremb- ling low in her back never visited her ; and if she lay awake at night it was not to writhe under those memories. The change had come gradually, and she was very slow to realise it or count upon it. Until that day when she had opened all her heart to Mr. Bravery, and those words issued forth with the rest : "I don't mind about him now the same as I used to," she had never made an acknow- ledgment to herself of the wonderful fact that grief and horror were no longer the first things in her heart. But the words she spoke in her own truthful outburst had enlightened her, and she had known ever since that that miracle had happened. 156 THROUGH FIELDS Now this change in herself she put down to one only cause. She put it down to Mr. Bravery's lesson. He had told her long ago what he thought about unhappi- ness ; he had taken every opportunity to tell her. At first she had listened with the ears of pure faith that is to say, she had believed what she could not compre- hend. But now she saw him justified and exalted, his wisdom proved. She attri- buted none of her alleviation to the healing process of time (she was so young as to be ignorant of our debt to time), and none to the excluding power of other vital interests. She put everything at Mr. Bravery's door : he had done wonderful things for her, and she blessed him. Her daily thoughts were entirely with Mr. Bravery. She had great ecstatic hopes that at any moment in whatever room her work might have taken her, or down this garden-path, or in this meadow she might meet him, and he would look at her and take her hand, and express his need of her. She lived with this phantom presence a wonderful phantom, that said words she glowed to hear. She longed for Mr. Bravery, and the phantom was there at her side, speaking of love, and taking her to its heart. Once, coming suddenly from 157 LOT BARROW the imaginary presence into the real, she was shocked at so much contrast. To see Mr. Bravery sitting over his book, and only giving one swift glance upward, just to see who it was that came into the room, was too terribly remote from where her dreams had taken her. And then she found that humble favours from the real man had far more sweetness than the best gifts the generous phantom could bestow. For when Mr. Bravery merely looked up again and smiled, and said : " How well you look, Lot ! " happiness pierced her very inmost heart. It was therefore very sad to her that he should be leaving the farm. She had been obliged to give up the idea that he intended to take her with him at first. In her own mind she only postponed her going ; but it was evident that he wanted to go alone in the beginning. Of course she had all kinds of heavenly thoughts and hopes that he was going to prepare for her, that he would come one day and fetch her before the astonished gaze of Mrs. Child. But the fact remained that she had to face an uncertain period of separation from him. A little while ago she could hardly have endured to be left indefinitely with Mrs. Child without the solace of Mr. Bravery's 158 THROUGH FIELDS presence. But now that at least did not matter so much. No, a strange thing had happened in regard to her feeling for Mrs. Child. Lot had lost her fear, and with her fear had gone some of her hatred. She had lost her fear in one single minute. That was the minute when she learned that Mrs. Child had told her history to Mr. Bravery. She resented Mrs. Child's broken pledge : perhaps she still hated her for that ; but instead of fearing her now she slightly despised her. And if she still hated, it was a more mild and reasonable emotion: it was not the strange, dominating hatred that had fear for its bones and sinews. The day came when Memory Cottage was ready for its owner, if he should choose to go to it. Its simple furniture was disposed in it, and Mr. Bravery came back to Wiggonholt one evening after having spent all day at the cottage, arranging there the books and pictures which he had caused to be sent on to him from his last dwelling- place. He arrived back at the farm shortly be- fore his dinner-hour, and sank into the arm- chair in his room, tired but peaceful. Yes, his new possession increased his inward peace, which was as much of joy as he could 159 LOT BARROW feel, or as much as he would care to acknow- ledge. He was aware, in a half-amused, half -regretful way that his going was looked upon by Mrs. Child as a disaster. He was even a little shamefaced before her, but not sufficiently so to disturb the calm glow within him. And as far as leaving Lot was concerned, he was neither pleased nor sad. Because he should see her frequently and he did wish to see frequently the girl whom he had been able to help to the right view of things, the only one, out of a whole world which he had hoped to help, who had responded and understood. On the other hand, the move gave him an added sense of security in his belief that Lot had no claim on him but as her helper and friend. Now Lot brought light into the room, and set the table for his meal, making a little talk with him as she did so. Next, Mrs. Child carried the meat into the room, and Lot went away and came back with the vegetables. It was as it had been so many a time before. But now it was with a kind of shamed consciousness that Mr. Bravery recognised his favourite dish. It ate like a reproach a very palatable one for his coming departure. " Well, this is very good," he said, as Mrs. Child hovered round the table. 160 THROUGH FIELDS " How you will miss your food, sir ! " she said. " Ah. Not so much as you think, perhaps." Mrs. Child took that from him mildly, because she would take anything from him. " I mean," he said, smiling, " that you will often find me hanging round here, begging for a meal." Mrs. Child's face brightened wonderfully but how she wished that he need not go at all ! " Still, who's to do for you when you are up there ? " she said. " There's that to be thought of." " Yes, I know ; that's dreadful," said Mr. Bravery, who was eating his dinner. ("Do cut me some bread, will you, Lot ? " he said.) " Are you going to help me to find some one, Mrs. Child ? " She considered. She wanted to lose touch with him as little as possible. It gave her a pang of jealousy to think of his being ministered to by one of the village women many of whom, no doubt, would be only too glad to serve him. " I could spare Lot for an hour or two in the day," she said. " We shan't be so busy here as the winter comes on." Lot opened her mouth to say : " Oh, yes, please, please let me ! " But though she was no longer afraid of Mrs. Child, she had 161 M LOT BARROW maintained a diplomatic instinct of ex- pediency in regard to her, and she realised just in time that such an ardent petition was not likely to advance her cause. But Mr. Bravery was shocked at the suggestion. " Lot ! Walk all that way every day, there and back, when the weather will be bad ! " Lot longed to exclaim at such stupid, mistaken kindness from him, but again she had the genius to be silent. She sent Mr. Bravery a most reproachful look, however. He understood. He saw in a moment how she would love the escape from Mrs. Child, and from the daily routine of the farm. And no doubt she felt it would be pleasant to see her helper every day just as he felt it would be pleasant to see her. " Oh, she's strong enough," said Mrs. Child, weighing it. " Lot's not afraid of the weather, not that I'm aware of." " Of course, it would be a very fine thing in one way," said Mr. Bravery (and he knew this would clinch the matter), " for if Lot came she could carry me some food in a little basket, and well, Mrs. Child, you know you have spoilt me for the cooking of the rest of your sex." He thought it 162 THROUGH FIELDS was due to Lot that, after having been so stupid, he should be a little cunning to accomplish what she wished. " Yes, and she could do the work ac- cording to how I've learnt her," said Mrs. Child. " God knows what a state those other women mightn't leave it in." And so that was arranged, and Lot was deeply happy. After that, Mr. Bravery spent only two more days at the farm. They were days made pleasant by the news from his publishers that his new essays were accept- able. The book was to be published with- out delay, for this autumn season. And Mr. Bravery had not to pay a farthing : on the contrary. He found it singularly grati- fying in fact, if not in theory to be the creator of something for which the world was willing to give a price. It was much nicer than paying for the privilege of authorship. Every day Lot left the farm at ten o'clock. She started in a state of suppressed excite- ment which made it difficult to walk soberly along when she might take swift flight. But she did walk she knew that her tireless running was considered eccentric ; and, besides, she always had a little burden 163 LOT BARROW of food in a basket. Sometimes the nature of the basket's contents demanded that it should be carried with extreme steadiness, a fact which Mrs. Child took care to emphasise. Mrs. Child did not know how unwillingly Lot would spill a drop of Mr. Bravery's precious dinner, and tried to drive the moral home in the most graphic and telling way. " Supposing that was a jar of ink, wrapped up in your new dress," she would say ; " you'd carry that steady enough then." And there were other forms of argument, equally persuasive, all unnecessary. Lot went some little way along the road and then turned into a certain field. The gate of the field was kept locked, and she always had to climb. She crossed diagon- ally three fields, and then came to the little river, which felt its way with great uncer- tainty low through other fields. It was the little thread of life in the wide plain, the brain of that valley if the stars are the brain of heaven. Its course was very wayward ; but it did stop short of actually turning back on itself or Lot would have been even more impatient than she was. She walked close by the high edge of the deeply sunk little river ; the wind often blew coldly down the unsheltered valley. 164 THROUGH FIELDS The bare banks overhung the river, as they do in a certain Rembrandt drawing ; but it was possible to walk very close to the edge without danger of the earth breaking underneath. For that earth was closely bound by root and fibre, as could be seen on the bare side of the bank where it shelved inwards to the water. On the surface where Lot walked there were short grass, and dandelions, and other weeds ; but on the bare, shelving sides there was only a multitude of fibres, peering out from their damp, earthy bed. By and by, she came to a rough little weir, and here she had to climb again, because its designer had not considered traffic ; and so she had to mount on to an iron plank, part of the machinery of the weir, and balance herself across. Then she crossed two more fields, up-hill fields and large ones, and the little white house was in sight. Generally Mr. Bravery was indoors at work. One day the house was empty, and Lot was fearful to think that he might not come back before she had to leave. In the passage near the door there was a chair, and when Lot had discovered the house to be empty, she sat down upon this chair, too unhappy to set about her work. She 165 LOT BARROW loved every inch of the little house which she kept nice for him ; and as she sat there, with her coat and hat still on, her eyes wandered over the stairs, which she ought to be sweeping, and to some mud on the passage-floor ; and through the open door of the sitting-room she saw the remains of Mr. Bravery's breakfast. But she had no heart to touch a thing. It would be most bitter to her if Mr. Bravery should not come back. She foresaw how all the excitement and pleasure of her daily journey to him would be banished and replaced by a miserable suspense if she could never be certain of finding him. How intolerable it would be to wind along that delaying river, if she were in ignorance as to whether she should see Mr. Bravery or not at the end. But as she sat in her gloom she heard Mr. Bravery stamp his feet outside. In a moment she was up, and had opened the door, and stood there smiling at him. " Wherever have you been, sir ? " " Good morning, Lot. Oh, just tramp- ing round." " Now I must hurry on with my work," said Lot, bustling in, and longing to make everything especially nice for him to-day, because she was so glad to see him. 166 THROUGH FIELDS She sang a little tune as she took off her things in the kitchen. The song was one she used to hear a boy sing on the farm where she used to live ; and she sang it, like him, in the rich county-dialect : " Can you tell me If any there be Who will give me employ, For to plough and to sow And to reap and to mow, And to be a farmer's boy." She went and looked in Mr. Bravery's teapot for tea-leaves ; she put her hand in the brown pot and scraped the dark, wet things together, but came to the conclusion that there were not enough to lay the dust on the stairs. She then went out into the field and ran across it to a grassy meadow, and gathered handfuls of grass into her apron, with her air of dignified industry. The grass still glistened with the early- morning raindrops. Lot came back to the kitchen, always with her slightly detached yet efficient air, and put the grass on a board and chopped it until it was reduced to a size that made it a pretty good sub- stitute for tea-leaves. When her sweeping was done she laid the fire in the sitting-room. Mr. Bravery 167 LOT BARROW was sitting there, busy with his last batch of proofs. She did not speak to him when he was busy, but now he looked up and watched her. " Don't light it, Lot." " No, sir ; I'm just leaving it ready. You will put a match to it as the evening comes on, won't you ? " " I daresay. Oh, yes, certainly." " Now mind you do. Because you see I shall notice in the morning." " Oh, well, of course if this is going to be a kind of tyranny " said Mr. Bravery, smiling. Lot smiled back. "Do I make it all lovely and comfortable for you, sir ? " " You do, indeed. Perfectly comfort- able." " Mrs. Child always says to me when I'm starting : ' Now, Lot, don't go idling because I'm not there to see you.' Or : ' Mind you don't forget to fill the lamp.' Or : 'Be sure and put his boots where they'll dry without burning.' She thinks I wouldn't do anything if she didn't tell me." " Well, Lot, we must give a house- warming for Mrs. Child." " Yes," said Lot, rather dully. She had no wish to have Mrs. Child here. 168 THROUGH FIELDS Mr. Bravery perceived that the point was not taken up with enthusiasm, and said : " Perhaps that can wait until Miss Marsy comes." A certain suggestion Mr. Bravery had once made to Lot had been on the con- dition of her being unhappy. He had long ceased to have any real apprehension about the fulfilling of that mad suggestion ; but still, it pleased him wonderfully to see her happy, and he wanted to keep her so. 169 CHAPTER TWENTY: LOT'S SHOES MR. BRAVERY was at Wiggonholt, and stood at the bottom of the stairs, calling out to Marjorie with a little impatience. " Come along, Marjorie ; or we shall have to go in the dark." She soon came downstairs, not hurrying, because she rather enjoyed his impatience, and dark was still a long way off really, but smiling an apology for the delay. " If you were made to put on all the gaiters and gloves that I am made to put on, you would be late," she said. They set out for their walk. The last two days had been so still that the leaves had been able quietly to yellow and weaken on the trees. But to-day the south-west wind blew just strongly enough to waft them loose where they were weak in the stem, and rain them gently to the ground. Mr. Bravery took in the weather and the aspect of earth and sky with a favourable glance. He evidently considered these things in relation to the comfort of his companion. 170 LOT'S SHOES " Now this is just the kind of day on which I want to get you out for walks," he said, turning to look at her delicate face. " No shirking, Marjorie. A good walk with me on all the mild, dry days." " Yes," said Marjorie. " I do love the autumn days when they are mild. They are like someone who might be unkind to you and is kind." They walked through the village. They were good and easy companions, enjoying speech, and not afraid of silence. " Say good afternoon to Mr. Hicks, the baker, as you pass," prompted Mr. Bravery. " He is standing at his door ; you eat his bread." " Hicks a baker ! How very odd ! " said Marjorie, and did her duty. " Why is it odd that Mr. Hicks should make bread ? " asked Mr. Bravery when they had passed. " Oh, I don't know. Because Hicks is so essentially a butcher's name, I suppose." Mr. Bravery told her how silly he thought her, which pleased Marjorie. " Is anyone ever unkind to you ? " he asked after a pause. " No, indeed. I have nothing to com- plain of. Only you were once," she added, remembering. 