Rowcliffe

“ And Steven Rowcliffe's eyes, so disastrous to the young ladies in Leeds, saw nobody in Morfe whom he could possibly want to marry. The village of Morfe is built in a square round its green. The doctor's house stands on a plot of rising ground on the north side of the square, and from its front windows young Rowcliffe could see the inhabitants of Morfe coming and going before him as on a stage, and he kept count of them all. There were the three middle-aged maiden ladies in the long house on the west side of whom all he knew was that they ate far too many pikelets and griddle cakes for tea. ”

“ But the Widow Gale didn't carry them very far.
What would have carried them far was Rowcliffe himself. But Rowcliffe never wanted to talk about himself to Mary. When Mary tried to lead gently up to him, Rowcliffe shied. He wouldn't talk about himself any more than he would talk about Gwenda.
But Mary didn't want to talk about Gwenda either now. So that her face showed the faintest flicker of dismay when Rowcliffe suddenly began to talk about her.
"Have you any idea," he said, "when your sister's coming back?"
"She won't be long," said Mary. "She's only gone to Upthorne village." ”

“ As long as it lasted he was faced with an incomprehensible and monstrous rivalry.
And as a man might leave a woman to his uninteresting rival in the certainty that she will be bored and presently return to him, Rowcliffe left Gwenda to the earth and moon. ”

“ Rowcliffe said.
Mary was pensive. Her brooding look said that she laid a secret fear to rest.
"Garth couldn't satisfy a girl like Gwenda."
Rowcliffe said no, he supposed it couldn't satisfy her. His dejection was by this time terrible. It cast a visible, a palpable gloom.
"She's a restless creature," said Mary, smiling.
She threw it out as if by way of lightening his oppression, almost as if she put it to him that if Gwenda was restless (by which Rowcliffe might understand, if he liked, capricious) she couldn't help it. There was no reason why he should be so horribly hurt. ”

“ When all was said and done, it was she and not Gwenda who was Rowcliffe's wife. And she had other grounds for complacency. Her sister, a solitary Miss Cartaret, stowed away in Garth Vicarage, was of no account. She didn't matter. And as Mary Cartaret Mary would have mattered even less. But Steven Rowcliffe's professional reputation served him well. He counted. People who had begun by trusting him had ended by liking him, and in two years' time his social value had become apparent. And as Mrs. Steven Rowcliffe Mary had a social value too. ”

“ She was prepared for the lie. She said to herself, "He is going to see Gwenda. He can't keep away from her."
And then she remembered what Alice had said to her. "You'll know some day."
She knew.
LIII And with her knowledge there came a curious calm.
She no longer watched and worried Rowcliffe. She knew that no wife ever kept her husband by watching and worrying him.
She was aware of danger and she faced it with restored complacency.
For Mary was a fount of sensual wisdom. Rowcliffe was ill. And from his illness she inferred his misery, and from his misery his innocence. ”

“ Rowcliffe moved irritably under Mary's eyes. She lowered them and waited for the silken sound that should have told her that he had turned a page.
And all the time she kept on saying to herself, "He was thinking about Gwenda. He's sorry for Alice because of Gwenda, not because of me. It isn't my people that he's good to." ”

“ The fact that Mary and Gwenda could talk to him and talk intelligently showed how little they cared for him or were likely to care, and how immeasurably far they were from the supreme act of adoration. Similarly, the fact that Rowcliffe could talk to Mary and to Gwenda showed how little he cared. If he had cared, if he were ever going to care as Ally understood caring, his brain would have swum like hers and his intellect would have abandoned him. ”

“ He too greeted Rowcliffe as if nothing had happened, and he abstained from any reference to Gwenda.
But he showed a certain serenity in his restraint. Leaning back in his armchair, his legs crossed, his hands joined lightly at the finger-tips, his forehead smoothed, conversing affably, Mr. Cartaret had the air of a man who might indeed have suffered through his outrageous family, but for whom suffering was passed, a man without any trouble or anxiety. And serenity without the memory of suffering was in Mary's good and happy face. ”

