Beyond the hamlet there is a little spit of land, and beyond the spit of
land a narrow creek.

Half a mile up the creek the path that follows it breaks off into the
open country, and thins to a track across five fields. It struggles to
the gateway of a low, red-roofed, red-brick farm, and ends there. The
farm stands alone, and the fields around it are bare to the skyline.
Three tall elms stand side by side against it, sheltering it from the
east, marking its humble place in the desolate land. To the west a broad
bridle-path joins the road to Fawlness.

Majendie had a small yacht moored in the creek, near where the path
breaks off to Three Elms Farm. Once, sometimes twice, a week, Majendie
came to Three Elms Farm. Sometimes he came for the week-end, more often
for a single night, arriving at six in the evening, and leaving very
early the next day. In winter he took the train to Hesson, tramped seven
miles across country, and reached the farm by the Fawlness road. In
summer the yacht brought him from "Hannay & Majendie's" dock to Fawlness
creek. At Three Elms Farm he found Maggie waiting for him.

This had been going on, once, sometimes twice a week, for nearly three
years, ever since he had rented the farm and brought Maggie from Scale to
live there.

The change had made the details of his life difficult. It called for all
the qualities in which Majendie was most deficient. It necessitated
endless vigilance, endless harassing precautions, an unnatural secrecy.
He had to make Anne believe that he had taken to yachting for his health,
that he was kept out by wind and weather, that the obligations and
complexities of business, multiplying, tied him, and claimed his time.
Maggie had to be hidden away, in a place where no one came, lodged with
people whose discretion he could trust. Pearson, the captain of his
yacht, a close-mouthed, close-fisted Yorkshireman, had a wife as reticent
as himself. Pearson and his wife and their son Steve knew that their
living depended on their secrecy. And cupidity apart, the three were
devoted to their master and his mistress. Pearson and his son Steve were
acquainted with the ways of certain gentlemen of Scale, who sailed their
yachts from port to port, up and down the Yorkshire coast. Pearson was a
man who observed life dispassionately. He asked no questions and answered
none.

It was six o'clock in the evening, early in October, just three years
after Edith's death. Majendie had left the yacht lying in the creek with
Pearson, Steve, and the boatswain on board, and was hurrying along the
field path to Three Elms Farm. A thin rain fell, blurring the distances.
The house stood humbly, under its three elms. A light was burning in one
window. Maggie stood at the garden gate in the rain, listening for the
click of the field gate which was his signal. When it sounded she came
down the path to meet him. She put her hands upon his shoulders, drew
down his face and kissed him. He took her arm and led her, half clinging
to him, into the house and into the lighted room.

A fire burned brightly on the hearth. His chair was set for him beside
it, and Maggie's chair opposite. The small round table in the middle
of the room was laid for supper. Maggie had decorated walls and
chimney-piece and table with chrysanthemums from the garden, and autumn
leaves and ivy from the hedgerows. The room had a glad light and welcome
for him.

As he came into the lamplight Maggie gave one quick anxious look at him.
She had always two thoughts in her little mind between their meetings: Is
he ill? Is he well?

He was, to the outward seeing eye, superlatively well. Three years of
life lived in the open air, life lived according to the will of nature,
had given him back his outward and visible health. At thirty-nine,
Majendie had once more the strength, the firm, upright slenderness, and
the brilliance of his youth. His face was keen and brown, fined and
freshened by wind and weather.

Maggie, waiting humbly on his mood, saw that it was propitious.

"What cold hands," said she. "And no overcoat? You bad boy." She felt his
clothes all over to feel if they were damp. "Tired?"

"Just a little, Maggie."

She drew up his chair to the fire, and knelt down to unlace his boots.

"No, Maggie, I can't let you take my boots off."

"Yes, you can, and you will. Does _she_ ever take your boots off?"

"Never."

"You don't allow her?"

"No. I don't allow her."

"You allow _me_" said Maggie triumphantly. She was persuaded that (since
his wife was denied the joy of waiting on him) hers was the truly
desirable position. Majendie had never had the heart to enlighten her.

She pressed his feet with her soft hands, to feel if his stockings were
damp, too.

"There's a little hole," she cried. "I shall have to mend that to-night."

She put cushions at his back, and sat down on the floor beside him, and
laid her head on his knee.

"There's a sole for supper," said she, in a dreamy voice, "and a roast
chicken. And an apple tart. I made it." Maggie had always been absurdly
proud of the things that she could do.

"Clever Maggie."

"I made it because I thought you'd like it."

"Kind Maggie."

"You didn't get any of those things yesterday, or the day before, did
you?"

She was always afraid of giving him what he had had at home. That was one
of the difficulties, she felt, of a double household.

"I forget," he said, a little wearily, "what I had yesterday."

Maggie noticed the weariness and said no more.

He laid his hand on her head and stroked her hair. He could always keep
Maggie quiet by stroking her hair. She shifted herself instantly into
a position easier for his hand. She sat still, only turning to the
caressing hand, now her forehead, now the nape of her neck, now her
delicate ear.

Maggie knew all his moods and ministered to them. She knew to-night that,
if she held her tongue, the peace she had prepared for him would sink
into him and heal him. He was not very tired. She could tell. She could
measure his weariness to a degree by the movements of his hand. When he
was tired she would seize the caressing hand and make it stop. In a few
minutes supper would be ready, and when he had had supper, she knew, it
would be time to talk.

Majendie was grateful for her silence. He was grateful to her for many
things, for her beauty, for her sweetness, for her humility, for her love
which had given so much and asked so little. Maggie had still the modest
charm that gave to her and to her affection the illusion of a perfect
innocence. It had been heightened rather than diminished by their
intimacy.

