I. A. R. Wylie

“ She and Harry had never been farther than the corner, because Harry had said that beyond that point the road became bad and uninteresting. But now Rosita had chosen for herself.
Mrs. Franklin was a good rider. Harry had taught her. In other days she would have mastered the runaway in a few hundred yards. Now she had no strength, no will. In the very midst of that downward, thunderous rush she realised quite calmly that she didn't care—that if anything, she was glad. Change was coming. Death itself, perhaps. And she didn't want to live any more. Not without Harry. ”

“ Harry's stamps—Harry's books—they seemed to her without beauty, without meaning. Or their meaning was like a thing suspended in mid-air, without foundations. And nothing was beautiful that did not have its roots in Tatbury.
She closed her eyes and whispered, "Oh, Harry, I thought of you always—always!" as she had done a hundred times during these bitter weeks, but now she knew that it is easier to lie to the living than to the dead. ”

“ Franklin as though any moment the door might open in answer to her. Mrs. Franklin turned to escape, but there was shouting in the street, the steely clang of hoofs on the cobbles. She felt trapped, outraged, indignant. It was horrible to be so frightened—so helpless.
"My man—my man——"
It got on her nerves. It was indecent—this animal crying out. These people were animals—ugly animals. She would never be able to forget them. It would be an ugly stain on her memory. Somehow they stood between her and Harry, so that she couldn't see him. ”

“ That it was a woman who faced her from the opposite doorway she hardly realised. Women weren't like that in Mrs. Franklin's world. Even the servants had a sort of dignity. This woman's very immobility was violent—menacing. She loomed out of the dusk like a trapped animal. She was half-naked. It seemed that she had tried to dress and then in frantic haste had torn a frowsy sheet from the bed that filled the room behind her with its tumbled outline, and wrapped it about her. The squalor of it all seemed to rush out at Mrs. Franklin like a foul breath. ”

“ Eliot went off shaking in every limb. She was sure now that something terrible was hanging over Ravello. Perhaps money trouble. Perhaps Mrs. Franklin had put her money into the hands of bad people. So innocent—so helpless. And yet that flush——! Oh, if only Harry Franklin were alive! If only Ravello would remain what it had always been—unspotted from the world—the shrine of little Mrs. Eliot's own secret love-story.
Meantime Mrs. Franklin confronted her visitor. She found herself rather roughly and hastily shovelling the stamps back into their box. ”

“ Eliot and Mrs. Frances had opened their hearts to each other, and that hearts, even in River's-End, were strange places.
III
While the two women climbed the hill, Joan Franklin was standing by the long window that looked down over the river. The river, where she and Harry had bathed every morning, year in, year out, lay under a pall of white mist. She could trace the shadowy garden path down which they had run together. She could see him running just in front of her, tall and slender and vigorous as a Greek athlete. ”

“ They were like "Ravello," their home, the one white house shining with a subdued radiance amidst the stolid red-brick—aloof, different, and very beautiful. Yet it seemed that after all they had meant something to River's-End.
The two women spoke in undertones. Perhaps it was the summer's dusk which lent their comfortable, round bodies dignity—a poignancy to their voices.
"Poor soul! Poor soul!"
"She must be quite young still. Forty, I suppose. Though she doesn't look it. ”

“ It suggests a proximity altogether too warm. As a matter of fact they were separated and almost hidden from one another by shady gardens, each with its own tennis lawn and rose-covered pergola. On the other side of the Heights, deep down in the valley out of sight of the river, was Tatbury—a squalidly prosperous mining town, whose smoke, when the wind was to the east, drifted horridly over River's-End and would have spoiled the white frocks of the tennis players but for the fact that it always rained when the wind was in the east and River's-End was therefore indoors with closed windows. ”

“ I wouldn't have worried, only we've just had news that influenza was raging at Tatbury—and—and, of course—I thought of you at once. But I'm sure you will be all right. What a wonderful collection! Of course I don't understand anything about stamps, but I'm sure it must be very valuable."
"Very—at least, I suppose so."
"She's thinking of him," Mrs. Eliot reflected tenderly. "Poor soul!"
Mrs. Franklin let a handful of precious Victorian issues slip through her fingers. "Do people with babies get influenza quicker than other people?" she asked. ”

“ The exquisite dignity of the room was convulsed and shattered by his shouting. Nothing could ever be the same again.
"You'd rather Tatbury was wiped out," Mrs. Franklin said fiercely, "—rather than that I should help. But you can't stop me. Roberts—ask Mrs. Eliot if she will lend me her limousine—at once." ”

“ There were people crowded against the bulwarks waving—calling—— She grew dizzy and blind with fear. Oh, God—if he had only died—for both their sakes! A gangway was let down. They came swarming down—these faceless, meaningless figures. They were welcomed—kissed—jokes fluttered about them—little, tremulous jokes of happy people. Mrs. Franklin did not move. She stood there with clenched hands.
A man came down the gangway. Very slowly. A steward was helping him. A bearded, elderly man, gaunt-cheeked—stooping—grey-looking. ”

“ Business Business. He had never had anything to do with business. His people had been rich for generations. Now somewhere out in the wilds a source of wealth was threatened. It seemed he had to go. She had seen his face shadowed with distaste, weariness—almost with disgust.
"Why should one have to do these things?" he had asked.
She had wanted to go with him, but there his fastidiousness had revolted. It would be a rough trip at best, and the thought of her exquisite delicacy pitted against dirt and discomfort had made him relentless. ”

“ She longed for the dead lover as she had never longed for him before—to defend and comfort her—and he had never seemed so far away. In that mystic life amidst the gracious beauty of their home it had been easy to conjure him back. ”

“ A man might drop down dead outside your house and if he wasn't your sort, you wouldn't notice it."
"I've never been interested in—in industrial matters," she explained coolly.
"I bet you haven't. You don't use electricity or coal, do you? You don't draw dividends. No, I guess industry's not in your line." ”

“ At other times River's-End did not know that Tatbury existed.
Some of the River's-End males went up to business every day, but most of them had retired young. There were no really old people, and nobody was ever very ill—or indeed very anything at all. You could not associate either heart-break or ecstasy with River's-End.
Then Harry Franklin was killed. Not in River's-End, of course. Somewhere out in the wilds of Armenia where he had gone on business. By Turks. Something altogether violent and incredible.
II
Mrs. ”

“ Besides"—he gave the Elizabethan chair an ironic glance—"I'm too tired to sit down on a thing like that. No, I'll say what I have to say and and be gone. I dropped in on the Pauls this morning. Mrs. Paul told me you had promised to come back. Well, you can't. The whole place is riddled with the epidemic. It's natural enough. They've no strength to fight it. By the time it's finished those that are left can turn grave diggers.
A rare Labrador fluttered from Mrs. Franklin's fingers to the floor. ”