Mary Elizabeth Carter

“ He read aloud every night and she never ceased from work to listen. Borlase had often laughed in thinking of the extraordinary jumble of curtailed facts with which her mind must be stored. But to-night he was in no humour for laughter. On the contrary their simplicity struck him as pathetic. Our own moods colour the actions of others and he was suddenly feeling depressed and disappointed. Not only was he baulked in his intention of spending the evening at Old Lafer but Anna had been far from shy when she asked him to do so. ”

“ A new experience of the influence each can exert on the lives round it, bringing a rush of undreamt-of possibilities that invested the vista of the future with a halo of definite and sacred responsibilities, had stirred her to a wider grasp of the issues involved in action, as well as to a keener questioning of their mainspring. She had known for years that Clothilde did not love her husband; but considered that she had no capacity either for love or hate, treating her emotions as diffused and colourless, and herself none the more unhappy for her indifference. ”

“ Ambrose, though the younger man, was suddenly conscious of a tendency to corpulency and a rolling gait. He surveyed this trim cut-and-dry Anglo-Indian with apparent indifference, while Danby fixed his gaze in return and yet seemed to watch the glitter of the ripples in the sun in the bay beyond. Ambrose was nervous, but preferred to feel amused rather than impressed.
'We'll have chairs if you don't care for the wall,' he said. 'I prefer the wall. One can swing one's legs, an immense luxury of energy to an idle man.'
He did not think Danby would take to the wall, but he did. ”

“ Tremenheere himself more conscious of the charm of the place than of its conventional accessories, and bent on a walk over the moor when the shadows were lengthening and the evening breeze should silence the chirp of the grasshoppers and rustle through the ling.
The ladies were left in the parlour. Mrs. Severn had floated away from the dinner-table in her sweeping black draperies with a face so white that Borlase was still obliged to consider her an orthodox patient. Mrs. Hennifer insisted on ensconcing her on the settee with her feet up. ”

“ I wonder when he'll begin to see into Clothilde's genuine moral structure. Thank Heaven, he'll not be marred though he may be maimed; he's made of sterner stuff than he'll know of till the occasion comes, and he's very fond of Anna, and nothing'll spoil Anna, not even Clothilde. If I thought she would, we'd keep her at Rocozanne after all. I longed to blurt out the truth and tell him of Clothilde's engagement to that poor fellow in India. She doesn't care a straw for Severn. What heart she has is in the Punjaub; but because it's given to a poor man she plays it false. ”

“ Joy won't come unbidden; we must help to prepare the ground or there'll only be a weedy plant that will wither in the sun. The joys of one are the cares of another. I suppose Dad and the children are cares to you.'
Mrs. Severn was silent. Anna turned, and leaning against the window looked down into the garden. Its midsummer brilliancy had faded with the sunshine, and the tangle of flowers, missing the caresses of breeze and [Pg 35] sun and bees, looked subdued and shame-faced. At least so she fancied. A dewy sweetness hung above, floating up to her in incense-like whiffs. ”

“ He did not wait for the pony, straining every muscle to land its load, but casually remarking, 'Hi, come up, Jane my bonny one!' made for the lap-cocks. He looked up to the business, and winked at Anna as much as to say so. He lumbered round, prodding one after the other and contriving to gather some hint for his guesses. He was never random and hated to be wrong. His keen old eyes did not deceive him now. When Jane reached them they were all ready to go up the field together, the girls shaking hay-seeds out of their hair, Jack pushing fodder under Jane's nose each time Elias 'breathed' her. ”

“ A more God-forsaken-looking place than the Mires it would be impossible to imagine. Even on this glorious day in late August it looked dreary and forbidding. The cluster of stone cottages, half of them roofless, with the inner white-washed walls showing through the jagged gaps where windows and doors had been, straggled round a marsh whose pools of water glistened like scales among tufts of rush and treacherous slimy moss. The hollow was cup-like. There was no ling on its sides, they were covered with a harsh dry bent, through which the breeze swished. ”