Somehow she had managed so that, as long as he was with her, shame was
impossible for himself or her. As long as he was with her he was wrapped
in her illusion, the illusion of innocence, of happiness, of all the
unspoken sanctities of home. He knew that whether he was or was not with
her, as long as he loved her no other man would come between him and her;
no other man would cross his threshold and stand upon his hearth. The
house he came to was holy to her. There were times, so deep was the
illusion, when he could have believed that Maggie, sitting there at his
feet, was the pure spouse, the helpmate, and Anne, in the house in Prior
Street, the unwedded, unacknowledged mistress, the distant, the secret,
the forbidden. He had never disguised from Maggie the temporary and
partial nature of the tie that bound them. But the illusion was too
strong for both of them. It was strong upon him now.

The woman, Mrs. Pearson, came in with supper, moving round the room in
silence, devoted and discreet.

Majendie was hungry. Maggie was unable to conceal her frank joy in seeing
him eat and drink. She ate little and talked a great deal, drawn by his
questions.

"What have you been doing, Maggie?"

Maggie gave an account of her innocent days, of her labours in house and
farm and garden. She loved all three, she loved her flowers and her
chickens and her rabbits, and the little young pigs. She loved all things
that had life. She was proud of her house. Her hands were always busy in
it. She had stitched all the linen for it. She had made all the
tablecloths, sofa covers and curtains, and given to them embroidered
borders. She liked to move about among all these beautiful things and
feel that they were hers. But she loved those most which Majendie had
used, or noticed, or admired. After supper she took up her old position
by his chair.

"How long can you stay?" said she.

"I must go to-morrow."

"Oh, why?"

"I've told you why, dear. It's my little girl's birthday to-morrow."

She remembered.

"Her birthday. How old will she be to-morrow?"

"Seven."

"Seven. What does she do all day long?"

"Oh, she amuses herself. We have a garden."

"How she would love this garden, and the flowers, and the swing, and the
chickens, and all the animals, wouldn't she?"

"Yes. Yes."

Somehow he didn't like Maggie to talk about his child, but he hadn't the
heart to stop her.

"Is she as pretty as she was?"

"Prettier."

"And she's not a bit like you."

"Not a bit, not a little bit."

"I'm glad," said Maggie.

"Why on earth are you glad?"

"Because--I couldn't bear _her_ child to be like you."

"You mustn't say those things, Maggie, I don't like it."

"I won't say them. You don't mind my thinking them, do you? I can't help
thinking."

She thought for a long time; then she got up, and came to him, and put
her arm round his neck, and bowed her head and whispered.

"Don't whisper. I hate it. Speak out. Say what you've got to say."

"I can't say it."

She said it very low.

He bent forward, freeing himself from her mouth and clinging arm.

"No, Maggie. Never. I told you that in the beginning. You promised me you
wouldn't think of it. It's bad enough as it is."

"What's bad enough?"

"Everything, my child. I'm bad enough, if you like; but I'm not as bad as
all that, I can assure you."

"You don't think _me_ bad?"

"You know I don't. You know what I think of you. But you must learn to
see what's possible and what isn't."

"I do see. Tell me one thing. Is it because you love _her_?"

"We can't go into that, Maggie. Can't you understand that it may be
because I love _you_?"

"I don't know. But I don't mind so long as I know it isn't only because
you love _her_."

"You're not to talk about her, Maggie."

"I know. I won't. I don't want to talk about her, I'm sure. I try not to
think about her more than I can help."

"But you must think of her."

"Oh--must I?"

"At any rate, you must think of me."

"I do think of you. I think of you from morning till night. I don't think
of anything else. I don't want anything else. I'm contented as long as
I've got you. It wasn't that."

"What was it, Maggie?"

"Nothing. Only--it's so awfully lonely in between, when you're not here.
That was why I asked you."

"Poor child, poor Maggie. Is it very bad to bear?"

"Not when I know you're coming."

"See here--if it gets too bad to bear, we must end it."

"End it?"

"Yes, Maggie. _You_ must end it; you must give me up, when you're
tired--"

"Oh no--no," she cried.

"Give me up," he repeated, "and go back to town."

"To Scale?"

"Well, yes; if it's so lonely here."

"And give you up?"

"Yes, Maggie, you must; if you go back to Scale."

"I shall never go back. Who could I go to? There's nobody who'd 'ave me.
I've got nobody."

"Nobody?"

"Nobody but you, Wallie. Nobody but you. Have you never thought of that?
Why, where should _I_ be if I was to give you up?"

"I see, Maggie. _I_ see. _I_ see."

Up till then he had seen nothing. But Maggie, unwise, had put her hand
through the fine web of illusion. She had seen, and made him see, the
tragedy of the truth behind it, the real nature of the tie that bound
them. It was an inconsistent tie, permanent in its impermanence, with all
its incompleteness terribly complete. He could not give her up; he had
not thought of giving her up; but neither had he thought of keeping her.

It was all wrong. It was wrong to keep her. It would be wrong to give her
up. He was all she had. Whatever happened he could not give her up.

And so he said, "_I_ see. _I_ see."

"See here," said she (she had adopted some of his phrases), "when I said
there was nobody, I meant nobody I'd have anything to do with. If I went
back to Scale, there are plenty of low girls in the town who'd make
friends with me, if I'd let 'em. But I won't be seen with them. You
wouldn't have me seen with them, would you?"

"No, Maggie, not for all the world."

"Well, then, 'ow can you go on talking about my giving you up?"

No. He could not give her up. There was no tie between them but their
sin, yet he could not break it. Degraded as it was, it saved him from
deeper degradation.

