 10. How She Got Into The Room, The Isolated Big Drawing Room, Which Somebody Else Who was aware of his arrival had directed that he was to be shown into Mary knew not, but she was there. He stood perfectly still, massive and inflexible to receive her, without approaching him or he her to shake hands. Without looking at his face or anywhere near it, she perceived the adamantine set of lips, the cold gaze more withering than fire, which informed her that he knew all. And she sunk, crouching into a chair, and hid at her face. But her back was against the wall now. The coward stage was passed, in the most desperately false position that a girl could occupy. She made no further attempt to run away from the truth. Perhaps because she saw that it was useless. When he began, very politely, but with no beating about the bush, to say, I dare say you are surprised to see me, Miss Pennyquick. But I was told, and since I came up here, I had been told again by several different persons something that I want you to help me to understand. She jerked herself upright, and stopped him with a swift gesture, and the cry of, I know, I know what you have been told, and I have nothing to say, I cannot contradict it. She was a piteous object, in a shaking anguish. But he looked at her, of course, without a scrap of pity. Do you think you really know, he questioned her, with cold gravity. Perhaps I had been given an exaggerated version. I was in hopes that it was, altogether, an invitation of Miss Francie's. I know of all that she is prone to make reckless statements. Ah, Francie. She was kind enough to write me a long letter, to congratulate me on my promotion. She told me all the family news. And she said, she asked me, but really, I haven't the cheek to repeat her words. His cold face had become hot, and his manner agitated. Go on, said she, calming under the perception that the worst had come utterly to the worst. Well, if you will forgive me, she asked me, in effect, when I was coming to marry you, and why I had kept the engagement a secret so long. He paused, one dark red blush, to note the effect of so brutal a stroke. She said, meeting his eyes for the first time, and you believed it at once, of me. No, Miss Pennyquick, I laughed. I said to myself, here is another of Miss Francie's mare's nests. But when I read on, she told me so many things. They were incredible. But still, I felt I had to sift the matter. And since I came up today, other people, I've been to five creeks and had a talk with Jim Merckhardt. Now, I don't know what to think, at least there is but one thing that I can think. The chair she had taken had a high back, and against this she laid her head, as if too weary to support it. Lack of sleep and appetite had paled her florid colour to a sickly hue. And she looked wane and languid as a dying woman. But still he did not pity her, as he must have done had her face been half as beautiful as Deb's or Francie's. Miss Pennyquick, he continued, as she kept silence. I want to get the hang of this thing. Will you tell me straight, yes or no? Have you been giving it out that I let Redford two years ago engage to you? Her first impulse was to cry out, oh no, no, not quite so bad as that. But on second thoughts she said, yes, practically. Sudden rage seemed to seize him. He sat up. He crossed his knees. He uncrossed them. He twisted this way and that. He muttered, good God! As if the pious ejaculation had referred to the other person, and his stare at her was cruel. But I had been racking my brains to remember anything. Surely I never gave you. I am perfectly convinced. I had the best reason for being absolutely certain that I could not have given you. Never, she broke in. Of course not. It was all my own invention. You admit it. Thank you. You formally relieved me at the imputation. I have so long lain under without knowing it. Of having run away from my duty. She said lifelessly, we thought you were dead. I see. You thought it didn't matter what you said of a dead man. But dead men's characters should be all the more sacred because they cannot defend them. I should be sorry indeed to leave behind me such a reputation as I seem to have hereabouts. Though, indeed, a man is very helpless in these cases. He is at a hopeless disadvantage when a woman is his traducer. I can see that Jim Urquhart will never be a friend of mine again, whatever happens. He shall know the truth. Everybody shall know the truth, said Mary. How can everybody know the truth, only by my own affidavit, and that would not be believed? Besides, it is not for me to deny, at the cost of branding, a lady a liar. It was the straight word, regardless of manners, with this sea-bred man. You need not. I know how to do it, so that people will believe. I am going to write a letter to the newspaper, a plain statement, that will fully exonerate you. He nearly jumped out of his chair with the fright she gave him. You will do nothing so ridiculous, he exclaimed angrily. It is the only way, said she, the only way to make sure. If you do, he minister. I shall simply write another, for the next issue, to flatly contradict you. Then you would be a liar. That doesn't matter in the least. I must be a man first. I am not going to let you ruin yourself. Aye, that is done already. Nothing can make it worse for me. He looked at her, taking in the words, in some sort understanding them. She lifted her eyes to look at him, and what he saw behind the look went to his kindly heart. He felt, for her, for the first time, may I go now, she whispered. His answer was to move to a seat beside her. I wish you would tell me, he said, in more humane tones, how you came to do it. I would like to understand, and I can't, for the life of me. You must have had some reason. Did I do anything unknowing? She shook her head hopelessly. No, you were only kind and good, as you would have been to anyone. Kind and good, rubbish. It was you, all of you, who were kind and good. Oh, I don't forget what you did for me, and never shall. I feel it was the very feeling that had so oppressed him, in the case of the lady at Sandridge, under a load of obligation to you, that I could never hope to discharge. But still, but still, though, I trust I showed some of the gratitude I felt. I cannot remember how I came to give you the idea. I must have done something. I suppose one is a blundering fool without knowing it. No, she protested. No, no. It was my own idea, entirely. But I can't reconcile that with your character, Ms. Pennyquick. Nor can I, she laughed bitterly. There's a mystery somewhere. Did anyone tell you anything? Did Ms. Francis put constructions on innocent appearances? Did, no, Mary resolutely stopped him? It is good of you to try to make excuses, but there is no excuse for me. None. Francis only said what she knew. I let them believe you were my lover. I am twenty-seven. I never had one. And, and, oh, I thought that, at least, you might be mine when you were dead. I did not mean to be a liar, as you called me. Yes, that is the right word. Forgive me for using it, he muttered. You do not realise at first that you are lying, when you only act lies and don't speak them. And I did think that perhaps, that possibly, of course, I was ridiculously wrong. It was atrocious, unforgivable. I don't ask you to forgive me. I don't want you to. But those dear days when our little boy, oh, you know, when you kiss me that night beside his grave. What? A lightning change came over the young man, as if the word had been an electric current suddenly shot into him. Kissed you? It was nothing. You did not know you did it. But here, hold on, this is serious. Did I kiss you? You are sure you are not dreaming? I would not be very likely to dream that, she said, with a strange smile. But, of course, it was only at such a time, as you would have kissed your sister, anybody. You are very forgetting it shows that. But a dim memory was awakening in him, frightfully perturbing to his mind. I kissed you, he repeated, and slowly realized that he had been that consummate ass. The poor baby's dead hand had retained its old power to entrap a simpleton unaware. Well, simpleton or not, Guthrie Carey was Guthrie Carey, sailor bread, accustomed to meet vital emergencies with boldness and promptness, accustomed also to take his own views of what was a man's part at such times. While she implored him to say no more about that kiss, crying shame upon herself for mentioning it, he sat in silence, thinking hard, as soon as she had done. He spoke, Miss Pennyquick, I now understand everything. You are completely justified. It is I who have been to blame, and he then, in precise language, such as no real lover could have used, but still, as prettily, as was possible under the circumstances, requested the honour of a hand in marriage. To his astonishment, she laughed. It was a wild-sounding cackle, and quickly turned into a wail. Ha-ha-ha, she faced him again, head up and hands down. That, Mr. Carey, is the one way out of it that is utterly, absolutely, internally impossible. Why, he demanded, with his man's dull incomprehension, and went on to demonstrate that