Chapter XII: Part 12

Riding over the farms between Leasan and Vinehall it suddenly struck him how easily he might turn aside and go to see Stella. She had promised that she would see him again before she went away. Should he go now and ask her to redeem that promise? Should he go and plead with her as he had never pleaded before? She could still save him—she could still be to him what she might have been. In one mad moment he saw himself and Stella seeking love’s refuge at the other end of the country, in some far, kindly farm in Westmoreland or Cornwall. Vera would divorce him—she would be only too glad to get her freedom—and by the time he became Sir Peter Alard he would have lived the scandal down. Stella still loved him—she was awake, alive, and passionate—she had none of the scruples and conventions, reserves and frigidities which keep most women moral—she had only her religion to stand between them, and Peter did not think much of that. A collection of dreams, traditions and prohibitions could not stand before his pleading—before the pleading of her own heart. He had not really pleaded with her yet....

For a moment he reined in his horse, hesitating at the mouth of the little lane which twists through the hollows of Goatham and Doucegrove towards Vinehall. But the next minute he went on again, driven by a question. What had he to offer Stella in exchange for all that he proposed to take from her?—What had he to give her in exchange for her father, her home, her good name, her peace of mind? The answer was quite plain—he had nothing but himself. And was he worth the sacrifice? Again a plain answer—No. He was worn, tired, disillusioned, shop-soiled, no fit mate for the vivid woman whom some hidden source of romance seemed to keep eternally young. Even suppose he could, by storming and entreaty, bend her to his desire, he would merely be bringing her to where he stood today. A few years hence she might stand as he stood now—looking back on all she had lost.... He would not risk bringing her to that. Three years ago he had sacrificed her to his desires—he had made her suffer.... It would be a poor atonement to sacrifice her again—to another set of desires. The least he could do for her was to let her follow her own way of escape—to let her go ... though still he did not know how he was to live without her.

§ 19

When he reached home he went upstairs to see Vera. Her mother and Rose were with her, and they were having tea.

“Hullo!” said his wife—“Where have you been all day?”

“I lunched over at Becket’s House—Fuller asked me to stay. And in the afternoon I went to see Jenny.”

He had not meant to tell them, but now he suddenly found he had done so. Vera lifted her eyebrows.

“Oh. So you’ve forgiven her at last. I think you might have told me before you went there. I want to thank her for writing to me, and you could have saved me the fag of a letter. She’ll think it odd my not sending any message.”

“I’m sorry, but I never thought of going till I found myself over there.”

“And how is Jenny?” asked Rose.

“She seemed very well.”

“And happy?”

“Yes—and happy.”

“Is she still living like the wife of a working-man, with only one maid?”

“No, not like the wife of a working-man, who doesn’t keep even one maid, but like the wife of a well-to-do farmer, which she is.”

“You needn’t bite my head off, Peter,” said Rose.

“Your tea’s in the drawing-room,” said Vera—“I asked Weller to put it there ready for you when you came in. Nurse thinks it would be too much of a crowd if you had it up here. Besides, I know you’d rather be alone.”

Peter rose from his seat at the bedside.

“All right—I’ll go downstairs.”

“I didn’t mean now, you old silly,” said Vera, pulling at his coat. “Hang it all, I haven’t seen you the whole day.”

Peter looked down at her hopelessly—at her large, swimming brown eyes, at her face which seemed mysteriously to have coarsened without losing any of its beauty, at the raven-black braids of her hair that showed under her lace nightcap, and last of all at her mouth—full, crimson, satisfied, devouring.... He became suddenly afraid—of her, with this additional need of him, this additional hold on him, which her motherhood had brought—and of himself, because he knew now that he hated her, quite crudely and physically hated her.

“I’m afraid I can’t stay—I’ve got rather a headache ... and I’m going out directly to pot rabbits.”

“That’s an odd cure for a headache,” said Vera. She looked hurt and angry, and he felt a brute to have upset her at such a time. But he could not help it—he had to go, and moved towards the door.

“Aren’t you going to take any notice of your little daughter?” purred Mrs. Asher—“Baby dear, I don’t think your daddy’s very proud of you. He hasn’t been near you since breakfast.”

Speechlessly Peter went to the cradle and gazed down on the little wizened face. His heart felt hard; not one pang of fatherhood went through it. “You little sheeny—you little Yid”—he said to the baby in his heart.

“Isn’t she a darling?” his mother-in-law breathed into his neck—“isn’t she a love? Do you know, Vera thinks now that Miriam would do better than Rachel—it goes better with Alard.”

Peter did not think that either went particularly well with Alard, but he said nothing. Wasn’t there a Jewish name which meant “The glory is departed from my house”?

He kissed the baby and went out, thankful to have escaped kissing the mother.

Some truth-loving providence had insisted on afflicting him with the headache he had claimed as an excuse for not sitting with Vera. His head ached abominably as he went into the drawing-room where his tea was laid. The firelight ruddied the white walls, the silver and the furniture, where comfort and cretonne were skilfully blended with oak and antiquity. His thoughts flew back to the evening when he and Vera had first come into this room on their return from their honeymoon. He had thought it beautiful then—though even then he had realised it was not the right room for Starvecrow. It used to be one of the kitchens, and in the old days when he had first known it, had had a bricked floor and a big range, like the kitchen at Fourhouses. Tonight he hated it—it was part of the processes which had changed Starvecrow out of recognition. He rang the bell impatiently. He would have his tea carried into the office. That was the room which had altered least.