He loved Anne with his whole soul, with his heart and with his body, and
he had given his body to Maggie, with as much heart as went with it. In
the world's sight he loved Maggie and was bound to Anne. In his own sight
he loved Anne and was bound to Maggie.

It had come to that.

He did not care to look back upon the steps by which it had come. He only
knew that, seven years ago, he had been sound and whole, a man with one
aim and one passion and one life. Now he and his life were divided, cut
clean in two by a line not to be passed or touched upon by either
sundered half. All of him that Anne had rejected he had given to Maggie.

As far as he could judge he had acted, not grossly, not recklessly, but
with a kind of passionate deliberation. He knew he would have to pay for
it. He had not stopped to haggle with his conscience or to ask: how much?
But he was prepared to pay.

Up to this moment his conscience had not dunned him. But now he foresaw a
season when the bills would be falling due.

Maggie had torn the veil of illusion, and he looked for the first time
upon his sin.

Even his conscience admitted that he had not meant it to come to that. He
had had no ancient private tendency to sin. He wanted nothing but to live
at home, happy with the wife he loved, and with his child, his children.
And poor Maggie, she too would have asked no more than to be a good wife
to the man she loved, and to be the mother of his children.

This life with Maggie, hidden away in Three Elms Farm, in the wilds of
Holderness, it could not be called dissipation, but it was division.
Where once he had been whole he was now divided. The sane, strong
affection that should have knit body and soul together was itself broken
in two.

And it was she, the helpmate, she who should have kept him whole, who had
caused him to be thus sundered from himself and her.

They were all wrong, all frustrated, all incomplete. Anne, in her sublime
infidelity to earth; Maggie, turned from her own sweet use that she might
give him what Anne could not give; and he, who between them had severed
his body from his soul.

Thus he brooded.

And Maggie, with her face hidden against his knee, brooded too, piercing
the illusion.

He tried to win her from her sad thoughts by talking again of the house
and garden. But Maggie was tired of the house and garden now.

"And do the Pearsons look after you well still?" he asked.

"Yes. Very well."

"And Steve--is he as good to you as ever?"

Maggie brightened and became more communicative.

"Yes, very good. He was all day mending my bicycle, Sunday, and he takes
me out in the boat sometimes; and he's made such a dear little house for
the old Angora rabbit."

"Do you like going out in the boat?"

"Yes, very much."

"Do you like going out with him?"

"No," said Maggie, making a little face, half of disgust and half of
derision. "No. His hands are all dirty, and he smells of fish."

Majendie laughed. "There are drawbacks, I must own, to Steve."

He looked at his watch, an action Maggie hated. It always suggested
finality, departure.

"Ten o'clock, Maggie. I must be up at six to-morrow. We sail at seven."

"At seven," echoed Maggie in despair.

They were up at six. Maggie went with him to the creek, to see him sail.
In the garden she picked a chrysanthemum and stuck it in his buttonhole,
forgetting that he couldn't wear her token. There were so many things
he couldn't do.

A little rain still fell through a clogging mist. They walked side by
side, treading the drenched grass, for the track was too narrow for them
both. Maggie's feet dragged, prolonging the moments.

A white pointed sail showed through the mist, where the little yacht lay
in the river off the mouth of the creek.

Steve was in the boat close against the creek's bank, waiting to row
Majendie to the yacht. He touched his cap to Majendie as they appeared on
the bank, but he did not look at Maggie when her gentle voice called
good-morning.

Steve's face was close-mouthed and hard set.

She put her hands on Majendie's shoulders and kissed him. Her cheek
against his face was pure and cold, wet with the rain. Steve did not look
at them. He never looked at them when they were together.

Majendie dropped into the boat. Steve pushed off from the bank. Maggie
stood there watching them go. She stood till the boat reached the creek's
mouth, and Majendie turned, and raised his cap to her; stood till the
white sail moved slowly up the river and disappeared, rounding the spit
of land.

Majendie, as he paced the deck and talked to his men of wind and weather,
turned casually, on his heel, to look at her where she stood alone in the
level immensity of the land. The world looked empty all around her.

And he was touched with a sudden poignant realisation of her life; its
sadness, its incompleteness, its isolation.

That was what he had brought her to.




CHAPTER XXIX


The rain cleared off, the mist lifted, and at nine o'clock it was a fine
day for Peggy's birthday. Even Scale, where it stretched its flat avenues
into the country, showed golden in the warm and brilliant air.

The household in Prior Street had been up early, making preparations for
the day. Peggy had waked before it was light, to feel her presents which
lay beside her on her bed; and, by the time Majendie's sail had passed
Fawlness Point, she was up and dressed, waiting for him.

Anne had to break it to her gently that perhaps he would not be home in
time for eight-o'clock breakfast. Then the child's mouth trembled, and
Anne comforted her, half-smiling and half-afraid.

"Ah, Peggy, Peggy," she said, as she rocked her against her breast, "What
shall I do with you? Your little heart is too big for your little body."

Anne's terror had not left her in three years. It was always with her
now. The child was bound to suffer. She was a little mass of throbbing
nerves, of trembling emotions.

Yet Anne herself was happier. The three years had passed smoothly over
her. Her motherhood had laid its fine, soft, finishing touch upon her.
Her face, her body, had rounded and ripened, year after slow year, to an
abiding beauty, born of her tenderness. At thirty-five Anne Majendie had
reached the perfect moment of her physical maturity.

Her mind was no longer harassed by anxiety about her husband. He seemed
to have settled down. He had ceased to be uncertain in his temper, by
turns irritable and depressed. He had parted with the heaviness which had
once roused her aversion, and had recovered his personal distinction, the
slender refinement of his youth. She rejoiced in his well-being. She
attributed it, partly to his open-air habits, partly to the spiritual
growth begun in him at the time of his sister's death.

