Jerrold was silent.

Presently he said, "She wants Sutton's farm. Sutton's dying. I shall
give it to her when he's dead."

"You think that'll make up?"

"No, Colin, I don't. Supposing we don't talk about it any more."

"All right. I say, when's Maisie coming home?"

"God only knows. I don't."

He wondered how much Colin knew.


iii

February had gone. They were in the middle of March, and still Maisie
had not come back.

She wrote sweet little letters to him saying she was sorry to be so long
away, but her mother wanted her to stay on another week. When Jerrold
wrote asking her to come back (he did this so that he might feel that he
had really played the game) she answered that they wouldn't let her go
till she was rested, and she wasn't quite rested yet. Jerrold mustn't
imagine she was the least bit ill, only rather tired after the winter's
racketing. It would be heavenly to see him again.

Then when she was rested her mother got ill and she had to go with her
to Torquay. And at Torquay Maisie stayed on and on.

And Jerrold didn't imagine she had been the least bit ill, or even very
tired, or that Lady Durham was ill. He preferred to think that Maisie
stayed away because she wanted to, because she cared about her people
more than she cared about him. The longer she stayed the more
obstinately he thought it. Here was he, trying to play the game, trying
to be decent and keep straight, and there was Maisie leaving him alone
with Anne and making it impossible for him.

Anne had been back at the Farm a week and he had not been to see her.
But Maisie's last letter made him wonder whether, really, he need try
any more. He was ill and miserable. Why should he make himself ill and
miserable for a woman who didn't care whether he was ill and miserable
or not? Why shouldn't he go and see Anne? Maisie had left him to her.

And on Sunday morning, suddenly, he went.

There had been a sharp frost overnight. Every branch and twig, every
blade of grass, every crinkle in the road was edged with a white fur of
rime. It crackled under his feet. He drank down the cold, clean air like
water. His whole body felt cold and clean. He was aware of its strength
in the hard tension of his muscles as he walked. His own movement
exhilarated and excited him. He was going to see Anne.

Anne was not in the house. He went through the yards looking for her. In
the stockyard he met her coming up from the sheepfold, carrying a young
lamb in her arms. She smiled at him as she came.

She wore her farm dress, knee breeches and a thing like an old trench
coat, and looked superb. She went bareheaded. Her black hair was brushed
up from her forehead and down over her ears, the length of it rolled in
on itself in a curving mass at the back. Over it the frost had raised a
crisp web of hair that covered its solid smoothness like a net. Anne's
head was the head of a hunting Diana; it might have fitted into the
sickle moon.

The lamb's queer knotted body was like a grey ligament between its hind
and fore quarters. It rested on Anne's arms, the long black legs
dangling. The black-faced, hammer-shaped head hung in the hollow of her
elbow.

"This is Colin's job," she said.

"What are you doing with it?"

"Taking it indoors to nurse it. It's been frozen stiff, poor darling. Do
you mind looking in the barn and seeing if you can find some old sacks
there?"

He looked, found the sacks and carried them, following her into the
kitchen. Anne fetched a piece of old blanket and wrapped the lamb up.
They made a bed of the sacks before the fire and laid it on it. She
warmed some milk, dipped her fingers in it and put them into the lamb's
mouth to see if it would suck.

"I didn't know they'd do that," he said.

"Oh, they'll suck anything. When you've had them a little time they'll
climb into your lap like puppies and suck the buttons on your coat. Its
mother's dead and we shall have to bring it up by hand."

"I doubt if you will."

"Oh yes, I shall save it. It can suck all right. You might tell Colin
about it. He looks after the sick lambs."

She got up and stood looking down at the lamb tucked in its blanket,
while Jerrold looked at her. When she looked down Anne's face was
divinely tender, as if all the love in the world was in her heart. He
loved to agony that tender, downward-looking face.

She raised her eyes and saw his fixed on her, heavy and wounded, and his
face strained and drawn with pain. And again she was frightened.

"Jerrold, you _are_ ill. What is it?"

"Don't. They'll hear us." He glanced at the open door.

"They can't. He's in church and she's upstairs in the bedrooms."

"Can't you leave that animal and come somewhere where we can talk?"

"Come, then."

He followed her out through the hall and into the small, oak-panelled
dining-room. They sat down there in chairs that faced each other on
either side of the fireplace.

"What is it?" she repeated. "Have you got a pain?"

"A beastly pain."

"How long have you had it?"

"Ever since you went away. I lied when I told you it was Colin. It
isn't."

"What is it, then? Tell me. Tell me."

"It's not seeing you. It's this insane life we're leading. It's making
me ill. You don't know what it's been like. And I can't keep my promise.
I--I love you too damnably."

"Oh, Jerrold--does it hurt as much as that?"

"You know how it hurts."

"I don't want you to be hurt----But--darling--if you care for me like
that how could you marry Maisie?"

"Because I cared for you. Because I was so mad about you that nothing
mattered. I thought I might as well marry her as not."

"But if you didn't care for her?"

"I did. I do, in a way. Maisie's awfully sweet. Besides, it wasn't that.
You see, I was going out to France, and I thought I was bound to be
killed. Nobody could go on having the luck I'd had. I wanted to be
killed."

"So you were sure it would happen. You always thought things would
happen if you wanted them."

"I was absolutely sure. I was never more sold in my life than when it
didn't. Even then I thought it would be all right till Eliot told me.
Then I knew that if I hadn't been in such a damned hurry I might have
married you."

"Poor Maisie."