there was no other. I do not wish, he lied chivalrously, to take any other. I believe me. I am not ungrateful for your, for your thinking a great deal more of me than I deserve. I will try to show myself worthy. A magnanimous arm attempted to encircle her. She backed from it, and rose hurriedly from her chair, with what he would have imagined a gesture of repulsion, if he had not known her. From her own showing, so over-eager, for his embraces, he rose too. Do not, she cried breathlessly, passionately, as if I could dream. What can you think of me, to imagine that I would, for a moment? She broke from him, and ran towards the door, sobbing, with a handkerchief to her eyes. In three strides he was there before her, cutting off her retreat, so she swung back into the room, cast herself on the floor beside a sofa, and throwing up her arms, plunged her head down between them into the depths of a large cushion, which smothered cries that would otherwise have been shrieks. She abandoned all effort to control herself, except the effort to hide, which was futile. Guthrie Kerry's first feeling was of alarm, lest anyone should hear and come in to see what was the matter. He felt like wanting to guard the door, but in a minute or two his soft heart was so worked upon by the spectacle before him that he could think of nothing else. However little he might want to marry Mary Pennyquick, he was not going to be answerable for this sort of thing, so he marched resolutely to the sofa and stooped to lift the convulsed creature bodily into his arms. He might as well have tried to grasp a sleeping porcupine. How dare you, she cried shrilly, whirling to her feet, dilating like a hooded snake before his astonished eyes. How dare you touch me? He was too cowed to answer. And she stood a moment, all fire and fury, glaring at him. Her tear-ravaged face distorted, her hands clenched, then she wheeled out at the room, and this time he made no effort to stop her. He dropped back on the sofa and said to himself, helplessly, well, I'm bloated. There was stillness for some time. This part of the house seemed quite empty, so for one buzzing fly which he or Mary had let in. The little housekeeper was very particular about flies in summer, every window and chimney opening being wirenetted, every door labelled with a printed request to the user to shut it. And his day's mind occupied itself with the idea of how this insect would have distressed her if she had not had so much else to think of. He had an impulse to hunt it, for her sake, through the green-shadowed space in which it careered in long tax with such energy and noise. But standing up, he was seized with a stronger impulse to leave the house forthwith, and everything in it. He wanted liberty to consider his position and further proceedings before he faced the family. As he approached the door it was open from without. Deb stood on the threshold, pale, proud, with tight lips and somber eyes. She bowed to him as only she could bow to a person she was offended with. Would you kindly see my father in his office, Mr. Carey? She inquired, with stony formality. He wishes to speak to you. Certainly, Miss Deborah, he replied, not daring to preface the words with even a how-do-you-do. I want to see him, I want to see him particularly. Deb swept round to lead the way downstairs. An embarrassing march it was, tandem fashion, through the long passages at the rambling house. While trying to arrange his thoughts for the coming interview, Captain Carey studied her imperious back and shoulders, the haughty poise of her head. And though he was not the one that had behaved badly, he had never felt so small. At the door of the morning room she dismissed him with a jerk at the hand. You know your way, said she, and vanished. She is more beautiful than ever, was his poignant thought, as he walked away from her, and from all the glorious life that she suggested to such a dull and common doom. Mr. Pennyquick, at first, was a terrible figure, struggling between his father Fury and his old gentleman instincts of courtesy to a guest. Sir, said he, I am sorry that I have to speak to you under my own root. In another place, I could better have expressed what I have to say. But before he could get to the gist of the matter, Mary intervened. Miss Kane has some refreshment for Mr. Carey in the dining room. She said, and Father, I want, if you please, to have a word with you first. She had recovered self-possession and more rigid determined air, contrasting with the sailor's bewilderment, which was so great that he found himself driven from the office before he had made up his mind whether he ought to go or stay. He sat down to his unnecessary meal and tried to eat, while an embarrassed maiden lady talked platitudes to him. Didn't he find it very dusty in town? Miss Kane, knitting feverishly, was anxious to be informed, and didn't he think the country looked well for the time of year? He was relieved from this tedium by another summons to the office. Fortified with a glass of good wine, he returned to the encounter, inwardly calling upon his gods to direct him how to meet it. He found poor old Father Peniquick aged ten years in the hour since he had seen him last. But he still stood in massive dignity, a true son of his old race. Well, Mr. Carey said he, I have had a great many troubles of late, sir, but never one like this. I thought that losing money, the fruits of a lifetime of hard work, was a thing to fret over. And then, again, I've thought that money's no consequence so long as you've got your children alive and well. That was everything. I know better now. I know there's things may happen to a man worse than death, worse than losing everything belonging to him, no matter what it is. When that child was a little thing, she had an illness, and the doctors gave her up. Two nights, her mother and I sat up watching her, expecting every breath to be the last, and brokenhearted was no word for what we felt. I cried like a carp, and I prayed. I never prayed like it before, or since, and feels we are to ask the Almighty, for we don't know what. Now I wish he had taken her, and I've told her so. Then you have been very cruel, Mr. Pennyquick. Guthrie Carey replied sharply, and as unjust as cruel. She has done nothing. I know what she's done. The stern parent interposed. I wouldn't have believed it if anybody else had told me, but I have her own word for it, and if she has been a liar once, I still know when to believe her. If you will be so good as to tell me what she has said, then I will make my statement. The old man put up his hand. Don't hurt yourself, said he, grimly smiling. It is very kind of you to try to let us down easily, but you can spare your breath. Excuses only make it worse. There's nothing to be said for her, and you'll really oblige me by not going into details. I only sent for you to make such amends as I can, to apologise most humbly, to express my sorrow, my shame, my unspeakable humiliation, that a child of mine, a penny-quick, a girl I thought was nothing if not moderately and self-respecting, and the very soul of honour and straightness and proper pride. You speak as if she was, not all that now. Now, and done alone, contemptible thing like that. Oh, I don't understand it. I can't. It's too monstrous, except that I have her word for it. She says she did it, and so there it is. And, sir, I beg your pardon on behalf of the house that she has disgraced, the house that read her and thought her so different. He gulped, copped, and gave Guthrie a chance to put in a word. Mr. Penny-quick, the simple fact is that I made love to your daughter, made her an offer of marriage, snulled the other, wheeling round. I've kissed her. Mr. Penny-quick snapped his thumb and finger derisively. That kind of kiss, as good as asked for. It was not as good as asked for. Your daughter is not that kind of woman. I thought not, but she says she is. Pay no heed to what she says. Her morbid conscientiousness runs away with her. I tell you the plain truth, as man to man, without any hysterics. I've kissed her at my own free will, your daughter, sir, and I am here now to stand by my act. If she will forgive my tardiness, as you know, I was in no position then to aspire to marriage with a lady of this family. I am not now, but I am better off than I was. Will you give your consent to our engagement? No, roared Mr. Penny-quick, looking as if threatened with an apologetic fit. I'll see her engaged to the devil first. Like Mary he seemed to take the generous offer as a personal insult. Guthrie Carey, conscience of doing the duty of a gentleman at enormous cost, could not understand why. End of Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Sisters. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Lucy Burgoyne. Sisters by Ada Cambridge, Chapter 11. Captain Carey, while leaving it to be understood that he held himself engaged to Mary Penny-quick until further orders, realised the welcome fact that in the meantime he was honourably free, and he excused himself from staying to dinner, but scarcely had he driven off in his high buggy than that of Mr. Goldsworthy clattered into the stable yard. It was the good man's habit, when on his parochial visitations to make, Redford at mealtimes or at bedtimes, whenever distances allowed, he called it, most appropriately, his second home, and walked into the house as if it really belonged to him, two or three times a week. The first person that he encountered on this occasion was Francis, who had waylaid Guthrie Carey on his departure, and whom he had left standing under the back porch, aglow with excitement. She was a picture in her pale blue frock, put on for his eyes, and with her mane of burnished gold falling about her sparkling blush rose face, that the person accustomed to regard her as a child was unaffected by the sight. Surely, he exclaimed, with agitation, that was young Mr. Carey that I passed at the gate just now. He had his hat pulled over his eyes, and did not stop to speak to me, but the figure was his, said Francis, bursting to be the first to say it, very much in the flesh still, isn't he? And oh, to think he's gone like this, just as we'd got him back, so big and handsome, and such a dear brother-in-law as he would have made. She stamped her foot. What do you think, Mr. Goldsworthy? He came for her today, just as he promised, and then she turned round and wouldn't have him. We thought he'd guilted her, and instead of that, she's guilted him. Oh, I could smack her to have such a chance, she, and after all the fuss she made about him, and throw it away. But I think he'll come back before his ship sails. He said he would, and perhaps she'll be less of an idiot by then. She'd better, unless she wants to die an old maid. Oh, if it was me. Mr. Goldsworthy penetrated to the morning room, where something of the same tale was repeated to him. Yes, Guthrie Carey was alive and well, and had been up to see them. Yes, he had asked the Mary, now that he was a captain, but she had finally decided against marrying a sailor. Wisely, perhaps at any rate, it was her business. The family did not wish to discuss the matter. When Mr. Goldsworthy found that Mary did not come to dinner, he drew some conclusions for himself. He told himself there was something fishy in the affair, something behind. That was purposely kept from him. But he was hungry, and the fragrant suit steamed under his nose, and glittered in his spoon. It was so admirably clear. Just now, the doings of the Redford Cook were of more concern to him than Mary's doings. But although he enjoyed the meal to which he had looked forward all day, he enjoyed it much less than usual. A more sensitive person in his place must have found it wretched. Deb was a chilling hostess. Her frigid dignity and forced politeness caused discomfort even to him, thereby lowering her status in his eyes, listening near Adle of his admiration for her. Mr. Peniquip, such a stickler for hospitality, scarcely spoke a word to the guest. Rose was a nobody that still might have done something in the way of entertainment, and she quite ignored him, looking down as if to hide eyes that had been crying. Francis was eager to engage in conversation that was bitten roughly by her father to hold her tongue. The stately governess wore only more ostentatiously than usual the detached air that always marked her out of school. And it was left to poor Miss King, with her timid platitudes, to keep up an appearance of civility. Mr. Peniquip vanished abruptly after dinner. It was presently rumoured that he was not well, and had gone to bed. Francis was taken away to prepare lessons. Rose and Deborah came and went. Coffee was served. The person was again left to Miss King, who would not be pumped for confidences, further than to admit that Mary was keeping her room with the headache. In consequence of the agitating visit of Captain Carey, but laboriously talked parish to him, without appearing to know anything of the subject. So the poor man actually became so bored that he changed his mind about staying for the night. He remembered that there was a good moon, and that he had an early engagement next morning, and ordered his buggy soon after nine o'clock. Afterwards he believed that it was the direct voice of the Lord that had called him to take his journey home at that hour. He drove alone, having a steady red-fed mare that stood quietly at gates and doors, and no groom, a luxury almost unknown amongst country passants, who must all keep horses. The night was beautiful, still, cool, and clear, the moon so full that he could see for miles. Because of this he took his daylight shortcuts across country, preferring grass when he could get it to the dusty summer road, and one of his shortcuts led along the top of the embankment at the big dam. He slackened speed at this spot, touched by the beauty at the scene, which could hardly have appealed in vain to any man who had just had a good dinner, how peacefully the still water lay under the shining moon, that moon which is capable of making, not soft young lovers only, but the toughest old staggers sentimental, no, mortland at times, an intoxicant purged of the grossness of spiritualist liquors, but acting on the brain in precisely the same way. Mr. Goldworthy, already uplifted by good Redford wine, felt the effect of the lovely night in dim poetic stirrings of his sordid little soul. He mused of God and heaven, and the other things that he made sermons out of, in a disinterested, unprofessional way, these being the lines along with his imagination worked. Surely the Lord is in this place with the unspoken thought, elevating and inspiring, with which he surveyed the placid lake and the dreaming hills, and it is good for me to be here, he felt, even at the cost of a Redford bed and breakfast, and the choice vegetables that the gardener would have put into his buggy in the morning. But what was this, a boat adrift, from out of the shadow of the white shed on the further shore a black spot moved, one of the boats that should have been locked up, since no one was allowed to use them without Mr. Pennyquick's permission. It came into the open moonlight in the middle of that silver mirror, and he saw that oars propelled it, and saw the figure of the person wielding them, who had dared to take this liberty with sacred Redford property. He wandered with the indignation of a co-proprietor, and he assumed a poacher after the fish that Mr. Pennyquick had been trying with characteristic perseverance and unsuccessful to naturalize in his dam. But looking harder, the clergyman saw the figure rise in the boat, and that it was a woman's. Almost at the same instant, he saw that it had disappeared. Seizing whip and reins, he lashed his mare to a gallop along the embankment, and down its steep side, where she nearly upset him, and round the lake shore, the buggy roping like a cradle, to the point nearest to the boat, now visibly adrift and empty. He jumped to the ground, tore off his coat and vest, which had a valuable watch attached, flinging them and his hat, and presently his boots into the buggy, and with a word of warning to the mare, he plunged into the water to the rescue of some poor fool, whom, as yet, he had not identified. He returned to shore with Mary Pennyquick in his arms, spent and panting from his struggle, and awed by the tragical significance of the affair. His heart exalted at his deed. He thanked God that he had been in time, with the fervour proportionate to her rank and consequence, and anticipated the splendid reward awaiting him as the benefactor of the great family, entitled to their full confidence and eternal gratitude, but also he was filled with solicitude for the poor girl. She was unconscious when he laid her down on the grass, that choked and moaned when he said to work to revive her, and realised that she was back in life and misery after he had succeeded in getting some whiskey down her throat. Contents of the flask he always carried, as a preventative of chills and remedy for undue fatigues, and from which he had first helped himself. They sat upon the ground side by side, his arm round her waist, her head feeling only that it was cushioned somewhere on his shoulder. The night was so warm and windless that their wet clothes were little discomfort to them, that he kept grasping and ringing handfuls with the hand as liberty, while he supported her with the other. The danger of damn things was more terrifying to him now than the danger of death had been a few minutes ago. There, there, he said soothingly, you feel better now, don't you? Then I'll just put on my coat, if you don't mind. I'll wrap you up in the buggy rug, and we'll get back to Redford as soon as we can, and in the morning, dear, you'll wake up sorry for this, this madness, and you'll never do it again, will you? Hysteria, he said to himself, her head turned by this love affair. He's treated her badly, whatever they may say, and it has inhibished her mind. This thought disposed him to be gentle with her when she positively refused to be taken back to Redford. Leave me here, she implored him. I cannot go home. I will not go home. My father told me he wished I was dead. Oh, I should have been