She desired no change in their relations, no further understanding, no
closer intimacy.

To Anne's mind, her husband's attitude to her was perfect. The passion
that had been her fear had left him. He waited on her hand and foot, with
humble, heart-rending devotion. He let her see that he adored her with
discretion, at a distance, as a divinely, incomprehensibly high and holy
thing.

Her household life had simplified itself. Her days passed in noiseless,
equable procession. Many hours had been given back to her empty after
Edith's death. She had filled them with interests outside her home, with
visiting the poor in the district round All Souls, with evening classes
for shop-girls, with "Rescue" work. Not an hour of her day was idle. At
the end of the three years Mrs. Majendie was known in Scale by her broad
charities and by her saintly life.

She had fallen away a little from her friends in Thurston Square. In
three years Fanny Eliott and her circle had grown somewhat unreal to her.
She had been aware of their inefficiency before. There had been a time
when she felt that Mrs. Eliott's eminence had become a little perilous.
She herself had placed her on it, and held her there by a somewhat
fatiguing effort of the will to believe. She had been partly (though she
did not know it) the dupe of Mrs. Eliott's delight in her, of all the
sweet and dangerous ministrations of their mutual vanities. Mrs. Eliott
had been uplifted by Anne's preposterously grave approval. Anne had been
ravished by her own distinction as the audience of Fanny Eliott's loftier
and profounder moods. There could be no criticism of these heights and
depths. To have depreciated Fanny Eliott's rarity by a shade would have
been to call in question her own.

But all this had ceased long ago, when she married Walter Majendie, and
his sister became her dearest friend. Fanny Eliott had always looked on
Edith Majendie as her rival; retreating a little ostentatiously before
her formidable advance. There should have been no rivalry, for there had
been no possible ground of comparison. Neither could Edith Majendie be
said to have advanced. The charm of Edith, or rather, her pathetic claim,
was that she never could have advanced at all. To Anne's mind, from the
first, there had been no choice between Edith, lying motionless on her
sofa by the window, and Fanny at large in the drawing-rooms of her
acquaintances, scattering her profuse enthusiasms, revolving in her
intellectual round, the prisoner of her own perfections. To come into
Edith's room had been to come into thrilling contact with reality; while
Fanny Eliott was for ever putting you off with some ingenious refinement
on it. Edith's personality had triumphed over death and time. Fanny
Eliott, poor thing, still suffered by the contrast.

Of all Anne's friends, the Gardners alone stood the test of time. She had
never had a doubt of them. They had come later into her life, after the
perishing of her great illusion. The shock had humbled her senses and
disposed her to reverence for the things of intellect. Dr. Gardner's
position, as President of the Scale Literary and Philosophic Society, was
as a high rock to which she clung. Mrs. Gardner was dear to her for many
reasons.

The dearness of Mrs. Gardner was significant. It showed that, thanks to
Peggy, Anne's humanisation was almost complete.

To-day, which was Peggy's birthday, Anne's heart was light and happy.
She had planned, that, if the day were fine, the festival was to be
celebrated by a picnic to Westleydale.

And the day was fine. Majendie had promised to be home in time to start
by the nine-fifty train. Meanwhile they waited. Peggy had helped Mary the
cook to pack the luncheon basket, and now she felt time heavy on her
little hands.

Anne suggested that they should go upstairs and help Nanna. Nanna was in
Majendie's room, turning out his drawers. On his bed there was a pile of
suits of the year before last, put aside to be given to Anne's poor
people. When Peggy was tired of fetching and carrying, she watched her
mother turning over the clothes and sorting them into heaps. Anne's
methods were rapid and efficient.

"Oh, mummy!" cried Peggy, "don't! You touch daddy's things as if you
didn't like them."

"Peggy, darling, what do you mean?"

"You're so quick." She laid her face against one of Majendie's coats and
stroked it. "Must daddy's things go away?"

"Yes, darling. Why don't you want them to go?"

"Because I love them. I love all his little coats and hats and shoes and
things."

"Oh, Peggy, Peggy, you're a little sentimentalist. Go and see what
Nanna's got there."

Nanna had given a cry of joyous discovery. "Look, ma'am," said she, "what
I've found in master's portmanteau."

Nanna came forward, shaking out a child's frock. A frock of pure white
silk, embroidered round the neck and wrists with a deep border of
daisies, pink and white and gold.

"Nanna!"

"Oh, mummy, what is it?"

Peggy touched a daisy with her soft forefinger and shrank back shyly. She
knew it was her birthday, but she did not know whether the frock had
anything to do with that, or no.

"I wonder," said Anne, "what little girl daddy brought that for."

"Did daddy bring it?"

"Yes, daddy brought it. Do you think he meant it for her birthday,
Nanna?"

"Well, m'm, he may have meant it for her birthday last year. I found it
stuffed into 'is portmanteau wot 'e took with him in the yacht a year
ago. It's bin there--poked away in the cupboard, ever since. I suppose he
bought it, meaning to give it to Miss Peggy, and put it away and forgot
all about it. See, m'm"--Nanna measured the frock against Peggy's small
figure--"it'd 'a' bin too large for her, last birthday. It'll just fit
her now, m'm."

"Oh, Peggy!" said Anne. "She must put it on. Quick, Nanna. You shall wear
it, my pet, and surprise daddy."

"What fun!" said Peggy.

"_Is_n't it fun?" Anne was as gay and as happy as Peggy. She was smiling
her pretty smile.

Peggy was solemnly arrayed in the little frock. The borders of daisies
showed like a necklace and bracelets against her white skin.

"Well, m'm," said Nanna, "if master did forget, he knew what he was
about, at the time, anyhow. It's the very frock for her."