“ Those who abhorred Hartas as evil to the core and unredeemable, cast many a kind thought on Kit; he would get into trouble if only from his daring spirit, and it would be a thousand pities. When he married, many prophesied that it would be the saving of him. Priscilla was nurse-maid at Old Lafer and a good steady girl. But she lost her baby and fell ill when a hard winter was at its hardest. There was no coal-mining to be done, for the moors were snow-bound. Kit loved her passionately and nursed her devotedly. ”

“ The sun was low—a few moments more and it would sink below the moor behind the house. The shadows lay long on the grass. The garden was to the right of the front door, whose flight of uneven steps led down upon flags bright with golden bosses of stone-crop. Old Lafer had a long frontage and a steep thatched roof with deep eaves where swallows loved to build. The two rows of windows were latticed with leaded panes; [Pg 22] monthly roses reached to the sills of the lower ones. ”

“ Hennifer knew that the radiating violet of the iris [Pg 232] possessed the faculty of a sea-anemone in contracting and expanding. Had she not known Danby she would have detested those eyes as holding what a bad man might reciprocate and a good woman resent; discovering to the one too much knowledge, to the other the nearness of evil. But she knew him as a young man, and she remembered the mortal agony of wasted tenderness they had once shown her. Why was her darling Cynthia to be the atonement for that agony? ”

“ She could not herself have been more impetuous. His frankness charmed her. Well it might! It was the surest guerdon of lifelong happiness. He knew she was of the same nature. To such there is no fear of one of those tragedies of life which turns upon a misunderstanding.
Anna quickly re-descended into the hollow. She hoped Mrs. Severn would come out and not oblige her to go up to the cottage. She was anxious to get away while the Mires was still depopulated by the cottagers being out at their peat-stacks and bracken cutting. Besides which Hartas might be at home. ”

“ The very devil gets into these women, good souls though they are, bless 'em, and they either don't know what they want, or won't take the trouble of making up their minds. And to think that after all these years her fancy should be caught like this, all in a jiffy. She's held herself too cheap; it's Cynthy all over, just what she does, thinks nothing of herself. If a beggar smiles upon her she gets a spasm of happiness, and thinks all the world's full of happiness.'
'But how do we know it's been a hasty thing?' said Tremenheere. ”

“ Cynthia has had many offers of marriage. I believe she has had a horror of being married for her money; the fact of your ignorance will delight her—has done in fact, for she named it to Theo. But it's been a blow to my wife, Danby; and, human-like, she's not ready just now to think the best of you. Her brother has been attached to Cynthia for many years, and so long as she was attached to no one else he would not have ceased to hope to win her. ”

“ In front the meadows dipped into the valley of the Woss, then rose again to the village of East Lafer. After this, foliage and cultivation increased. The plain stretching away to the wolds was varied with fallow and stubble and pasture. Its tints were opalescent. Anna loved better [Pg 24] the deep blue shadows that lurked in every hollow of the hills, showing their mouldings and intensifying their sunshine.
When Elias Constantine came up the slope from the beck, he was ahead of the sledge. ”

“ Scilla smiled an April smile. Then suddenly she laughed. 'Miss Anna,' she said, 'what'll Mrs. Severn say to it? She'll none want to lose you from Old Lafer. She was in a fine taking on an hour ago, when I told her 'twere you and Mr. Borlase. But never mind what she says. Insulting words may come nigh you, but don't you make a trouble of them; they'll only speak badly for her as uses them. Every one knows what you are in your inwardest nature.'
Mrs. Severn had walked on and was now standing on the ridge, silhouetted against the sky. ”

“ It's this walk to Rocozanne that amuses you,' he added, with a genial smile. 'You think it inconsistent with a lover's ardour that I should not go as fast as your good mare would take me. The truth is, I want an hour's leisure. When one marries a second time and is my age, and it is a young girl who is good enough to take one, the responsibilities are much greater than when two young people marry; one has more misgiving, you know, about one's wife being happy. Since I won Clothilde I have scarcely had time to realise my good fortune. ”

“ Hennifer his arm, and Cynthia went before them, glancing back over her shoulder as she talked, and giving them glimpses of the eyes whose brightness was again shadowed by that indefinable haze of happy abstraction which had startled them all the moment they saw her. ”