dead now if you had left me alone, and then they would have been satisfied, and I should have been out of my misery, which is more than I can bear. Oh, Mr. Goldsworthy, don't, don't. Mad as a hatter, poor thing, he thought, as he desisted from his effort to raise her. Why her father thinks the world of her? But something had to be done. It was unwise to use force in these cases, nor could he have brought himself to use it, and of course, he could not leave her at the dam, or leave her at all, while she was in her present move, and without other protection at the same time, it was imperatively necessary that he should get out of his wet clothes, her also. He mentioned this latter fact, and it was touching to see her own careful, house-bitely instincts assert themselves through all her mental agony. Oh, you are wet, she mourned, feeling him. It did not matter about herself. Oh, I am so sorry. Do go home at once, and take them off, and have something hot before you go to bed. I will, he said, if you will go with me. A moment's reflection showed him that this was the best course, to take her to his own house, and send a message to Mr. Penifit that she was there, and so the thought of the town frightened her. She dreaded to go anywhere out of the solitude of nature in which she had tried to hide, but he assured her a privacy and protection, and she was bent and beaten, and she gave in. Like a child, she stood to be wrapped in the rug and lifted into the buggy, and they proceeded on their way to his home, where his old sister kept house for him and mothered his child, with the aid of one servant. It was nearly midnight when they arrived, and the parsonage was dark. Miss Goldworthy, not expecting him, was sitting up with a sick parishioner half a mile off. Ruby and the maid were fast asleep. When the latter was heard stirring in her room, her master called a few questions to her, and then bade her go back to bed. We don't want her poking round, he whispered to Mary, as, when together they had hurried the mare into the stall, he led the dripping girl to his study, and how grateful she was to him for this consideration. He closed the door behind them, and led her gently to his own armchair. She clung to the hand that was so kind to her in her need, bidding her keep the rug about her, so as not to wet the furniture, and he lit a kerosene stove that was one of his private luxuries, always available when the maid of all work was not. He exhorted his charge to comfort herself by the poor blaze while he fetched some odds and ends of clothes, as he could gather from his sister's room, and then he told her to change her wet garments for these dry ones, while he performed the same operation for himself elsewhere. She obeyed him as meekly as a child, and was sitting huddled in Miss Goldworthy faded flannel dressing gown when he returned, carrying a kettle and a tray. Now I will make you a nice hot cup of tea, said he cheerily, planting the kettle on a round hole at the top of the stove, and the tray on his writing table. You put your clothes in the passage, that's right, we'll dry them presently. Oh yes, starting to cut the bread and butter, you must have something to eat, you have had no dinner. He forced her to eat and to drink the hot tea, and she did feel the better for it. Over her cup she lifted swimming eyes to his face, whispering, you are good to me, and he remarked to himself that she was not mad, as he had thought. When the meal was disposed of, he felt that the time for explanations, and for considering how to deal with the extraordinary situation, had come. Now, my dear, he begun, taking on something at the pass and air at last. The first thing to be done is to inform your family of your whereabouts. I must go and find up somebody to take a message to them, to relieve their minds. She roused from her semi-torpor to plead for a reprieve. Not yet, not yet, whatever she had to face. Let her rest for a little first. They had parted with her for the night. They would not go to her room. She knew, outcast as she now was, from the sympathy of them all. They would not miss her before the morning, and oh, she could not go home. She had disgraced her family. Her own father had wished her dead. She was a wicked woman, not fit to live. But if she must live, let it be anyway, anyway, rather than at Redford now. At this repetition of Australian charge against a doting father, and the mention of disgrace, a distressing suspicion came into the parson's mind. He calculated the length of time between Guthrie Carey's visits. He looked at her, searchingly. No, there was no evidence that she had done the special wrong, but that there was wrong if some sort somewhere was evident enough. I know your father's affection for you, he said seriously, and I cannot believe that he would express himself as you say he did. I deserved it, she said. I don't blame him. Nobody could. There must indeed have been some grave reason. There was, there was. What was it? Oh, don't ask me, she wailed, covering her face. But crossing over to her side, he took one of the shielding hands, and holding it tenderly, assured her that she must tell him. He was her pastor, he was her best friend. Just now he was her champion, prepared to fight her battle, whatever it was. And to do this successfully, it was necessary that he should know all. In the end, she told him, not all, but the main facts. He thought of the silliest case of making a mountain out of a molehill that he had ever heard of. He was convinced there was more in the background, to account for the violent emotions arouse, to account for a good girl leaving a good home in the middle of the night to drown herself. In his conjectures he made Guthrie Kerry the villain at the peace. The young man who, after creating all the disturbance, had significantly cleared out. Sailors were an immoral lot, a sweetheart in every port, as the world knew. And this fellow, why, you had only to look at his big brawny build, Mr. Goldworthy, was the small man, to see that he had a brutal nature. At any rate, the parson was satisfied that the heroine of the story remained a pure, girl foolish, but womanly, and very, very unfortunate. As she sat weeping by his side, dependent solely upon his protection, he stroked her hand and looked at it, so shapely and hybrid, the hand of a penny-quick at the Great House, a hand that would be full of gold someday, and his thoughts were busy. The beautiful Deborah was gone, and could never have been for him. He had been an idiot to think it. She had no bent towards religion, was ruinously dressy and extravagant, unhoused wifely as a woman could be, but Miss Penny-quick, great lady, as she was, could cook and sew, was a master hand with servants and with children, and had never failed of interest in the church, nor in him. They had always been the best of friends, he and she, did it not seem that Providence had decreed they should be more. Why had he been sent to the dam in the nick of time, when he had intended to stay at Redford until morning? Why was she sitting here now, alone with him in his study, cut off from everybody else in the world? The hand of the Lord was in it, looks were of small account, when one considered her rank and the fortune she would inherit. But, of course, he did not admit to himself that he considered any one of those three things, nor that she was of age and her own mistress. Although she had just forced the fact upon him when, promising him to make no further attempt upon her life, she announced an intention to find a situation somewhere in which she would be able to support herself apart from her family, and away from all who knew her. No, what he considered was the will of God and the dictates of his conscience. She had been given into his hands, he was bound to take care of her, and there was but one way to do it. It would be wrong and cruel to force her back to Redford, it was preposterous to think of making a governess or companion of her, a daughter of the proud Pennyquicks. She could not remain in his house as she was, without scandal, although he was a clergyman, with a sister housekeeper. Here they were now, past midnight, and practically without a soul in the house, and he so young still, and, if he might presume to say it, so attractive. He put the case to her guardedly, gradually plainly at last, and argued it for a full hour, while she dripped and wept, gazing at the smelly stove and shaking her head wirrily. By the time dawn came, and she was quite worn out, he had won her consent to be his wife, which meant for her a pudding somewhere, and at the same time a means to commit suicide without violating the law. Miss Goldsworthy, who was but his humble slave, came home, put the fallen girl to bed, and made a wedding breakfast for her while she was there. Mr. Goldsworthy took the opportunity to fill up marriage papers in his study. Ruby was sent to school, as usual. Before her return, therefrom, Mary Pennyquick had been led to the altar of the adjacent church, the white frock in which she had tried to drown herself, dried an iron to make her bridal robe. A neighbouring