 CHAPTER 39 All other joy of life he strove to warm and magnify, and catch them to his lip. But they had suffered shipwreck with the ship, and gazed upon him sallow from the storm. Roger went to Fontainebleau. He looked at the oaks as they came close up on both sides of the line, and thought that they needed thinning, and made a mental note of the inefficiency of French forestry. And he put up at an old-fashioned inn with a primned garden in front, with tiny pebbled walks, and a fountain, and four stunted clipped acacia trees. And he found the doctor in the course of the next morning, and the doctor, who had not realised Dick's death under another name, gave him the nature's address. And the nature he explained by means of an interpreter that Monsieur Leguette had warned him emphatically not to give up the will to his mother if she came for it, or sent for it after his death, only to Monsieur Roger Manvers, his cousin, or Mme. Moselle Manvers, his sister. And when Roger had presented his card, and the credentials with which his English lawyer had supplied him, the letter was produced. The nature he opened it, and showed him Dick's signature, or misillegible but still Dick's, and below the doctor's and his own, and at the bottom of the sheet the two words Annette George's, Annette's large childish handwriting. Roger's heart contracted, and for a moment he could see nothing but those two words. And the nature explained that the lady's signature had not been necessary, but she had witnessed it to patify the dying man. Then Roger sat down with a loudly hammering heart, and read the will slowly, translated to him sentence by sentence. It gave him everything. Halver, unwelmsly, and swale, and scourby, and the Yorkshire and Scotch properties, and the street in the heart of Liverpool, and the New River share. There was an annuity of five hundred a year out of this date, and the house at Albreta, Harry, and the same some to Mary Dean for life, and then in trust to her daughter, together with a farm in Devonshire. But except for these bequests everything was left to Roger. Dick had forgotten Jones, his faithful servant, and he had forgotten also that he had parted with his New River share the year before to meet with his colossal losses on the day, still talked of in racing circles, when Flamingo ran out of the course. And the street in Liverpool, that gold mine, was mortgaged up to the hilt. But still, in spite of all, it was a fine inheritance. Roger's heart beat. He'd been a penniless man all his life, and all his life he'd served another's will, another's caprice, another's heedlessness. Now, at last, he was his own master. And Halver, his old home, Halver, which he loved with passion, as his uncle and his grandfather had loved it before him, Halver was his. Mechanically, he turned the page and looked at the last words of the will upon it, and poor Dick's scrawl and the signature of the witnesses. And all the joy ebbed out of his heart as quickly as it had rushed in, as he saw again the two words, Annette George's. He did not sleep that night. He lay in a bed which held no rest for him, and a nameless oppression fell upon him. He was overtired, and he had suffered severely mentally during the past week. And it seemed as if the room itself exercised some sinister influence over him. Surely the mustard-colored roses of the wallpaper knew too much. Surely the tall gilt mirror had reflected, and then wiped from its surface, scenes of anguish and despair. Roger sat up in bed, and saw himself a dim figure with a shock head reflected in it. The moonlight lay in a narrow band upon the floor. The blind tapped against the window-edge. Was that a woman's white figure crouching near the window with bent head against the pane? It was only the moonlight upon the curtain, together with the shadow of the tree outside. Roger got up and fastened the blind so that the tapping ceased, and then went back to bed again. But sleep would not come. He had read over the translation of the will several times. It, and the will itself, were locked into the little bag under his pillow. His hand touched it from time to time. And as the moonlight travelled across the floor, Roger's thoughts travelled also. His slow, honest mind never could be hurried, as those who did business with him were well aware. It never rushed, even to an obvious conclusion. It walked. If urged forward, it at once stood stock still. But if it moved slowly of its own accord, it also evaded nothing. Then Dick must have distrusted his mother just as Janey had done. Roger had been shocked by Janey's lack of filial party, but he had once concluded that Dick must have had grounds for his distrust. It did not strike him that Janey and Dick might have had the same grounds, that some sinister incident locked away in their childish memories and perhaps warned them of the possibility of a great treachery. No doubt Janey was not mentioned in Dick's will because it had always been understood that noise would go to her. Lady Louisa had given out that she had so left it years before. That was what was in the old woman's mind, no doubt, Roger said himself, to let Janey have noise and get Halver and the rest for Harry, if possible, even if she had destroyed Dick's will in my favour. She never took it into her calculation, poor thing, that by the time Dick died she might have been capable of making another will as he was himself. Seems as if paralysis was in the family. If she knew I had got Halver after all, she'd cut Janey out of noise like a shot if she could and leave it to Harry. But she can't, and Harry will do very nicely in that little house at Alborough with five hundred a year, play on the beach, make a collection of shells and an aquarium, see an enemies and shrimps, and his wife can take charge of him, relieve poor Janey. I shall put in a new bathroom at Sea View and I shall furnish it for him. Some of the things Mary Deem had would do. He would like those great guilt mirrors and the sporting prints, and she'd like the worn-out suite. That marriage may not be such a bad thing after all. Hope