"Poor Maisie. But she doesn't know. And if she did I don't think she'd
mind much. I married her because I thought she cared about me--and
because I thought I'd be killed before I could come back to her--But she
doesn't care a damn. So you needn't bother about Maisie. And you won't
go away again?"

"I won't go away as long as you want me."

"That's all right then."

He looked at his watch.

"I must be off. They'll be coming out of church. I don't want them to
see me here now because I'm coming back in the evening. We shall have to
be awfully careful how we see each other. I say--I _may_ come this
evening, mayn't I?"

"Yes."

"Same time as last Sunday? You'll be alone then?"

"Yes." Her voice sounded as if it didn't belong to her. As if some other
person stronger than she, were answering for her.

When he had gone she called after him.

"Don't forget to tell Colin about the lamb."

She went upstairs and slipped off her farm clothes and put on the
brown-silk frock she had worn when he last came to her. She looked in
the glass and was glad that she was beautiful.


iv

She began to count the minutes and the hours till Jerrold came. Dinner
time passed.

All afternoon she was restless and excited. She wandered from room to
room, as if she were looking for something she couldn't find. She went
to and fro between the dining-room and kitchen to see how the lamb was
getting on. Wrapped in its blanket, it lay asleep after its meal of
milk. Its body was warm to the touch and under its soft ribs she could
feel the beating of its heart. It would live.

Two o'clock. She took up the novel she had been reading before Jerrold
had come and tried to get back into it. Ten minutes passed. She had read
through three pages without taking in a word. Her mind went back and
back to Jerrold, to the morning of today, to the evening of last Sunday,
going over and over the things they had said to each other; seeing
Jerrold again, with every movement, every gesture, the sudden shining
and darkening of his eyes, and his tense drawn look of pain. How she
must have hurt him!

It was his looking at her like that, as if she had hurt him--Anne never
could hold out against other people's unhappiness.

Half past two.

She kicked off her shoes, put on her thick boots and her coat, and
walked two miles up the road towards Medlicote, for no reason but that
she couldn't sit still. It was not four o'clock when she got back. She
went into the kitchen and looked at the lamb again.

She thought: Supposing Colin comes down to see it when Jerrold's here?
But he wouldn't come. Jerrold would take care of that. Or supposing the
Kimbers stayed in? They wouldn't. They never did. And if they did, why
not? Why shouldn't Jerrold come to see her?

Four o'clock struck. She had the fire lit in the big upstairs
sitting-room. Tea was brought to her there. Mrs. Kimber glanced at her
where she lay back on the couch, her hands hanging loose in her lap.

"You're tired after all your week's work, miss?"

"A little."

"And I dare say you miss Mr. Colin?"

"Yes, I miss him very much."

"No doubt he'll be coming down to see the lamb."

"Oh yes; he'll want to see the lamb."

"And you're sure you don't mind me and Kimber going out, miss?"

"Not a bit. I like you to go."

"It's a wonder to me," said Mrs. Kimber, "as you're not afraid to be
left alone in this 'ere house. But Kimber says, Miss Anne, she isn't
afraid of nothing. And I don't suppose you are, what with going out to
the war and all."

"There's not much to be afraid of here."

"That there isn't. Not unless 'tis people's nasty tongues."

"_They_ don't frighten me, Mrs. Kimber."

"No, miss. I should think not indeed. And no reason why they should."

And Mrs. Kimber left her.

A sound of pails clanking came from the yard. That was Minchin, the cow
man, going from the dairy to the cow sheds. Milking time, then. It must
be half past four.

Five o'clock, the slamming of the front door, the click of the gate, and
the Kimbers' voices in the road below as they went towards Wyck.

Anne was alone.

Only half an hour and Jerrold would be with her. The beating of her
heart was her measure of time now. What would have happened before he
had gone again? She didn't know. She didn't try to know. It was enough
that she knew herself, and Jerrold; that she hadn't humbugged herself or
him, pretending that their passion was anything but what it was. She saw
it clearly in its reality. They couldn't go on as they were. In the end
something must happen. They were being drawn to each other,
irresistibly, inevitably, nearer and nearer, and Anne knew that a moment
would come when she would give herself to him. But that it would come
today or to-morrow or at any fore-appointed time she did not know. It
would come, if it came at all, when she was not looking for it. She had
no purpose in her, no will to make it come.

She couldn't think. It was no use trying to. The thumping of her heart
beat down her thoughts. Her brain swam in a warm darkness. Every now and
then names drifted to her out of the darkness: Colin--Eliot--Maisie.

Maisie. Only a name, a sound that haunted her always, like a vague,
sweet perfume from an unknown place. But it forced her to think.

What about Maisie? It would have been awful to take Jerrold away from
Maisie, if she cared for him. But she wasn't taking him away. She
couldn't take away what Maisie had never had. And Maisie didn't care for
Jerrold; and if she didn't care she had no right to keep him. She had
nothing but her legal claim.

Besides, what was done was done. The sin against Maisie had been
committed already in Jerrold's heart when it turned from her. Whatever
happened, or didn't happen, afterwards, nothing could undo that. And
Maisie wouldn't suffer. She wouldn't know. Her thoughts went out again
on the dark flood. She couldn't think any more.

Half past five.

She started up at the click of the gate. That was Jerrold.


v

He came to her quickly and took her in his arms. And her brain was
swamped again with the warm, heavy darkness. She could feel nothing but
her pulses beating, beating against his, and the quick droning of the
blood in her ears. Her head was bent to his breast; he stooped and
kissed the nape of her neck, lightly, brushing the smooth, sweet,
roseleaf skin. They stood together, pressed close, closer, to each
other. He clasped his hands at the back of her head and drew it to him.
She leaned it hard against the clasping hands, tilting it so that she
saw his face, before it stooped again, closing down on hers.