collurgium and crony of the bridegrooms performed the ceremony. Old Miss Goldsworthy, the chief witness, deposed the wilted wet bitterly. The bride was unmoved, until little Ruby, returning during the course of the ghastly wedding breakfast, was brought up, giggling and staring, to kiss her new mummer, when the new mummer snatched the child to her breast and went off into wild hysterics. There, there, said the new husband, pleased with the maternal gesture, but alarmed by her excitement. You are overwrought. You have had no sleep. You must come and rest, my dear. Come and lie down. You can have Ruby with you, if you like, while I go and settle things at Redford. No, I won't be long. I'll just see your father and be back by tea time. Have the drawing room opened, Charlotte. It never was opened except for visitors, and we will sit there this evening. And meanwhile, make her some tea or something, and see that she has all she wants. Come, my love. He led her to the door of the room, and she shrunk back from it with a shriek. Well, well, he soothed her. The spare room, if you like. O, promise me, promise me. Yes, yes, just as you wish, darling. I would not hurry you. She turned to Miss Goldworthy and clung to her. Save me, save me, was what the desperate clutch meant, but what the paralyzed tongue could not articulate. She was in a high fever and delirious on her wedding night, and a week later at death's door. When she came out of her illness, reconciled to her family, meekly obedient to her husband, she was a wreck of herself, a prisoner for life, bound hand and foot, more pitiful than she would have been as a dead body fished out of the dam. The tragic disproportion between crimes and punishments in this world. Chapter 12 Sisters This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Lucy Burgoyne. Sisters by Ada Cambridge. Chapter 12. Mrs Goldworthy was reconciled to her relations through her illness. The greatest peacemaker in families saved death, and for her sake, they made a show of tolerating her husband, after they had given him some bad hours behind her back. But the whole affair was like a blight on Redford, which was never the same place again. Mr Pennyquick had a slight stroke on hearing all the bad news at once. It was light enough to be passed over and hushed up, but his vigor and faculties declined from that hour with the rapidity that could be marked from day to day. A changed man observed his neighbours, one to another. At the same time, they hinted that other things were not as they used to be, that the old man had had losses, that Redford was heavily burdened, that the proud Pennyquicks, already humble, were likely to experience a further thaw. Certainly, the governess was dispensed with, and in the dashing foreign hand withdrawn from the local race courses and agricultural show grounds, at which it had long been the constant and conspicuous ornament to be sold at public auction without reason given. The great hospitable house got a character for dullness for the first time in its history. No lights or laughter flowed from the windows of the big dooring room of an evening. The lawns lay dark and still, while downstairs a rubber of wist or a hand at cribbage, with Jim Urquhart or Mr Thornycroft, represented what was left of the goatees of the past. These men, these old fogies, as fretful Francis stole them both, were not of those who shunred Redford because it had grown dull. On the contrary, they now, according to Francis again, virtually lived there, and it was the absent pleasure seekers, her true kindred, for whom her soul longed. He who most openly resented the change, having, next to Mary, been most instrumental in causing it, was Deborah's lover, Claude Delville. He had been none too gracious a lover, although graceful enough, when all was well, seeing that he had continued his bachelor life with all his social obligations, after as before his engagement, and had allowed this to run to nearly two years, without coming to any effective understanding about the wedding day. But when, in the thick of her troubles, he descended upon Redford merely to denounce the gold's worthy marriage as a personal affront, and as it were, to tax her with it, then her loving indulgence did not suffice to excuse him. As usual, he went to his room first, to wash and change. He hated to pass the door of a sitting room with the dust of travel on him. He could not shake hands with equanimity, until he had restored his person and toilet to their normal perfection, which meant more or less the restoring of his nerves and temper to repose. So he appeared, on this occasion, fresh and finished to the last degree, the finest gentleman in the world, the very light of Deb's eyes, and the satisfaction of her own fastidious walking into her where she awaited him, in the morning room, herself groomed to match, with as much care as she had taken when she had no more serious matter to think of than how to dress to please him. He met her, apparently, as usual. She, turning to him, as to a rock in a weary land, flung herself into his arms with more than her usual self-abandonment. Oh, darling, she breathed in that delicious voice of hers. It is good to see you. I have wanted you so badly. I am sorry I did not come before, he replied, kissing her gravely. Somebody has been wanted to deal with that extraordinary girl. I, poor girl, do you know she is very ill with brain fever? Casire has gone to nurse her. It must have been that coming on. She was out of her mind. I should think so, and everybody else too, apparently. What were you all about, Debbie, not to see this gold-worthy affair going on under your noses? It hasn't been going on. It has been Guthrie-Carrie until now. I am told, it was Francis who had told him in the passage just now, that she refused Carey only the day before. She did. In order to make a runaway match with this Parson fellow, the facts speak for themselves. I, sighed dead, turning to the tea table. I expect we don't know all the facts. She meant that he did not know them. He only knew what Francis knew, and, providentially, they had been able to keep the episode of the dam out of the published story. That was the secret of Mary herself, her husband, her father, and this one, sister. And they kept it close, even from Claude Delzel. I will tell him someday when we are married, Deb had promised herself. But as things fell out, she never did tell him. And it was on account of her brother-in-law's part in the suppressed event that she now forebore to call him behind his back, what she had not hesitated to call him before his face. That is, failed to show that she fully shared her lovers in dignation at the misalience and the scandalous way that it had been brought about. But, good heavens, Claude took his cup perfunctorily from her hand, and at once set it down. Are more facts necessary? She has made a clandestine marriage with a man whose bishop will turn him out of the church, I hope. They were right, I suppose, in concluding that no one here would consent to it, and what conceivable circumstances could excuse such an act. Illness, said Deb. Madness. Nonsense, there's too much method in it. It is obviously but the climax of a long intrigue, a course of duplicity that I could never have believed possible in a girl like Mary, although I have always thought him cad enough for anything. Have your tea, said Deb, a trifle of hand, it will be cold. And she sat down with her own cup, and began to sip it with a leisurely air. A clandestine marriage remarked Claude, ignoring her advice. Logically implies a clandestine engagement. Carey was, but a red herring across the trail, and you ought to have known it, Deb. Well, I didn't, said she shortly. He took a turn up and down the room, trying to preserve his wanted well-bred calm, but he was intensely irritated by her attitude. I cannot understand you, he complained, with a hard edge to his voice. I should have thought that you, you of all people, would have been wild as wild as I am. She exasperated him with a little laugh, and a truly cutting sarcasm. It is bad form to show that you are wild, you know, even if you feel so. I am just wondering whether you feel so. You are not used to hiding your feelings at any rate, from me. I expected to find you out of your mind almost. What's the use? If I raved till doomsday, I couldn't alter anything. The mischief is done. It is no use crying over spilt milk, my dear. You look as if you did want to cry, do I? As if it did not much matter to whether it was spilt or not. It doesn't matter to me, compared with what it matters to her. Well, it matters to me, called Delzl, announced, in a high tone, the crust of his fine manners, giving to the pressure of the volcano within. I can't stand the connection, if you can. Carey was bad enough, but he had some claim beside his coat to rank as a gentleman. This crawling ass, who would lick your boots for sixpence, to have him patting me on the back, and calling himself my brother, Good God, it's too sickening. Not your brother. Deb gently corrected him. He is mine, if he is yours. Oh, not necessarily. Deb, said