Even here there were changes, but they were of his own choice and making—he had planned them long before his marriage. The furniture of Greening’s day—the pitch-pine desk and cane-seated chairs—had been impossible; he had always meant to get a good Queen Anne bureau like this one, and some gate-backed chairs like these. There was nothing un-farmlike in this plainly furnished office, with its walls adorned with scale-maps and plans of fields and woods, and notices of auctions and agricultural shows.

Nevertheless today he found himself wishing he had it as it used to be. He would like to see it as it used to be—as Stella used to see it, when she came in fresh and glowing on a winter’s afternoon, to sit beside the fire ... he could almost feel her cold cheek under his lips....

Then for one moment he saw it as it used to be. For an instant of strangeness and terror he saw the old scratched desk, with Greening’s files and account-books upon it, saw Greening’s book-shelves, with their obsolete agricultural treatises—saw the horse-hair armchair and the two other chairs with the cane seats, and the picture-advertisement of Thorley’s cake on the wall.... He stood stock still, trembling—and then suddenly the room was itself again, and it didn’t even seem as if it had altered.... But he felt dreadfully queer. He hurried to the door and went out through the passage into the little grass space at the back. God! he must be ill. What a fright he’d had! Suppose the hallucination had continued a moment longer, should he have seen Stella come into the room, unbuttoning her fur collar, her face all fresh with the wind?...

He went round to the front of the house, and fetched his hat and overcoat and gun. He’d go out after the rabbits, as he’d said. There were too many of them, and he’d promised Elias ... anyhow he couldn’t stand the house. He whistled for Breezy, and the spaniel ran out to him, bounding and whimpering with delight. The sky was turning faintly green at the rims. The dusk was near.

He passed quickly through the yard. From the open doorway of the cowhouse came cheerful sounds of milking, and he could see his cows standing in shafts of mote-filled sunlight. The cowhouse had been enlarged and modernised—Starvecrow could almost now be called a model farm. But he knew that the place wanted to be what it was in the old days—before his wife’s money had been spent on it. It was not only he who was dissatisfied with the changes—Starvecrow itself did not like them. He knew that tonight as he walked through the barns.... Starvecrow had never been meant for a well-appointed country house, or a model farm. It ought to have been, like Fourhouses, the home of happy lovers. It was meant to be a home.... It was not a home now—just a place where an unhappy man and woman lived, desiring, fleeing, mistrusting, failing each other. He could have made it a home—brought Stella to it somehow, some day, at last. Perhaps—seeing his father’s condition, that day would not have been far off now.... But like everything else, Starvecrow had been sacrificed to Alard. He had sacrificed it—he had betrayed the faithful place. He saw now that he had betrayed not only himself, not only Stella, but also Starvecrow.

Starvycrow—Starvycrow.

Peter walked quickly, almost running, from the reproach of Starvycrow.

§ 20

At about seven o’clock that evening a message came up from Conster, and as Peter was still out, it was brought to Vera. It was marked “immediate,” so she opened it.

“Who brought this, Weller?”

“The gardener’s boy, Ma’am.”

“Tell him Mr. Alard is out at present, but I’ll send him over as soon as he comes home——Sir John’s had another stroke,” she told her mother.

“Oh, my dear! How dreadful—I wish you hadn’t opened the letter. Shocks are so bad for you.”

“It wasn’t a shock at all, thanks. I’ve been expecting it for weeks. Besides, one really can’t want the poor old man to live much longer. He was getting a perfect nuisance to himself and everybody, and if he’d lived on might have done some real damage to the estate. Now Peter may just be able to save it, in spite of the death-duties.”

“But, my dear, he isn’t dead yet!” cried Mrs. Asher, a little shocked. She belonged to a generation to which the death of anybody however old, ill, unloved or unlovely, could never be anything but a calamity.

“He’s not likely to survive a second stroke,” said Vera calmly. “I’m sorry for the poor old thing, but really it’s time he went. And I want Peter to come into the estate before he’s quite worn out and embittered. It’s high time he was his own master—it’ll pull him together again—he’s been all to pieces lately.”

“And it’ll quite settle the Stella Mount business,” she added secretly to herself.

The next hour passed, and Weller came up to ask if she should bring in the dinner.

“What _can_ have happened to Peter!” exclaimed Vera.

“I daresay he met the messenger on his way back, and went straight to Conster.”

“Then it was very inconsiderate of him not to send me word. Yes, Weller, bring the dinner up here. You’ll have it with me, won’t you, Mother, as Peter isn’t in?”

They were eating their fruit when Weller came in with another “Urgent.” It was from Doris, and ran—

“Hasn’t Peter come back yet? Do send him over at once whenever he
does. Father is dying. Dr. Mount does not expect him to last the
night. We have wired to Jenny and Mary and even Gervase. Do send Peter
along. He ought to be here.”

“How exactly like Doris to write as if we were deliberately keeping Peter away! _I_ don’t know where he is. Doris might realise that I’m the last person who’d know.”

Her hands were trembling, and she whimpered a little as she crushed up the note and flung it across the room into the fireplace.

“Don’t be upset, Vera darling. Nothing could possibly have happened to him—we should have heard. He’s probably accepted a sudden invitation to dinner, the same as he did to lunch.”

“I know nothing’s happened to him—I’m not afraid of that. I know where he is....”

“Then if you know ...”

“He’s with Stella Mount,” and Vera hid her face in the pillow, sobbing hysterically.