"Yes. See, Peggy--it's daisies, marguerites. That's why daddy chose
it--for your little name, darling, do you see?"

"My name," said Peggy softly, moved by the wonder and beauty of her
frock.

"There he is, Peggy! Run down and show yourself."

"Oh, muvver," shrieked Peggy, "it will be a surprise for daddy, won't
it?"

She ran down. They followed, and leaned over the bannisters to listen to
the surprise. They heard Peggy's laugh as she came to the last flight of
stairs and showed herself to her father. They heard her shriek "Daddy!
daddy!" Then there was calm.

Then Peggy's voice dropped from its high joy and broke. "Oh, daddy, are
you angry with me?"

Anne came downstairs. Majendie had the child in his arms and was kissing
her.

"Are you angry with me, daddy?" she repeated.

"No, my sweetheart, no." He looked up at Anne. He was very pale, and a
sweat was on his forehead. "Who put that frock on her?"

"I did," said Anne.

"I think you'd better take it off again," he said quietly.

Anne raised her eyebrows as a sign to him to look at Peggy's miserable
mouth. "Oh, let her wear it," she said. "It's her birthday."

Majendie wiped his forehead and turned aside into the study.

"Muvver," said Peggy, as they went hand in hand upstairs again; "do you
think daddy _really meant_ it as a surprise for _me_?"

"I think he must have done, darling."

"Aren't you sorry we spoiled his surprise, mummy?"

"I don't think he minds, Peggy."

"_I_ think he does. Why did he look angry, and say I was to take it off?"

"Perhaps, because it's rather too nice a frock for every day."

"My birthday isn't every day," said Peggy.

So Peggy wore the frock that Maggie had made for her and given to
Majendie last year. He had hidden it in his portmanteau, meaning to give
it to Mrs. Ransome at Christmas. And he had thrown the portmanteau into
the darkest corner of the cupboard, and gone away and forgotten all about
it.

And now the sight of Maggie's handiwork had given him a shock. For his
sin was heavy upon him. Every day he went in fear of discovery. Anne
would ask him where he had got that frock, and he would have to lie to
her. And it would be no use; for, sooner or later, she would know that he
had lied; and she would track Maggie down by the frock.

He hated to see his innocent child dressed in the garment which was a
token and memorial of his sin. He wished he had thrown the damned thing
into the Humber.

But Anne had no suspicion. Her face was smooth and tranquil as she came
downstairs. She was calling Peggy her "little treasure," and her eyes
were smiling as she looked at the frail, small, white and gold creature,
stepping daintily and shyly in her delicate dress.

Peggy was buttoned into a little white coat to keep her warm; and they
set out, Majendie carrying the luncheon basket, and Peggy an enormous
doll.

Peggy enjoyed the journey. When she was not talking to Majendie she was
singing a little song to keep the doll quiet, so that the time passed
very quickly both for her and him. There were other people in the
carriage, and Anne was afraid they would be annoyed at Peggy's singing.
But they seemed to like it as much as she and Majendie. Nobody was ever
annoyed with Peggy.

In Westleydale the beech trees were in golden leaf. It was green
underfoot and on the folding hills. Overhead it was limitless blue above
the uplands; and above the woods, among the golden tree-tops, clear films
and lacing veins and brilliant spots of blue.

Majendie felt Peggy's hand tighten on his hand. Her little body was
trembling with delight.

They found the beech tree under which he and Anne had once sat. He looked
at her. And she, remembering, half turned her face from him; and, as she
stooped and felt for a soft dry place for the child to sit on, she
smiled, half unconsciously, a shy and tender smile.

Then he saw, beside her half-turned face, the face of another woman,
smiling, shyly and tenderly, another smile; and his heart smote him with
the sorrow of his sin.

They sat down, all three, under the beech tree; and Peggy took, first
Majendie's hand, then Anne's hand, and held them together in her lap.

"Mummy," said she, "aren't you glad that daddy came? It wouldn't be half
so nice without him, would it?"

"No," said Anne, "it wouldn't."

"Mummy, you don't say that as if you meant it."

"Oh, Peggy, of course I meant it."

"Yes, but you didn't make it sound so."

"Peggy," said Majendie, "you're a terribly observant little person."

"She's a little person who sometimes observes all wrong."

"No, mummy, I don't. You never talk to daddy like you talk to me."

"You're a little girl, dear, and daddy's a big grown-up man."

"That's not what I mean, though. You've got a grown-up voice for me, too.
I don't mean your grown-up voice. I mean, mummy, you talk to daddy as
if--as if you hadn't known him a very long time. And you talk to me as if
you'd known me--oh, ever so long. _Have_ you known me longer than you've
known daddy?"

Majendie gazed with feigned abstraction at the shoulder of the hill
visible through the branches of the trees.

"Bless you, sweetheart, I knew daddy long before you were ever thought
of."

"When was I thought of, mummy?"

"I don't know, darling."

"Do you know, daddy?"

"Yes, Peggy. _I_ know. You were thought of here, in this wood, under this
tree, on mummy's birthday, between eight and nine years ago."

"Who thought of me?"

"Ah, that's telling."

"Who thought of me, mummy?"

"Daddy and I, dear."

"And you forgot, and daddy remembered."

"Yes. I've got a rather better memory than your mother, dear."

"You forgot my old birthday, daddy."

"I haven't forgotten your mother's old birthday, though."

Peggy was thinking. Her forehead was all wrinkled with the intensity of
her thought.

"Mummy--am I only seven?"

"Only seven, Peggy."

"Then," said Peggy, "you _did_ think of me before I was born. How did you
know me before I was born?"

Anne shook her head.

"Daddy, how did you know me before I was born?"

"Peggy, you're a little tease."