Claude, with an air of desperation, planting himself before her. What are you going to do? She looked up at him with narrowing eyes and stiffening lips. What is there to do? She returned. Are you going to put up with this outrage, to condone everything, to tolerate that fellow at Redford, taking the position of the son of the house, or are you going to show them both that they have forfeited their right ever to set foot upon the place again? My sister too, you mean? Certainly, if you can still bring yourself to call her your sister. She belongs to him now, not to us. She has voluntarily cut herself off from her will. Let her go, Deb, if you love me. He paused and Deb smiled into his handsome, but disgusted face. Oh, is that to be a test of love? She asked. I understand. I am to choose between you. Well, she rose, towering, drawing the big diamond from her engagement finger. I am going to her now. I ought to have been there hours ago, but waited back to receive you. Goodbye. And pray don't come again to this contaminated house. We have too horribly gone down in the world. I know it, and I would not have you compromised on any account. We, Pennyquicks, we don't abandon our belongings, especially when they may be dying. We sink or swim together. She held the duel out to him. What rot he blurted vulgarly, flushing with anger, that was not unmixed with shame. Why will you willfully misunderstand me? Put it on. Deb, put it on, and don't be so childish. I will not put it on, said she, until you apologize for the things you have been saying to me and the manner of your saying them. My dear child, I do apologize humbly. If I have said what I shouldn't, perhaps I have, but I thought we were past the need for reserves and for weighing words, you and I. And really, Debbie, you know. Hush, she stopped him from further arguing, but she did not stop him from taking her hand and cramming the diamond back into its old place. I must go. Father cannot. He is ill himself, and Miss Keane is too frightfully modest to nurse him alone, so that I must send Cosiah back and stay. Can't Miss Keane go and send her back and stay? Oh, she would be no use in such an illness as Mary's, and I must see for myself how things are, whether they are taking proper care of the poor, unfortunate child. Is she so very ill? I did not know that. There was commiseration in his tone, but in his heart he hoped that the deservedly sick woman would crown her estepades by dying as quickly as possible. Then, perhaps, he could forgive her. Deb gave him sundry confidences, on his appearing to take them in a proper spirit. She gave him some more tea, and so they lapsed into their normal relations. When she again urged the need for her to be getting off on her errand of mercy, he magnanimously offered to drive her. She accepted with a full heart, and her arms about his neck. While she was getting ready, he repacked his portmanteau and ordered it to be put into the buggy. It's no use my going back, he said to her, when they were on the road, with you away and your father too ill to see me. I'll put up at the hotel tonight, and go on to town in the morning. You can send for me there whenever you want me, you know? Just as you'd like, dear, said Deb quietly, and for the rest of their journey they talked common places. When they reached the Parsonage Gate, from which the maid of all work and a group of street gossip scattered in panic at their approach, the lovers shook hands perfunctorily. Goodbye then, for a little while, said Claude. You don't want me to come in, do you? Certainly not, said she coldly. You know that it is totally against my judgment, and my wishes that you go in yourself, Deb. Yes, but one's own judgment must be one's guide. Thus they parted, each with a grievance against the other, a root of bitterness to be nourished by much thinking about it, and by the circumstance that poor Mary neither died, nor was repudiated. Claude drove onto the hotel to be further disgusted with his accommodation and his dinner. Deb walked into the house, which hitherto she had visited in a spirit of kindly condescension, to be revolted by the new aspect which her changed relations with it now gave to its every feature. Ruby neglected with the jammed smear face, the flustered maid, tousled, grubby, hoof-rock gaping, the horrible hall with its imitation marble paper, and staring linoleum, the prim, trivial, uned, unused drawing room, with its pathetic attempts at elegance. Deb inwardly cooled up at the sight of these things, as things now belonging to the family. When the master of the house came hurrying into her, rusty, unshaven, abject, she would have changed places with a Christian of old groan facing a lion of the amphitheatre. Oh, this is good of you, this is kind indeed, Mr. Goldsworthy greeted her, and threatened in his grateful emotion to form at her feet. I did not dare to hope. But Deb shudderingly swept him aside with his gratitude, and his excuses, and his timid justifications. He could stand up before his other critics. He had a clear conscience, he said, but before her he knew himself for what he was. He followed her like a dog to Mary's room, obeyed her directions like a slave, wept when she consented to say no more, and stooped to beg from him a solemn vow and promise that he would be good to his wife. This was after the doctors had refused to permit his wife's removal to Redford to be nursed, and after Redford had practically been in command of his establishment for seven weeks. Christmas is the time for reconciliation, and by Christmas Mary was convalescent, pale as she had never been since childhood, and wearing a little cap over her shaved head, very humble and gentle, and strangely docile in her attitude towards her captor, who now gave himself all the airs of a husband of his class. He was the benevolent despot of his woman kind, the god of the machine, she was as properly submissive as if born in the ranks. Negatively so, that is to say, positively her manifestations of duty to him took the form of services and endearments bestowed upon his child and sister. Her first occupation after she could use her hands was to improve Ruby's wardrobe. The little girl, now her own, appealed to her motherly heart a saving interest in her wrecked life. The poor old ex-housekeeper was the other prop to which she clung for a footing in the new and alien world, which was now all her home. When Miss Goldworthy proposed to go out into a situation, not to be in the way of the new wife, and when her brother would have approved the plan as only right and proper, and as facilitating his schemes for the raising of the tone of his establishment to Redford level, Mary protested vehemently and with tears, the only occasion of her showing a penny-quick spirit since renouncing the penny-quick name. The old maid, for her part, was enthusiastically devoted to the new sister-in-law, whom it was her joy to pet and coddle. I can be abused to her. She trembling commended herself to her brother. I can take the drudgery of the housework off her and save her in the parish. Well, perhaps so, said Mr. Goldworthy, and sincerely designed to endear himself to his aristocratic wife. He consented to her wish. The whole Goldworthy family was transferred to Redford, while, on the pretext of disinfecting it, the parsonage was painted and papered, what Deb called decently, and its more offensive furniture replaced. Mary was provided with a trousseau and many useful wedding presents, a check from her father for five hundred pounds amongst them. They did not forgive her, but they pretended excellently that they did, without any pretense at all. They tried to make the best of a bad job. To this end, they gathered their friends together, as usual, at Christmas. Mr. Thornycroft and the Urquarts needed no pressing. They came to see Mary the day she returned home, and showed her the old affection without asking questions. Mr. Thornycroft's wedding presents to her were magnificent, a complete service of silver plate and house linen of the finest. Deb wrote to Claude, I suppose we shall see you, as usual, for he had always been Christmas at Redford, unless away on the other side of the world. He wrote back, I think not this time, he was the only defaulter. He will never have a chance to refuse again, said Deb fiercely, as she tore up his note. His absence was too marked not to provoke frequent comment, and whenever it was alluded to in her hearing, her spine stiffened and her head went up. It was quite evident to her family that the rift in the lute was serious, and strange to say it was her father who might have been expected to hail the signs, who was most concerned to see them. He expostulated with her when she spoke bitterly of Billy's son, as once he had been so ready to do himself. Well my dear, said he, I can understand it, if you can't, I wouldn't come myself, if I was in his place, to mix up with the sort of thing we've got to mix up with, if I can mix up with it. Quote, proud Deborah. Yes, yes, I know, but you must consider the silly way that he's been reared. I don't like his taking upon himself to criticise