Mrs. Asher tried to soothe her, tried to make her turn over and talk coherently, but with that emotional abandonment which lay so close to her mental sophistication, she remained with her face obstinately buried, and sobbed on. Her mother had heard about Stella Mount, chiefly from Rose, but had never given the idea much credit. She did not credit it now. But to pacify Vera she sent over a carefully worded message to Dr. Mount’s cottage, asking that if Mr. Peter Alard was there he should be told at once that he was wanted over at Conster.

The boy came back with the reply that Mr. Alard was not at Vinehall, and had not been there that day. Everyone but the maid was out—Dr. Mount at Conster Manor and Miss Mount in church.

“That proves nothing,” said Vera—“he needn’t have met her at the house.”

“But if she’s in church——”

“How do we know she’s in church? She only left word with the maid that she’s gone there——” and Vera’s sobs broke out again until the nurse begged her to calm herself for the sake of the child. Which she promptly did, for she was a good mother.

§ 21

At Conster all the family was by now assembled, with the exception of Peter and Gervase. Ben Godfrey had brought Jenny over from Fourhouses, and Mary had motored from Hastings; Rose was there too, with a daughter’s privileges. They were all sitting in the dining-room over a late and chilly meal. They had been upstairs to the sick-room, where the prodigals had entered unforbidden, for Sir John knew neither sheep nor goat. His vexed mind had withdrawn itself to the inmost keep of the assaulted citadel, in preparation for its final surrender of the fortress it had held with such difficulty of late.

“There is no good saying that I expect him to recover this time,” Dr. Mount had said. “I will not say it is impossible—doctors are shy of using that word—but I don’t expect it, and, in view of his former condition which would be tremendously aggravated by this attack, I don’t think anyone can hope it.”

“Will it be long?” asked Doris, in a harsh, exhausted voice.

“I don’t think it will be longer than forty-eight hours.”

Doris burst into tears. Her grief was, the family thought, excessive. All her life, and especially for the last three months, her father had victimised her, browbeaten her, frustrated her, humiliated her—she had been the scapegoat of the revolted sons and daughters—and yet at his death she had tears and a grief which none of the more fortunate could share.

“I found him—it was I who found him”—she sobbed out her story for the dozenth time. “I came into the study with his hot milk—Wills has refused to bring it ever since poor Father threw it in his face—and I saw him sitting there, and he looked funny, somehow. I knew something was wrong—he was all twisted up and breathing dreadfully.... And I said ‘Father, is anything the matter?—aren’t you feeling well?’ And he just managed to gasp ‘Get out.’ Those were the last words he uttered.”

Sir John had not been put to bed in his attic-bedroom, the scene of his ignoble tea-making, but in his old room downstairs, leading out of Lady Alard’s. She and the nurse were with him now while the others were at supper. She had a conviction that her husband knew her, as he made inarticulate sounds of wrath when she came near. But as he did the same for the nurse, the rest of the family were not convinced.

“When _is_ Peter coming?” groaned Doris—“I really call it heartless of him to keep away.”

“But he doesn’t know what’s happened,” soothed Jenny—“he’ll come directly he’s heard.”

“I can’t understand what he’s doing out at this hour. It’s too late for any business, or for shooting—where can he have gone?”

“You’ll be getting an answer to your second message soon,” said Ben Godfrey.

“I daresay Peter thought he’d have his dinner first,” continued Doris—“I expect he thought it didn’t matter and he could come round afterwards.”

“I don’t think that’s in the least likely,” said Mary.

“Then why doesn’t he come?—he can’t be out at this hour.”

“He must be out—or he would have come.”

“It’s not so very late,” said Jenny, “only just after nine.”

“He may have gone out to dinner somewhere,” said Rose.

“Yes, that’s quite possible,” said Jenny—“he may have gone somewhere on business and been asked to stay—or he may have met someone when he was out.”

“I’ve a strong feeling that it mightn’t be a bad plan to ’phone to Stella Mount.”

“But Dr. Mount ’phoned there an hour ago, saying he’d be here all night. She’d have told him then if Peter was there.”

“I think it quite probable that she would not have told him.”

“What exactly do you mean by that, Rose?”

“Mean?—oh, nothing.”

“Then there’s no use talking of such a thing. I’m quite sure that if Peter had been at the Mounts’, Stella would have sent him over directly she heard about Father.”

At that moment Wills came into the room with a note for Doris.

“That must be from Starvecrow,” she said, taking it. “Yes, it’s from Mrs. Asher—‘Peter hasn’t been in yet, and we are beginning to feel anxious. He told us he was going out to shoot rabbits and one of the farm men saw him start out with his gun and Breezy. Of course he may have met someone and gone home with them to dinner. As you have a ’phone, perhaps you could ring up one or two places.”

“We could ring up the Parishes,” said Jenny—“he may have gone there. Or the Hursts—aren’t they on the ’phone? I don’t think the Fullers are.”

“It’s an extraordinary thing to me,” said Rose, “that he should stop out like this without at least sending a message to his wife. He might know how anxious she’d be.”

“Peter isn’t the most thoughtful or practical being on earth. But there’s no good making conjectures. I’m going to ’phone every place I can think of.”

Jenny spoke irritably. Rose never failed to annoy her, and she was growing increasingly anxious about Peter. She had told the others of his visit that afternoon, but she had not told them of his queer, gruff, silent manner. Not that she had seen, or saw now, anything sinister in it, but she could not rid herself of the thought that Peter had been “queer,” and that to queer people queer things may happen.