Their arms slackened; they came apart, drawing their hands slowly,
reluctantly, down from each other's shoulders.

They sat down, she on her couch and he in Colin's chair.

"Is Colin coming?" she said.

"No, he isn't."

"Well--the lamb's better."

"I never told him about the lamb. I didn't want him to come."

"Is he all right?"

"I left him playing."

The darkness had gone from her brain and the tumult from her senses. She
felt nothing but her heart straining towards him in an immense
tenderness that was half pity.

"Are you thinking about Colin?" he said.

"No. I'm not thinking about anything but you... _Now_ you know why I was
happy looking after Colin. Why I was happy working on the land. Because
he was your brother. Because it was your land. Because there wasn't
anything else I could do for you."

"And I've done nothing for you. I've only hurt you horribly. I've
brought you nothing but trouble and danger."

"I don't care."

"No, but think. Anne darling, this is going to be a very risky business.
Are you sure you can go through with it? Are you sure you're not
afraid?"

"I've never been much afraid of anything."

"I ought to be afraid for you."

"Don't. Don't be afraid. The more dangerous it is the better I shall
like it."

"I don't know. It was bad enough in all conscience for you and Colin.
It'll be worse for us if we're found out. Of course we shan't be found
out, but there's always a risk. And it would be worse for you than for
me, Anne."

"I don't care. I want it to be. Besides, it won't. It'll be far worse
for you because of Maisie. That's the only thing that makes it wrong."

"Don't think about that, darling."

"I don't. If it's wrong, it's wrong. I don't care how wrong it is if it
makes you happy. And if God's going to punish either of us I hope it'll
be me."

"God? The God doesn't exist who could punish _you_."

"I don't care if he does punish me so long as you're let off."

She came over to him and slid to the floor and crouched beside him and
laid her head against his knees. She clasped his knees tight with her
arms.

"I don't want you to be hurt," she said. "I can't bear you to be hurt.
But what can I do?"

"Stay like that. Close. Don't go."

She stayed, pressing her face down tighter, rubbing her cheek against
his rough tweed. He put his arm round her shoulder, holding her there;
his fingers stroked, stroked the back of her neck, pushed up through the
fine roots of her hair, giving her the caress she loved. Her nerves
thrilled with a sudden secret bliss.

"Jerrold, it's heaven when you touch me."

"I know. It's hell for me when I don't."

"I didn't know. I didn't know. If only I'd known."

"We know now."

There was a long silence. Now and again she felt him stirring uneasily.
Once he sighed and her heart tightened. At last he bent over her and
lifted her up and set her on his knee. She lay back gathered in his
arms, with her head on his breast, satisfied, like a child.

"Jerrold, do you remember how you used to hold me to keep me from
falling in the goldfish pond?"

"Yes."

"I've loved you ever since then."

"Do you remember how I kissed you when I went to school?"

"Yes."

"And the night that Nicky died?"

"Yes."

"I've been sleeping in that room, because it was yours."

"Have you? Did you love me _then_, that night?"

"Yes. But I didn't know I did. And then Father's death came and stopped
it."

"I know. I know."

"Anne, what a brute I was to you. Can you ever forgive me?"

"I forgave you long ago."

"Talk of punishments--"

"Don't talk of punishments."

Presently they left off talking, and he kissed her. He kissed her again
and again, with light kisses brushing her face for its sweetness, with
quick, hard kisses that hurt, with slow, deep kisses that stayed where
they fell; kisses remembered and unremembered, longed for, imagined and
unimaginable.

The church bell began ringing for service, short notes first, tinkling
and tinkling; then a hurrying and scattering of sounds, sounds falling
together, running into each other, covering each other; one long
throbbing and clanging sound; and then hard, slow strokes, measuring out
the seconds like a clock. They waited till the bell ceased.

The dusk gathered. It spread from the corners to the middle of the room.
The tall white arch of the chimney-piece jutted out through the dusk.

Anne stirred slightly.

"I say, how dark it's getting."

"Yes. I like it. Don't get the lamp."

They sat clinging together, waiting for the dark.

The window panes were a black glimmer in the grey. He got up and drew
the curtains, shutting out the black glimmer of the panes. He came to
her and lifted her in his arms and carried her to the couch and laid her
on it.

She shut her eyes and waited.



XIV


MAISIE

i

He didn't know what he was going to do about Maisie.

On a fine, warm day in April Maisie had come home. He had motored her up
from the station, and now the door of the drawing-room had closed on
them and they were alone together in there.

"Oh, Jerrold--it _is_ nice--to see you--again."

She panted a little, a way she had when she was excited.

"Awfully nice," he said, and wondered what on earth he was going to do
next.

He had been all right on the station platform where their greetings had
been public and perfunctory, but now he would have to do something
intimate and, above all, spontaneous, not to stand there like a stick.

They looked at each other and he took again the impression she had
always given him of delicate beauty and sweetness. She was tall and her
neck bent slightly forward as she walked; this gave her the air of
bowing prettily, of offering you something with a charming grace. Her
shoulders and her hips had the same long, slenderly sloping curves. Her
hair was mole brown on the top and turned back in an old-fashioned way
that uncovered its hidden gold. Her face was white; the thin bluish
whiteness of skim milk. Her mauve blue eyes looked larger than they were
because of their dark brows and lashes, and the faint mauve smears about
their lids. The line of her little slender nose went low and straight in
the bridge, then curved under, delicately acquiline, its nostrils were
close and clean cut. Her small, close upper lip had a flying droop; and
her chin curved slightly, ever so slightly, away to her throat. When she
talked Maisie's mouth and the tip of her nose kept up the same
sensitive, quivering play. But Maisie's eyes were still; they had no
sparkling speech; they listened, deeply attentive to the person who was
there. They took up the smile her mouth began and was too small to
finish.