“ Would she grow old and still wear it? Death could not enhance its calm. Borlase, her doctor, giving her skilled attention in her hours of agony, felt with a strange shiver that even in her agony she was, in some strange way, impersonal—her epitaph, what could be more appropriate than this, 'She died as she had lived, coldly?'
And now Anna's deft fingers had gathered up the rich hair and were plaiting it into plaits to coil high on her head with a tiara-like [Pg 32] effect. Mrs. Severn had raised herself to admit of this manipulation and watched it in a glass which Anna had put into her hands. ”

“ I told Anna, however.'
'Does Mr. Severn say she cannot be spared?'
'John? You know what John is—crazy for people to be happy, as he calls it. He said he should have her when he wanted her. It is I who have the common sense. I told him I could not spare her until Antoinette was old enough to take her place; and I told Anna Mr. Borlase might die and leave her a widow without a farthing. I do think, when John has given her a home all these years, she ought to make us the first consideration. But every one seems very hard to convince.'
She got up as she spoke and moved to the piano. ”

“ To a man of Hartas Kendrew's temperament, risk added zest. To run into it quickened his sluggish blood to a degree which he cherished with delight; failure nurtured his lowest nature, success was only more enthralling as feeding a triumph whose chief charm lay in its maliciousness. ”

“ I always think you should all be thankful I come here instead of going to Wonston, which would cause so much more scandal.'
She put her hand on her arm as she spoke, half confidingly, half as a help in walking, for she now turned to the cottage.
But Anna shook it off as though she were stung, and started back, fixing on her a look of repugnant mistrust.
'Clothilde,' she exclaimed, 'I will never leave you here again. You are mad to speak so lightly. I will tell you the truth. I know everything. Scilla told Dinah that you drank when last you were here. ”

“ I never look strong, Anna; you might as well say robust at once. And you know I never look vulgar.'
'Dearest, who said a word about vulgarity? I only meant as much as I said. If [Pg 30] to look strong means to be vulgar, then I am so and thank God for it. But you do look well to-night, and if Mr. Borlase saw you I'm certain he would say you were well. When are you going to delight our eyes by being in the parlour again, you beautiful woman? What an ugly duckling I am among you all, only Elias to comfort me with his "divine plain face of a woman." ”

“ Clothilde,' said Anna, 'there's none [Pg 29] so deaf as those who won't hear, is there now? I was certain you were awake but you feel lazy, and the longer you lie here the lazier you will feel! The heat, added to that constitutional tendency, is stupefying, isn't it?'
She spoke satirically and smiled, but at the same moment tried to arrange the cushions more comfortably. Mrs. Severn, however, pushed her away and sat up.
'You always think me lazy when I'm tired; you are a tiresome contradictious creature,' she said. ”

“ Borlase was silent. The indictment was too obvious; another point for the dissection of his inner consciousness.
'One's imagination always flies to a catastrophe rather than good fortune,' said Anna.
'Not always,' said Borlase sharply. 'I never imagined on the moor to-night that Mr. Severn would be away after market at Wonston and I could not spend the evening with you.'
'But why not?' said Anna. 'I asked you and I told you of my new song. ”

“ I wish it had been the Canon, I do. I always thought she'd come round. And she went off so simply, was the only one who didn't suspect Mrs. Kerr's plan. I was sure she'd fall in with it quite naturally. But it's a failure. She's engaged herself without any leave-asking to a man she's met on their travels; Danby they call him, Lucius Danby. He's an Anglo-Indian.'
He was stirring his tea, Anna was replenishing the teapot. No one noticed that Mrs. Severn's head had fallen back, and that she was slipping off her chair. ”

“ When Hartas Kendrew was down in delirium tremens as the result of a drinking bout, his invoking the devil and his agencies was so real an element in the life of the pitmen at the Mires that his ravings must generate belief—however reluctant—in the probability of fiends and bogies responding. Had the Mires been a respectable hamlet and its pit population one of healthy morals and God-fearing principles, the midnight moor would have had no terrors, for good would have had the predominance over evil.
The mould which makes us is circumstance. ”