The telephone yielded no results. Neither the Parishes nor the Hursts were harbouring Peter, nor could she hear of him at the Furnace or Becket’s House, or at the Vinehall solicitor’s, or the garage at Iden, the final resorts of her desperation. Of course he had friends who were not on the telephone, but it was now after ten o’clock, and it was difficult to believe that if he had accepted a casual invitation to dine he would not have come home or sent word.

“Lord! how ghastly it is,” she cried, as she hung up the receiver for the last time—“Father dying and Peter disappeared. What _are_ we to do, Ben?”

“I think we ought to go and have a look for him,” said her husband.

“How?—and who’d go?”

“I’ll get a chap or two from here, and the men at Starvecrow. If he was only out after conies he wouldn’t have gone far—down to the Bridge, most likely. We ought to search the fallows.”

“Yes, do go,” said Doris—“it’s the only thing to be done now. I know something dreadful has happened to him. And perhaps tomorrow he’ll be Sir Peter Alard....”

She had forgotten that Godfrey was the presumptuous boor who had disgraced her name. She saw in him only the man of the family—the only man of the family now.

“I’ll ring for Wills, and he’ll see about lanterns—and perhaps Pollock would go with you. And Beatup and Gregory know the district well—I’ll have them sent for from the farm.”

“Reckon I’d better go up to Starvecrow, John Elias would come with me, and Lambard and Fagge.”

“If you’re going to Starvecrow,” said Jenny, “I’ll go too, and see if I can do anything for poor Vera. I expect she’s dreadfully worried and frightened.”

“Don’t go!” cried Doris—“suppose Father died....”

“I can’t see what good I should be doing here. Vera needs me more than you do.”

“She’s got her mother. And it would be dreadful if Father died while you were out of the house.”

“Not more dreadful than if I was in it. He doesn’t know me, and wouldn’t see me if he did.”

“I think you’re very heartless,” and Doris began to cry—“Father might recover consciousness just before the end and want to forgive you.”

“I don’t think either is the least likely. Come along, Ben.”

Her husband fetched her coat from the hall, and they set out together. Doris sat on in her chair at the head of the table, sobbing weakly.

“I think this is a terrible thing to have happened. Father and Peter going together.... It makes me almost believe there isn’t a God.”

“But we’ve no reason to think Peter’s dead,” said Mary—“a dozen other things may have happened. He may have broken his leg out in the fields and be unable to get home, in which case the men will soon find him. I don’t see why you need take for granted that he’s killed.”

“I think it far more likely that he’s gone off with Stella Mount,” said Rose, relieved of Jenny’s repressing presence.

“Why ever should you think that?” said Mary. “I wasn’t aware that he was in love with her—now.”

“He’s been in love with her for the last year. Poor Vera’s had a dreadful time. I’m sure she thinks Peter’s gone with Stella.”

“Really, Rose, you surprise me—and anyhow, Stella answered her father’s ’phone call a short time ago, so she must be at home.”

“She might just have been going to leave when he rang up.”

“Well, the ’phone’s in the next room if you like to give her a call—and know what to say to her. Personally I should find the enquiry rather delicate.”

“It won’t do any good my ringing up,” sulked Rose—“if they’re gone we can’t stop them. If they’ve not gone then Doris is right, and Peter’s probably killed or something. I don’t know which would be the worst. It’s dreadful to think of him chucking everything over when if he’d only waited another hour he’d have heard about Father’s illness. He’d never have gone if he’d known he was to be Sir Peter so soon.”

“Well, I’d rather he’d gone than was killed,” said Doris—“the other could be stopped and hushed up—but if he’s dead ... there’s nobody left.”

“What about Gervase?” asked Mary.

“He’s no good.”

“Surely he’d come out of his convent or whatever it is, if he knew he had succeeded to the property.”

“I don’t know. Gervase never cared twopence about the property. I don’t think he’d come out for that.”

“They wouldn’t let him out,” said Rose.

“Is he coming here now?” asked Mary.

“I wired to him when I wired to you and Jenny. But I don’t know whether he’ll come or not, and anyhow he can’t be here for some time.”

“What time is it?”

“Nearly twelve.”

The three women shivered. The fire had gone out.

§ 22

The night wore on, and Sir John was still alive. Nobody thought of going to bed, but after a time Doris, Mary and Rose went upstairs to the greater warmth of their father’s dressing-room. Here through the open door they could see the firelight leaping on the bedroom ceiling, and hear the occasional hushed voices of the nurse and Dr. Mount. Lady Alard sat by the fire, mute and exhausted. For the first time that they could remember she gave her family the impression of being really ill. Speller made tea, cocoa and soup on the gas-ring in the dressing-room. Hot drinks were at once a distraction and a stimulant. The night seemed incredibly long—nobody spoke above whispers, though every now and then Rose would say—“There’s no good whispering—he wouldn’t hear us even if we shouted.”

“I do hope he really is unconscious,” said Doris.

“Dr. Mount says he is.”

“But how can he know? He knows Father can’t speak, but he doesn’t know he can’t hear us.”

“I expect there are signs he can tell by.”

“The last words he ever spoke were said to me. That’ll be something comforting to remember.... But oh, it was dreadful finding him like that! I do hope it hadn’t lasted long ... that he hadn’t been like that for a long time, all alone....”

Doris bowed her head into her hands and sobbed loudly. As she sat there, crouched over the fire, her face with the merciful powder and colour washed off by tears, all haggard and blotched, and the make-up of her eyes running down her cheeks, her hair tumbling on her ears, and revealing the dingy brown roots of its chestnut undulations—she looked by far the most stricken of the party, more even than the sick man, who but for his terrible breathing lay now in ordered calm.