And now, as they looked at him, he felt that he ought to take her in his
arms, suddenly, at once. In another instant it would be too late, the
action would have lost the grace of spontaneous impulse. He wondered how
you simulated a spontaneous impulse.

But Maisie made it all right for him. As he stood waiting for his
impulse she came to him and laid her hands on his shoulders and kissed
him, gently, on each cheek. Her hands slid down; they pressed hard
against his arms above the elbow, as if to keep back his too passionate
embrace. It was easy enough to return her kiss, to pass his arms under
hers and press her slight body, gently, with his cramped hands. Did she
know that his heart was not in it?

No. She knew nothing.

"What have you been doing with yourself?" she said. "You do look fit."

"Do I? Oh, nothing much."

He turned away from her sweet eyes that hurt him.

At least he could bring forward a chair for her, and put cushions at her
back, and pour out her tea and wait on her. He tried by a number of
careful, deliberate attentions to make up for his utter lack of
spontaneity. And she sat there, drinking her tea, contented; pleased to
be back in her happy home; serenely unaware that anything was missing.

He took her over the house and showed her her room, the long room with
the two south windows, one on each side of the square, cross-lighted bay
above the porch. It was full of the clear April light.

Maisie looked round, taking it all in, the privet-white panels, the
lovely faded Persian rugs, the curtains of old rose damask. An armchair
and a round table with a bowl of pink tulips on it stood in the centre
of the bay.

"Is this mine, this heavenly room?"

"I thought so."

He was glad that he had something beautiful to give her, to make up.

She glanced at the inner door leading to his father's room. "Is that
yours in there?"

"Mine? No. That door's locked. It... I'm on the other side next to
Colin."

"Show me."

He took her into the gallery and showed her.

"It's that door over there at the end."

"What a long way off," she said.

"Why? You're not afraid, are you?"

"Dear me, no. Could anybody be afraid here?"

"Poor Colin's pretty jumpy still. That's why I have to be near him."

"I see."

"You won't mind having him with us, will you?"

"I shall love having him. Always. I hope he won't mind _me_."

"He'll adore you, of course."

"Now show me the garden."

They went out on to the green terraces where the peacocks spread their
great tails of yew. Maisie loved the peacocks and the clipped yew walls
and the goldfish pond and the flower garden.

He walked quickly, afraid to linger, afraid of having to talk to her. He
felt as if the least thing she said would be charged with some
unendurable emotion and that at any minute he might be called on to
respond. To be sure this was not like what he knew of Maisie; but,
everything having changed for him, he felt that at any minute Maisie
might begin to be unlike herself.

She was out of breath. She put her hand on his arm. "Don't go so fast,
Jerry. I want to look and look."

They went up on to the west terrace and stood there, looking.
Brown-crimson velvet wall-flowers grew in a thick hedge under the
terrace wall; their hot sweet smell came up to them.

"It's too beautiful for words," she said.

"I'm glad you like it. It is rather a jolly old place."

"It's the most adorable place I've ever been in. It looks so good and
happy. As if everybody who ever lived in it had been good and happy."

"I don't know about that. It was a hospital for four years. And it
hasn't quite recovered yet. It's all a bit worn and shabby, I'm afraid."

"I don't care. I love its shabbiness. I don't want to forget what it's
been.... To think that I've missed seven weeks of it."

"You haven't missed much. We've had beastly weather all March."

"I've missed _you_. Seven weeks of you."

"I think you'll get over that," he said, perversely.

"I shan't. It's left a horrid empty space. But I couldn't help it. I
really couldn't, Jerry."

"All right, Maisie, I'm sure you couldn't."

"Torquay was simply horrible. And this is heaven. Oh, Jerry dear, I'm
going to be so awfully happy."

He looked at her with a sudden tenderness of pity. She was visibly
happy. He remembered that her charm for him had been her habit of
enjoyment. And as he looked at her he saw nothing but sadness in her
happiness and in her sweetness and her beauty. But the sadness was not
in her, it was in his own soul. Women like Maisie were made for men to
be faithful to them. And he had not been faithful to her. She was made
for love and he had not loved her. She was nothing to him. Looking at
her he was filled with pity for the beauty and sweetness that were
nothing to him. And in that pity and that sadness he felt for the first
time the uneasy stirring of his soul.

If only he could have broken the physical tie that had bound him to her
until now; if only they could give it all up and fall back on some
innocent, immaterial relationship that meant no unfaithfulness to Anne.

When he thought of Anne he didn't know for the life of him how he was
going through with it.


ii

Maisie had been talking to him for some seconds before he understood. At
last he saw that, for reasons which she was unable to make clear to him,
she was letting him off. He wouldn't have to go through with it.

As Jerrold's mind never foresaw anything he didn't want to see, so in
this matter of Maisie he had had no plan. Not that he trusted to the
inspiration of the moment; in its very nature the moment wouldn't have
an inspiration. He had simply refused to think about it at all. It was
too unpleasant. But Maisie's presence forced the problem on him with
some violence. He had given himself to Anne without a scruple, but when
it came to giving himself to Maisie his conscience developed a sudden
sense of guiltiness. For Jerrold was essentially faithful; only his
fidelity was all for Anne. His marrying Maisie had been a sin against
Anne, its sinfulness disguised because he had had no pleasure in it. The
thought of going back to Maisie after Anne revolted him; the thought of
Anne having to share him with Maisie revolted him. Nobody, he said to
himself, was ever less polygamous than he.