"You brought it on yourself, my dear. Peggy, if you'll leave off teasing
daddy, I'll tell you a story."

"Oh!--"

"Once upon a time" (Anne's voice was very low) "mummy had a dream. She
dreamed she was in this wood, walking along that little path--just
there--not thinking of Peggy. And when she came to this tree she saw an
angel, with big white wings. He was lying under this very tree, on this
very bit of grass, just there, where daddy's sitting. And one of his
wings was stretched out on the grass, and it was hollow like a cradle.
It was all lined with little feathers, like the inside of a swan's wing,
as soft as soft. And the other wing was stretched over it like the top of
a cradle. And inside, all among the soft little feathers, there was a
little baby girl lying, just like Peggy."

"Oh, mummy, was it me?"

"Sh--sh--sh! Whoever it was, the angel saw that mummy loved it, and
wanted it very much--"

"The little baby girl?"

"Yes. And so he took the baby and gave it to mummy, to be her own little
girl. That's how Peggy came to mummy."

"And did he give it to daddy, too, to be his little girl?"

"Yes," said Majendie, "I was wondering where I came in."

"Yes. He gave it to daddy to be his little girl, too."

"I'm glad he gave me to daddy. The angel brought me to you in the night,
like daddy brought me my big dolly. You did bring my big dolly, and put
her on my bed, didn't you, daddy? Last night?"

Majendie was silent.

"Daddy wasn't at home last night, Peggy."

"Oh, daddy, where were you?"

Majendie felt his forehead getting damp again.

"Daddy was away on business."

"Oh, mummy, don't you wish he'd never go away?"

"I think it's time for lunch," said Majendie.

They ate their lunch; and when it was ended, Majendie went to the cottage
to find water, for Peggy was thirsty. He returned, carrying water in a
pitcher, and followed by a red-cheeked, rosy little girl who brought milk
in a cup for Peggy.

Anne remembered the cup. It was the same cup that she had drunk from
after her husband. And the child was the same child whom he had found
sitting in the grass, whom he had shown to her and taken from her arms,
whose little body, held close to hers, had unsealed in her the first
springs of her maternal passion. It all came back to her.

The little girl beamed on Peggy with a face like a small red sun, and
Peggy conceived a sudden yearning for her companionship. It seemed that,
at the cottage, there were rabbits, and a new baby, and a litter of
puppies three days old. And all these wonders the little girl offered
to show to Peggy, if Peggy would go with her.

Peggy begged, and went through the wood, hand in hand with the little
beaming girl. Majendie and Anne watched them out of sight.

"Look at the two pairs of legs," said Majendie.

Anne sighed. Her Peggy showed very white and frail beside the red,
lusty-legged daughter of the woods.

"I'm not at all happy about her," said she.

"Why not?"

"She gets so terribly tired."

"All children do, don't they?"

Anne shook her head. "Not as she does. It isn't a child's healthy
tiredness. It doesn't come like that. It came on quite suddenly the other
day, after she'd been excited; and her little lips turned grey."

"Get Gardner to look at her."

"I'm going to. He says she ought to be more in the open air. I wish we
could get a cottage somewhere in the country, with a nice garden."

Majendie said nothing. He was thinking of Three Elms Farm, and the garden
and the orchard, and of the pure wind that blew over them straight from
the sea. He remembered how Maggie had said that the child would love it.

"You could afford it, Walter, couldn't you, now?"

"Of course I can afford it."

He thought how easily it could be done, if he gave up his yacht and the
farm. His business was doing better every year. But the double household
was a drain on his fresh resources. He could not very well afford to take
another house, and keep the farm too. He had thought of that before. He
had been thinking of it last night when he spoke to Maggie about giving
him up. Poor Maggie! Well, he would have to manage somehow. If the worst
came to the worst they could sell the house in Prior Street. And he would
sell the yacht.

"I think I shall sell the yacht," he said.

"Oh no, you mustn't do that. You've been so well since you've had it."

"No, it isn't necessary. I shall be better if I take more exercise."

Peggy came back and the subject dropped.

Peggy was very unhappy before the picnic ended. She was tired, so tired
that she cried piteously, and Majendie had to take her up in his arms and
carry her all the way to the station. Anne carried the doll.

In the train Peggy fell asleep in her father's arms. She slept with her
face pressed close against him, and one hand clinging to his breast. Her
head rested on his arm, and her hair curled over his rough coat-sleeve.

"Look--" he whispered.

Anne looked. "The little lamb--" she said.

Then she was silent, discerning in the man's face, bent over the sleeping
child, the divine look of love and tenderness. She was silent, held by an
old enchantment and an older vision; brooding on things dear and secret
and long-forgotten.




CHAPTER XXX


Though Thurston Square saw little of Mrs. Majendie, the glory of Mrs.
Eliott's Thursdays remained undiminished. The same little procession
filed through her drawing-room as before. Mrs. Pooley, Miss Proctor, the
Gardners, and Canon Wharton. Mrs. Eliott was more than ever haggard and
pursuing; she had more than ever the air of clinging, desperate and
exhausted, on her precipitous intellectual heights.

But Mrs. Pooley never flagged, possibly because her ideas were vaguer
and more miscellaneous, and therefore less exhausting. It was she who
now urged Mrs. Eliott on. This year Mrs. Pooley was going in for
thought-power, and for mind-control, and had drawn Mrs. Eliott in with
her. They still kept it up for hours together, and still they dreaded
the disastrous invasions of Miss Proctor.

