第15章

"I knew him for what he was.But that he could do this! He meant it to hurt, too--that was like him all over.He had us in his mind.Iwish I'd never taken a penny from him.I'd rather have starved.Yes, I would--far rather.I've been bad enough, but never a thing like that--"His sister said quietly:

"He's dead, Mathew.We can do nothing.Maggie, poor child..."He approached for an instant more nearly than he had ever done.He took her hand.There were tears in his eyes.

"It's good of you, Anne--to take her."

She withdrew her hand--very gently.

"I wish we'd taken her before.She must have had a terrible time here.I'd never realised..."He stood away from her near the window, feeling suddenly ashamed of his impetuosity.

"She's a strange girl," Anne Cardinal went on."She didn't seem to feel this,--or anything.She hasn't, I think, much heart.I'm afraid she may find it a little difficult with us--"Mathew was uncomfortable now.His mood had changed; he was sullen.

His sister always made him feel like a disgraced dog.He shuffled on his feet.

"She's a good girl," he muttered at last, and then with a confused look about him, as though he were searching for something, he stumbled out of the room.

Meanwhile Maggie went on her way.She chose instinctively her path, through the kitchen garden at the back of the village, down the hill by the village street, over the little bridge that crossed the rocky stream of the Dreot, and up the steep hill that led on to the outskirts of Rothin Moor.The day, although she had no eyes for it, was one of those sudden impulses of misty warmth that surprise the Glebeshire frosts.The long stretch of the moor was enwrapped by a thin silver network of haze; the warmth of the sun, seen so dimly that it was like a shadow reflected in a mirror, struck to the very heart of the soil.Where but yesterday there had been iron frost there was now soft yielding earth; it was as though the heat of the central fires of the world pressed dimly upward through many miles of heavy weighted resistance, straining to the light and air.Larks, lost in golden mist, circled in space; Maggie could feel upon her face and neck and hands the warm moisture; the soil under her feet, now hard, now soft, seemed to tremble with some happy anticipation;the moor, wrapped in its misty colour, had no bounds; the world was limitless space with hidden streams, hidden suns.

The moor had a pathetic attraction for her, because not very long ago a man and a woman had been lost, only a few steps from Borhedden Farm, in the mist--lost their way and been frozen during the night.

Poor things! lovers, perhaps, they had been.

Maggie felt that here she could walk for miles and miles and that there was nothing to stop her; the clang of a gate, a house, a wall, a human voice was intolerable to her.

Her first thought as she went forward was disgust at her own weakness; once again she had been betrayed by her feelings.She could remember no single time when they had not betrayed her.She recalled now with an intolerable self-contempt her thoughts of her father at the time of the funeral and the hours that followed.It seemed to her now that she had only softened towards his memory because she had believed that he had left her money--and now, when she saw that he had treated her contemptuously, she found him once again the cruel, mean figure that she had before thought him.

For that she most bitterly, with an intensity that only her loneliness could have given her, despised herself.And yet something else in her knew that that reproach was not a true one.She had really softened towards him only because she had felt that she had behaved badly towards him, and the discovery now that he had behaved badly towards her did not alter her own original behaviour.She did not analyse all this; she only knew that there were in her longings for affection, a desire to be loved, an aching for companionship, and that these things must always be kept down, fast hidden within her.She realised her loneliness now with a fierce, proud, almost exultant independence.No more tears, no more leaning upon others, no more expecting anything from anybody.She was not dramatic in her new independence; she did not cry defiance to the golden mist or the larks or the hidden sun; she only walked on and on, stumping forward in her clumsy boots, her eyes hard and unseeing, her hands clasped behind her back.

Her expectation of happiness in her opening life that had been so strong with her that other day when she had looked down upon Polchester was gone.She expected nothing, she wanted nothing.Her only thought was that she would never yield to any one, never care for any one, never give to any one the opportunity of touching her.

At moments through the mist came the figure of the cook, stout, florid, triumphant.Maggie regarded her contemptuously."You cannot touch me," she thought.Of her father she would never think again.

With both hands she flung all her memories of him into the mist to be lost for ever...

She came suddenly upon a lonely farm-house.She knew the place, Borhedden; it had often been a favourite walk of hers from the Vicarage to Borhedden.The farmer let rooms there and, because the house was very old, some of the rooms were fine, with high ceilings, thick stone walls, and even some good panelling.The view too was superb, across to the Broads and the Molecatcher, or back to the Dreot Woods, or to the dim towers of Polchester Cathedral.The air here was fine--one of the healthiest spots in Glebeshire.

The farm to-day was transfigured by the misty glow; cows and horses could be faintly seen, ricks burnt with a dim fire.Somewhere dripping water falling on to stone gave a vocal spirit to the obscurity.The warm air seemed to radiate about the house like a flame that is obscured by sunlight.

The stealthy movements of the animals, the dripping of the water, were the only sounds.To Maggie the house seemed to say something, something comforting and reassuring.