At the same time he was sorry for Maisie. He didn't want her to suffer,
and if she was not to suffer she must not know, and if she was not to
know they must go on as they had begun. He was haunted by the fear of
Maisie's knowing and suffering. The pity he felt for her was poignant
and accusing, as if somehow she did know and suffer. She must at least
be aware that something was wanting. He would have to make up to her
somehow for what she had missed; he would have to give her all the other
things she wanted for that one thing. Maisie's coldness might have made
it easy for him. Nothing could move Jerrold from his conviction that
Maisie was cold, that she was incapable of caring for him as Anne cared.
His peace of mind and the freedom of his conscience depended on this
belief. But, in spite of her coldness, Maisie wanted children. He knew
that.

According to Jerrold's code Maisie's children would be an injury to
Anne, a perpetual insult. But Anne would forgive him; she would
understand; she wouldn't want to hurt Maisie.

So he went through with it.

And now he made out that mercifully, incredibly, he was being let off.
He wouldn't have to go on.

He stood by Maisie's bed looking down at her as she lay there. She had
grasped his hands by the wrists, as if to hold back their possible
caress. And her little breathless voice went on, catching itself up and
tripping.

"You won't mind--if I don't let you--come to me?"

"I'm sorry, Maisie. I didn't know you felt like that about it."

"I don't. It isn't because I don't love you. It's just my silly nerves.
I get frightened."

"I know. I know. It'll be all right. I won't bother you."

"Mother said I oughtn't to ask you. She said you wouldn't understand and
it would be too hard for you. _Will_ it?"

"No, of course it won't. I understand perfectly."

He tried to sound like one affectionately resigned, decently renouncing,
not as though he felt this blessedness of relief, absolved from dread,
mercifully and incredibly let off.

But Maisie's sweetness hated to refuse and frustrate; it couldn't bear
to hurt him. She held him tighter. "Jerrold--if it _is_--if you can't
stand it, you mustn't mind about me. You must forget I ever said
anything. It's nothing but nerves."

"I shall be all right. Don't worry."

"You _are_ a darling."

Her grasp slackened. "Please--please go. At once. Quick."

As he went she put her hand to her heart. She could feel the pain
coming. It filled her with an indescribable dread. Every time it came
she thought she should die of it. If only she didn't get so excited;
excitement always brought it on. She held her breath tight to keep it
back.

Ah, it had come. Splinters of glass, sharp splinters of glass, first
pricking, then piercing, then tearing her heart. Her heart closed down
on the splinters of glass, cutting itself at every beat.

She looked under the pillow for the little silver box that held her
pearls of nitrate of amyl. She always had it with her, ready. She
crushed a pearl in her pocket handkerchief and held it to her nostrils.
The pain left her. She lay still.


iii

And every Sunday at six in the evening, or nine (he varied the hour to
escape suspicion), Jerrold came to Anne.

In the weeks before Maisie's coming and after, Anne's happiness was
perfect, intense and secret like the bliss of a saint in ecstasy, of
genius contemplating its finished work. In giving herself to Jerrold she
had found reality. She gave herself without shame and without remorse,
or any fear of the dangerous risks they ran. Their passion was too clean
for fear or remorse or shame. She thought love was a finer thing going
free and in danger than sheltered and safe and bound. The game of love
should be played with a high, defiant courage; you were not fit to play
it if you fretted and cowered. Both she and Jerrold came to it with an
extreme simplicity, taking it for granted. They never vowed or protested
or swore not to go back on it or on each other. It was inconceivable
that they should go back on it. And as Anne saw no beginning to it, she
saw no end. All her past was in her love for Jerrold; there never had
been a time when she had ceased to love him. This moment when they
embraced was only the meeting point between what had been and what would
be. Nothing could have disturbed Anne's conscience but the sense that
Jerrold didn't belong to her, that he had no right to love her; and she
had never had that sense. They had belonged to each other, always, from
the time when they were children playing together. Maisie was the
intruder, who had no right, who had taken what didn't belong to her. And
Anne could have forgiven even that if Maisie had had the excuse of a
great passion; but Maisie didn't care.

So Anne, unlike Jerrold, was not troubled by thinking about Maisie. She
had never seen Jerrold's wife; she didn't want to see her. So long as
she didn't see her it was as if Maisie were not there.

And yet she _was_ there. Next to Jerrold she was more there for Anne
than the people she saw every day. Maisie's presence made itself felt in
all the risks they ran. She was the hindrance, not to perfect bliss, but
to a continuous happiness. She was the reason why they could only meet
at intervals for one difficult and dangerous hour. Because of Maisie,
Jerrold, instead of behaving like himself with a reckless disregard of
consequences, had to think out the least revolting ways by which they
might evade them. He had to set up some sort of screen for his Sunday
visits to the Manor Farm. Thus he made a habit of long walks after dark
on week-days and of unpunctuality at meals. To avoid being seen by the
cottagers he approached the house from behind, by the bridge over the
mill-water and through the orchard to the back door. Luckily the estate
provided him with an irreproachable and permanent pretext for seeing
Anne.