A clock in the house struck three.

“I wonder when we’ll hear about Peter,” whispered Rose.

“I’m surprised we haven’t heard already,” said Mary—“They must have gone all over the Starvecrow land by now.”

“Um....” said Rose, “that seems to point to his not being anywhere about the place.” Then she added—“I wonder if Gervase will come. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he didn’t.”

“I should. They’d never keep him back when his father’s dying.”

“Well—why isn’t he here? He’s known about it for over six hours.”

“I shouldn’t think there were any trains running now. It’s not so easy as all that to come from Brighton.”

Rose relapsed into silence. After a time she said—

“Religion is a great consolation at a time like this.”

“Do you think we ought to send for Mr. Williams to come and see Father?” choked Doris.

“No—of course not. What good could he do? Poor Sir John’s quite unconscious.”

“But he may be able to hear. How _do_ you know he can’t? Perhaps he would like to hear Mr. Williams say a prayer or a hymn.”

“My dear Doris, I tell you he doesn’t know a thing, so what’s the good of dragging poor Mr. Williams out of his bed at three o’clock in the morning? I had no patience with the people who did that sort of thing to George. Sir John couldn’t understand anything, and if he did he’d be furious, so it doesn’t seem much good either way. When I said religion was a consolation I was thinking of Mary.”

“And why of me?” asked Mary.

“Well, I often think you’d be happier if you had some sort of religion. You seem to me to lead such an aimless life.”

“Of course I’d be happier. Most people are happier when they believe in something. Unfortunately I never was taught anything I could or cared to believe.”

“Mary! How can you say that, when poor George....”

She broke off as the door opened and Jenny suddenly appeared.

“Hullo, Jenny!” cried Doris—“have you come back?—Have they found Peter?”

Jenny did not speak. She shut the door behind her, and stood with her back against it. Her face was white and damp. It was evidently raining, and wet strands of hair were plastered on her cheeks.

“Is Dr. Mount in there?” she asked.

“Yes—but Jenny ... Peter!...”

“I must see Dr. Mount first.”

“Who’s that asking for me?”

The doctor came in from the next room; at the sight of Jenny he shut the communicating door.

“I want to speak to you, Dr. Mount. Will you come with me?”

“Jenny, you really can’t treat us like this,” cried Mary, “you must tell us what’s happened. Is Peter hurt?”

“Yes—he’s downstairs.”

“Is he dead?” cried Doris, springing to her feet.

Again Jenny did not speak. She bowed her head into her hands and wept silently.

A dreadful silence filled the little room. Even Doris was perfectly quiet.

“I’ll come down,” said Dr. Mount.

“So’ll I,” said Doris.

“No,” said Jenny, “you mustn’t see him.”

“Why not?”

“He’s—he’s been dreadfully injured—part of his head....”

She stopped and shuddered. Dr. Mount pushed quietly past her to the door.

“I think I’d better go down alone. Your husband and the men are down there—I can get all the information I want from them.”

Jenny came forward to the fire and flopped into the chair Doris had left. Her clothes were wet and her boots muddy—it must be raining hard.

“I’d better tell you what happened,” she said brokenly—“The men—some from here and some from Starvecrow—found Peter lying on the Tillingham marshes about half a mile below the Mocksteeple. His dog was watching beside him, and he’d been shot through the head.”

“Murdered,” gasped Doris.

“No—I don’t think so for a moment.”

“It was an accident, of course,” said Mary.

“I wish I could think that. But the men seemed to think—my husband too—that it was his own doing.”

“His own doing! Suicide!” cried Doris—“How could they imagine such a thing?”

“From the way he was lying, and the position of the gun, and the nature of the injuries. That’s why I was so anxious for Dr. Mount to see him and give an expert opinion.”

“Is there any chance of his being still alive?”

“Not the slightest. His head is nearly entirely blown away.”

“Oh, Jenny, don’t!—it’s dreadful!”

“Yes it’s dreadful, but I’m afraid it’s true.”

“But whatever could have made him kill himself?” moaned Doris—“He’d nothing on his mind—he was perfectly happy ... it couldn’t have been because the baby was a girl.”

“Peter may have had troubles that we don’t know of,” said Rose.

“He must have,” said Jenny, “though I don’t think for a minute they were of the kind you’ve been suspecting.”

“I don’t see what other kind they could be.”

“It may have been something to do with the estate.”

“He’d never have killed himself for that. If anything had gone wrong there, it was more than ever his duty to keep alive.”

“Well, there’s no good us arguing here about what he did it for—if he really did do it. The question is—who is going to tell Mother?”

“Oh, Jenny....”

They looked at each other in consternation.

§ 23

But Lady Alard, for all her frailty, belonged to a tougher generation than her children. In times of prosperity she might languish, but in times of adversity her spirit seemed to stiffen in proportion to the attacks upon it. If her cook had given notice she would have taken to her bed, but now when catastrophe trod on catastrophe and the fatal illness of her husband was followed by the death of her first-born son she armed herself with a courage in which her children, careless of kitchen tragedies, seemed to fail when they met the bigger assaults of life. She was less shattered by the news of Peter’s death than was the daughter who broke it to her, and rising up out of her chair, independent of arm or stick, she insisted on going downstairs into the dark, whispering house.

