Chapter I

It was in the summer of 1895 that Julius Liddiard came to Bridnorth. He came alone, having engaged rooms at the White Hart.

From the Throgmorton windows he was observed descending at the George Hotel when, with a glance at Mary, it was announced by Jane that he played golf. As he slung a bulky satchel over his shoulder, Fanny surmised him to be an artist, entertaining for a swift moment as it sped across her mind, a vision of herself sitting beside him, watching his sketches with absorbing interest as they came to life beneath his brush.

It remained with Jane to make the final observation as, accompanied by a man carrying his trunk, he passed the windows on his way back to the White Hart.

"Has his suit case polished," she said. "He's not an artist. Paints for fun. Probably has a valet. Too wealthy for the likes of Bridnorth. Comes here to be alone."

If judging the facts of appearance leads to a concept of truth, these observations of Jane were shrewdly accurate. Time, during the first week, proved the soundness of their deduction.

He was seen by Fanny on the cliff's edge above the bay, painting with pleasing amateurish results and so engrossed in his work as scarcely to notice her presence. She had looked over his shoulder as she passed. She was no critic but had, what is more common to find, the candor of ill-formed opinion.

"It was not bad," she said--"rather slobbery. It was running all over the paper. P'r'aps he pulls it together. Course I didn't stop."

Jane's eyes narrowed. It was superfluous to say she did not stop. That was one of Fanny's lies; one of the lies all women tell which record their conscious intentions while they belie the subconscious things they do. She had not meant to stop. It was obvious to Jane that she did. Her next words proved it.

"Can't understand," she said, "how any one can become so engrossed, messing about with paints on a piece of paper."

She had stopped and he had not noticed her. After a week had passed, Mary came back one evening from the golf club. They were all having tea.

"His name's Liddiard," she said casually in the midst of a silence, and they all knew to whom she alluded and what had occurred.

Questions poured upon her then from all but Hannah, who went on eating her pieces of bread and butter, letting her eyes wander from one to another as they spoke.

She informed them of all she had gathered about him during their game of golf, but gave her information only under pressure of their questioning.

Ever since her eyes had penetrated the veil that for so long had hidden her sisters from her, Mary had resented, while so well she understood, their curiosity about the visitors who came to Bridnorth. There were times when it almost had a savor of indecency to her; times when she felt her cheeks grow warm at the ill-hidden purpose of their interest; times when it seemed to her as though Fanny, revealing her soul, had dressed it in diaphanous garments which almost were immodest in their transparent flimsiness.

She knew Fanny's soul now. She knew the souls of all of them. She knew her own and often she prayed that however Fate might treat her, even if as it now treated them, she still would keep it secret and hidden from eyes that were not meant to see.

"He comes from Somerset," she told them. "He has a large estate there. Something like two thousand acres and I suppose a big house. No--does nothing. I expect looking after a place like that is work enough. Farms himself, I believe--the way he speaks about it. Yes--married."

Jane thought the annoyance with which she gave it out was upon her own account. There was a smile in her eyes when Mary admitted it, as though her rejoinder might have been--"What a suck for you."

Such good nature as she had kept the words from utterance. But as well it was that Mary's annoyance had really had nothing to do with herself. Their question, chimed from Fanny and Jane together, had made the blood tingle in her cheeks. Why did they expose themselves like that? She would sooner have seen them with too short a skirt or too low a bodice. Scarcely conscious of this shame in Mary, it yet had had power to hold back the words from Jane's lips. Nevertheless she credited it to her virtue.

"They say I'm bitter," she thought. "They don't know how bitter I could be."

"Why isn't his wife with him?" she asked.

Mary professed complete indifference and ignorance.

"Do you suppose I asked him?" she said. "Marriage isn't a grazing in one field, is it? Life isn't one acre to everybody."

How interestingly he must have talked about his estate and farming. That came leaping at once into Jane's mind. A grazing in one field--that was a new-learnt phrase for Mary. There was little she knew about grazing and could not tell an acre from a rood.

"How does he play golf?" she inquired.

"Fairly well."

"How many strokes did he give you?"

"None--we played level."

"What did he win by?"

"I did--two and one."

"So you're going to play again?"

"Well, of course. It was a tight match."

Jane rose from the table to go and make out the linen for the laundry. Fanny sat staring at the tea leaves in the bottom of her cup. Hannah inquired in her gentle voice if any one wanted the last piece of bread and butter.