For Jerrold, going about with Anne over the Manor Farm, had conceived a
profound passion for his seven hundred acres. At last he had come into
his inheritance; and if it was Anne Severn who showed him how to use it,
so that he could never separate his love of it from his love of her, the
land had an interest of its own that soon excited and absorbed him. He
determined to take up farming seriously and look after his estate
himself when Anne had Sutton's farm. Anne would teach him all she knew,
and he could finish up with a year or two at the Agricultural College in
Cirencester. He had found the work he most wanted to do, the work he
believed he could do best. All the better if it brought him every day
this irreproachable companionship with Anne. His conscience was appeased
by Maisie's coldness, and Jerrold told himself that the life he led now
was the best possible life for a sane man. His mind was clear and keen;
his body was splendidly fit; his love for Anne was perfect, his
companionship with her was perfect, their understanding of each other
was perfect. They would never be tired of each other and never bored. He
rode with her over the hills and tramped with her through the furrows in
all weathers.

At times he would approach her through some sense, sharper than sight or
touch, that gave him her inmost immaterial essence. She would be sitting
quietly in a room or standing in a field when suddenly he would be thus
aware of her. These moments had a reality and certainty more poignant
even than the moment of his passion.

At last they ceased to think about their danger. They felt, ironically,
that they were protected by the legend that made Anne and Colin lovers.
In the eyes of the Kimbers and Nanny Sutton and the vicar's wife, and
the Corbetts and Hawtreys and Markhams, Jerrold was the stern guardian
of his brother's morals. They were saying now that Captain Fielding had
put a stop to the whole disgraceful affair; he had forced Colin to leave
the Manor Farm house; and he had taken over the estate in order to keep
an eye on his brother and Anne Severn.

Anne was not concerned with what they said. She felt that Jerrold and
she were safe so long as she didn't know Maisie. It never struck her
that Maisie would want to know _her_, since nobody else did.


iv

But Maisie did want to know Anne and for that reason. One day she came
to Jerrold with the visiting cards.

"The Corbetts and Hawtreys have called. Shall I like them?"

"I don't know. _I_ won't have anything to do with them."

"Why not?"

"Because of the beastly way they've behaved to Anne Severn."

"What have they done?"

"Done? They've been perfect swine. They've cut her for five years
because she looked after Colin. They've said the filthiest things about
her."

"What sort of things?"

"Why, that Colin was her lover."

"Oh Jerrold, how abominable. Just because she was a saint."

"Anne wouldn't care what anybody said about her. My mother left her all
by herself here to take care of him and she wouldn't leave him. She
thought of nothing but him."

"She must be a perfect angel."

"She is."

"But about these horrible people--what do you want me to do?"

"Do what you like."

"_I_ don't want to know them. I'm thinking what would be best for Anne."

"You needn't worry about Anne. It isn't as if she was _your_ friend."

"But she _is_ if she's yours and Colin's. I mean I want her to be.... I
think I'd better call on these Corbett and Hawtrey people and just show
them how we care about her. Then cut them dead afterwards if they aren't
decent to her. It'll be far more telling than if I began by being
rude.... Only, Jerrold, how absurd--I don't know Anne. _She_ hasn't
called yet."

"She probably thinks you wouldn't want to know her."

"Do you mean because of what they've said? That's the very reason. Why,
she's the only person here I do want to know. I think I fell in love
with the sound of her when you first told me about her and how she took
care of Colin. We must do everything we can to make up. We must have her
here a lot and give her a jolly time."

He looked at her.

"Maisie, you really _are_ rather a darling."

"I'm not. But I think Anne Severn must be.... Shall I go and see her or
will you bring her?"

"I think--perhaps--I'd better bring her, first."

He spoke slowly, considering it.

Tomorrow was Sunday. He would bring her to tea, and in the evening he
would walk back with her.

On Sunday afternoon he went down to the Manor Farm. He found Anne
upstairs in the big sitting-room.

"Oh Jerrold, darling, I didn't think you'd come so soon."

"Maisie sent me."

"Maisie?"

For the first time in his knowledge of her Anne looked frightened.

"Yes. She wants to know you. I'm to bring you to tea."

"But--it's impossible. I can't know her. I don't want to. Can't you see
how impossible it is?"

"No, I can't. It's perfectly natural. She's heard a lot about you."

"I've no doubt she has. Jerrold--do you think she guesses?"

"About you and me? Never. It's the last thing she'd think of. She's
absolutely guileless."

"That makes it worse."

"You don't know," he said, "how she feels about you. She's furious with
these brutes here because they've cut you. She says she'll cut _them_ if
they won't be decent to you."

"Oh, worse and worse!"

"You're afraid of her?"

"I didn't know I was. But I am. Horribly afraid."

"Really, Anne dear, there's nothing to be afraid of. She's not a bit
dangerous."

"Don't you see that that makes her dangerous, her not being? You've told
me a hundred times how sweet she is. Well--I don't want to see how sweet
she is."

"Her sweetness doesn't matter."

"It matters to me. If I once see her, Jerrold, nothing'll ever be the
same again."

"Darling, really it's the only thing you can do. Think. If you don't,
can't you see how it'll give the show away? She'd wonder what on earth
you meant by it. We've got to behave as if nothing had happened. This
isn't behaving as if nothing had happened, is it?"

"No. You see, it has happened. Oh Jerrold, I wouldn't mind if only we
could be straight about it. But it'll mean lying and lying, and I can't
bear it. I'd rather go out and tell everybody and face the music."

"So would I. But we can't.... Look here, Anne. We don't care a damn what
people think. You wouldn't care if we were found out to-morrow----"

"I wouldn't. It would be the best thing that could happen to us."

"To us, yes. If Maisie divorced me. Then we could marry. It would be all
right for us. Not for Maisie. You do care about hurting Maisie, don't
you?"

"Yes. I couldn't bear her to be hurt. If only I needn't see her."

"Darling, you must see her. You can't not. I want you to."