171 ' What did I do ? " " You read me something that I hated." " Oh, yes, I thought you hated it. It has been lying in the back of my mind ever since how much you hated that." "Well, it can't be helped. And I need never listen again, I suppose," sighed Marjorie. " No," said Mr. Bravery with feeling ; *' you need never listen again. Why should I pain you ? " " I suppose you never did what I sug- gested ? I suppose you never wrote about the country things ? ' : "Oh, dear me, yes I did," said Mr. Bravery. He told her about the book, of which he was expecting every day to see a copy. She was so genuinely pleased and excited that he was kindled to more pleasure than he had known for years. They passed a road-side gate leading into a field, where a flock of sheep were grazing. One of the sheep had a very human-sounding cough. They stopped at the gate, and distinguished the invalid from among the passive flock by the spas- modic ducking of its head. It coughed unceasingly, as they stood there. "Is it in pain ? " asked Marjorie. " No," Mr. Bravery replied. Then, looking over the hills to the distant downs, 172 LOT'S SHOES he said : "I wish I could understand how my saying * No ' gives you any conceivable relief." Marjorie also looked straight in front of her. There came on her face an eagerly defensive look, and yet at the same time she was mystified and fearful. Her faith did not depend on her ability to express it. And she realised with dismay how little she had to say. She believed him to be very, very deep, and she knew she could only be very simple. " I am glad when things don't suffer," she said. " Oh. So long as you realise how fiend- ishly they do suffer " said Mr. Bravery, with a kind of cruel smile. " Of course I do," said Marjorie, excitedly (and he was so calm). " I mean the essential cruelty of the whole scheme," said Mr. Bravery, still with his strange smile. " The preying and the torture and the warfare daily sights, that you may see in any field or in any hedge." " Of course I know all that. Last night I heard a fly in a web somewhere up in the rafters. Did you hear it just before we went to bed ? I thought it would never stop." Mr. Bravery nodded that he had heard, 173 LOT BARROW " Have you ever properly realised that to be the scheme of Nature ? Can you be blind to that ? Recognise fully that that is the scheme, and you will not suffer so much to see an example of it before your eyes or rejoice if it chances that some- thing does not suffer." " I shall do both those things as long as I live," said Marjorie. " Then you are defiant. You do not accept the scheme." " Yes, I do. I accept that men and beasts must suffer. And I grieve for it. Raymond," she said, turning to him in helpless appeal, " that is surely what I was meant to do." " I can't say, I can't say," said Mr. Bravery. They were both honest, and meant passionately well by each other, as they continued to look out on that serene, grey landscape ; but they were baffled and made unhappy by their difficulties. " Will you come with us when we go to see the villagers ? " Marjorie asked on a sudden, faint impulse. " Now that I feel stronger I want to go." Mr. Bravery pledged himself. It happened often now that Lot worked in miserable solitude at Memory Cottage, 174 LOT'S SHOES for Mr. Bravery spent most of his time at the farm, or out walking or driving with Miss Marsy or Marjorie. On one occasion she met him on her way up to the cottage, and her heart was very sad, and her eyes full of tears, as she passed listlessly on her journey. But most often he arrived at the farm before she started out, and she went off in a kind of despair, which dissolved to milder sadness only when she reached the cottage and worked for him, and touched the things he had lately used. Miss Marsy had hired from Lewington a horse and trap, for which Mr. Child had found room in his stables, and Mr. Bravery and Miss Marsy and Marjorie drove about the perfect country in grand autumnal weather. According to Marjorie's plan, they also visited the poorer of the village people, and relieved necessity. Mr. Bravery's book arrived, and was read aloud by him in the evenings a perform- ance attended only by the happiest results now. One day, before he had got to the end, a notice of the book appeared in the paper which came to the farm at breakfast- time. It was a most appreciative review, and when Mr. Bravery arrived later at Wiggonholt Marjorie put it into his hand. As Mr. Bravery read it, with Marjorie 175 LOT BARROW standing by him, he had a curious sensation of the unreality of past years, and the vitality of present happiness. In the evenings Lot would hear the dis- tant murmur of his voice as he read aloud, and she longed that he should be speaking for her ears. She was growing sick at heart because of the long postponement of all her hopes. One night when she went up to bed in anticipation of a particularly early rising to-morrow, the reading was still going on in the sitting-room behind the closed door, and she paused on each stair, reluctant to go quite out of reach of the intonations of his voice. That afternoon she had bought in the village a pair of new shoes, and these she carried up in one hand, and her candle and clock in the other. When she had got to her room and had unburdened herself, she sat down on the edge of the bed and took up the shoes again, and examined them abstractedly. The very moment she had first seen them in the shop she had known them to be lovely shoes, having a distinct superiority of style over any shoes she had ever possessed. All the way home from the shop she had been excited about them. Now she viewed their charms almost coldly, 176 LOT'S SHOES warming only gradually to their irresistible attraction. She turned them over and looked at the soles. The soles were light and shining, without so much as a scratch on them. How speedily they would be dark and grained and dusty ! half an hour's wear to-morrow would do that for them. She stroked the shiny soles, and rubbed them against her cheek, and thought of their defacement. Then suddenty she re- solved to write a beloved name upon them while they were still pretty and clean. She got a pencil from her pocket, and wrote RAYMOND, and underneath she wrote LOT ; and this was done on each shoe. Having accomplished this slow, careful task, she was somehow much happier, and went to bed. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: DISSOCIATION LOT was alone in the kitchen, and heard a knock at the door which led in from the yard. She opened it, and a man was standing there to whom she spoke, and then she went in search of Mrs. Child. She found Mrs. Child in the dairy. " Mr. Henefer's here, and wants to speak to you. His wife's bad." They went back to the kitchen together. He was standing near the door, methodi- cally twisting his hat round between his two hands. He turned his uneasy face towards Mrs. Child, with a petition in it. " The fact is," he explained, "I've just had a further increase of family. I can't speak too plain " He nodded at Lot. " And all's not well ? " said Mrs. Child, with her quick sympathy for illness. " Dr. Lund do think she's dying. He's sent to Lewington for Dr. Brassey." He spoke in a curiously businesslike tone, which was somehow hard to hear unmoved. Lot wished he would give way and cry. 178 DISSOCIATION They were both now unaware of Lot. They looked at each other with simple understanding, while Mrs. Child said : " I'll get on my things and come. Humphrey'll help me round." There could not in the world be more natural and simple inter- course than this when people who at the best of times have no artifice in their talk, are dealing with life and death. There is not even the memory of artifice to shame them when their eyes meet over their grief as there is with those who habitually adorn their talk with self-consciousness. Mr. Child came in with some lately-dead birds, and dropped them heavily on the table outside the kitchen. " Mrs. Henefer's bad with the new baby," said Mrs. Child. "I'm going up there." " Well, my girl, you know what to take with you. You know to take a bottle o' Carson's." " What, with the doctors there and all ? " asked Mrs. Child. " Oh ? " asked Mr. Child in cold surprise. " Was there no doctors there when I gave you some of that Carson's when you was bad with Humphrey ? And did it save your life, or didn't it ? " " Fetch the bottle, Humphrey," said Mrs. Child. " You know where it stands." 179 LOT BARROW She felt she had been deservedly rebuked, and looked humbly at her husband. Lot was soon left alone in the darkening kitchen. She felt a vague, uneasy excite- ment at the trouble, which needed an outlet. Miss Marsy and Marjorie were not at home ; they had been taking tea with the vicar's wife, and had not yet returned. But Mr. Bravery was at the farm ; he was in the sitting-room, having elected to let the tea-party preserve its femininity un- spoiled. So Lot went and knocked at the door, and then looked into the room. " Mr. Henefer's just been round. They say his wife's dying." Mr. Bravery had been looking out of the window. It was the hour just after sunset, and his window showed him the east, where the flat fields and the hills and the sky were growing very grey and quiet. He did not speak. He remembered seeing that couple called Henefer in their home not very long ago, when he had accompanied Marjorie on one of her visits. Marjorie had been enthusiastic in her quiet way over that family. " You can see there is love in that home," he remembered Marjorie saying, in a warm voice. He did not speak, and Lot fancied she knew his thought. 180 DISSOCIATION " Yes, of course they'll all think it so dreadful if she dies," she said. " Isn't it a pity they can't see things straighter, sir ? " She thought to ingratiate herself, as weak women do, by giving a man back his own views. He turned round from the window now, and sank heavily on to a chair. His arms were on the table, and he bent his head and sighed. " A husband losing a wife, Lot," he said slowly, as if he were suggesting something to her. She was at a loss, and so she drew slowly nearer to him. The only thing she longed for in this world was his approval. At first she just took hold of the dark blue hairy table cloth close to him, but soon she moved the hand on to his stooping shoulder, and bent her head low over his in the dusk. " / don't trouble about them," she said, in a wheedling voice. " I don't mind whether she lives or dies. Of course you can't get everyone to see it like that." He got up slowly and gloomily and moved a little way away from her. She felt terrified lest something was wrong between them, but did not know what that could be. The only thought smiting her brain was the dreadful suspicion that he had got up 181 LOT BARROW because he wanted not to feel the touch of her hand upon him. "Mr. Bravery," she said, in a low, thrilling voice, which made him look at her even though he could not see her face clearly, " were you cross with me because my hand " ; she broke into a sob. " Lot, Lot" he remonstrated, shocked at her grief, and uneasy in his conscience because she had guessed right. There was a sound of someone turning the handle of the front door ; it was locked and did not open ; then the bell was rung. The two in the room had stood motionless during those sounds, with their eyes fixed on the door. When it was quiet after the ringing they could look towards each other again, but only for a minute, because Lot must go to the door. He took her hand, because her dejected figure looked the picture of grief. He carried the hand to his shoulder, as a kind of restitution, and laid it there, and stroked it nervously and heavily. It made him feel very humble her having guessed that for some indistinct reason he had spurned her hand. Lot's face was raised slowly ; she thought he must feel, if he could not see, the infinite tenderness that shone out of her face, like a warmth. He put down the 182 DISSOCIATION hand, and she went to the door to admit Miss Marsy and Marjorie. They knew about the danger, and were silent and depressed. Lot went back into the kitchen, and lit the lamp. Humphrey was sitting there, waiting for his tea, and Lot squeaked about in her new shoes to get it for him. It was no use to wait for Mrs. Child's uncertain return. And it was dangerous to let Humphrey get hungry beyond a certain limit. She put the meal before him, and sat down to look at the paper. " I can't drink this," said Humphrey gloomily ; "it's too strong." Lot's mind had been running tempes- tuously on her interview with Mr. Bravery ; she was not at all absorbed in her paper, so she put it down readily to weaken the tea. " Thank you," said Humphrey, in his grim, unhappy pride, and went on with his meal in silence. It was in silence that they now invariably passed any time they had together. Lot sat down again and put one foot up on her knee, and for the tenth time to-day examined the sole of her shoe. Now at last Raymond and Lot were no more to be seen ; there was not the faintest pencil- 183 LOT BARROW mark. She had watched the process of their defacement with a sense of pleasure in her little secret. To the outsider this was only an ordinary, if becoming, pair of shoes ; but they would never be quite ordinary shoes to Lot no, not even after the third time of mending ; they were dedicated. Mrs. Child was home in time to prepare a rather belated meal for the sitting-room. She reported that Mrs. Henefer was lying like a mask. Indeed, there did not seem to be much hope of her recovery. That night as Lot was going to bed she came upon Marjorie and Mr. Bravery in the passage. Mr. Bravery was about to set out for his cottage. Marjorie was always a kind friend to Lot, and stopped her now to talk a little. She looked at the clock under Lot's arm. " What time will that say when you get up, Lot ? " " Six o'clock, miss. I always must have my eight hours if I can get it." " Six o'clock, and I will be asleep. I suppose there is reason and logic in that, but it is hidden from me. Raymond, explain why Lot must get up at six, and I can sleep." " I suppose you think it is a much finer 184 DISSOCIATION thing to sleep at six than to get up at six," said Mr. Bravery, smiling. " Well, yes, I suppose I was taking that for granted," she said. " That is a very easy way out of my difficulty if you can prove that Lot's is the better part after all. Still," she added, " I am afraid you would have to prove that Lot thinks so." " Of course I'm a very light sleeper," said Lot, irrelevantly. Marjorie smiled at her, as if she liked her and found her funny. And then she suddenly grew grave and said : " Perhaps we shall not sleep very soundly to-night. We shall be thinking of that woman.' 1 Lot's dark eyes grew large with serious- ness and scorn as she said on a sudden inspiration : " / don't see that there's any such thing as unhappiness." Marjorie's whole bearing changed as she flushed and cast at Mr. Bravery a glance of quick, angry suspicion. It was more to him than to Lot that she said : " Don't you talk to me ! " stammering a little, and almost incoherent in her anger. Lot, almost unmoved by this, looked only at Mr. Bravery. But gradually her look changed from being a confident appeal 185 LOT BARROW for approval to a look of wonder and dread, as she saw Mr. Bravery dissociate himself from her by an involuntary, cold critical look, and then avert his eyes. She turned and went up to bed, her body trem- bling, and her eyes aching with tears. That detached, critical look affected her with a deathly emphasis. " Oh my God," she thought, as she suffered perpetually recurring pangs of fear, " why did he look at me like that ? I only said what he himself has told me ; and then he goes and looks at me like that . 