Miss Proctor rode roughshod over the thought-power, and trampled
contemptuously on the mind-control. Mrs. Gardner's attitude was
mysterious and unsatisfactory. She seemed to stand serenely on the shore
of the deep sea where Mrs. Eliott and Mrs. Pooley were for ever plunging
and sinking, and coming up again, bobbing and bubbling, to the surface.
Her manner implied that she would die rather than go in with them; it
also suggested that she knew rather more about the thought-power and the
mind-control than they did; but that she did not wish to talk so much
about it.

Mr. Eliott, dexterous as ever, and fortified by the exact sciences, took
refuge from the occult under his covering of profound stupidity. He had a
secret understanding with Dr. Gardner on the subject. His spirit no
longer searched for Dr. Gardner's across the welter of his wife's
drawing-room, knowing that it would find it at the club.

Now, in October, about four o'clock on the Thursday after Peggy's
birthday, Canon Wharton and Miss Proctor met at Mrs. Eliott's. The Canon
had watched his opportunity and drawn his hostess apart.

"May I speak with you a moment," he said, "before your other guests
arrive?"

Mrs. Eliott led him to a secluded sofa. "If you'll sit here," said she,
"we can leave Johnson to entertain Miss Proctor."

"I am perplexed and distressed," said the Canon, "about our dear Mrs.
Majendie."

Mrs. Eliott's eyes darkened with anxiety. She clasped her hands. "Oh why?
What is it? Do you mean about the dear little girl?"

"I know nothing about the little girl. But I hear very unpleasant things
about her husband."

"What things?"

The Canon's face was reticent and grim. He wished Mrs. Eliott to
understand that he was no unscrupulous purveyor of gossip; that if he
spoke, it was under constraint and severe necessity.

"I do not," said the Canon, "usually give heed to disagreeable reports.
But I am afraid that, where there is such a dense cloud of smoke, there
must be some fire."

"I think," said Mrs. Eliott, "perhaps they didn't get on very well
together once. But they seem to have made it up after the sister's death.
_She_ has been happier these last three years. She has been a different
woman."

"The same woman, my dear lady, the same woman. Only a better saint. For
the last three years, they say, he has been living with another woman."

"Oh--it's impossible. Impossible. He is away a great deal--but--"

"He is away a great deal too often. Running up to Scarby every week in
that yacht of his. In with the Ransomes and all that disreputable set."

"Is Lady Cayley in Scale?"

"Lady Cayley is at Scarby."

"Do you mean to say--"

"I mean," said the Canon, rising, "to say nothing."

Mrs. Eliott detained him with her eyes of anguish.

"Canon Wharton--do you think she knows?"

"I cannot tell you."

The Canon never told. He was far too clever.

Mrs. Eliott wandered to Miss Proctor.

"Do you know," said Miss Proctor, searching Mrs. Eliott's face with an
inquisitive gaze, "how our friends, the Majendies, are getting on?"

"Oh, as usual. I see very little of her now. Anne is quite taken up with
her little girl and with her good works."

"Oh! That," said Miss Proctor, "was a most unsuitable marriage."

It was five o'clock. The Canon and Miss Proctor had drunk their two
cups of tea and departed. Mrs. Pooley had arrived soon after four;
she lingered, to talk a little more about the thought-power and the
mind-control. Mrs. Pooley was convinced that she could make things
happen. That they were, in fact, happening. But Mrs. Eliott was no longer
interested.

Mrs. Pooley, too, departed, feeling that dear Fanny's Thursday had been a
disappointment. She had been quite unable to sustain the conversation at
its usual height.

Mrs. Pooley indubitably gone, Mrs. Eliott wandered down to Johnson in his
study. There, in perfect confidence, she revealed to him the Canon's
revelations.

Johnson betrayed no surprise. That story had been going the round of his
club for the last two years.

"What will Anne do?" said Mrs. Eliott, "when she finds out?"

"I don't suppose she'll do anything."

"Will she get a separation, do you think?"

"How can I tell you?"

"I wonder if she knows."

"She's not likely to tell you, if she does."

"She's bound to know, sooner or later. I wonder if one ought to prepare
her?"

"Prepare her for what?"

"The shock of it. I'm afraid of her hearing in some horrid way. It would
be so awful, if she didn't know."

"It can't be pleasant, any way, my dear."

"Do advise me, Johnson. Ought I or ought I not to tell her?"

Mr. Eliott's face told how his nature shrank from the agony of decision.
But he was touched by her distress.

"Certainly not. Much better let well alone."

"If I were only sure that it _was_ well I was letting alone."

"Can't be sure of anything. Give it the benefit of the doubt."

"Yes--but if you were I?"

"If I were you I should say nothing."

"That only means that I should say nothing if I were you. But I'm not."

"Be thankful, my dear, at any rate, for that."

He took up a book, _The Search for Stellar Parallaxes_, a book that he
understood and that his wife could not understand. That book was the sole
refuge open to him when pressed for an opinion. He knew that, when she
saw him reading it, she would realise that he was her intellectual
master.

The front doorbell announced the arrival of another caller.

She went away, wondering, as he meant she should, whether he were so very
undecided, after all. Certainly his indecisions closed a subject more
effectually than other people's verdicts.

She found Anne in the empty, half-dark drawing-room waiting for her. She
had chosen the darkest corner, and the darkest hour.

"Fanny," she said, and her voice trembled, "are you alone? Can I speak to
you a moment?"

"Yes, dear, yes. Just let me leave word with Mason that I'm not at home.
But no one will come now."

In the interval she heard Anne struggling with the sob that had choked
her voice. She felt that the decision had been made for her. The terrible
task had been taken out of her hands. Anne knew.

She sat down beside her friend and put her hand on her shoulder. In that
moment poor Fanny's intellectual vanities dropped from her, like an
inappropriate garment, and she became pure woman. She forgot Anne's
recent disaffection and her coldness, she forgot the years that had
separated them, and remembered only the time when Anne was the girlfriend
who had loved her, and had come to her in all her griefs, and had made
her house her home.