"Well, if you want it so awfully, I will. But I tell you it won't be the
same thing, afterwards, ever."

"I shall be the same, Anne. And you."

"Me? I wonder."

He rose, smiling down at her.

"Come," he said. "Don't let's be late."

She went.


v

In the garden with Maisie, the long innocent conversation coming back
and back; Maisie's sweetness haunting her, known now and remembered.
Maisie walking in the garden among the wall flowers and tulips, between
the clipped walls of yew, showing Anne her flowers. She stooped to lift
their faces, to caress them with her little thin white fingers.

"I don't know why I'm showing you round," she said; "you know it all
much better than I do."

"Oh, well, I used to come here a lot when I was little. I sort of lived
here."

Maisie's eyes listened, utterly attentive.

"You knew Jerrold, then, when he was little, too?"

"Yes. He was eight when I was five."

"Do you remember what he was like?"

"Yes."

Maisie waited to see whether Anne were going on or not, but as Anne
stopped dead she went on herself.

"I wish _I_'d known Jerry all the time like that. I wish I remembered
running about and playing with him.... You were Jerrold's friend,
weren't you?"

"And Elliot's and Colin's."

The lying had begun. Falsehood by implication. And to this creature of
palpable truth.

"Somehow, I've always thought of you as Jerrold's most. That's what
makes me feel as if you were mine, as if I'd known you quite a long
time. You see, he's told me things about you."

"Has he?"

Anne's voice was as dull and flat as she could make it. If only Maisie
would leave off talking about Jerrold, making her lie.

"I've wanted to know you more than anybody I've ever heard of. There are
heaps of things I want to say to you." She stooped to pick the last
tulip of the bunch she was gathering for Anne. "I think it was perfectly
splendid of you the way you looked after Colin. And the way you've
looked after Jerry's land for him."

"That was nothing. I was very glad to do it for Jerrold, but it was my
job, anyway."

"Well, you've saved Colin. And you've saved the land. What's more, I
believe you've saved Jerrold."

"How do you mean, 'saved' him? I didn't know he wanted saving."

"He did, rather. I mean you've made him care about the estate. He didn't
care a rap about it till he came down here this last time. You've found
his job for him."

"He'd have found it himself all right without me."

"I'm not so sure. We were awfully worried about him after the war. He
was all at a loose end without anything to do. And dreadfully restless.
We thought he'd never settle to anything again. And I was afraid he'd
want to live in London."

"I don't think he'd ever do that."

"He won't now. But, you see, he used to be afraid of this place."

"I know. After his father's death."

"And he simply loves it now. I think it's because he's seen what you've
done with it. I know he hadn't the smallest idea of farming it before.
It's what he ought to have been doing all his life. And when you think
how seedy he was when he came down here, and how fit he is now."

"I think," Anne said, "I'd better be going."

Maisie's innocence was more than she could bear.

"Jerry'll see you home. And you'll come again, won't you? Soon.... Will
you take them? I gathered them for you."

"Thanks. Thanks awfully." Anne's voice came with a jerk. Her breath
choked her.

Jerrold was coming down the garden walk, looking for her. She said
good-bye to Maisie and turned to go with him home.

"Well," he said, "how did you and Maisie get on?"

"It was exactly what I thought it would be, only worse."

He laughed. "Worse?"

"I mean she was sweeter.... Jerrold, she makes me feel such a brute.
Such an awful brute. And if she ever knows--"

"She won't know."

When he had left her Anne flung herself down on the couch and cried.

All evening Maisie's tulips stood up in the blue-and-white Chinese bowl
on the table. They had childlike, innocent faces that reproached her.
Nothing would ever be the same again.



XV


ANNE, JERROLD, AND MAISIE

i

It was a Sunday in the middle of April.

Jerrold had motored up to London on the Friday and had brought Eliot
back with him for the week-end. Anne had come over as she always did on
a Sunday afternoon. She and Maisie were sitting out on the terrace when
Eliot came to them, walking with the tired limp that Anne found piteous
and adorable. Very soon Maisie murmured some gentle, unintelligible
excuse, and left them.

There was a moment of silence in which everything they had ever said to
each other was present to them, making all other speech unnecessary, as
if they held a long intimate conversation. Eliot sat very still, not
looking at her, yet attentive as if he listened to the passing of those
unuttered words. Then Anne spoke and her voice broke up his mood.

"What are you doing now? Bacteriology?"

"Yes. We've found the thing we were looking for, the germ of trench
fever."

"You mean _you_ have."

"Well, somebody would have spotted it if I hadn't. A lot of us were out
for it."

"Oh Eliot, I am so glad. That means you'll stamp out the disease,
doesn't it?"

"Probably. In time."

"I knew you'd do it. I knew you'd do something big before you'd
finished."

"My dear, I've only just begun. But there's nothing big about it but the
research, and we were all in that. All looking for the same thing.
Happening to spot it is just heaven's own luck."

"But aren't you glad it was you?"

"It doesn't matter who it is. But I suppose I'm glad. It's the sort of
thing I wanted to do and it's rather more important than most things one
does."

He said no more. Years ago, when he had done nothing, he had talked
excitedly and arrogantly about his work; now that he had done what he
had set out to do he was reserved, impassive and very humble.

"Do Jerrold and Colin know?" she said.

"Not yet. You're the first."

"Dear Eliot, you _did_ know I'd be glad."

"It's nice of you to care."