186 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO : "LOT THE RUNNER" MR. BRAVERY did not know which moved him most Marjorie's anger or the contrition she had expressed after- wards. He thought her anger was the purest flame of indignation he had ever known. And then that she should be such a gentle creature as to have to say she was sorry ! For she came to him and regretted what she called her violence. " It seemed to me that you had done something dreadful, and it cut me to the heart," she said. " But I should not have been so angry." " Don't apologise to me," Mr. Bravery replied. " I think your goodness is the most heavenly thing in the world." " I like you to think me good," Marjorie said, gravely, " and I do so want to think you good ! I tell you, it cuts me to the heart. It cannot be good to tell that girl there is no such thing as sorrow, and oh, I don't know half of what you believe," she said, with a little renewal of impatience. " Yes, Marjorie. I did tell her. But 187 LOT BARROW some time ago. Not since not since I understood you. And never again." " You make me happy again," she said, quietly, and turned away. Some instinct which she could not combat made her feel more than lenient towards him. It was a splendid afternoon, and they had all been hoping for fine weather. They were going to take Mrs. Child for a drive, and end with tea at Memory Cottage Mr. Bravery's special house-warming tea, at which Mrs. Child was to be the guest of honour. Mr. Bravery suggested that Lot should come, but learned that it would not be convenient for her and Mrs. Child to be absent from the farm at the same time. Mr. Bravery did not press the point, bearing in mind that Lot was not in the habit of languishing to be where Mrs. Child was. In the morning Mrs. Child had returned from the Henefers' cottage, whither she had gone early, with a very good account of the invalid. She no longer seemed to be sinking to death ; and everyone was now hopeful for her. Breakfast was still in process in the kitchen when Mrs. Child came in with these tidings. Both Humphrey and Lot gave quiet expressions of satisfaction. Mr. Child had a certain way of sometimes compelling attention by his very silence : 188 "LOT THE RUNNER" that is what he did now. He continued to eat, with his eyes fixed on the piece of cold bacon from which he had lately carved, and gradually drew to himself the awed or half-unwilling attention of the others. There was for them nothing to do but to wait, for the silence was heavy with meaning, which would sooner or later find expression. It was no earthly use trying to pretend it was just an ordinary silence. When the tension had grown somewhat severe, Mr. Child said : " Did you minister the Carson's ? " " Yes," said Mrs. Child. " Last night." That was all. Mr. Child was sometimes an artist, and he left the matter there, proceeding solidly with his bacon. And so early in the afternoon they set out on their expedition with light hearts. Miss Marsy was going later direct to the cottage. Marjorie and Mrs. Child sat in the front of the light dog-cart ; Mr. Bravery was behind. Marjorie's seat was raised, and she held the reins. She looked almost too fragile for her position, and yet she was a good and capable driver ; and there was really no need for Mr. Bravery to be thinking, as he sat there, of how he would throw himself in the face of any danger that should threaten her ; and of how readily 189 LOT BARROW he would brave death to save her from harm. Mrs. Child sat rather stiffly in the un- familiar hat and jacket. But the stern angle of her back did not begin to express the pride and pleasure in her heart. She had, in common with her great class, that divine, selfless virtue of a little snobbery ; she was tasting pure happiness in this expedition. Moreover, they drove through the village. Later, they came through quiet lanes to the nearest point to the cottage. By this way, they had to climb only one field to reach Mr. Bravery's dwelling-place. Lot sometimes came this way in the morn- ing if she had a particularly precarious burden, and wanted to avoid stiles and mounds and rough ground, or if the rains had been heavy : otherwise her usual way, in spite of its deviations, was a trifle shorter. Now the horse was tethered inside the field, and the trap left on the grassy road- side. Marjorie had been with her aunt to Memory Cottage before, but it was Mrs. Child's first visit. She had Mr. Bravery's arm up the field, and she was ensconced in the bright sitting-room. In the midst of her expressions of appreciation she had an eye keenly watchful for any signs of 190 "LOT THE RUNNER" remissness in Lot's house-cleaning energies. Eventually she was bound to declare, when she was alone with Miss Marsy, who soon arrived, and when conversation had des- cended from its first high pitch of enthu- siasm, that Lot was more thorough than she had given her credit for. Only she pronounced " thorough " in an almost un- spellable way something like " ther," said rather slowly. Miss Marsy insisted that she would watch the kettle, so Mr. Bravery said : " Come along, Marjorie, out into my garden, if you are not tired." " Your garden is very big," she replied. " Yes," he said ; " and I have trees and crops and streams. But you need only walk in a little corner of it." He stood by the open door, persuading her. And she sat still, playing with the wild hope in her heart. " Then you have a lot of things in your garden. But I want flowers." " Well, I have flowers by my stream." " Oh, but what a long way off ! " ' Won't a fine meadow do, with a little wind-blown hedge ? " " Oh, no," said Marjorie. " Will it do if I show you a little path where a boy who stands not much higher 191 LOT BARROW than my knee goes to school every morning, holding his sister's hand, because they are both afraid of the horse that grazes in the field ? " " No." " I could show you just the spot where Farmer Brewster's horse came slowly down upon them, and lowered his great head to their tiny, red faces. And they both screamed. And the little girl, who is the bigger by two or three inches, put her arms round her brother, and spread herself over him to shield him, while she screamed." The two elder women were manoeuvring the kettle at the other side of the room. Marjorie got up slowly. " Was there any one to help them ? " she asked. " Yes, someone ran to help those blessed children, and walks with them every morning now across the field. Some one who always thinks of you, Marjorie, when he is with them, because for him all good means you, and you mean all good." They were at the door, and passed out. They were away for nearly half an hour ; and those inside were meekly waiting their return. The kettle, which had been so anxiously watched, was now undeniably boiling, but to what purpose ? Miss Marsy 192 "LOT THE RUNNER" went to the window and peeped out. With a start of guilty embarrassment she dropped the curtain and hurried back to her place. ; ' They are just coming," she said in a whisper, and began nervously to rearrange the teacups. They came hi with very bright faces, and sat down to tea. As soon as the driving-party left the farm, and Lot was alone, an idea which had been vaguely but tumultuously in her brain all day began to take more definite shape. Certain hopes and dreams had fallen away from her in the anguish of last night. But whatever had fallen away, she was not unhappy, for she had glorious unvarnished fact to fall back upon. Such notions as that Mr. Bravery intended Memory Cottage for her home with him were now banished from her mind. But no sooner did she feel that her life was then empty of all meaning than she knew that she had only to reach out for her own great comfort. He had said : "If you are not able to be happy I will take you away and marry you." He had said that in this very kitchen ; he had said it as cer- tainly as the day was light, and the night dark. Very well. The time had come. 193 o LOT BARROW Perhaps, even, Mr. Bravery was deeply grieved that she had never taken him at his word. As Lot moved about the kitchen, per- forming her tasks, she began to feel the wild pain of excitement. She tried to keep it under. Whatever she did, she did with a kind of sacramental sense of gravity. When she moved Mr. Child's boots from the kitchen to the place outside, she thought she might never touch his boots again. When she put coal on the kitchen fire, she knew she would not be there to see it burn away. And thus she seemed suddenly to discover in her mind her own plan of flight, without knowing when it had come there. She had not been conscious of its advent ; now she gave it a late but ex- quisite welcome. Yes, her plan was flight flight to Mr. Bravery. The crisis had come : she was not happy, and it was right and circumspect that she should go to him. It happened that to go to him was so happy a thing that she was frightened for her body if she thought of it. But she was only doing as he had conjured her, and if he had suggested torture she thought she would have obeyed him just the same. Lot began to think in a practical and 194 "LOT THE RUNNER" diplomatic strain. She must consider time and place. She knew that Mr. Bravery was not to accompany his visitors back to the farm. On at least one night in every week Miss Marsy insisted that Marjorie should go to bed shortly after dusk for a prolonged rest. To soften the tyranny, Miss Marsy imposed upon herself the same performance. She punctiliously saw to it that Marjorie should not be even five minutes in the bedroom before her. Well, to-night had been decided on for that ceremony ; and Mr. Bravery was going to spend the evening at his cottage, and write letters. Lot's tactics were simple. She must arrive at the cottage after the visitors had left it ; and she must, on the other hand, leave the farm before they had returned there. That is to say, she must cross them on the Avay ; their ways were different, and they would not meet. In throwing off her imaginative dream- ings, Lot had fallen back on to the simple meaning of Mr. Bravery's plain statement to her. And heaven knows she thought that was good enough to fall on. She seemed to rediscover its simplicity, its wonder. He had said : "I would take you away." She was very literal in her 195 LOT BARROW interpretation now, and glowed to under- stand that however literal, however un- varnished the reading of it, the phrase lost nothing : it rather seemed to gain. He had said away, and he meant away far, far away. Her idea in regard to Memory Cottage had been absurd. She had found it wonderfully pleasant to imagine herself there, with the amazed, subdued, envious Mrs. Child in the background of the picture. It now seemed to her that she had been particularly mean and petty in her thoughts, and that when Mr. Bravery was leading her to love and dignity and greatness, she had, as it were, stayed behind to continue to be petty. He meant away : and so Lot must take with her a few things, so as not to be a nuisance to him, where he should put her. She made a little brown paper parcel up in her room. She did not include in it her piece of fur, because with sudden disillusion she realised that it was not very nice. She left the parcel on her bed with her hat and coat, and went down again to the kitchen, where she took the pen and ink from their place on the dresser, and sat down to write a letter. " Dear Mrs. Child," she wrote, " I have 196 "LOT THE RUNNER" never been happy here, and would not have stayed but for Mr. Bravery's being so kind to me. That night you went to the whist- party he told me he would take me away and marry me if I knew I could not be happy here. Well, Mrs. Child, that time has come, and so I have gone to him. I am very sorry about the butter to-night, but I can't possibly stay. Will probably write again. LOT BARROW." Lot left this note, addressed to Mrs. Child, on the kitchen table. She then went to the back-door, and looked out. At first she thought it was still full day- light, but, as she stood there for a few minutes, she saw that it had in reality begun almost imperceptibly to be dusk. She soon set out. She went slowly, to make sure of finding Mr. Bravery alone. But when she reached the white-washed cottage and quietly opened the door, she found that she had, after all, misjudged her time. The sitting-room door was closed, but she heard voices within. She felt frightened at this dis- arrangement of her plans, and her first instinct was to run away and come back later. But she feared to be seen from the window, if she did that. She seemed to 197 LOT BARROW have been lucky enough to escape being seen so far, but she would not run the risk again. So she stole through the passage into the kitchen, and stood there motion- less, listening, for ten minutes that seemed an age. And then the voices suddenly grew loud, because the sitting-room door had opened ; and she heard the people pass outside as they talked. She then heard Mr. Bravery call : " I will catch you up," and he came with a swinging stride into the kitchen. He stopped dead short when he saw Lot. * When did you come ? I didn't know you were coming." " Hush ! " said Lot, and tip- toed nearer to him. " I haven't just come to do the washing-up, or to bring you your supper, or anything like that. I've come because I'm not happy ; I've come because of what you said." " What I said ? Good God, Lot, what does this mean ? " She grew paler, but smiled at him. '* You said you'd take me away." Mr. Bravery looked distraught. " That was long ago. And I thought we had both realised that there was a change since then." " Do you mean you don't want me ? " 198 "LOT THE RUNNER" " Lot, I don't know what to say ; I don't know how to tell you. I didn't know you counted on what I said. I am going to marry Miss Fulleylove." She looked at him very steadily ; she could not have cried. " How silly I am ! " she said. " I get thinking things." She wondered in a brief moment if this was worse than when she had seen her dead lover, and decided that it was a more deadly grief. She had screamed then, and now she only faintly smiled. " I must think, I must think," said Mr. Bravery, turning this way and that. " This is dreadful." " No," said Lot, with a soothing touch on his arm. " Don't say it's dreadful. I am so silly only there's no harm done. Never say a word about it. Are they wait- ing for you now, sir ? I thought you were staying here, that's why I came." She suddenly blushed deeply. " No, I was going back with them, be- cause of what has happened. They are not going to bed early to-night after all. But, oh Lot, what have I done to you ? " " Nothing, nothing," she said, coaxingly, pushing him to the door. " You haven't hurt me ; you've never done me any- thing but good. We'll all go home now, 199 LOT BARROW only I'll go by the fields. Run, sir ; they'll be wondering what's happened to you." " I had better go now ; I will talk to you later. Bless you, Lot ! " he said, and they went down the passage. " Good Lord ! " said Lot suddenly, and stopped. " What is it ? " " Oh, what am I to do ? I put a note for Mrs. Child. It said I was coming to you because you'd promised " she stopped, in her pathetic tact, and then went on again. " It said I was coming to you. She'll get there before me, and she'll read it." " Well," said Mr. Bravery, sick at heart, but trying to speak with courage, " well, that's not your fault, Lot ; we must just make the best of it." " You shan't have that to trouble you," said Lot, passionately. " Oh, of course, / know. I know what I can do." She undid her dress at the throat. " Don't trouble, sir ; Mrs. Child shall never see that letter." She vanished on her way down the field, and he turned towards the lane. Lot ran her fastest, but she could still think, only too terribly clearly. All her splendid speed did not seem to make 200 "LOT THE RUNNER " even one little aching thought flutter or be indistinct. One idea she had which was better than despair : it had a little saving ambition in it. ; ' They all know how wicked I can be. But now he will know I can be good. Yes, I can be. It is not too difficult, not really." As the dog-cart sped swiftly through the lanes in the gathering dusk, Mr. Bravery sat deep in thought. Marjorie stroked the willing horse with her whip, until the ground flew from under them. They were later, owing to the wonderful thing that had happened, than they had intended to be. The women were all silent, impressed with the gravity and joy of the engagement. They reached the farm, and it seemed to Mr. Bravery that they had been but a few moments on the way. Whatever wild plan Lot might have had in her head to save their unhappy affairs from publicity, she could have had no time to accomplish anything. How much sooner would he have told Marjorie quietly all about Lot, than have the public disclosure which he must now face ! He thought his behaviour, as far as poor Lot was concerned, had been so blind and blameworthy that he fully deserved what must befall him. But the thought would come and come : that he 201 LOT BARROW would rather have told Marjorie not on this blessed day, but a little later, and when they were alone. Humphrey was waiting at the door to lead the horse away. It was now dark outside, and they walked into the lamp-lit hall. " Lot ! " called Mrs. Child ; " come and take these things. Lot ! ' : There was no answer. Mr. Bravery stepped forth automatically to where he could see the kitchen door, to watch if Lot should emerge. It was from there that he was used to see her coming. He strangely felt that some miracle might have happened to bring her there. Mrs. Child called again. And now Lot came from the kitchen-door. At first she seemed to step with a slight unsteadiness, and then Mr. Bravery saw her walk calmly and unhurryingly towards them. Her figure looked large and grand in the dimly-lit vista of the white-washed passage ; and when she came into the light there was a little dew on her face, but she breathed quietly. " Gracious, Lot ; where is your apron ? " said Mrs. Child. 