what we choose to do, but no doubt Goldsworthy is a pretty big pill to swallow, to a chap like him, always so fatty about breeding and manners, and that sort of thing. If he is too fatty for the society that I can put up with, though it be that of chimney sweeps, said Deb, he is too fatty for me, father. Now, my dear, don't talk so. The old man pleaded with her, quite agitated by her mood. We all have our little witnesses. We have to make allowances for temperament and for bringing up. Don't let a trifle like this estrange you two don't, Debbie, for my sake. Let me go down to my grave, feeling that one of you, at least, is safe and happy and well provided for. Decidedly thought Deborah, father is not the same man that he was before his illness. She understood the cause of his change of views on her engagement better a few weeks later. He had parted with his eldest daughter then, and the emotion of the event had fatally affected him. Owing to some obscure working of the influence, which her social position had brought to her husband, the latter had been promoted to the charge of a Melbourne parish. The affair was arranged while they were still at Redford, and just on the completion of the improvements to the local parcelage. In spite of all they had done to make this first home fit for her, family and friends were unanimous in hailing her removal to another and more distant one, out of the buzz of the gossip of her native neighborhood, as the best thing that could have happened. But when it came to the point of sending her forth to battle, with her fate alone for the rest of her life, the wrench was dreadful. She was the bravest of them all, under the ordeal. The shattered father, whose right hand she had been for so many years, and whose heart was broken with the weight of his responsibility for her misfortunes, was completely overwhelmed. She had not been gone twelve hours when Deb found him in his office chair, unable to rise from it, or to answer her questions, and he never spoke again. He made signs that he wanted called sent for, and when the young man quickly came, looked significant things at him and Deb, as they stood by his bedside hand in hand. Then he leapt into stupor and died, without waiting for a third stroke. Through all the shock and sorrow of the time, Claude was Deborah's mainstay and consolation. He took the role of nearest male relative, the right to which was undisputed by Mr Goldsworthy, preoccupied with the important interests of his new parish, also by Mr Thornycroft and Jim Urquhart, who of course stood by to serve her as far as she would allow them. It was Claude who gave the orders for the funeral and superintendent the ceremonies, and acted as chief mourner. It was Claude to whom the household looked for direction, as if acknowledging him to be the new master. It was on Claude's breast that Deb wept, who so rarely wept, and his word that she obeyed, as if he were already her husband, and in all that he did for her, and in all that he did not do. He showed the grace, the tact, the tenderness, the thoughtfulness of her ideal lover and gentleman. But there came a day when he fell again below the indispensable standard, when the rift in the lute that had seen close gaped suddenly, and this time beyond repair. It was when, after close investigation of the deceased man's affairs, and some heated interviews with one of the executors, Deb being the other, Claude discovered that the penny-quick wealth was non-existent, that Redford was mortgaged to the hilt, and that if the estate was realised and cleared, as Deb desired it should be, nothing would be left for her and her sisters. That is to say, a paltry three or four hundred a year amongst them. Less than Deb could spend comfortably on her clothes alone. He was too upset by the discovery, and a bad quarter of an hour that Mr. Thornycroft had subsequently given him to preserve that calm demennial, which was his study and his pride. He came into Deb where she sat alone, and expressed his feelings as the ordinary man is want to do to the woman who loves and belongs to him. What could your father have been dreaming of? He rudely interrogated her to let the place go to pieces like this, drifting behind year after year, and doing nothing to stop it, not cutting down one of the living expenses, not giving us the least hint of how things really were. He gave several hints, said Deb, in that voice which always grew so potentially quiet when his was raised. If we had had the sense to take them, I had been putting two and two together for some time, so that I am not altogether taken by surprise. Why didn't you tell me? Because you were not here, for one thing, because it was father's private business for another. He seems not to have made it his business to take any care of his children's interest, said Claude Bittley, bringing you up, as he has done, with the right to expect that you were to be properly provided for, and then leaving you literally porpoise. Not literally porpoise, corrected Deb gently. We shall be quiet, independent still, and if you want to insult my father now, that he is dead. The best of fathers, if he did have misfortunes in business and make mistakes, do it somewhere else, not in this room. You have no right to take that tone with me, Deb. No, she raised sarcastic eyebrows, under which her deep eyes gleamed. Well, I suppose I haven't now. I forgot my new place. I am very sorry, Claude, rising and making a gesture with the hands that he had seen before. Very sorry, indeed, that I did not know I was going to be a poor woman, and a nobody when you did me the honour to select me to be your wife. Now, what you have shown me that I am disqualified for the position? She held out the big diamond with a cold smile. That's vulgar, Deb. He loftily admonished her, fending off her hand. You know I am not actuated by those low motifs. Don't let us have this cheap melodrama, for pity's sake, put it on. But no more would she put it on. He had revealed his disappointment that she was not something more than herself, that beautiful and adorable self that she quite knew the worth of, and he had permitted himself to take liberties of speech with her that she instinctively felt to be provoked by the circumstance that she was no longer rich and powerful. Deb's love was great, but her pride was greater. Deb sat amid the ruins of her home. She occupied the lid of a deal-packing case that enclosed a few hundred of books, and one that was half-filled stood before her, with the scatter of odd volumes on the floor around. The floor, which was that of the once cozy morning room, was carpetless. Its usual furniture stood about higgly-piggly, all in the wrong places, naked and forlorn. Mr. Thornycroft leaned against the flawless mantel shelf, and surveyed the scene, or rather the central figure, black-gowned, holland-aproned, with sleeves turned back from her strong wrists, and a grey smudge on her beautiful nose. That cottage that she talked about said he, will not hold all those. Oh, books don't take any space, she replied brusquely. They are no more than tapestry or frescoes. I shall have cases made to fit flat to the walls. That will cost money. One must have the bare necessaries of life. I presume I shall be able to afford that much. Pine boards will do. I can aspenal them. Aspenal is very nice, but sometimes it gets on the edges of your books and spoils them. No, it doesn't. I have an aspenal bookcase in my room now, and not a mark ever came off it. Did you paint it? I did. Are you going to leave it there? I must. It is a fixture. That's all right. I am glad you are going to leave something. Something, I leave all. Except a library of books and a collection of 40 odd pictures that you will have to hang over the books. You would not have us part with family portraits. And a grand piano extra size calculated to fill a suburban villa drawing room all by itself. Pianos make nothing secondhand, and the girls must practice better keep a good instrument than sell it for 50 pounds and spend the money on a bad one. Certainly if you can stow it, but with seven easy chairs and biggest chest filled soft extent and a large writing table, I can have that in my room along with a 60 foot dressing table and a nine foot wardrobe and I don't know how many chests are drawers. The wardrobe will stand in a passage somewhere. We must have places to put our clothes. A house with passages at that capacity. Well, never you mind. If I can't find room for my things, I can sell them in Melbourne as well as here. Having squandered a small fortune on the carriage down, better leave them with me, Debbie, and let me send you what you want afterwards. Thank you. You would not have them to send afterwards. Oh, I think I would. No, I shall settle everything before I leave. And the sale will be held immediately. The furniture first and then the place. Her mouth closed upon the words like a steel snap. Just as you please about that, he said quietly, any time will suit me. My public auction, she added, with a sharp glance at him, to the highest bidder. Yes, was his laconic comment. Me, not necessarily, said