Of course she cared. She was glad to think that he had that supreme
satisfaction to make up for the cruelty of her refusal to care more.
Perhaps, she thought, he wouldn't have had it if he had had her. He
would have been torn in two; he would have had to give himself twice
over. She felt that he didn't love her more than he loved his science,
and science exacted an uninterrupted and undivided service. One life
hadn't room enough for two such loves, and he might not have done so
much if she had been there, calling back his thoughts, drawing his
passion to herself.

"What are you going to do next?" she said.

"Next I'm going off for a month's holiday. To Sicily--Taormina. I've
been overworking and I'm a bit run down. How about Colin?"

"He's better. Heaps better. He soon got over that relapse he had when I
was away in February."

"You mean he got over it when you came back."

"Well, yes, it was when I came back. That's just what I don't like about
him, Eliot. He's getting dependent on me, and it's bad for him. I wish
he could go away somewhere for a change. A long change. Away from me,
away from the farm, away from Wyck, somewhere where he hasn't been
before. It might cure him, mightn't it?"

"Yes," he said. "Yes. It would be worth trying."

He didn't look at her. He knew what she was going to say. She said it.

"Eliot--do you think you could take him with you? Could you stand the
strain?"

"If you could stand it for four years I ought to be able to stand it for
a month."

"If he gets better it won't be a strain. He isn't a bit of trouble when
he's well. He's adorable. Only--perhaps--if you're run down you oughtn't
to."

"I'm not so bad as all that. The only thing is, you say he ought to get
away from you, and I wanted you to come too."

"Me?"

"You and Maisie and Jerrold."

"I can't. It's impossible. I can't leave the farm."

"My dear girl, you mustn't be tied to it like that. Don't you ever get
away?"

"Not unless Jerrold or Colin are here. We can't all three be away at
once. But it's awfully nice of you to think of it."

"I didn't. It was Maisie."

Maisie? Would she never get away from Maisie, and Maisie's sweetness and
kindness, breaking her down?

"She'll be awfully disappointed if you don't go."

"Why should she be?"

"Because she wants you to."

"Maisie?"

"Yes. Surely you know she likes you?"

"I was afraid she was beginning to--"

"Why? Don't you want her to like you? Don't you like _her_?"

"Yes. And I don't want to like her. If I once begin I shall end by
loving her."

"My dear, it would be the best thing you could do."

"No, Eliot, it wouldn't. You don't know.... Here she is."

Maisie came to them along the terrace. She moved with an unresisting
grace, a delicate bowing of her head and swaying of her body, and
breathless as if she went against a wind. Eliot gave up his chair and
limped away from them.

"Has he told you about Taormina?" she said.

"Yes. It's sweet of you to ask me to go with you----"

"You're coming, aren't you?"

"I'm afraid I can't."

"Why ever not?"

"I can't leave the land for one thing. Not if Jerrold and Colin aren't
here."

"Oh, bother the old land! You _must_ leave it. It can get on without you
for a month or two. Nothing much can happen in that time."

"Oh, can't it! Things can happen in a day if you aren't there to see
that they don't."

"Well, Jerrold won't mind much if they do. But he'll mind awfully if you
don't come. So shall I. Besides, it's all settled. He's to come back
with Eliot in time for the hay harvest, and you and I and Colin are to
go on to the Italian Lakes. My father and mother are joining us at Como
in June. We shall be there a month and come home through Switzerland."

"It would be heavenly, but I can't do it. I can't, really, Maisie." She
was thinking: He'll be back for the hay harvest.

"But you must. You can't go and spoil all our pleasure like that.
Jerrold's and Eliot's and Colin's. _And_ mine. I never dreamed of your
not coming."

"Do you mean you really want me?"

"Of course I want you. So does Jerrold. It won't be the same thing at
all without you. I want to see you enjoying yourself for once. You'd do
it so well. I believe I want to see that more than Taormina and the
Italian Lakes. Do say you'll come."

"Maisie--why are you such an angel to me?"

"I'm not. I want you to come because--oh _because_ I want you. Because I
like you. I'm happy when you're there. So's Jerrold. Don't go and say
you care more for the land than Jerrold and me."

"I don't. I--It isn't the land altogether. It's Colin. I want him to get
away from me for a time and do without me. It's frightfully important
that he should get away."

"We could send Colin to another part of the island with Eliot. Only that
wouldn't be very kind to Eliot."

"No. It won't do, Maisie. I'll go off somewhere when you've come back."

"But that's no good to _us_. Jerrold will be here for the haying, if
you're thinking of that."

"I'm not thinking of that. I'm thinking of Colin."

As she said it she knew that she was lying. Lying to Maisie. Lying for
the first time. That came of knowing Maisie; it came of Maisie's
sweetness. She would have to lie and lie. She was not thinking of Colin
now; she was thinking that if Jerrold came back for the hay harvest and
Maisie went on with Colin to the Italian Lakes, she would have her lover
to herself; they would be alone together all June. She would lie in his
arms, not for their short, reckless hour of Sunday, but night after
night, from long before midnight till the dawn.

For last year, when the warm weather came, Anne and Colin had slept out
of doors in wooden shelters set up in the Manor fields, away from the
noises of the farm. A low stone wall separated Anne's field from
Colin's. This year, when Jerrold came home, Colin's shelter had been
moved up from the field to the Manor garden. In the summer Anne would
sleep again in her shelter. The path to her field from the Manor garden
lay through three pastures and two strips of fir plantation with a green
drive between.

Jerrold would come to her there. He would have his bed in Colin's
shelter in the garden, and when the night was quiet he would get up and
go down the Manor fields and through the fir plantation to her shelter
at the bottom. They would lie there in each other's arms, utterly safe,
hidden from passing feet and listening ears, and eyes that watched
behind window panes.