202 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: LOT IN THE EASY-CHAIR A WEEK later Miss Marsy and Marjorie had gone from the farm, and Mr. Braver}^ with them. The day after they left, Mrs. Child went to London for her usual object. And that evening Mr. Child and Humphrey and Lot were in the kitchen. When Mrs. Child made her excursions to the London hospital, Lot always quickly used the opportunity of sitting in her chair. Lot would hardly even touch that wide arm-chair, with its familiar worn, green padding, in the presence of Mrs. Child, but it had always been perfectly natural to her to curl herself up in it, or sit at perfect rest, with her head stretched back, and each arm listless on a soft support, as soon as ever that wonderful sense of peace descended which in the past had always come with Mrs. Child's departure. Now that absence brought neither peace nor regret : she was a numbed creature. Originally it had been on the tip of Mr. Child's tongue to remonstrate at Lot's freedom with the chair, which he never 203 LOT BARROW dreamt of sitting in himself ; but having once on a kind impulse let the matter pass, he had let it pass ever since. And he had carried this concession to its logical con- clusion that is to say, he never mentioned to his wife what comfortable use Lot made of the chair. This evening she went straight to it when she had restored the kitchen to its perfect order after the evening meal. Mr. Child was making the wonderful sucking noises with his tongue and his teeth which were necessitated by feeding and man must eat. And Humphrey knew, from long experience, by the way his father remained standing in a leisurely way before the fire, gently stamping his feet now and then upon the ground, that he was going to spend the evening at the Wheatsheaves. Humphrey went away into one of the parlours, and came back carrying a book Lorna Doone. His father eyed this action with some mild disfavour, but was in no hurry to speak. He continued to suck ; he undid the shirt-stud at his neck ; he felt amiably inclined to wind the clock, but held himself in check until later. " Young Fawcett will be up at the Sheaves, I don't doubt," he finally said, inducingly. Fawcett was a young man 204 LOT IN THE EASY-CHAIR with whom Humphrey Child had a kind of quiet, indifferent friendship. " He's gone over the hills to Sumping- ton," said Humphrey, who was sitting over his book. That was so much defeat for Mr. Child. " It'll be fresh walking down," he said, after a while ; " but Mrs. Fleet'll have put the big kettle on, and I shan't put nothing cold inside me to-night." " Well, I won't be coming out," said Humphrey, who gave the impression of breaking silence against his will, only to keep his father quiet. " I shan't be there long," said Mr. Child. " You could be back to your reading." This time Humphrey did not answer. His eyes were fixed on his book in a dull stare. Lot lay perfectly quiet while Mr. Child prepared to go out. When he pot- tered about in a vain search for his coat, quite interested and pleased, in his idle mood, that he did not chance on it at once, she heard rather than saw what he was doing, and said, in a flat voice, " The passage door." She did not raise her eye- lids, which had fallen into a curious, half- closed position. She had so much to think about, and yet could think of nothing. Certain events 205 LOT BARROW of the past few days, such as a talk with Mr. Bravery, such as a talk with Miss Fulleylove, such as her endurance of the last sight and sound of Mr. Bravery, were now like almost indistinguishable mounds in her desert, colourless hills, that took no light, and even cast no shadow : everything was only grief. Indeed, there was only one little thought in her mind which seemed to have any identity, any persistence the thought that she had given Mrs. Child a month's notice. That was like a little trickling stream, which she could hear if she would listen the only note in a world gone suddenly and horribly silent. Perhaps this fact, insignificant in comparison with her great woes, took emphasis from being a step into the future, a guarantee that she should not always be in these devastated rooms, with just this particular aspect of, and surrounding to, her grief. That she had given Mrs. Child notice was her only link with a future. It was a path which even if she did not know to what it led, she knew whence it led. There could hardly be a prospect more closed, more dark, than that ; and yet it was her greatest light. Humphrey looked up at Lot, after they had been alone for some minutes. Then, in strange discomfort, he tried to read. 206 LOT IN THE EASY-CHAIR By the next time he looked up her ex- pression would have changed, he expected. Whenever she was in repose she was so extraordinarily still ; you could not hear her breathe, even, however close you might be to her. Humphrey had noticed that, because he had so often listened to her when he had been too proud to look. You could not hear her breathe any more than you could hear a bird breathe. That stillness of hers compelled him to look soon. But her expression had not changed. It unnerved him singularly that her eyes should be neither closed nor open. It made him think of pain. He had a memory of a little cat who had lain for a day before she died with her eyelids fallen a little over her eyes, and yet not fallen enough. He wished Lot would close her eyes if she were sleepy, or if she were unhappy he wished she would open her eyes and cry. He left Jan Ridd indifferently to the prospect of a violent death, and with increasing tension watched Lot's face. The lamp was at his elbow, and his face, in light and shadow, had its look of beauty which ill-temper and dissatisfaction gener- ally marred. Under his low, straight brow his eyes could look so keen and dark, if 207 LOT BARROW only something could touch the life within him. When that life was touched his response was always beautiful ; and his smile was beautiful his smile which his mother never saw. As he watched Lot those eyelids of hers lifted, and her eyes were upon his. In her apathy, wherever her eyes had chanced to rest, there they would stay, as if they were too heavy to move again. And she looked at him for many moments before she gradually came to the consciousness of him. And then she continued to look. Even when she knew that this was Humphrey's face, she continued to see it newly ; it was so handsome, its expression so momentous, that it sent a little shaft into her brain. It was something different from her grief ; she almost felt a hope concerning it that it might mean relief. She smiled faintly at him, and moved her hand. " Are you reading, Humphrey ? " " No." After a pause she gave him the same smile again. " Would you like to kiss me ? " She had now got hold of something tangible for that close blank future. Humphrey got up and came to her, 208 LOT IN THE EASY-CHAIR " Do you want me to ? " " I thought perhaps you'd like it," she said. " I won't kiss you for that," said Hum- phrey. Lot looked very tired. " I thought you I thought people liked to kiss me," she repeated. " / don't know." She spoke like some one dispassionately collecting uninteresting information. " Sometimes I feel as if I would give my life to kiss you." " But not now ? " " Oh, Lord yes, now, now. But before I kiss you, you will have to tell me some- thing." She looked coldly. " What ? " " Lot, my heart, my darling, tell me you love me." ' No, I don't," she said. " Then I will never kiss you," he cried, in a kind of impotent revenge. The punishment fell only too lightly on her. She sighed, but not for him, and turned her head slightly away, and her eyelids began to droop. This was so horrible to Humphrey that he shook her by the shoulder. " No, no, Lot, look at me, speak to me ! It need not be very much, just a tiny, 209 p LOT BARROW tiny love and I will take you in my arms, my darling." She did not look at him, and considered. She had an unworthy thought of deceiving him, but something that she dimly felt was noble in his look prevented her. He was kneeling down, and he put his arms round her chair, and pressed his head to the wood. " I love you so ! Think carefully, Lot. Isn't there any love in your heart ? " " I don't see that there's any such thing as love," said Lot, " or happiness, or un- happiness." " What's the use of talking like that ? " said Humphrey, bewildered. " Sometimes I think like that. And then sometimes I think I can't live for loving so much." * ' Loving who ? ' ' said Humphrey. " Me ? " " No," said Lot. " Him who's gone from here." " Mr. Bravery ? " " Yes," she said, with a faint red in her cheek. " Of course I mean him." " I wonder what made you love him," said Humphrey. " Yes, I daresay you wonder," said Lot, almost spitefully. " You don't know what a man he is ! You don't know ! Oh, the things he's taught me things you've never 210 LOT IN THE EASY-CHAIR heard of ! He's been kind to me. He must be the greatest man that ever lived." " Did he teach you that there's no such thing as unhappiness ? " said Humphrey. " Yes, he did. And I have almost learnt it so nearly learnt it. Only I am very weak, and seem to lose it all. Still, some- times I do really feel it all over me I feel how unreal everything is, and one thing's pretty much the same as another." " What infernal rot ! " said Humphrey. She sat up stiffly and angrily. "It is just like you to say that. You can't understand ; some people never can. He said that himself. You're only to be pitied, you know," she assured him. " I don't know about that. I don't stand to gain anything by all I suffer, that's certain ; but it would take me a pretty long time to persuade myself that I didn't suffer. When a man just seems to want things with all his might on purpose to have to do without them, the same as me, I daresay it would be nice to think there's no such thing as sorrow, but no, I can't say that's going to help we." " Well, of course Mr. Bravery said that it took some time to learn," said Lot. " I didn't see it right off myself." Humphrey evidently did not believe in 211 LOT BARROW the efficiency of this kind of comfort, even for her who claimed to be convinced, for he said : " Oh, Lot, my own loved one, do you suffer as I suffer ? I can't bear for you to suffer. Do you want him the same as I want you ? ' Lot suddenty broke down. "It's dread- ful," she whispered. But because of his sympathy there was for the first time some far-off sweetness in her pain. Now they held hands and looked at each other's piteous faces. Humphrey thought how gladly he would die if that could give Lot her heart's desire ; but if dying was easy, getting Mr. Bravery for Lot was impossible. " And you can never have him," he said. " What would a man like that do with me ? " she said with a cruel sob. " Can you bear it, my darling girl ? ' : " Yes, Humphrey, yes," she said. . . "I've given Mrs. Child a month's notice." He too was struck with the barrenness of that as a future. " What are you going to do ? " " I don't know yet." Then she thought of his grief learnt to be more compassionate now than she used to be. " You've had a lot of trouble, Humphrey. I'm sorry. You wanted to go to sea very much, didn't you ? " 212 LOT IN THE EASY-CHAIR Humphrey nodded. " And you want me very much ? " He nodded again. She looked at the clock, and got up to go to bed. " Humphrey." " Yes ? " " Which of those two do you want the most ? " He stared at her. " Which do I want the most ?" he repeated. " Oh, Lot, really, what a strange thing to ask," he said, with a little, uneasy laugh. " Well, which do you ? " she said. " It it seems so strange to have to say a thing like that," said Humphrey, obviously embarrassed. " Off to bed, Lot ? " "In a minute, I suppose," she said. " Do tell me, Humphrey." He sat down suddenly at the table. " Well, of course," he said, slowly, " ever since I was a kid I've had my heart set on going to sea. I think it must be something strange in me the way I've wanted that. I don't only just want it very much, you know," he said, trying to explain. "It regularly comes over me so that I feel almost mad. Yes, it must be something strange in me. I've many a time set out to go yes, in the middle of the night. LOT BARROW They don't know anything about that," he said, jerking his head in a vague direction to where his mother and father might be supposed to be. " I've always come back. They talk such a lot about it breaking their hearts, and father always tells me that mother nearly died when I was born ; she wouldn't be what she is now, if it wasn't for me. Well, anyway, what with one thing and another that they've said, they've not given me a chance." He thumped the table. "I've been tied to this blessed place, by what they've said from first to last, just the same as if I'd been in irons." " Still, if you'd not been here you wouldn't have met me," said Lot, thinking that it was about time for the other aspect of the matter to be dwelt on now. " No. Well, then there's you. I love you, Lot. You are my own darling Lot. That's the word I always think of when I think of you. Darling, darling I say it to myself. Little things you do you don't know how they make me love you. When you look angry, when you water the flowers, when you sit in mother's chair oh, I can't explain ! And once when you wanted terribly to cry, and pretended you were smiling " " What, was that the time I burnt my LOT IN THE EASY-CHAIR arm on the flat-iron ? " asked Lot, deeply interested. " No," said Humphrey ; "it wasn't that. It was one morning just after breakfast. I think you'd done something " " There was that time I let the bread fall," said Lot, eager to know when she had been so attractive. " Would it be then, I wonder ? I remember your mother did come down on me ; and I used to get so upset. Do you think it was then ? " " Oh, no, I remember that morning. No, this was another morning. I can't remember what it was all about. But I remember your face." Lot thought for a few moments more, and then gave it up. " Oh, well, it can't be helped," she said. " Go on." " And you are so beautiful," said Hum- phrey ; "so wonderfully beautiful. Any- way, I love you very, very much." Lot looked at him gently. She collected the things she always carried up to bed with her. " Still, you haven't told me." " Told you what, Lot ? " said Humphrey, dishonestly. " You know. Which you want the most." " Look, Lot the clock'll slip from your 215 LOT BARROW arm ; take care. I don't know what to say no, I don't know, I'm sure. I want both. Yes, that's all there is to say about it. If I had to choose, I don't know . Oh, good Lord, why do I talk about it," he said in sudden bitterness, " when I haven't got either ? " 216 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR : HOUSE PROPERTY LOT had a letter from Mr. Bravery. She read it with the same kind of reluctance that she had felt the last time he had talked to her, and when Miss Fulley- love had talked to her. She had felt weary of their very kindness, their per- fection, their desirability, and now it wearied her to read his considerate and generous letter. And yet the letter contained news which should have aroused more zeal ; for Mr. Bravery bestowed upon Lot his Memory Cottage, to be hers to do what she liked with. He wrote kindly and clearly. He should not come there himself again, but instead of getting rid of it in the ordinary way, he chose to give it to Lot. She might possibly never be able to live in it herself, but some day, in some way, it might prove an ad- vantage to her to possess it. In another letter Mr. Bravery sent the same tidings to Mrs. Child. When Lot, who, in spite of her indifference to her gift, did feel just a little satisfaction in the 217 LOT BARROW prospect of telling Mrs. Child about it, went to her to do so, she found her already in the somewhat dazed state of mind that the information was likely to produce. " It appears I've had a present given me,'* began Lot. " Yes, I know. Mr. Bravery has in- formed me himself," said Mrs. Child. " Well, all I can say is, Lot, it's evident he wants to do you a good turn." " Yes," said Lot, heavily. " Of course I've never had a house of my own before. Well, that's natural. But I mean I never thought I should have a house, not of my own." " No, I don't suppose you did. When first I ever got my sister's letter about you, Lot, the thought came right over me : 4 I'll have her here.' I'm not pretending I can see into the future, but the thought came over me : ' It'll be for her good if I have her here.' And now you've got this house." " When I first came here, Mrs. Child, were you sorry for me ? " " That I was," said Mrs. Child. " I thought if you were you'd have told me so. And perhaps put your arm round me, and said : ' There, there, Lot ; try not to think so much about it.' ' 218 HOUSE PROPERTY " Oh, of course it's always best not to get brooding," said Mrs. Child. " Yes, but I mean I didn't know you were sorry for me." " Well, that was my sole reason for having you. I didn't have you because I thought you'd got a specially fine record, did I, Lot ? And I didn't have you because I thought you'd be a first-rate worker, did I ? No considering that you'd probably done pretty well as you pleased in your father's house, without a mother to teach you how to use your hands." " I never thought much about your having me because you were sorry for me. I only felt bitter against you because you didn't comfort me." " And there I was trying to make you into a good, happy girl, with plenty of work and plenty of food, and a good home. I suppose that's my way of comforting." " I was wicked," said Lot, on the verge of tears. " May I kiss you now, Mrs. Child, and then I'll feel as if you'd forgiven me." " Don't you think I know, my girl," said Mrs. Child, " how cross and sharp I speak and act ? It's the wearing pain that does it, I do believe. And I was afraid of 219 LOT BARROW you, in a way ; that's the truth. I didn't know how you'd treat Humphrey. But I believe you're a good girl, Lot." They kissed each other. " If you like, I'll overlook that you gave me a month's notice that's to say, if you are going to continue in service after what's happened." " I suppose I shall continue in service," said Lot, uncertainly. " Thanks very much, Mrs. Child, but I think I would like a change." " You can't live up there alone, and you can't live on bricks and mortar." " No, I couldn't live up there alone not unless I took a lodger," said Lot, laugh- ing diffidently at her sudden brave sug- gestion. " I suppose I shall go in service again, only I should like to keep in this part of the country." " You wouldn't find a nicer part," said Mrs. Child. " No, and you see I could keep my eye on the place then. I could come over odd times, perhaps, and have a look at how it's going on. It wouldn't be nice to have anything happen to the property and me far away," said