The others followed her, except Doris, who stayed huddled and motionless in her chair in her father’s dressing-room, like a stricken dog at its master’s door. The dining-room was lighted up and seemed full of men. They were gathered round the table on which, with a sense of futility and pathos Jenny caught sight of a pair of stiff legs in muddy boots.

At the sound of footsteps Dr. Mount came out of the room.

“What! Lady Alard!” he exclaimed, quite unprepared for such a visit.

“Yes, I want to see him.”

“You can’t—yet!”

“Are you quite sure he’s dead?”

“Quite sure.”

Dr. Mount looked shaken—his face was grey. But all faces were grey in the light of the hall, where the first livid rays of morning were mixing with the electric lamps that had burned all night.

“How did it happen, Doctor? Does anyone know?”

“Nobody knows. He was found on the Tillingham marshes. His gun may have gone off accidentally.”

“May have....” repeated Jenny.

“Will there have to be an inquest?”

“I’m afraid so. There always is in these cases.”

“Well, Sir John has been spared something.”

Her voice broke for the first time, and she turned back to the stairs. Rose and Mary went with her but Jenny lingered in the hall, where she had the comfort of seeing her husband through the dining-room door. Dr. Mount stopped as he was going back into the room.

“Has anyone told his wife?”

“Yes—one of the men came to Starvecrow at once.... I told her.... They thought it best not to take him there.”

“Of course—quite right. How did she bear it?—Perhaps I ought to go and see her.”

“Her mother’s with her, but I’m sure they’d be glad if you went there.”

“I’ve got the car—I could run round in a few minutes. I must go home too ... one or two things to see to ... I don’t think I’m wanted here just now.”

The doctor seemed terribly shaken by Peter’s death, but that was very natural, considering he had known him from a child. Also, Jenny reflected, being a religious man, the idea of suicide would particularly appall him.

“Doctor—do you—do you think he did it himself?”

“I’m sorely afraid he did.”

“But what can have made him? ... I mean, why should he? I always thought he was so happy—too happy, even. I sometimes thought him self-satisfied and over-fed.”

“We all have our secrets, Jenny, and your brother must have had a heavier one than most of us.”

“But why should you be so sure he did it? Couldn’t his gun have gone off by accident?”

“Of course it could. But the wounds would hardly have been of such a nature if it had. However, the matter will probably be cleared up in the Coroner’s court.”

Jenny shuddered.

“I wonder if he’s had any trouble—anything worse than usual about the land....” Then she remembered Rose’s suspicions of Stella Mount. Her colour deepened as she stood before Stella’s father. Could that possibly be the reason, after all? She had never imagined such a thing, but Peter certainly had been fond of Stella once, and Rose’s gossip was seldom quite baseless. She did not believe for a moment in any intrigue, but Peter might have turned back too late to his early love ... and of course Stella was going away ... it might have been that. Since undoubtedly Peter had had a secret buried under the outward fatness of his life, that secret may just as well have been Stella....

“Your husband tells me he came to see you this afternoon,” the doctor was saying, “what was he like then?”

“He seemed rather queer and silent, but afterwards I put it down to its being his first visit since my marriage. He wouldn’t forgive me for a long time, as you know, so it was only to be expected that he should feel a little awkward. But he said some rather queer things about Starvecrow—said he wished it was more like Fourhouses, said he’d spoilt it with his improvements, and seemed much more upset about it than you’d think natural.”

“Um.”

The doctor was silent a moment, then he said—

“Well, I think I’ll run over to Starvecrow in a minute or two when I’ve finished with poor Peter, then I might as well go home and have an early breakfast, and see if there are any messages for me. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

He moved away from her, and was going into the dining-room when Rose’s frightened voice suddenly shuddered down the stairs.

“Dr. Mount—will you please come up at once. There’s a change in Sir John.”

§ 24

Sir John Alard died when the cocks were crowing on Starvecrow and Glasseye and Doucegrove, and on other farms of his wide-flung estate too far away for the sound to come to Conster. His wife and daughters and daughter-in-law were with him when he died, but he knew no one. His mind did not come out of its retreat for any farewells, and if it had, would have found a body stiffened, struggling, intractable, and disobedient to the commands of speech and motion it had obeyed mechanically for nearly eighty years. Death came and brought the gift of dignity—a dignity he had never quite achieved in all his lifetime of rule. When his family came in for a last look, after the doctor and the nurse had performed their offices, they saw that the querulous, irascible old man of the last few months was gone, and in his place lay Something he had never been of stillness and marble beauty. When Dr. Mount had invited them in to the death-chamber, the daughters had at first refused, and changed their minds only when they found that Lady Alard was unexpectedly ready to go. Now Jenny at least was glad. It was her first sight of death (for she had not seen George’s body and would never see Peter’s) and she was surprised to find how peaceful and triumphant the body looked when set free from the long tyranny of the soul. It comforted her to know that in its last fatal encounter with terror, pain and woe, humanity was allowed to achieve at least the appearance of victory. Her father lying there looked like one against whom all the forces of evil had done their worst in vain.

Nobody cried except Doris, who cried a great deal. She had not cried for Peter, but when her father’s spirit had slipped out after a sigh, she had burst into a storm of noisy weeping. She was sobbing still, kneeling beside the body of the father who had bullied and humiliated her all her life, the only one of his children who really regretted him.

There was the sound of wheels in the drive below.

“Is that Gervase?” asked Jenny, going to the window.

“No,” said Mary, “it’s Dr. Mount going away.”

“He seems in a great hurry to get off,” said Rose—“he didn’t wait a minute longer than he could possibly help.”