she, roused by the small word that held such large meanings. There are a few other rich persons in the Western District to whom Redford may appear desirable. There are, he agreed easily. I know several, but I shall outbid them. She was strongly agitated. Oh, I hope they won't let you. Why, he asked. At first, she fenced with the question. Because you don't want it, you have more land already than one man ought to have. I don't know about what I ought to have, but I know that if you persist in throwing Redford away, I shall take it. He smiled at her angry perturbation. If I find I have enough money to outbid everybody, but I think I have, I can sell Bundaboo. If you won't have Redford, I will, yes, and every stick and stone that belongs to it. And have people talking and saying that you did it for something else, and not business reasons. People would be right for once. But I won't have it, cried Deb. I won't stand being an object of your benevolence. You want to pay a lot more than the place is worth, so as to augment our income. You as good as own it. I want to keep your home for you against you change your mind. The last thing I shall do, I assure you, particularly after you're saying that. Her nose inspired the smut on it, testified to her indignant dignity, up in the air, with its fine nostrils quivering. Now, look here, Godpart. I will not have Redford put up to auction. I'll sell privately and to somebody else. You cannot. Oh, indeed. Not when I am executor. Certainly not. Except with the permission of your fellow executor. She fell to pleading. Oh, let me. Do let me. You know what I want to square up all the debts and have done with them. I can't sleep for thinking of what we owe you already. Do you know how much it is? Nearly 40,000. He checked her with an impatient wave of the hand. All the debts will be provided for, of course. The lawyers will adjust those matters. I don't trust you, she urged, looking at him less angrily, but still as puzzled and distressed. I know you have designs to benefit me somehow, unfairly, and because it's me, and if you only knew how I hated to be benefited. I do nobody better. That is why I am letting you do a lot of things that won't benefit you. But just the opposite. Things you will repent of horribly by and by. Knowing your independent spirit, I do not offer my advice. Oh, not effectively. I do not force it upon you. I do not bring my undoubted powers to bear upon you for your good. Aye. Because I know, of course, that you would rather suffer anything than be guided by me. She softened instantly. I am not such a fool. I hope. But you will bring friendship into business. You did things for my father that you know you would never have dreamed of doing for strangers, that you never ought to have done at all. And now you want to be twice as idiotically generous to us. Because we are girls and out of pity for us to do us a kindness, as it is called, when, if you only knew, she had risen and drifted to him where he stood, and now laid a hand on his arm. He put a hand over it and looked into her pleading eyes. He seemed not to have heard her last remark to be far away in mind from the point of discussion. And his fixed and strange gaze perplexed and then embarrassed her. How he feels are going. She thought to herself and turned her face from his and tried to turn his apparently sad thoughts. If you would only let me sell Redford to somebody else and have the lump money to pay all the debts in a plain way that I could understand and take the remainder for ourselves and know that we were straight and free, I would do anything you like to ask me in return. He still kept silence and that tight grasp upon her hand. So she looked at him again and his far away stare was bewildering. I wonder, said he, slowly, I wonder if I were to take you at your word, whether you would stick to it. Try me, said she. I will, did propene quick. If I let you sell Redford and pay all debts with your own hands, will you? I am your godfather and something over fifty, and it is quite preposterous, of course, but still you said anything. Will you be my wife? Oh, this was the unexpected happening with the vengeance. Never had she imagined such a notion on the part of this staid and venerable person. She flushed hotly and wrenched her imprisoned hand free. I don't like stupid jokes, she muttered, overcome with confusion. Do I give you the impression that I am joking? He asked. If you are serious, that is worse, said she. Then I know you are only trying another way of providing for me. You believe I have only just thought of it, haven't you? I have thought of it since you were fifteen, my dear, but never mind. We will call it a joke, if you think that the least of two evils. I see you do. The incident is close, the bargain is off, and I can buy Redford when it is put up for sale. Goodbye, goddaughter. No, I can't stay to lunch today. I have some business to attend to, but of course I shall see you again before you go. And when he did see her again, he gave not the smaller sign of what had happened, so that she almost grew to feel that she must have dreamt it. That same afternoon, Jim Merkart, who was always doing so, rode over to Redford to see if he could help her pack. He wondered at her abstracted manner, and her sudden change of mind concerning the piano and wardrobe and other things. Having laboriously packed books and pictures, she now proposed to unpack half of them. She wanted to see what room she would have in her cottage first. In fact, it seemed to him that she did not know what she wanted. She was evidently tired and overall. O Jim, she moaned, from amongst the dust and litter, it is a wrench. What do you suppose it is for us? He returned gloomily, without you at Redford. I am trying not to think of it. So am I, but it's no use. It has got to come. I suppose there is no way out. None. That is all settled. I have told Mr. Thornycroft, and he won't tease me any more. Do you think you will be happy down there, cooped up in streets? I know I shall not, but the streets down there will be better than the streets of a bush township. Why streets at all? Why not stay about here somewhere, where you have us all near you? Exile from Redford? No, thank you. Besides, where would we stay? Detach cottages, don't grow in these carts. Then he blurted it out. I have never said anything, Deb. I knew I wasn't fit for you, and I am not now. I've got to look after my dear old mother and the children, who haven't got anybody else, and I couldn't give you a home worthy of you, perhaps never, no matter how I worked and tried. But if love is any good, and the things that after all make homes, not money and fine furniture, dear old boy, don't, she pleaded with twitching lips. I may as well, now I have begun, said he. I don't suppose it is any use, but I'd just like you to know once, as far as my life is my own. It is yours any day you like. It has been since I was a boy, and it will be for a good while yet. I won't say forever, because you can't tell what's going to happen, but I'm already bet my soul that it will be forever. Now, do just what you feel inclined to, Debby. I'm not going to press you. I know my place too well. But if you should think that a better plan to live with me, and have me work for you, and take care of you the best I can, why, any heaven that's coming to us, by and by, simply won't be unit, not for me. He looked at her across the packing case, between them, and dropped his voice to add. But you wouldn't, of course. I would, dear Jim, she cried, with warm impulsiveness. That is, I might. A good man like you is worth a willful of money and furniture. I don't live for those things, as you seem to think. But, but you know how it is. I can't change about from one to another. He dropped the saddest, no, into the pregnant pause. No, Deb, no, I expected that, staunch through everything. That's you, all over. Well, with a movement, as if to pull himself together. I'm staunch too. We're equals in that, anyhow. And don't you forget it. I'll not bother you any more. I never have bothered you. Have I? But I'm here, when you want me, body and soul, at any hour of the day or night. You'll remember that, stretching his horny hand across to her, and being in the same instant electrified, by the touch of her lips upon it. Oh, I will, I will. The evening post brought a ship letter. Guthrie Carey was in port. He had been there long enough to hear the news that Deborah Pennyquick was penniless, and the Claude Delzel had deserted her. So he had written to her at length, the longest letter of his life, 10 pages. She took it to her bedroom and sat down to read it, while at the same time she rested a little before dinner. She had frowned over the envelope. Now she smiled over the first pages. She sighed over the middle ones. She even wept over the last. Then she wrote out an answer and sent it by a groom to the nearest telegraph office. Please do not come, am writing. Thus she cast aside in one day three good men and crew, heartbound to one who is not worthy to be ranked with any of them. But that is the way of love. End of chapter 13.