Lot, feeling at last a brief personal glow of the pride of ownership. Mr. Child came in and heard the news. 220 HOUSE PROPERTY He did not show any surprise, for that would be to admit that he had not foreseen the event. No, Mr. Child had never been surprised in his life. When his wife told him of Lot's good fortune, his face did not lose its commonplace, everyday look ; only the commonplace, everyday look seemed suddenly stuck on to it, instead of only lying on it. He carried his stolidity a little far, perhaps, because his first remark, on hearing the news, was : "I'm ready for breakfast, mother, so as it's ready for me. What's the paper got to say ? Well, Lot, that ought to fetch you a husband. If you can pervide the home I should say you ought to be able to fix yourself up quicker than some. You'll have them all coming round to the back-door, mother ; you keep your eye out." " Yes," said Lot, responding cheerfully to Mr. Child, according to a long habit, " who'll come first, Mr. Child ? James Halkett ? " They all laughed. (This was a purely local and limited joke, which hardly needs amplifying. James Halkett was simply impossible.) It cannot be denied that Lot now assumed a certain subtle importance in the household which she had not enjoyed before. She was just conscious of it, as the days went by, 221 LOT BARROW and into her bruised, indifferent heart there gradually crept a permanent faint reflection of what the pleasure of possession can be. As a matter of fact, this gift was an op- portune blessing from Mr. Bravery ; it came just at the moment when any gleam of light shed on the future threw her grief into a comparative, faint obscurity. And so the next Thursday she decided, though in a rather half-hearted way, that she would use her afternoon's freedom to walk up to the cottage and look at it for the first time as an owner. She left Mr. and Mrs. Child suffering from a rare gloom. Some time ago Mr. Child had invested his capital anew, and by some means, known to financiers, the shares he had purchased were now worth slightly less than what he had given for them. This created in the household a more gloomy state of affairs than the slight depreciation of value would reasonably warrant. For Mr. Child was placed in the unprecedented position of having perhaps done something ill-judged. Now long habit had established between this man and wife the fact that he could not do things ill-judged. Half of this belief was based on a kind of pretence, which was as real, however, to the pretenders as any truth. Mr. Child could and did make 222 HOUSE PROPERTY mistakes, but all trace of them was ignored or obliterated by the husband and wife, for their own satisfaction and conviction. For instance, when a row of red chrysan- themums, planted by Mr. Child, came up without making by any means the particular show he had said they would make, the unsuccessful plants were pulled up, with as little comment as possible. They were hardly failures, as the normal flower goes, but they were not the very special thing Mr. Child had said they would be. " Wouldn't some wall-flowers make a pretty show there ?" Mrs. Child suggested, to which Mr. Child replied, with husbandly indulgence : "As you like, my girl ; it's outside your kitchen window, so you've the right to speak." And this effacing of the flowers which had failed to justify Mr. Child's prophecy con- cerning them was not done so much to preserve his reputation with some outside audience as to preserve his reputation with himself and his wife. They were fully deceived by their own manoeuvres. But sunken shares could not be surrep- titiously raised to do him credit, and so Mr. and Mrs. Child were under a shadow, until the great day should come when his choice of an investment would be more than justified. 223 LOT BARROW And it ought to be said that their double confidence in him had a good deal of fact for basis ; the confidence was only exag- gerated, not invented. He really was rather an expert man the kind of man who has an essential capability for doing things. If circumstances demanded it, he could come in from his various and arduous work outside and take upon himself Mrs. Child's work in the kitchen or dairy, and do it as well as she could do it herself. That kind of thing was bound to impress his wife ; she knew she could not go out into the meadow or garden and take her husband's place. But now this new property-owner, Lot, is walking out on her Thursday afternoon. First she went to the village, to buy some- thing, and from there she took a long, circuitous way to the cottage. She went through the stubbly fields ; she wanted to prolong her walk so that it would help to fill up her long afternoon, and she fancied it would be nice to come at the cottage from behind, to know her property in all its aspects to see it, as she approached, in a different landscape from that in which she was accustomed to see it. She strode through the fields. It was a day most common in that country. A strong noisy wind blew from the south-west 224 HOUSE PROPERTY quarter, laden with damp. The trees and ground were dark with wet, and the sky, for all its speed, never broke back to a light place. Lot's eyes grew tired, and her hands damp and sticky, as she walked in that southern storm of wind. Not long ago she would perhaps have run, in defiance of the weather and the soft, uneven ground ; but now to think of running made her conscious of feeling a little weak in her knees. Most poignant tears came into her eyes when she thought of that happy gift of hers which, ever since an evening not long ago, had seemed to her like a friend turned enemy. Her running, her dearest possession, she had used, in a sense, against herself. It had been of service to Mr. Bravery, and for that she would always be glad. But if only it could have been the means of securing Mr. Bravery to her, instead of the means of freeing him ! Supposing he had been in some place where she could find him and have him if only she could run fast enough. The more severe the test, the better ; provided that it was only just within reason, Lot knew she would have reached him in time, and clasped him. She checked her thoughts. She had bitter sense enough to know that this was 225 Q LOT BARROW the kind of thought most unprofitable to her peace of mind, the kind of thought that turned her days into a long, aching distress. She came now to the field in which the cottage stood ; and she entered the field at the point farthest from her usual way. The cottage looked unfamiliarly at her, and seemed at first a thing to be run away from, because there was something dreadful in the impossibility of Mr. Bravery's being inside it. With a great effort she tried to remember that this was her nice little house, and that it was a fine thing to possess a house, and that Mr. and Mrs. Child thought all the better of her, and that she would soon write and tell Jennie Parker, who was in London. And was it so impossible, after all, that Mr. Bravery should be there ? she thought, as she plodded wearily over the field, and felt nervously in her pocket for the key. Her great longing to find him there compelled her to admit a possibility, even before she could invent any plausible reason for his presence. And then even the plausible reason occurred to her, for might he not have come to collect some of his things ? How likely ! She had a sudden joy, as if the sun had come to warm the wind that blew on her. 226 HOUSE PROPERTY She opened the door with her key as quickly as she could, and then, holding the door with one hand, and bending for- ward, she listened. But that was a plan of too great suspense. So she said in a loud voice : " Mr. Bravery ! Are you there ? " The silence now was appalling. Silence, to her, was apt to lose its purely negative quality, and to become something with a presence and a power. She knew now that Mr. Bravery was not here ; but someone was here, and that was Silence, and Silence might stifle her and take her breath away. She remembered how often she had been here before, in no less silence than this, without heeding it. And she went in, and visited each room, trying, in a rather pathetic way, to be self-important and proud, and trying not to listen to the silence. And then she came to the table where she had been used to see him at work, perhaps reading his long, white proofs, which had always been to her things of peculiar interest. And she sat in his chair, and the top part of her body lay forward on the table, in a kind of climax of grief. She kept very humble, with all her grieving. She knew she was not good 227 LOT BARROW enough for him ; she told herself, with the freest, saddest tears, that he had got some- one worthy of him, someone beautiful and good for him, someone utterly attractive. But there was a word that pierced her heart with hardly endurable pain ; the word was " childie." If he had never called her that, she thought she could have en- dured all things better. It seemed to her so soft, so sweet, so tender ; it put the finest edge to grief, and she lay and sobbed until she suddenly was quiet again, because when she made a noise she could not listen. 228 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: NICE MANNERS LOT still nursed that word " childie " in her heart on her way home, as the hand nurses a wounded bird. But she was calmer now, as if she had shed some despair with her tears. And another word came into her mind, "darling," as darling was said by Humphrey Child, with a depth and an ardour a little more appealing than she had ever heard before. One word was far, far sweeter to her than the other, but " darling " had just touched her eager, inconstant heart, and perhaps it was some- thing to be darling if she could not be that other thing. When she reached the farm, and went into the kitchen, she had the pleasure and surprise of seeing Jennie seated there with the Childs. Jennie had been supposed to be in a " place " in London ; she explained with grave importance that her health had broken down, but she looked blooming. It turned out that the allowance of food had been strictly limited in that " place." (As a matter of fact, Jennie, from her appear- 229 LOT BARROW ance, must have suffered more from in- dignation than from hunger she had probably circumvented any scandalous re- strictions.) Lot was very pleased to see Jennie. She noticed, too, when she came into the room, how Humphrey's face softened and kindled at the sight of her. He suffered still, since he knew Lot's heart, but he was more human and less proud, and his face was a most clear and sensitive reflection of his feelings. Lot was the happier for seeing his look. " Jennie ! " she exclaimed, with more life in her voice than there had been for some days ; "I never expected to see you here ! " Of course every one knew that she had not expected to see Jennie, but somehow they would have felt a lack if she had not said so. Lot and Jennie kissed each other, but while Lot kissed, her eyes went over Jennie's shoulder with a pure, involuntary look to Humphrey. The kitchen was bright with fire and lamp-light. The flimsy summer curtains had been taken down, and were replaced by thick crimson ones, which were now drawn over the window. Lot had closed the door when she came in, for the wind blew stronger and stronger ; they were very cosy in here. Lot drew near to the 230 NICE MANNERS fire, and held out her rather cold, red hands. Thursday was a slack day at the farm, and Mr. Child and Humphrey had finished their work some little time ago. " And when did you come, Jennie ? " said Lot. " I returned the day before yesterday," said Jennie. She had more than ever that air of independence which Lot used so much to admire. And London had added a correctness to her tone. " I never saw you go by," said Mrs. Child. " My missus doesn't like to think she misses anything," said Mr. Child, winking at the company. " It was that dreadful wet day," said Jennie ; " and the closed 'bus. I did wave my handkerchief, though." " Hope you're better, Jennie," said Hum- phrey, smiling. " Yes, I am," said Jennie. " Thanks for the enquiry." Mr. and Mrs. Child had ceased to be depressed, with the coming of the visitor ; it was such a boon to have someone come in on the long, dark evenings. They had already enjoyed telling Jennie about Lot and her house. Now Jennie, very anxious not to appear envious, but deeply thrilled by the affair, asked Lot what she was 231 LOT BARROW going to do with her house, in a tone that implied that she knew what she would do. " Nothing/' said Lot shyly. " Why, don't you know what nothing is ? " interposed Mr. Child. " A footless stocking without a leg ! ' : Mrs. Child laughed with her ever-ready appreciation of her husband. Jennie did not smile. She waited for silence with visible patience, and then said with solemn emphasis to Lot : " Why don't you let your bedrooms and sitting-room^ and supply attendance ? " Lot had been afraid all this time of appearing foolish in Jennie's competent eyes, and of being considered unworthy of owning a house at all. She was therefore rather proud and relieved to be able to close with Jennie on this point. " Didn't I say to you, Mrs. Child, that I might take a lodger ? " she asked eagerly. " I thought about it, anyway. I did, really, Jennie before you ever came here or spoke a word." Jennie did not look exactly incredulous, but as though she reserved the right to believe that statement or not, just as she liked. She proceeded to business. " How many bedrooms ? ' : " Four," stammered Lot, in a panic 232 lest she should not answer correctly or promptly enough. " Well," said Jennie, " you've only to take the trouble, and you could be let right through the summer months." " There's one lodger you could send her, eh, mother ? " said Mr. Child. " What about Mrs. Schneider and the little imp ? We might give up our claim for a con- sideration." " Of course," said Jennie ; "I'm not saying that you could do it singlehanded. You'd want a partner somebod}^ who'd help you with the work and keep you company." Again Lot glanced involuntarily at Humphrey. " I don't know who that would be," she said gently. " It would be very lonely for two girls," said Humphrey, " or else I'd say it ought to be Jennie." Jennie now assumed a slight air of becoming embarrassment. She looked at the floor in silence, so that it became neces- sary to say something more. " Jennie ! Would you ? " said Lot. " I couldn't say," said Jennie primly. "It's so sudden ; I should have to think it over." 233 LOT BARROW Lot, who was absurdly impressed by Jennie's finished manners, said : " Thank you for saying you will think it over, Jennie. Mind you don't forget." " Don't mention it," said Jennie. " The pleasure's mine." " Put on the kettle, Lot," said Mrs. Child. " Well, I've done my best to train both you two girls or else I should be sorry for the lodgers you looked after." Later, when Mr. Child lifted off the kettle, to pour boiling water on the home- made black-currant syrup, he said : " Phew ! ain't that h-o-t warm ? " And he did not say anything so light-hearted the next day or the next. 234 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX : BY THE OCEAN MR. BRAVERY was married at the end of October. Though no one would have admitted it, this hasty marriage was a kind of dash to take Marjorie while she was in fairly good health. Her health was very precarious ; it was known that she had her good and her bad times. On this subject she herself always preserved a curious silence. And so, though many reasons were mentioned in favour of a quick marriage, the real reason remained unspoken. They were married quietly in London, and dwelt in no fixed place. The husband determined to seek out the best things of the earth for his wife ; London had gifts for her of music and art and friends ; but the sea had the freshest breezes ; and she loved the country. They would be free to wander. After a few weeks of married life they chanced to be by the sea on the south coast. On a quiet afternoon they walked close to the ocean on a pavement which ran for 235 LOT BARROW a mile or two outside the little town. Two or three feet below them on one side was the stony beach ; on the other side a long, high bank. The paved walk went away very straight in front of them, glimmering in the last daylight, until it was a point in the distance. There were occasional seats, but everything was empty now ; it was the tea-hour, which the self-respecting seaside visitor does not neglect. Electric lights were lit, and were exquisite against the still-bright sky. They were widely placed here where the two walked, but in that long perspective in front they grew closer and closer until they touched. Is anyone reminded of what that can be that white electric light, and the blue- grey sky and atmosphere ? There is a drawing by Steinlen. " Look, darling, far over there, and you will see a sail," said Mr. Bravery. " I shall never find it," said Marjorie lazily, after a few moments. But he liked her to see everything that he saw. " Yes, yes, you will. Now, stand behind me and follow the line of my arm." " Has it got a light ? Oh, I see it," said Marjorie. " No, no light," said Mr. Bravery. " This is pure municipal extravagance." 