“I don’t wonder,” said Jenny.

“I expect he’s gone home to break it to Stella,” whispered Rose.

“He told me he was going to Starvecrow to see Vera,” said Jenny icily. She hated Rose’s conjectures all the more that she now shared them herself.

“It will be dreadful for some people at the inquest,” continued her sister-in-law.

“Dreadful! how dreadful?—You don’t mean Stella’s to blame, do you?”

“Oh, of course, I don’t mean she’s really done anything wicked—but she let poor Peter go on loving her when she knew it was wrong.”

“How could she have stopped him?—supposing it’s true that he did love her.”

“Any girl can stop a man loving her,” said Rose mysteriously.

“Oh, can she?—it’s obvious you’ve never had to try.”

Jenny was surprised at her own vindictiveness, but she felt all nerves after such a night. Rose was plunged into silence, uncertain whether she had been complimented or insulted, and the next minute there was another sound of wheels in the drive.

“That must be Gervase.”

A taxi had stopped outside the door, and out of it climbed, not Gervase but Brother Joseph of the Order of Sacred Pity, with close-cropped hair, a rough, grey cassock and the thickest boots man ever saw. As she watched him from the window, Jenny felt a lump rise in her throat.

She was going down to meet him when suddenly Doris started up from the bedside.

“Let me go first.”

She brushed past her sister and ran downstairs before anyone could stop her. Jenny hurried after her, for she felt that Doris in her present condition was not a reassuring object to meet the home-comer. But she was too late. Doris flung open the door almost at the same instant as the bell rang.

“Welcome!” she cried hysterically—“Welcome—Sir Gervase Alard!”

§ 25

If Gervase was taken aback at his sister’s appearance, he did not show it by more than a sudden blink.

“My dear Doris,” he said, and taking both her hands he kissed her poor cheek where rouge and tears were mingled—“I met Dr. Mount—and he’s told me,” he said.

“About Peter?”

“Yes.”

He came into the hall and stood there a quaint, incongruous figure in his cloak and cassock.

“Hullo, Wills,” as the butler came forward.

“How do you do, Mr. Gervase—I mean Sir Ger—or rather I should say——”

He remembered that his young master was now Brother Something-or-other, having crowned an un-squirelike existence, much deplored in the servants’ hall, by entering a Home for Carthlicks. He compromised with—

“Can I have your luggage, sir?”

“Here it is,” said Gervase, holding out on one finger a small bundle tied up in a spotted handkerchief, and Wills who was going to have added “and your keys, sir,” retired in confusion.

“Where’s Peter?” asked Brother Joseph.

“In there,” Jenny pointed into the dining-room where Peter still lay, now no longer pathetic and futile in booted and muddy death, but dignified as his father upstairs under his white sheet.

Young Alard went in, and standing at the head of the table, crossed himself and said the first prayer that had been said yet for Peter. His sisters watched him from the doorway. Doris seemed calmer, her tears came more quietly.

“How’s Mother?” he asked as he came out.

“She’s been wonderful,” said Jenny, “but I think she’s breaking a bit now.”

“And Vera?”

Vera had not been wonderful. It is difficult to be wonderful when your husband has killed himself because he loved another woman and you did not die in childbirth to let him marry her.

“It’s dreadful,” moaned Jenny. Then suddenly she wondered if Gervase knew the worst. There was a look of bright peace in his eyes which seemed to show that he was facing sorrow without humiliation or fear.

“Did Dr. Mount tell you that—tell you exactly how Peter died?”

“He told me he had been killed accidentally out shooting. He gave me no details—he couldn’t wait more than a minute.”

“Oh, my dear, it was much worse than that....”

She saw that once again she would have to “break it” to somebody. It was easier telling Gervase than it had been to tell the others, for he did not cry out or protest, but when she had finished she saw that his eyes had lost their bright peace.

Doris was sobbing again, uncontrollably.

“The two of them gone—first Peter and then Father. To think that Peter should have gone first.... Thank God Father didn’t know! He didn’t know anybody, Gervase—the last person he recognised was me. That will always be a comfort to me, though it was so dreadful.... I went into the library, and found him all huddled there, alone ... and I said ‘Are you ill, Father?’—and he said ‘Get out’—and now, Gervase, you’re the head of the family—you’re Sir Gervase Alard.”

“We’ll talk that over later. At present I must go and see Mother.”

“But you’re not going to back out of it—you’re not going to leave us in the lurch.”

“I hope I shan’t leave anybody in the lurch,” he replied rather irritably, “but there are lots of more important things than that to settle now. Where is Mother, Jenny?”

“She’s upstairs in Father’s dressing-room.”

She noticed that he looked very white and tired, and realised that he must have been travelling for the greater part of the night.

“Are you hungry, dear? Won’t you eat something before you go up?”

“No thank you—I don’t want anything to eat. But might I have a cup of tea?”

“Speller’s making that upstairs, so come along.”

They were halfway up, and had drawn a little ahead of Doris, when he bent to her and whispered—

“Does Stella know?”

“Yes—Dr. Mount was on his way home when you met him.”

“Oh, I’m glad.”

So he, too, perhaps thought Stella might be the reason....

