Chapter II

That night began their friendship. In that night was sown the seed of the new idea in her mind, which neither the wild passion of her love for Traill, nor all the stern preaching of Janet's philosophy had caused to take root before. A child--she knew that now--a child would save her. A child would make this life of hers worth while. And, having none, she set her heart, as you set a lure with cunning hands, to win the love of little Maurice Priestly.

At the age of six, a boy-child is constituted of impressions--soft wax to the working of any fingers that touch his heart. In their ramblings together, through the orchards where the ripening apples turned up their bonny faces, peering through the leaves to find the sun; up the side of the hills, exploring the hidden dangers of the hollow chalk-pits--climbing always to see what the world looked like on the other side--they came to know each other; Sally to know all his little faults, sometimes of pride, sometimes of lovable boastfulness; he to know that her heart was aching--aching for something--something that he could not comprehend. But fancy wove the story for him. He must have a story with which to realize that her heart really was aching.

"If there's no story," he said, "I shan't really believe you're sad."

So they sat on the side of the hills, looking out over the head of the tired old man--the little town of Cailsham--and seeing with their eyes what the tired old man saw all day long--the abundant garden of England. There Maurice told her the story of her misery, in which fairies and goblins and giants and witches moved in quick and sudden passage across the vistas of his vivid imagination.

"And that's why you're sad," he said at its conclusion. "If only the prince had not done what the witch told him, you'd have been perfectly happy, wouldn't you?"

Sally put her arm round his neck, lifted the soft, smooth little face to hers, and kissed it.

"Yes, that's why," she said gently; "but you must never tell any one."

"Mayn't I tell mummy?" he pleaded.

She took her arm from his neck and looked straight before her. The moment of jealousy sped through her--shame rode fierce behind.

"Yes," she replied, "you can tell mummy."

The weeks of the summer flew by. No sympathy was lost between her mother and herself. Her sisters frankly were jealous of her. She had better clothes than they, knew more of the world, was more interesting to strangers in her conversation. The people of Cailsham, treating her first as one of the Bishops--the one who had lived in London, earning her living--came to find that she was a different type of person to the rest of her family. The women admitted her to look smart; the men--at the weekly teas which some member of the tennis club always provided--sought out her company. And then, to compensate for all the unpleasantness in her home, there was Maurie--Maurie whom every night since that first occasion of their friendship she said good night to. With arms round each other's necks, they said their prayers together--Sally who had offered no supplication on her knees since the night when Traill had left her.

"I scarcely thought it possible to be so happy," she wrote to Janet. "I absolutely look forward to the waking in the mornings now, because then I go in and wake him up, kiss his dear, brave little face as it lies on the pillow fast asleep; and then he kneels on the bed, puts his arms round my neck, and we say our prayers together. That means nothing to you, I expect; but don't laugh at it. Oh, Janet, I wish he were mine."

She was woman enough, too, to find some consolation in the attention which the people of Cailsham paid to her. She was gratified by the interest which the men in the little town, and principal amongst them, Wilfrid Grierson, showed in her whenever they met. He was the eldest son of the largest fruit farmer in the town--a man, therefore, in much request, conspicuous at every party to which it was thought considerate to ask Mrs. Bishop and her daughters. To Sally's mind, nauseated still whenever she thought of it by the light in which Devenish had seen her, the possibility of a man falling in love with her was remote from her consideration. She was brought abruptly to its realization by a remark which Dora, her younger sister, dropped for her benefit.

"If Mr. Grierson wasn't so eminently sensible," she said one evening after a tea which Mrs. Bishop had given at the tennis club, "one would feel inclined to think that he'd lost his head over you, Sally."

A flame of colour spread across Sally's cheeks. "Let's be thankful that he's eminently sensible, then," she replied.

"What--do you mean to say you wouldn't marry him?"

"He hasn't asked me--surely that's sufficient. He never will. My position in life is not the position that he's ever likely to choose a wife from."

"Your position, Sally," said Mrs. Bishop, looking up from the writing of a letter at the other end of the room, "so long as you are with us, is the same as ours."

"Yes, I'm quite aware of that, mother. So I say it's quite unlikely that he will ever ask me to marry him."

Then she left the room, and they discussed the advisability of keeping her with them. The fact that she saved the expense of Miss Hatch's services as music-mistress weighed ponderously in the balance, swung down the scales. They tacitly passed the matter over.

Upstairs Sally was saying good night to Maurie. "I only want you, my darling," she whispered in the darkness. "I don't want anybody else now--say you know I don't want anybody else."

"But you can't," he replied simply; "I'm mummy's."

Sally stood up from the bed. "Yes--you're mummy's," she repeated under her breath, and she repeated it again. She went into her bedroom, beginning slowly to undress, still repeating it.