236 BY THE OCEAN "* I like pure municipal extravagance. Ah, but look," she cried, as they watched the distant ship, " a little light has suddenly come ! " " Yes," he said, " and now I see others." She turned to him with a sudden impulse. " You know now that there is happi- ness ? " " Oh, my darling ! " he said, pained that that should have to be asked. " Oh, my darling ! Do I know it ! " " Yes," she said simply, " I know you do." She had a way of quietly putting emotion aside. Now she spoke of her aunt. " Raymond, when do you think she will consider it right to come and stay with us ? " " It's hard to say, my dear. Of course, we're dealing with someone rather nice. Do you remember, darling, when she thought I wanted to be quiet because I was working, how hard it was to drag a brief, time-saving Yes or No from her ? " " Yes, I remember that." " Well, this is rather the same kind of thing, isn't it ? I tell you what, Marjorie. She won't come near us until we may safely be said to be finished with romance." " Oh ; then her coming will be a sign that we've finished with it." 237 LOT BARROW "So we shall know," he said, smiling. " We'll have to go to her, that's all about it," said Marjorie. " Because of course she's dying to see us." They turned and walked slowly back, for Marjorie looked tired. They had rooms in a little strong house, not far out of the reach of the waves ; they held hands as they walked. They both thought of their friends at Wiggonholt Farm with some sadness, for they had heard bad news from there. Mrs. Child had written to report a disastrous loss of money. She always wrote with dignity. " I am sorry for my husband," she had said, " but when I think that some women lose their husbands or their sons, I don't feel very badly about it." " I should like to see them all again," said Marjorie. " I should like to see Lot." " We are not far away," said Mr. Bravery ; " we will go for a few days when we leave here." He opened the door of a little house on which was written what Marjorie had called the unexpected name of " Sea View." They found their way through the dark passage into the dark bedroom. Mr. Bravery felt about for some moments for the matches. " I think she hides them on purpose," he said. 238 BY THE OCEAN But Marjorie did not answer. " Will you ask her not to hide them on purpose, darling ? " He put his hand on the matches, and just then he wondered that Marjorie had nothing to say. " Are you all right, Marjorie ? " he asked sharply. She said : "I think so," in so strained a voice that he had a moment's agony of mind until he had struck the light and could look at her. Then he saw her sitting down on the edge of the bed, still the same, still his Marjorie, only very pale. He helped her to her bed. As she lay there she said : " I have had no pain like this for months. Don't be anxious, Raymond. We know all about it, my doctor and I. Do I look very bad ? Well, I feel bad, but why, my dear, I may live until I'm eighty." " Yes, you will, you will," he cried madly, and buried his head at her feet. She told him what to do for her, and he insisted on fetching the doctor. The doctor came and went, and the hours passed until midnight. She had lain still on her bed. Her pain was great, but she spoke to him now and then. She seemed to be a little embarrassed in her pain, as if she had been discovered with a surreptitious lover. She 239 LOT BARROW said : "I shall be quite all right in the morning " (as if she were promising to be good), " but I think we will go to London to-morrow." It was a fact that when the morning came she had recovered, but now when she said that would be so, he felt nothing but incredulous despair. He thought those were words of false comfort. He felt he was face to face, as he had been before in his life, with inevitable, un- avoidable calamity. At midnight she appeared to be in an extremity of pain. Mr. Bravery knew what to do. He poured some fluid from a small bottle, and took the glass to her. She looked at him with her strange eyes. He raised her head, and she moaned. As he put the glass to her lips he had a sub- conscious memory of the same action so often performed before, when he stood by his mother's bedside. Once more, then, he was confronted with the unendurable, and what was he to do ? Allowing that he had an acute sensibility to pain, and that he loved, it is clear that he must somehow or somewhere find an allaying thought, or else this spectacle of the loved one suffering meant madness for his brain. He was still a man of weak faith. The 240 BY THE OCEAN faith his happiness had brought him was untried. Now it did not stand the trial. As he stood beside her, his look hardly changed, but there flowed into his being something that was alleviation, like a stream that numbed with coldness. Marjorie had drunk. " What are you thinking, Raymond ? " she whispered. He realised in a moment that his guardian angel was not satisfied. " Not now, darling," he said. " If I must tell you my thoughts, let me tell you later." He was like a man who is overwhelmed with shame to be discovered by a friend in a drug-habit, but who in the midst of his shame secretly continues to satisfy his craving. He was ashamed that his angel should have seen into his mind, but he could not banish that icy, numbing stream he could not yet. It was so merciful. " Very well," said Marjorie. " Later, when it is light." She was soon asleep. Mr. Bravery watched her with amazement as it dawned on him how peaceful her slumber was. To happiness at any rate he was now no stran- ger, and he took this fresh realisation of it home to his heart, and spurned the deadly comfort he had allowed there. If all 241 B LOT BARROW things were unreal, then this happiness and love of his were unreal. But they were real, as he knew. Never again should a thought of his wrong their substantiality. Marjorie woke at dawn. " Pull up the blind, Raymond dear, and put out the light," she said. He obeyed. He pulled up the blind and saw the great grey sea. Cold, new light came into the room, and they heard the grinding of the stony beach. He stood by the bed. " I have been asleep," she said. "It is all gone. Kiss me." " Marjorie," he said, not stooping to her, " I wish to God I was not ashamed before you." ' Tell me what you thought," she said. He knew that she was trying to be gentle. " I thought I thought . There is a dreadful phrase, Marjorie, that comes into my mind. It seems to make things possible for me. At least, it has in the past, but it never will again. No, never I swear that. I said, Marjorie : ' Thank God, it doesn't really matter ' ! Can you forgive me ? Can you kiss me ? Because I know I was wrong." She turned away her head, with wounded angry tears, though even then she felt the 242 BY THE OCEAN forgiveness springing up in her heart. She was not perfect, and for a few moments she did not welcome that forgiveness. " My life ! " he said, as he still stood a little way from the bed. " I have sworn it can never be again." She looked at his face, damp and wan with conflict and remorse. And now she suddenly discovered her forgiveness which, in spite of her disregard of it, had grown into something very big and perfect. 243 CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN : THE HOSTESS IT was a bitter east-wind-day when Mr. Bravery and his wife came once more to Wiggonholt Farm. They stepped out of the train on to the gravel platform in a deep winter darkness, which the sparse station-lamps did not pretend to cope with. The two or three figures on the platform were all familiar ; there was the old station master, whose friendship you can only purchase with a coin ; the bent and de- liberate porter, from whom no coin could purchase speed ; there was Mr. Green of the 'bus, thoroughly fortified inside against the cold, eager for passengers, and not scorning the twopenny parcels ; but there was no one to meet them from the farm. This was soon explained. There was no moon and not a single star. Away to the east there was a suffused glow in the sky over Lewington. They were in a great darkness, when the feeble station lights had been left behind. The 'bus floundered slowly along on the hard road for two and a half miles, and stopped at the 244 THE HOSTESS Farm. In the passage window there stood a lamp, and Lot's face peered out beside it. They saw her face distinctly, with the lamp-light on it ; it was of an almost astonishing beauty ; unconscious, eager, innocent, serious looks all helped to make up the haunting beauty of that face in the window. They were both involuntarily smiling to her there, long before she could see their faces in her dark outlook. As soon as she distinguished them she ran to the door and opened it. " I thought I'd watch out," she said. " Mrs. Child's in trouble, because Mr. Child's bad." She led them into the old sitting-room. By her manner and actions she seemed to be a more responsible person in the house- hold than she used to be a kind of hostess. She put a fresh log on the glowing fire, and suggested to Marjorie that she should take off her coat. In answer to their questions she told them more of Mr. Child. He had been ill only two days, and they thought he would be better very soon. Only to- night he did not seem so well. " Dr. Lund says it's pneumonia now," said Lot. She spoke of Mr. Child's illness in a very business-like way. Her own troubles had always been so vital to her 245 LOT BARROW that she made a natural distinction between them and other people's troubles, for which she had a kind of recipe of sympathy. It was a good practical sympathy which she had for other people's woes ; but by her own she was struck down. " You know what it is," she said know- ingly, screwing up her eyes a little, in a con- fidential way she had, and nodding her head; "it's all this loss and trouble they've had that's at the bottom of it. That's what brought on the pneumonia, if you ask me." Of course Mr. Bravery had certain know- ledge about germs which prevented him from agreeing with all his heart. " And I have to thank you, sir," Lot went on, " for the present you gave me. I never thought anyone would give me anything like that. I'm very grateful." That very air of consequence which had been gradually growing upon her since she had become the possessor of property helped now to make her brief and self-possessed in her thanks. She was self-possessed surprisingly so. Only, hushed away, out of sight and sound, there was the pain of her loss. Had she let that pain find utterance she would have bemoaned her fate ; that which seemed to her so desirable, and to which she had once been so near, was now removed 246 THE HOSTESS from her. But marriage seemed to have removed him so effectually and so far that the pain was kept under ; and she looked at Mr. Bravery with interest, feeling and admiration, but with a subsided love. Mrs. Child came into the sitting-room. " Humphrey's with his father," she said, in a hurried, low voice. " I just came down to see if you were all right. Lot will do what she can for you. To-morrow I hope I shall be able to make you more comfort- able. No, he's not better yet I couldn't say he is. But he'll start turning the corner now any time. I've never had him quite like this before." She passed her hand over her tired eyes. " It seems as if we've been unlucky, doesn't it ? " she said. Marjorie went to her side, and put an arm round her. " Don't trouble about us, my dear," she said tenderly. " Forget that we are here until we can all be happy together again. Raymond, dear, help Mrs. Child upstairs ; she is tired and weak." " / will," said Lot. " I get you up in no time, don't I, Mrs. Child ? I think I'd better, sir ; she's used to me." And indeed Mrs. Child seemed to submit to Lot's strong arm with a kind of familiar dependence. 247 LOT BARROW Lot soon came again and knocked at the door. " I'll do my best to make your dinner nice for you," she said, and her new responsible manner was relieved by a little diffident smile. " I think I know what you like. I ought to, oughtn't I ? " she laughed. "It's not as if I was the strange girl that will soon be here." " Why, you're not leaving Mrs. Child, are you, Lot ? " said Marjorie. " Oh, yes," said Lot. " I gave Mrs. Child a month's notice the fifteenth of October. I'm only staying on to oblige her, you know." That miracle had come to pass ! " I can hardly think of the farm without you, Lot," said Marjorie. " What are you going to do ? " " You seem to forget, Marjorie," said Mr. Bravery, smiling, " that Lot can retire to her own mansion." " Aren't men clever ? " said Marjorie, addressing Lot. " Why, what does he think you would do there ? " " Well, he isn't so very far wrong," said Lot, half -apologetically, because Marjorie was so attractive to her, and she did not understand that it would not upset Marjorie in the very least to be put in the wrong. 248 THE HOSTESS " There was some talk of me and Jennie Parker settling down there at Memory Cottage and taking lodgers. Jennie says people are wild to get nice comfortable rooms in the summer-time. She's been in London." " Oh, I think it is the most excellent idea," said Marjorie with enthusiasm. " Raymond, think of occasional week-ends there in the winter. Would you have us, Lot?" " I should think so ! I couldn't do it alone, you see. And Jennie Parker hap- pened to have left her last place and come home. So I asked her if she'd join in, and she said she wouldn't mind. The lady where she was in her last place but one said she'd come for Christmas, so that will make a start. And Mrs. Child is always going to recommend us when she's full up herself. Of course she'll want everyone she can get now." " Have you any money put by ? " asked Marjorie. "Yes," said Lot, "a little. I haven't had much to spend it on." " It sounds to me very happy," said Marjorie. " And we will speak of it and help to make it successful," said Mr. Bravery. 249 LOT BARROW " It's all owing to you, sir," said Lot gratefully. And turning to Marjorie she said : " And you've been so kind to me too ; you always speak to me so kindly." She was still standing by the door, and she looked at them both where they stood at the fire, holding out their hands to the heat. Newly-lit wood hissed noisily there, and foaming drops fell lightly on the hearth. They both had their faces turned to Lot. She looked so grand as she stood there, her large, strong body peculiarly still. Her hair was disarranged, and some of it hung in dark strips down her cheeks. Her eyes looked very dark and big. " It'll make a difference if I can think you'll sometimes be there. Because of course I shall feel rather lonely sometimes, I daresay. But this doesn't look like getting dinner, does it ? I mustn't starve you, must I ? " she said facetiously. Later, when the husband and wife were going to bed, and they wished Lot good- night, she said : " I shan't be going to bed ; I'm up for the night." A little look of shame came over Mar jorie's face. Mr. Bravery was familiar with that look now, and it always went peculiarly to his heart. It came because she beheld 250 THE HOSTESS Lot taking on herself a hardship which she herself was to be spared. But what was touching in her was that she made no comment on her inability to be of use, but continued to walk upstairs with that gentle little guilty look. Mr. Bravery hurried up the dark stairs after her, and took her in his arms. Lot went into the kitchen. " Humphrey," she said to the man sit- ting idle there, " we must keep up the fire. I am going to cook you some eggs ; you will eat them, won't you ? " she asked pleadingly. " No, no," said Humphrey heavily, " don't you ask me to eat anything, because I couldn't do it. You go to bed, Lot." " I won't go to bed. I'm going to stay with you, Humphrey." She put her arm on his chair, and bent her head down and sideways to look into his face. " Won't you like that ? " In the night Mr. Child died. 251 CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: BY THE FIRE A WEEK later there was a day of cold incessant rain, which fell all day at that pitch generally only maintained for a shower. However much we may be rain- lovers, this is a gloomy day. The farm was in semi-darkness ; there was little enough light anywhere, but here some of the blinds had never been pulled up. Humphrey was alone. His aunt, Mrs. Cattermole, had come from the other side of the county for his father's funeral, and Mrs. Child had been prevailed upon to go back with her for a few days. Lot had gone to stay with Jennie and Jennie's mother in the village. Humphrey had been out since early morning in his waterproof coat and hat and boots, looking after the live stock. That was his only duty now to look after the stock until the new tenant of the farm should come and make him an offer for all that was there. He had half-expected the purchaser to come to-day, but the weather had no doubt put him off his ten miles' 252 BY THE FIRE drive. Still, Humphrey, as he sat in the kitchen, felt a vague expectancy of the sound of the bell. It was twelve o'clock, and twelve o'clock looked just the same as all the other hours on that unvarying day. The gloom did not even lift or deepen, and the rain fell with long, extraordinary precision just at the very climax of what steady rain can do. Humphrey wished this twilight was the dusk of evening, so that bed-time might be near, and the chance of oblivion until a new day. At certain times it seemed to Humphrey that oblivion was the best thing on earth even such oblivion as his father's in his grave. He suffered cruelly from