The little dressing-room was full of people. Ben Godfrey was there, the son-in-law and the man of the house till Gervase came. Mr. Williams was there too, summoned by Rose at a seasonable hour. He was sitting beside Lady Alard, who had now begun to look old and broken, and was trying to comfort her with a picture of her husband and son in some nebulous Paradisaical state exclusive to Anglican theology. He looked up rather protestingly at the sight of Gervase, whose habit suggested rival consolations and a less good-natured eschatology. But young Alard had not come to his mother as a religious, but as her son. He went up to her, and apparently oblivious of everyone else, knelt down beside her and hid his face in her lap. “Oh, Mummy—it’s too terrible—comfort me.”

His sisters were surprised, Ben Godfrey was embarrassed, Rose and Mr. Williams tactfully looked another way. But Lady Alard’s face lit up with almost a look of happiness. She put her arms round him, hugging his dark cropped head against her bosom, and for the first time seemed comforted.

§ 26

The Mounts’ little servant had gone to bed by the time Stella came home from church, so she did not hear till the next morning of the message from Starvecrow. Her father had rung her up earlier in the evening to say that he would probably not be home that night; and she was not to sit up for him. So she carefully bolted both the doors, looked to see if the kitchen fire was raked out, pulled down a blind or two, and went upstairs.

She was not sorry to be alone, for her mind was still wandering in the dark church she had left ... coal black, without one glimmer of light, except the candle which had shown for a moment behind the altar and then flickered out in the draughts of the sanctuary. Spring by spring the drama of the Passion searched the deep places of her heart. The office of Tenebrae seemed to stand mysteriously apart from the other offices and rites of the church, being less a showing forth of the outward events of man’s redemption than of the thoughts of the Redeemer’s heart.... “He came, a man, to a deep heart, that is to a secret heart, exposing His manhood to human view.” Throughout those sad nocturnes she seemed to have been looking down into that Deep Heart, watching its agony in its betrayal and its forsaking, watching it brood on the scriptures its anguish had fulfilled.... “From the lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet” ... watching it comfort itself with the human songs of God’s human lovers, psalms of steadfastness and praise—then in the Responds breaking once more into its woe—a sorrowful dialogue with itself—“Judas, that wicked trader, sold his Lord with a kiss”—“It had been good for that man if he had not been born” ... “O my choicest vine, I have planted thee. How art thou turned to bitterness” ... “Are ye come out against a thief with swords and staves for to take me?” ... “I have delivered my beloved into the hand of the wicked, and my inheritance is become unto me as a lion in the wood”—“My pleasant portion is desolate, and being desolate it crieth after me.”

Through psalm and lesson, antiphon and response, the Deep Heart went down into the final darkness. It was swallowed up, all but its last, inmost point of light—and that too was hidden for a time ... “keeping His divinity hidden within, concealing the form of God.” In the darkness His family knelt and prayed Him to behold them; then for a few brief moments came the showing of the light, the light which had not been extinguished but hidden, and now for a few moments gleamed again.

It was all to the credit of Stella’s imagination that she could make a spiritual adventure out of Tenebrae as sung in Vinehall church. The choir of eight small boys and three hoarse young men was rather a hindrance than an aid to devotion, nor was there anything particularly inspiring in the congregation itself, sitting on and on through the long-drawn nocturnes in unflagging patience, for the final reward of seeing the lights go out. Even this was an uncertain rite, for old Mr. Bream, the sacristan, occasionally dozed at the end of a psalm with the result that he once had three candles over at the Benedictus; and another time he had let the Christ candle go out in the draught at the back of the Altar and was unable to show it at the end, though his hoarse entreaties for a match were audible at the bottom of the church. But Stella loved the feeling of this His family sitting down and watching Him there in stolid wonder. She loved their broad backs, the shoulders of man and girl touching over a book, the children sleeping against their mothers, to be roused for the final thrill of darkness. She was conscious also of an indefinable atmosphere of sympathy, as of the poor sharing the sorrows of the Poor, and drawn terribly close to this suffering human Heart, whose sorrows they could perhaps understand better than the well-educated and well-to-do. She felt herself more at ease in such surroundings than in others of more sophisticated devotion, and on leaving the church was indignant with an unknown lady who breathed into her ear that she’d seen it better done at St. John Lateran.

Up in her bedroom, taking the pins out of her hair, her mind still lingered over the office. Perhaps Gervase was singing it now, far away at Thunders Abbey.... She must write to Gervase soon, and tell him how much happier she had been of late. During the last few weeks a kind of tranquillity had come, she had lost that sense of being in the wrong with Peter, of having failed him by going away. She saw that she was right, and that she had hated herself for that very reason of being in the right when poor Peter whom she loved was in the wrong. But her being in the right would probably be more help to him at the last than if she had put herself in the wrong for his dear sake.

“Judas the wicked trader
Sold his Lord with a kiss.
It had been good for that man
If he had not been born.”

She too might have sold her Lord with a kiss. She wondered how often kisses were given as His price—kisses which should have been His joy given as the token of His betrayal. She might have given such a token if He had not preserved her, delivered her from the snare of Peter’s arms ... oh, that Peter’s arms should be a snare ... but such he himself had made them. She had not seen him for a long time now—a whole fortnight at least; and in less than another fortnight she would be gone.... He was keeping away from her, and would probably keep away until the end. Then once more he would see Vera, his wife, holding their child in her arms ... and surely then he would go back. Probably in a few days too he would be Sir Peter Alard, Squire of Conster, head of the house ... then he would be thankful that he had not entangled himself with Stella Mount—he would be grateful to her, perhaps....

“For I have delivered my beloved into the hand of the wicked,
And my inheritance is become unto me as a lion in the wood
My pleasant portion is desolate—
And, being desolate,—it crieth after me.”