From that day onwards, whenever possible, she avoided Mr. Grierson as you skirt a district where fever rages. He was too good a man, too honourable, for her to throw her life in his way. All the outlook of men upon a woman such as herself, which Devenish that evening had shown her, rose warningly to thwart her from taking the opportunity which circumstances seemed generously to be offering. The love of Traill was in no wise lessened in her heart; but now, lifting beside it, had come this love of a child, and with the knowledge that Maurie could never be hers, the insensate desire to bear children of her own rose exultantly within her. If she were to marry, this would be her portion. If she were to marry for that reason, above all, would she separate herself for ever from the hope--the still flickering hope--that Traill might one day return?

Whilst one impulse, then, pressed her forward to the seeking of the better acquaintance with Wilfrid Grierson, the fear that she was unfit to be the wife of any so honourable as he withheld her.

But fate, circumstance--give it any name that pleases--was in its obstinate mood. That better acquaintance, it was determined, should be made.

One afternoon, while Maurie was at his lessons, and her own work for the day was over, she was walking through those apple orchards which spread up to the side of that little lane which leads down off the London Road. Supremely unconscious of whose property it was in which she was wandering, she suddenly became aware of a figure descending from one of the apple trees. The first thought that some one was stealing the fruit was driven from her when she recognized Mr. Grierson.

Before he had seen her, she had turned and hurried back in the direction in which she had come. A break in the hedge had given her entrance from the lane. She made as quickly as possible for that. But the sound of footsteps running over the soft ground, the hissing of the grass stems as they lashed against leather leggings, then the sound of her name, showed her that it was too late. She turned.

"I saw you getting down from the tree," she said evasively, "but I thought it was a man stealing fruit."

"So you made a bolt for it?"

"Yes; was it very cowardly?"

"Not at all. If it had been a thief, and he'd thought you were suspicious, he might have turned nasty. But are you sure you didn't recognize me, and come to the conclusion that I was even less desirable than the man stealing the apples?"

She laughed nervously, knowing what was before her.

"No; why should I?"

"Because you've been avoiding me for the last ten days, ever since that tea-party your mother gave at the tennis club."

She looked to the ground; she looked to the forest of leaves above her head, where the rosy apples peered at her, beaming with their bright, healthy cheeks.

"You don't say anything to that," he said, striking his leggings with the little switch in his hand.

"I didn't know I had been," she replied, glancing up to the open candour of his eyes.

"But you have. I was going to write to you."

"You were?"

"Yes; I'm not much of a hand at it, but I was going to make a shot. I was going to ask you if you--if you were preferring--oh--you understand what I mean--if you didn't like my thrusting my attentions on you--well--as I--as I had been doing. I was going to write that to-night."

She looked up with wide eyes--the eyes that Traill had first loved--but she said nothing.

"Well?" he asked, pressing her to the answer. "What would have been your reply?"

"I really don't know," she said honestly.

"You don't care for me?" he exclaimed. "I'm not the sort of chap who--"

"Oh, it's not that!"

"Then, what?"

She met his eyes steadily. "It's--am I the sort of woman?"

He came close to her side, took her hand reverently as though its preciousness made him fear the harm his heavy grip might do. And there, under the network of apple branches interwoven with the patches of a deep, blue sky, with now and then the sound of an apple tumbling heavily to the ground, or a flight of starlings whirring overhead, and in the distance the hollow monotonous beating on the tin drums of the boy who scared the birds, he told her roughly, unevenly, in words cut out of the solid vein of his emotion, what kind of a woman he thought she was.

"No," she kept on whispering; "no, no."

But he paid no attention. He scarcely heard the word in the gentleness of her voice. When he had finished, she took away her hand.

"That means nothing to you, then?" he said bitterly.

She gazed away through the lines of apple trees that hid the greater distance from view.

"It means more than you think," she replied. "But I can't let you say it--I can't let you continue to think it, until--until"--she took a deep breath--"until I tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"I'll write to you."

"But you can tell me. Why can't you tell me?" His lips were white. The little switch snapped in his fingers. Neither of them noticed it. Neither heard the sound. "Why can't you tell me?" he repeated.

"I can't, that is all. After what you've said--after what you've been so generous to tell me that you thought of me, I--couldn't. I'll write it."

He threw the pieces of the switch away into the grass.

"You're going to be married?" he muttered. "You're in love, you're engaged to some one else?"

"No, no, it's not that. Please don't ask me. I'm not engaged to be married."

"You're married already?" He leant forward, bending over her, the words clicking on his tongue.

"No--no--not even that."

"Then, what is it?"

She looked up to his eyes and let him read them. Then he stood upright--slowly stood erect. His cheeks were patched with white, there was a sweat on his forehead. He wiped it off with his hand.

"My God!" he whispered. "You, you? Great God, no!"

He turned, strode a few steps away from her, and stood looking down into the grass. She could hear him muttering. For a little time she waited, head bent, expectant of the sudden bursting of his revolt against the truth. But it never came. His silence was more pregnant with rebuke than speech could ever have been. She bore with it until she thought she had given him full opportunity to rail against her had he wished, then she walked slowly away, the unconquerable sickness in her heart. She walked slowly; but she did not look back. Would he follow her? Would he? Would he? She reached the gap in the hedge. Then she turned her head. He was still standing where she had left him, gazing down into the forest of grass stems.