impotent grief on account of his separation from his father. Now that he could no longer make amends, that cold relationship between them, which Humphrey had always en- forced, seemed to him a most damnable thing. If he could have had only a few hours in which to show himself different he would be less dreadful to himself. It was so likely that his father had not realised or had not fully understood his tenderness at the end. It is hard to face life with regrets like these. Humphrey had been alone for two days, and there had been 253 LOT BARROW only too much time and opportunity for this grief to fix itself on his heart, without regard to any other thought. This grief was also excessively bitter because it poisoned what would otherwise have been a deep and even holy joy. Humphrey was a free man. What re- mained of the lease of Wiggonholt Farm had been easily disposed of. And though his father had lost money, there would be enough from the sale of the stock to enable his mother to live comfortably for some time. There was nothing to bind Hum- phrey now ; he knew his mother would be glad for him to go to go and fulfil the desire of his heart. And so Humphrey knew that in the recesses of his mind there was something bright and glorious, but he could not stir from his close, overwhelming unhappiness. The bell sounded its uneasy clang over his head, and he got up and went to the front door. Lot stood there, looking pale and cold, and her clothes were drenched with rain. He pulled her in. " Lot Barrow ! " he exclaimed. " I am glad you have come." " I thought I would come and look after you a little bit," said Lot. " Has Mr. Sykes been ? " 254 BY THE FIRE " No, he's never been," said Humphrey. " Oh, do make up a better fire than that," said Lot, as they came into the kitchen. " Because that would never dry me." She took off her things ; her hair had got very wet under her little hat, and she squeezed it in her fingers. " There's news about Jennie," she said, while Humphrey put on sticks and coal. " She's had a letter from a young man in London." " What, someone who wants to marry her ? " " Yes, that's it. She never thought he would. He didn't say a word when she came away ; but now he's written." " And what's she going to say ? " " Oh, he's very nicely off," said Lot. " She told me all about him a little while ago, for a dead secret." " Now, Lot, come and sit down here, and put your feet out." He knelt down and took off her heavy wet shoes. " That rather upsets your plan, doesn't it, Lot ? " " It looks as if it would, doesn't it ? " she said, a little nervously. ;c I suppose I shall have to find somebody else." " I hope Jennie's got some one decent. There's a blaze for you, Lot." 255 LOT BARROW " Yes, but I came to look after you. I want to get you a good dinner. You look so thin and worn." "I'm sick to death of myself," said Humphrey. " I wonder if anyone ever had so much to regret as I have. Lot, it's dreadful that I can never speak to father again, never make it up to him." He was kneeling by the fire, and he buried his face in her lap in his grief. She understood him at once. She laid her hand on his hair, and stroked it with a sweet, suppressed shyness. " Why, my dear, you must remember that you have been a good man, and have given up things." He raised his head and looked at her. ' I haven't been good," he said. " Yes," Lot contradicted him. " Just think. You have given up things you wanted badly." ' Things ? ' : " Yes. You gave up going to sea. You could have gone. And then, you know, for another thing, you gave up trying to kiss me," said Lot, blushing deeply," though you wanted to : you wouldn't kiss me even if I let you." The blush soon vanished from her cheek and left her very pale again when she 256 BY THE FIRE realised that Humphrey only attended to the first part of what she said. " Don't you see that I spoilt it all for him ! " he exclaimed. " I did just give it up because I had to, and then I made him pay for it. That isn't goodness ; that's wickedness." " Oh, but he knows and understands now," said Lot, so eager to comfort him. " He knows you are sorry." " I don't see how he does," said Humphrey. " Emily he does, Humphrey, and he wants you not to grieve." He looked at her with sudden hope in his face. " He'd only worry, if he was here, to see me grieving. He always wanted to see me happy. Oh Lot, Lot," he said, breaking down again, " if only I had just gone down to the Sheaves with him the last time he asked me ! But I didn't." " There, there ! " she said, soothingly. " He never thought one half so hardly of you as you think of yourself ; he knew you were disappointed. He wanted to see you happy. So be happy, Humphrey." " Yes, I will," he said, giving her his rare smile. He felt her feet. " You are dry now, Lot, my darling, my comforter. Oh," he said suddenly, as he jumped to his feet, 257 s LOT BARROW " there is happiness ahead for me then. At last ! " Lot sat still for a moment by the fire, and then as he did not come to her again or say anything more, she got up to get some dinner ready. While the meal was cooking she straight- ened the kitchen and went down to the dairy to see the condition of the milkpans. She and Jennie were coming the next day to make the butter. The dairy felt damp and cold, and she was glad to return to her warm task by the fire. The meal was soon ready, and she called Humphrey, who, under the influence of some excitement, was pacing restlessly up and down. " Isn't it gloomy in this kitchen ? " said Lot. " Don't you think so ? Let's have one candle on the table, so that we can see. Are you hungry ? Take a good piece of bread with it. I've got some more broth on the fire when you want it." Suddenly she looked at him with an extraordinarily brilliant yet softened look from her won- derful eyes. She had put the candle near her face. " Isn't it nice together ? " she said. " Yes, Lot," he said, looking at her and looking away again. " Yes, it is," he sighed. 258 BY THE FIRE " Oh, dear, my hair is still damp," she said. " Look at these bits all round here." " I should like to see you always in front of me just like that," said Humphrey. " I shall miss you so. I shall be thinking of you." Lot faltered hi the business of feeding herself, but Humphrey continued his meal, quietly and gravely, but certainly with appetite. Lot put food into her mouth, but once there it was extraordinarily hard to dispose of. She stooped tremblingly over her plate, and at last got up and went to the fire. When Humphrey had stopped eating she said : " Do you mean you're going away ? " " Yes, Lot ; I'm going away to sea." " Is that what you want most in the world ? " " You know how I've wanted it." " Yes," she said, " I know. But it seems as if it can't be true that you want it more than anything else." " There's only you that I want besides, and you don't want me, my darling. And oh, Lot, it's so fine to be going ! Do you know, I've never gone to bed at night without thinking of it, and I've never got up in the morning without thinking of it. And the dreams I've had ! It will always 259 LOT BARROW seem a bit strange to me on board ship, I daresay, because of all the dreams I've had. I shan't be able to forget them ; everything will keep reminding me ; and everything will be a little different. Good Lord, what a joke ! " He gave a sudden happy shout of laughter, and Lot, to her own amazement, laughed, too, on the same note sudden, unexplained, heroic laughter, as brave and as tender as anything on earth. Soon Humphrey was grave again. " But there's you," he said. " There's you and mother both to see settled first. What will happen to you, Lot, now that Jennie is going to get married ? " " We must think," said Lot. She clasped her hands in front, and bent her head a little on one side in a thinking attitude, and by the emphasis of her voice and gesture she meant to atone for and conceal some lack of concentration in her distracted mind. " Yes," she repeated, " we must think, mustn't we ? " It was so clear to her now that for his true happiness Humphrey must go to sea, though she had come with her head full of a different conception. She saw that it sad- dened him to think of leaving her yes, she was not blind to that ; she saw just how much he was happy, and just how 260 much he was sad. He was far, far happier than he was sad. " Can't you think of someone you would like to try and make happy, and have near you ? " he asked, a little wistfully. Her heart leapt to hear him ; she whispered : " Who ? " " Mother." " Oh. Why, of course. Would she come ? " " That's what I'd like. For you both. For you to be at the Cottage together. Would you do that, Lot ? " " Of course I should be glad if she was to come," said Lot. When Lot had cleared away the dinner things Humphrey said : " Don't go yet, Lot. Wait a bit, and I'll walk with you. I must stay here until dark so that there's no chance of Mr. Sykes coming." "All right, I'll wait," said Lot. She went and lay back in Mrs. Child's chair. Humphrey got out some paper and pen and ink, and sat down to write a letter in connexion with his future career. He was a laborious writer, and for a long time Lot lay and listened to the sound his pen made. It was dusk, and he had lit the lamp, but Lot lay with her back to it, and her face in 261 LOT BARROW shadow. Tiredness crept on her with such a swift advance that there was not even time or space for an uneasy thought to start her into wakefulness. While Hum- phrey wrote his letter Lot fell asleep. 262 CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: THE LAMP GOES OUT LOT woke because the lamp went out, with the usual salute of tiny explosive splutters. It was not a loud noise, but a noise that had always been associated with a certain amount of emotion, because when in past days the lamp had gone out, Lot was the guilty party, the unwise virgin; and those little splutters were connected with upbraiding and shame and anger important things of that kind. The noise that has at one time produced some emotion in us is the noise that will wake us for certain. Her sleep had been most uneasy. It had been one long foreboding of her parting with Humphrey. But that parting had seemed in dreams even far more ghastly than it had seemed in life. But not ghastly in advance of truth : the very essence of that horror, which lasted after her awakening, was its truth, recognisable, unveiled. There was nothing to cast away when she woke up, no relief to be had ; her sleep had been an awakening. She 263 LOT BARROW could not say : "It was only a dream," and calmly take up with truth again. She had her own simple powers of self- sacrifice, which came to her in the form of sudden inspiration at times of crisis. On such an impulse she had bravely taken her blow from Mr. Bravery and run like lightning to destroy the letter to Mrs. Child. On another such impulse she had laughed with Humphrey in his joy because he was at last to be a sailor. But that impulse vanished now before her present love and need. Duty and sacrifice might have a hundred suggestions to make, but love was going to make her call on him to stay. Humphrey had not stirred when the lamp went out. His letter was important to him. Perhaps he had been doubtful about the turn of a phrase, and continued quietly to meditate. Or there was even the chance that the very decisiveness of his action of writing had made him pause and wonder. Perhaps as he sat there still in the dark he discovered that he could not leave her, and resolved to stay and win her. Ah, to be near him if such a thought were in his mind ! To be near him and holding his hand, to drive the thought deeper home and not allow it to leave him ! If only 264 THE LAMP GOES OUT she could once catch him a little alienated from his beloved sea, a little unfaithful to that love, she could then surely have him and hold him for good. She slid down from her chair. There were only two or three sparks left in the fireplace, and the room was quite dark. She slid down on to the floor. Humphrey was not far off only just on the other side of the table. Lot was on her knees, and on them she moved along, feeling her way with her hands on the edge of the table. With her, great hope and joy had hitherto always been the forerunners of disaster ; joy was a pinnacle surrounded by abysmal depths. She did not think of it so, but she must involuntarily, in the midst of hope, have faint misgivings, because experience dictated them. And, not being free from a kind of unconscious superstition, she must even feel a faint guilt, as if joy were in itself an evil which providence revenged. But nothing could quiet the hope which made her heart beat quickly as she crept along. Unless he actually thrust her away, unless he actually spurned her, she was safe. And he would not spurn her, he could not she would take his hand so lovingly and imploringly. In the darkness of that room there was 265 LOT BARROW concealed a great loveliness, and that was Lot's face as she came to Humphrey's chair. Love, and humility, and tenderness, and the desire to be fair, were all there in her face beauties if only they could be shone upon, like glowing yellow flowers in a field at night. She touched the chair, and felt for his hand. There are moments of such astonishment that we break a life-long habit of thought, and our brains are like a heart that fails to beat. No hand was there, no knee, no face, no shoulder, no Humphrey. She started to feel so cautiously, and then madly swept her arm about the chair. She felt betrayed, abandoned ; and she called to him in a voice of fear ; but there was no answer. She got up quickly, beginning to cry with little shuddering sobs ; she could not stay in that room, because she was frightened, and she went out as fast as the darkness would allow, like a trotting, whimpering child. As she went she called Humphrey's name every now and then in a voice that was angry, and grew more and more angry, because, with her, fear was a great anger and a great indignation. She found her way to the back-door, which was ajar, and passed out into the yard. The rain was pouring down just at the same pitch 266 as when she had walked to the Farm in the morning, but now perhaps it fell a little more silently, because the earth was no longer crisp, but sodden, to receive it. Lot heard Humphrey's voice in the road beyond the yard-door. With a sudden cheerful shout he hailed the postman who was coming by on his bicycle. By the passing of the postman Lot knew that the time was six o'clock : a rare, absolute ignorance of the time had been contributing to her alarm. She had almost felt that she might have been sleeping there for days ; and Humphrey might be far away, or indifferent, or dead ! When she heard Humphrey shout, she ceased her whimper- ing and stood still. Suddenly the bicycle- lamp cast a yellow circle of light on the road. The postman slowed down. The yellow circle crept on to Humphrey, who held his letter in an outstretched arm. " Have you got it, postman ? Right-oh. Don't lose that one though you lose all the rest." " Then it's for your lady-love," said the postman, as he worked up speed again. " Better than that," Humphrey shouted after him, and Lot heard him give a little quiet laugh to himself as he strode into the yard and shut the door. And then as 267 LOT BARROW he walked towards the house-door and, without knowing she was there, came close to Lot where she stood breathlessly still in the yard, she heard him sigh a long, troubled, regretful sigh. She knew that was for her, but she had just heard him laugh. " I'm here, Humphrey," she said. " The light went out in the kitchen." " Did it ? I suppose it thought it might, as you were asleep." " I never heard you get up and go out," said Lot. Her passion of fear had subsided, and there was only a faint sound of injury in her voice. " I crept out so as you shouldn't," said Humphrey gently. This gave her a glimpse which she could hardly endure of his tenderness to his secondary love. "I'm ready to go now," she said. " Are you ? " In a few minutes they were walking along the road towards the village lights, with wet faces, and their ankles splashed from the puddles. " Of course you'll get all kinds of weather out there, I suppose ? " said Lot, conver- sationally. " Rather ! " said Humphrey. " Plenty 268 THE LAMP GOES OUT of weather. A man I met once who'd been seventeen years at sea said he'd never known one day quite like another, not exactly. And there's more weather to come, this man said, and it's all different." Humphrey rambled on, pleased with his topic. " Of course, you know, Lot, at sea you can't afford not to notice the weather ; well, for one thing, it's all round you. ..." 