“ Mary brooded. And the impression her brooding made on Rowcliffe was that Mary knew something about Gwenda she did not want to tell.
"I don't think," said Mary gravely, "that Gwenda ever will come back again. At least not if she can help it. I thought you knew that."
"I suppose I must have known."
He left it there.
Mary took up her knitting. She was making a little vest for Essy's baby. Rowcliffe watched it growing under her hands.
"As I can't knit, do you mind my smoking?"
She didn't.
"If more women knitted," he said, "it would be a good thing. They wouldn't be bothered so much with nerves." ”

“ Molly, the elder, had a look of Ally, sullen and sickly, as if some innermost reluctance had held back the impulse that had given it being. Even the younger child showed fragile as if implacable memory had come between it and perfect life.
Gwenda did not know why her fierceness was appeased by this unlikeness, nor why she wanted to see Mary and nothing but Mary in Rowcliffe's children, nor why she refused to think of them as his; she only knew that to see Rowcliffe in Mary's children would have been more than her flesh and blood could bear. ”

“ And then, before he knew where he was, he was quarreling with Gwenda.
"Oh, look at the moon!" she cried. "All bowed forward with the cloud wrapped round her head. Something's calling her across the sky, but the mist holds her and the wind beats her back—look how she staggers and charges head-downward. She's fighting the wind. And she goes—she goes!"
"She doesn't go," said Rowcliffe. "At least you can't see her going, and the cloud isn't wrapped round her head, it's nowhere near her. And the wind isn't driving her, it's driving the cloud on. It's the cloud that's going. ”

“ But these times which were theirs only did not count as time. They belonged to another scale of feeling and another order of reality. Their moments had another pulse, another rhythm and vibration. They burned as they beat. While they lasted Gwenda's life was lived with an intensity that left time outside its measure. Through this intensity she drew the strength to go on, to endure the unendurable with joy.
* * * * *
But Rowcliffe could not endure the unendurable at all. He was savage when he thought of it. That was her life and she would never get away from it. ”

“ Suddenly he remembered that he didn't particularly want Gwenda to go away. He couldn't, in fact, bear the thought of it.
"Better still," he said, "send her away. Is there anybody you could send her to?"
"Only Mummy—my stepmother." She smiled through her tears. "Papa would never let Ally go to her."
"Why not?"
"Because she ran away from him."
He tried not to laugh.
"She's really quite decent, though you mightn't think it." Rowcliffe smiled. "And she's fond of Ally. She's fond of all of us—except Papa. And," she added, "she knows a lot of people." ”

“ It was not as if there was anything personal in Gwenda's changing attitudes. And Rowcliffe did indeed say to himself, Restless—restless. Yes. That was the word for her; and he supposed she couldn't help it.
* * * * *
The study door opened and shut. Mary's eyes made a sign to him that said, "We can't talk about this before my father. He won't like it."
But Mr. Cartaret had gone upstairs. They could hear him moving in the room overhead.
"How is your other sister getting on?" said Rowcliffe abruptly.
"Alice? She's all right. You wouldn't know her. She can walk for miles." ”

“ Both Miss Rawcliffe and Captain Legh must be present at the audience."
"I make no objection," replied the baronet; "but it pains me to find that I am viewed with suspicion by your royal highness, to whom I have given unquestionable proofs of my zeal and devotion."
"Justice must be done, Sir Richard," rejoined the prince, sternly. "If there has been a wrong it must be righted. The mystery attaching to this young man's birth must be cleared up, and since you are able to give the information required, you are bound to furnish it. I shall expect you and Miss Rawcliffe after the levée." ”

“ Almost as far as the eye could reach, the land and all that stood on it—timber, meadow, homestead, hamlet—belonged to Rockhurst, fit appanage to those massy castle walls that rose clear-cut against the blue air, in all the majesty of ancient power. And as he gazed, Lionel Ratcliffe’s heart grew sombre even as his glance. A keen-faced man, old-looking for his thirty years, somewhat below the middle height, with marked features, cold blue eyes and thin lips that betrayed the working of an intellect as sharp as the steel that hung by his side. ”