"What is it, dear?" she murmured.

Anne felt for her hand and pressed it. She tried to speak, but no words
would come.

"Of course," thought Mrs. Eliott, "she cannot tell me. But she knows I
know."

"My dear," she said, "can I or Johnson help you?"

Anne shook her head; but she pressed her friend's hand tighter.

Wondering what she could do or say to help her, Mrs. Eliott resolved to
take Anne's knowledge for granted, and act upon it.

"If there's trouble, dear, will you come to us? We want you to look on
our house as a refuge, any hour of the day or night."

Anne stared at her friend. There was something ominous and dismaying in
her solemn tenderness, and it roused Anne to wonder, even in her grief.

"You cannot help me, dear," she said. "No one can. Yet I had to come to
you and tell you--"

"Tell me everything," said Mrs. Eliott, "if you can."

Anne tried to steady her voice to tell her, and failed. Then Fanny had an
inspiration. She felt that she must divert Anne's thoughts from the grief
that made her dumb, and get her to talk naturally of other things.

"How's Peggy?" said she. She knew it would be good to remind her that,
whatever happened, she had still the child.

But at that question, Anne released Mrs. Eliott's hand, and laid her head
back upon the cushion and cried.

"Dear," whispered Mrs. Eliott, with her inspiration full upon her, "you
will always have _her_."

Then Anne sat up in her corner, and put away her tears, and controlled
herself to speak.

"Fanny," she said, "Dr. Gardner has seen her. He says I shall not have
her very long. Perhaps--a few years--if we take the very greatest
care--"

"Oh, my dear! What is it?"

"It's her heart. I thought it was her spine, because of Edie. But it
isn't. She has valvular disease. Oh, Fanny, I didn't think a little child
could have it."

"Nor I," said Mrs. Eliott, shocked into a great calm. "But surely--if you
take care--"

"No. He gives no hope. He only says a few years, if we leave Scale and
take her into the country. She must never be overtired, never excited. We
must never vex her. He says one violent crying fit might kill her. And
she cries so easily. She cries sometimes till she's sick."

Mrs. Eliott's face had grown white; she trembled, and was dumb before the
anguish of Anne's face.

But it was Anne who rose, and put her arms about the childless woman, and
kissed and comforted her.

It was as if she had said: Thank God you never had one.




CHAPTER XXXI


The rumour which was going the round of the clubs in due time reached
Lady Cayley through the Ransomes. It roused in her many violent and
conflicting emotions.

She sat trembling in the Ransomes' drawing-room. Mrs. Ransome had just
asked whether there was anything in it; because if there was, she, Mrs.
Ransome, washed her hands of her. She intimated that it would take a good
deal of washing to get Sarah off her hands.

Sarah had unveiled the face of horror, the face of outraged virtue, and
the wrath and writhing of propriety wounded in the uncertain, quivering,
vital spot. During the unveiling Dick Ransome had come in. He wanted
to know if Topsy had been bullying poor Toodles. Whereupon Topsy wept
feebly, and poor Toodles had a moment of monstrous calm.

She wanted to get it quite clear, to make no mistake. They might as well
give her the details. Majendie had left his wife, had he? Well, she
wasn't surprised at that. The wonder was that, having married her, he had
stuck to her so long. He had left his wife, and was living at Scarby, was
he, with her? Well, she only wanted to get all the details clear.

At this Sarah fell into a fit of laughter very terrifying to see. Since
her own sister wouldn't take her word for it, she supposed she'd have to
prove that it was not so.

And, under the horror of her virtue and respectability, there heaved a
dull, dumb fury, born of her memory that it once was, her belief that
it might have been again, and her knowledge that it was not so. She
trembled, shaken by the troubling of the fire that ran underground,
the immense, unseen, unliberated, primeval fire. She was no longer a
creature of sophistries, hypocrisies, and wiles. She was the large woman
of the simple earth, welded by the dark, unspiritual flame.

Dick Ransome turned on his sister-in-law a pale, puffy face in which two
little dark eyes twinkled with a shrewd, gross humour. Nothing could
possibly have pleased Dick Ransome more than an exhibition of indignant
virtue, as achieved by Sarah. He knew a great deal more about Sarah than
Mrs. Ransome knew, or than Sarah knew herself. To Dick Ransome's mind,
thus illumined by knowledge, that spectacle swept the whole range of
human comedy. He sat taking in all the entertainment it presented; and,
when it was all over, he remarked quietly that Toodles needn't bother
about her proofs. He had got them too. He knew that it was not so. He
could tell her that much, but he wasn't going to give Majendie away. No,
she couldn't get any more out of him than that.

Sarah smiled. She did not need to get anything more out of him. She had
her proof; or, if it didn't exactly amount to proof, she had her clue.
She had found it long ago; and she had followed it up, if not to the end,
at any rate, quite far enough. She reflected that Majendie, like the dear
fool he always was, had given it to her himself, five years ago.

Men's sins take care of themselves. It is their innocent good deeds that
start the hounds of destiny. When Majendie sent Maggie Forrest's
handiwork to Mrs. Ransome, with a kind note recommending the little
embroideress, by that innocent good deed he woke the sleeping dogs of
destiny. Mrs. Ransome's sister had tracked poor Maggie down by the long
trail of her beautiful embroidery. She had been baffled when the
embroidered clue broke off. Now, after three years, she leaped (and
it was not a very difficult leap for Lady Cayley) to the firm conclusion.
Maggie Forrest and her art had disappeared for three years; so, at
perilous intervals, had Majendie; therefore they had disappeared
together.