269 CHAPTER THIRTY : BREAK OF DAY GUS SCHNEIDER had a new little brother. Mrs. Schneider said that Gus had set his heart on a little sister. If so, he took his disappointment like a man. To the gross material eye, the only way in which his feelings appeared to be involved was in a practical appreciation of certain unwonted delicacies to be found in his mother's room. The mother and child both being in- disposed, Mr. Schneider, perfect husband and father, was distressed. He decided to send them away for a change. He expressed himself in plain terms as being willing to put down forty pounds for a holiday that would restore his wife and the child to perfect health. Every penny of forty pounds ; and, as he remarked on innumerable occasions to his acquaintances and friends, that was practically giving them the run of England. Mrs. Schneider, who took all her husband's favours with calm security, was herself obliged to confess that he couldn't have said more. Having the run of England, then, Mrs. 270 BREAK OF DAY Schneider had made herself acquainted with the booklets (illustrated in colour) of about a hundred different bracing resorts. Her bed was littered with them. She compared one intense blue sea with another intense blue sea, and the lesser blue was put aside. Supposing she had been a person who liked to see a picture of grey seas with white sea-gulls flying over them, she would have had to go unsatisfied. But she was not. She liked them blue and she got them blue. Perhaps she overdid her zealous interest in the relative merits of these exploited resorts. Or perhaps too much power to go where she wished and spend what she wished (because you can speak like that of forty pounds) deadened desire. At any rate, she decided eventually to go to Memory Cottage, where she knew Mrs. Child and Lot Barrow were established, ready to supply board and attendance at a sum that forty pounds could afford to laugh at. Gus was reluctantly left at home, because Mrs. Schneider was going for a change ; and Gus was a little boy with a peculiar power of making change null and void, even though it were a journey from here to the Antipodes. So he had to part with his dear little brother, which he consented 271 LOT BARROW to do, bravely concealing his emotion. Whereas if it had been a sister Gus would, Mrs. Schneider said, never have let her go. In early December, therefore, Mrs. Schneider, with her baby and a nurse, was at Memory Cottage, attended by busy Lot Barrow, and by Mrs. Child who, with a sharpened face and querulous manner, sat for a great part of the day in the same old chair. The chair looked strangely alien in the new surroundings ; and the worn padding and sunken seat, which had some- how seemed unnoticeable in the old home, were conspicuous here. The chair was in the kitchen, placed between the fire and the window. There was but little activity for Mrs. Child to see, as she sat by the hour looking out of the square-paned sash window. A footpath ran slantways over the next field ; a few school-children passed along it twice a day, and a few labourers. But there was no 'bus, and life is difficult without a 'bus if you have been used to one. In fact, Mrs. Child had a great deal to complain of, and she complained of it all. She grumbled so much, in a voice grown weak and querulous, that Lot might well have lost patience. But happily Lot was equal to the occasion, and was ready to tell 272 BREAK OF DAY anyone, half-closing her eyes, and nodding her head in her confidential way, that it was trouble that made Mrs. Child like this. Mrs. Schneider had been only a few days at the cottage when Humphrey left his home to go to sea. He had continued to stay at the farm when Lot and his mother had moved into Lot's cottage. On his last morning he came at break of day to say good-bye to them. Lot had been awake since the darkest, coldest hours of the night, and though, as they passed, the hours seemed interminably long, in looking back they all seemed like one. Just as it began to be light she heard a sound outside, and she leapt out of bed and flew to the window, with a wild foolish fear that Humphrey might be going instead of coming. She lifted up the window and looked below; Humphrey was standing there, waiting to be let in. Lot felt the unearthliness of that hour of dawn, and said in a voice that toned with the gloom and cold and stillness : " Wait a minute, Humphrey just a minute." Her long hair hung down the weather- beaten watt. She continued to look at him for a moment, and then drew herself in and shut the window. 273 T LOT BARROW Mrs. Child was also astir. Together, she and Lot made a fire, and soon had tea and bread and butter, sitting, with Hum- phrey, round the table drawn close to the fire in the kitchen. Upstairs Mrs. Schneider sang with her unexpectedly moving voice while she dressed. The words and the tune made Lot's heart ache, as they sounded faintly in the kitchen. " I loved you in life too little, I love you in death too well." After that, it was not very long before Humphrey walked quietly off, not to be seen again for years. The conversation, during breakfast, and up till the very minute of his going, consisted of Mrs. Child's repeated anxious enquiries as to whether he had got this or that in his box, and his patient replies. She recapitulated the several articles of a man's clothing ; though she had with her own hand prepared his things for him, she evidently feared that a world of sharpers had designs upon them. But her petty anxieties seemed to fall away from her when she clasped him to her breast, and called upon God to bless him. He shook hands with Lot, and was gone. Mrs. Schneider always started the day 274 BREAK OF DAY with a good appetite and fine spirits. Noticing a gloom, when she came down, she tried to dispel it by prophesying Humphrey's speedy return. ' He won't get drowned," she said, and suddenly awakened new fears in the other two women, whose thoughts had been fixed only on earthly separation. " He'll tire of it soon enough ; he'll be back here before before you can say Jack Robinson." Like many other people who in their talk make use of the homely idiom, Mrs. Schneider flouted any lurking suspicion that what she said was already a little familiar, by uttering it with a refreshing laugh which seemed to renovate or recreate the phrase, and even to apologise for saying something that was almost too startlingly apt for good taste in ordinary conversation. So when she made the allusion to Jack Robinson she laughed as with the appro- priateness of having hit upon an apt remark, the authorship of which she was willing to disclaim, however, since she made no pretensions to be clever, like some people. Later in the day, Mrs. Child went upstairs while Lot attended to household things. Upstairs there were two large trunks, beside which Mrs. Child sometimes sat, and turned over clothes hers and her husband's 275 LOT BARROW and photographs and letters. Near the bottom of one of these trunks she came upon a thick grey vest ; it was knitted, and made for a man ; and when Mrs. Child caught sight of an edge of it in the box, she snatched it out and gazed at it. Then she carried it down to Lot, muttering to herself as she went with difficulty down the stairs. " Well, Lot," she said, " what do you think of this ? " Having got the habit of indulging in not very real grievances, she took a kind of deadly pleasure in this substantial one. Lot looked at the garment held out by Mrs. Child. Her eye-lids were reddened, and in her hand she held a little tight, damp ball, which was her handkerchief. She was a little astray, and did not immediately recognise the disaster. " What is it, Mrs. Child ? " she asked, weakly, feeling a kind of nervous disability to grasp facts. "It's only Humphrey's new warm vest," said Mrs. Child, bitingly. Lot was duly roused. " Oh, dear, however could he have come to leave that behind ? " " For the reason that it was in my box,'* said Mrs. Child, with her grim satisfaction. " And if you ask me how it got there," she 276 BREAK OF DAY went on, disclaiming responsibility, " I shan't be able to give you an answer. I suppose it was put there by somebody who likes other people to go about cold. Well, so he mil go about cold." " He'll catch his death," said Lot. A wave of colour came over her face. " Mrs. Child, shall I go after him with it ? " Now Mrs. Child was accustomed to be humoured by Lot. In all her grumblings she knew she could count on something willing and unresentful in Lot to respond and condole. After all vicissitudes, that was their relation together. Because Mrs. Child had become petty with her grief, as so many people do ; and Lot was merciful and kind and motherly. But when Lot suggested going after Humphrey a journey of twenty miles to the sea-port even Mrs. Child felt that here was compliance carried a little too far. She even felt a touch of shame poor innocent-guilty thing that she was for all her perversity and pettish misery, and her shame softened her expression as she looked at Lot. " No," she said, " there isn't any cause for you to go as far as that. It won't make such a wonderful difference if we send it after him. Only he won't have a 277 LOT BARROW change, not if he gets wet through before he gets to port." ' I wouldn't mind going a bit really I wouldn't," said Lot, her face still a bright red. "It's no trouble, really. I could walk down to the station and get the next train. Really I shouldn't mind, and then he wouldn't catch cold." Lot changed her tactics. " Mrs. Child, may I go ? I should like to say good-bye to him again. There's something I forgot to say to him." Mrs. Child looked at her in slow per- plexity. " I don't know what you can have to say to him. I heard you say good-bye all right." " Yes, I did say good-bye," Lot conceded, and though she spoke reasonably she trembled now in her suspense. " But there's something I quite meant to tell him. I don't know how I came not to mention it. I suppose it went out of my head." " Well, don't ask me," said Mrs. Child, more normal now. " There isn't a person now on this earth as need ask my per- mission for anything." "I do think I'll go, then," said Lot, timidly, though there was a mountain of resolve in her heart. " I think I'll go off at once, if you can manage, Mrs. Child. I may just have some luck with the trains." 278 BREAK OF DAY She looked so big, and had such a serious, imperious look, that it would not have been difficult to imagine trains waiting at her bidding. 279 CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: LOT LOOKS OUT OF THE WINDOW IOT should have sat in her train until ^ it carried her right into the docks among the brown masts of ships. But in her ignorance she got out at the town station and found herself in the streets, where there seemed to be a very poor prospect of discovering a sea-faring man. She was so striking a figure, though clothed in her plain woollen dress of every day, that the couple of whom she made enquiries turned and watched her out of sight. They had, however, served the more useful purpose of discovering her mistake to her, and setting her upon her road. She had nearly two miles to walk, and she blamed herself (though she blamed herself now, as always, with a certain reserve of indulgence and excuse) for her stupidity. She was on her own side of the county, she had even passed close to her own village in the train ; and, now that it was too late, she remembered that years ago she had been to this town before, and had 280 LOT LOOKS OUT OF THE WINDOW known then of its separateness from the docks. ' But it's enough to drive one silly," she thought, in excuse for herself, " with all the trouble and worry I've passed through." When she had gone a mile she came to an inn, and with a certain indifference born of her suspense and anxiety, she hurried into the bar, to have it confirmed that she was on the right road. No one was drinking there, but a young man stood ready to serve who might come. " I want to get down to where the Arethusa starts," said Lot. " Am I going right ? " The young man stared at her for a moment and said : " Well ! If it isn't Lot Barrow ! " Lot recognised a fellow-villager, who in a year had changed from a boy into a man. She was startled by this unexpected contact with the past, and felt some inward resent- ment against him. And then she blushed deeply, in the old habit of shame, to think that he knew all about her. " Hallo, Tom," she said. " So you've come over here. I'm in a dreadful hurry. I've got a message for someone who's going on that boat." He took out his watch, which looked new. He compared it rather ostentatiously with the clock in the bar. 281 LOT BARROW " I don't know that you've got too much time before they start," he said. She paled again, in her passion of sus- pense. " Am I right ? Do I go straight ? " " I tell you what, Lot Barrow," he said, as he came with her to the door ; " anyone else might miss it, but all you've got to do is to run for it ; you run the same as you used to run over the hills. Don't I remem- ber you ! Yes, go straight on. Do you know the Sailors' Home ? " " No." " Well, you turn round by there," he said, as people will. " I'll run, but I never run now the same as I used to," she said, looking very sad. " I suppose I'm getting old. I feel such years older than I did over there." She nodded her head backwards towards their village. " Good-bye, Tom." But she ran. She ran with that deadly pain of suspense affecting all her body, so that her limbs ached too. She soon heard shouts behind her, but she thought she was being mocked at, and she did not heed them, and went straight on. But soon she stopped dead, and turned round. She had heard her name, and she knew the voice. 282 LOT LOOKS OUT OF THE WINDOW Two men were pursuing her, and one of them was Humphrey. Lot continued to stand quite still in her surprise ; the world seemed turned upside down. She had been pursuing Humphrey so fast, with a dreadful vision of him already gliding away from her on the separating water ; and now he was behind her. The strange man slackened speed, but Humphrey ran on until he was close to her. ' Lot ! " he said, " is anything wrong ? " " No," she said; " I came to bring you something your other grey vest. But I've been and forgotten it." He looked amazed. But he only asked her a little thing. " Why were you hurrying so ? " " They told me I shouldn't catch you." " We don't go for three hours." " I can't help that," she said, almost tearfully, as if she were being scolded. " They told me you were going at once." " Oh, we were to have gone earlier," he said rather absent-mindedly, while he still looked at her with a deep questioning. " That was changed. Lot, darling Lot, what brought you ? " I'll tell you," she said. " Only this man is coming." " I've been walking round with him, to 283 LOT BARROW kill the time. It was so hard to wait another three hours. I'll leave him now. . . I'll see you later," he called. " Right," said the stranger, turning away. " Don't be late ! " " You can trust not ! " said Humphrey, and he and Lot began to walk back, Lot feeling for a moment a kind of sickening misery that she had come at all. They went to the inn where Lot had so lately been, and where Tom accommodated them with a little wooden room, in which they could sit and talk. " I won't make you late," said Lot timidly. " Indeed I'll only be here for a few minutes, and then I'll go and catch a train back." " I can't help thinking there's something wrong, for you to have come all this way," said Humphrey, still questioning her. " If anything was to stop me now, I I'd never believe in God or anything again." " You put that out of your head," said Lot, with a kind of divine indulgence for him. " Nothing's going to stop you now. What I want to say hasn't got anything to do with stopping you." "Well, tell me." " I was so unhappy when you left. It seemed as if I only wanted to die. It isn't 284 LOT LOOKS OUT OF THE WINDOW true what he used to say I mean Mr. Bravery." " Are you still grieving after him ? " asked Humphrey. " No," said Lot ; " that isn't it," She was going through the ordeal of acting on the demands of an impulse when that impulse itself has long been cold. Her words were difficult to find ; and in the pain of that vanished impulse it was almost coldly that she said : " It seemed terrible that you had gone so far when I hadn't told you how I loved you." ' You love me, Lot ? " " Yes," she said, almost petulantly in her unhappiness ; "I've told you I do." He touched her hand and gradually took her into his arms. She cried there, as she clasped his broadness and his strength, because he was very precious to her. " I will come back to you, my little darling," he said. " I will come back some day." Lot loosened herself and turned to the window. " My life ! " she said in her low thrilling voice. She turned away from him just when her love was finding its most intense expression. When she said "My lif e ! " 285 LOT BARROW she looked, not at him, but out through the window at the cold, bleak highway. It was as if her love was something between herself and her own heart more than something between herself and him. As she went home in the train Lot kept up a kind of soliloquy which was addressed to Humphrey, but she was not dismayed that he was not there to hear. It was half- maternal and it was placid ; it was com- posed in a brain that was a little numbed, but not suffering by any means. " Now this is your first day, my boy," she said ; " make the most of it. There will be a fine lot of days for you yes, a fine lot, but a day will come which will be the last. " You looked a little pale and worried, but you will soon forget all about that when you have started, and the waves are underneath you. You will like the first night, and waking up in the morning. " I wonder if they have put enough on your bed. Have your overcoat lying at the foot, my darling boy, so that you can pull it over . . . ' THE END. 286 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles Thi*ook is DUE on the last date stamped below. rp x d Form L9-Series 4939 A 000127414 1