“ Ah, and yonder went Master Lionel Ratcliffe—mark how his men pull as if life and death depended on their oars. I’ll wager you, he’s bound for Chillingburgh House.... But, no, the skiff keeps its nose down-stream.... The tide will soon be on the turn.—Eh, as I live, here comes a royal barge—mark the swing of the scarlet oars! Old Rowley himself, perchance—nay, sink me, it is but the Lord Constable! Odd! I was thinking of him but a moment awhile ... I.... ’Slife, there’s no mistaking that dark [208] figure! I vow he casts a shade over the royal scarlet itself. Merry Rockhurst, quotha! ”

“ There is a danger you do not apprehend, and I must guard you against it. Miss Rawcliffe is exceedingly beautiful, and very captivating—at least, so I have been informed, for I have never seen her. Her father has told you she is an ardent Jacobite. As such she will deem it her duty to win you over to the good cause, and she will infallibly succeed. Very few of us are proof against the fascinations of a young and lovely woman. Though Sir Richard might not prevail, his daughter will."
"I must go prepared to resist her," replied Atherton, laughing. ”

“ He rarely, if ever, comes to Manchester. Indeed, he leads a very secluded life at Rawcliffe, and, as I understand, keeps no company. He has the character of being morose and gloomy, but I daresay it is undeserved, for men are generally misrepresented."
"Sir Richard Rawcliffe is certainly misrepresented, if he is so described," said Colonel Townley. "He is haughty and reserved, but not moody. When I left for France he had only just succeeded to the title and the property, and I knew little of him then, though he was an intimate friend of my uncle, Richard Townley of Townley." ”

“ When this is granted, the story of the pie with all its horrors may safely be ascribed to the inventive genius of a minstrel. On the whole, Radcliffe is a place which, not only from its antiquity and splendour, but from the great families which have branched out from it, and the romantic tradition attached to it, can scarcely be surveyed without enthusiasm, or quitted without regret. ”

“ I have never heard of his doing or saying a low thing; fact is, he sets a pace that's rather hard for a chap to hold—doesn't smoke; scarcely ever drinks anything; awfully decent chap. Just now he has got the Haddington cottage on the Crowleigh place ... doing some reading; saw him yesterday." He glanced at Virginia; something in her expression puzzled him; he colored abruptly and ceased speaking.
"Here comes Sir Henry," said Manning, whose quick eye had caught sight of a tall figure approaching from the sunken gardens. "You and Giles play another set, Sis; haven't finished my cigar." ”

“ The baronet was so confounded that he could make no reply. Bowing to General MacDonald, Atherton was about to retire, but the other stopped him.
"There is one thing you will accept from Sir Richard, I am sure," he said, "and that is an apology, and I hope he will make you a handsome one for the rudeness with which he has treated you."
"I cannot discuss private matters in public, Sir John," said Rawcliffe. "But from what I have heard since my return—and I have called at my sister's house and seen Father Jerome—I think I have good reason to complain of Mr. Atherton Legh's conduct." ”

“ The family of Radcliffe continued, during several centuries after the intermarriage with the De Derwentwaters, to increase in wealth and importance. It was not, however, ennobled until the reign of James the Second, in 1688, when, in consequence of the eldest son of Sir Francis Radcliffe having married during his father's life time the Lady Mary Tudor, a natural daughter of Charles the Second, by Mistress Mary Davis, Sir Francis was created Earl of Derwentwater, Baron Dilstone, and Viscount Langley. ”

“ The current caught the light punt and whirled it down between flower-covered banks.
"How jolly!" cried Virginia; "it is like running the rapids!"
"You should see it in the spring," said Giles; "it's ripping then. We'll have to shoot into the bank below this bend; there's a nasty spot down stream a bit, an old weir that is just awash when the water's up like this."
"How exciting!" cried Virginia. She leaned back and watched him from beneath her curved lashes, darker than her hair, as he skillfully wielded the long pole, noting in delight the ease with which he handled it. ”

“ I looked again at Delphine, and began to feel a murderous temptation.
“What could we do ashore?” I asked of Silverside.
“I know of a safe hiding place,” he answered, rapidly. “When this vessel came in I recognised her and took no chances. Cullom is a wolf, and Therese's worst enemy. The women knew of a hiding place, so we went there, taking food and the three rifles. I signalled to you from the beach, but you would not look. Oh, for the sake of all you hold dear, do as I ask. What are two old natives to a man of your strength?” ”