poor Aunt Louisa won't understand anything about it, or my coming in for Halver. He would make her perfectly mad, my killer. But perhaps that wouldn't be such a very bad thing either. Silver lining to Clire perhaps, and give Janey a chance of a little peace. Roger's mind travelled slowly over his inheritance, and verified piece by piece that it was a very good one. In spite of Dick's recklessness, much still remained. The new river-share was gone. Dicker got over a hundred thousand for it, but it had been worth more. And the house in Eaton Square was gone, and Prince's Street was as good as gone. He should probably be wise to let the mortgages foreclose on it. But Halver remained intact, save for the loss of the Rayburn and the Oak Avenue. How cracked of Dick to have sold the Rayburn and cut down the Oak Avenue, when, if he'd only consulted him, Roger could have raised the money by a mortgage on Wellmesley. But he ought not to be blaming Dick after what he had done for him. On the contrary, he ought to put up a good monument to him in Rift Church. And he certainly would do so. Halver was his. Halver was his. Now at last he had a free hand. Now at last he could do his duty by the property, unhampered by constant refusals to be allowed to spend money where it ought to be spent. He should be able to meet all his farmers on a better footing now. They need to put off their demands from year to year, and lose the best among them because he could not meet even their most reasonable claims. He could put an entire new roof on Scorby Farm now, instead of tinkering at it, and he would pull down those wretched ferry cottages and rebuild them on higher ground. He knew exactly where he would put them. It was a crying shame that it had not been done years ago. And he would drain men and marsh, and then the men and people would not have egg-ews and goiters. And he should make a high paved way across the water-meters to Whalesham, so that the children could get to school dry shod. He could hardly believe that at last he was his own master. No more inditing of those painfully constructed letters, which his sense of duty had made incumbent on him, letters which would have taken him so long to write, and which were probably never read. Dick had never attended to business. If people could not attend to business, Roger wondered what they could attend to. And he would make it right about Jones. Jones need never know his master had forgotten him. Roger would give him an annuity of a hundred a year, and tell him it was by Dick's wish. Dick certainly would have wished it if he had thought of it. Roger gave a sigh of relief at the thought of Jones, and he should pension off old Tobier and Hesketh and Noix. They worked on the estate for over forty years. Roger settled quantities of detail in numbers of little mental pigeon-hells as the moonlight travelled across the floor. All through the day and the long evening, whenever he had thought of Annette, his mind had stood stock still and refused to move. And now, at last, as if it had waited till this silent hour, the thought of Annette came to him again, and this time would not be denied. Once more his resisting mind winced and stood still. And Roger, who connived at its resistance, forced it slowly, reluctantly, to do his bidding. He could marry Annette now. Strange how little joy that thought invoked. He would have given everything he possessed two days ago, not that he possessed anything, to have been able to make her his wife. If two days ago he had been told that he would inherit Halvera and be able to marry her, his cup would have been full. Well, now he could have her if she would take him. He was ashamed, but not as much as he ought to have been of his momentary doubt of her. Fortunately, only Janie knew of that doubt. Annette would never know that he had hesitated. Nothing he came to think of it. She had gone away from him so quickly that he had not had time to say a word. Roger sighed heavily. He knew in his heart that he had not quite trusted Annette when he ought to have done. But he did not absolutely trust Janie. And Janie had said Annette was innocent. He did not cuddle his brains as to whether he would still have wanted to marry her if she had been Dick's mistress, because she never had been. That was settled. Annette was as pure as Janie herself, and he ought to have known it without Janie having to tell him. Roger turned uneasily on his bed, and then took the gold which only honest men possess and applied it to his at mind. It winced and shrank back, and then, seeing no help for it, made a step forward. Annette had given him his inheritance. He faced that at last. She had got the will made, but for her Dick would have died in testate, and but for her it was doubtful whether the will would ever have come to light. Neither the notary nor the doctor had at first connected to the death of Mr. Manvers with that of Dick Leguette, even when Roger showed them the notice in the papers which he had brought with him. Annette had done everything for him. Well, he would do everything for her. He would marry her and be good to her all his life. Yes, but would she care to marry a man who could only arrive at it's inheritance by smirking her good name? The will could not be proved without doing that. What wicked folly of Dick to have asked her, poor child, to witness it, and how exasperatingly like him. He never considered the result of any action. The slur on Annette's reputation would be publicly known. The doctor and the notary who had told him of Annette's relation to Dick could but confirm it. No denial from them was possible. And sooner or later the ugly scandal would be known by every creature at Riff. Roger choked. Now he realized that. Was he still willing to marry her? He was willing. He was more than willing. He was absolutely determined. He wanted her as he never wanted anything in his life. He would marry her, and together they would face the scandal and live it down. Janey would stick to them. He loathed the thought of the whispering tongues, destroying his wife's good name. He sickened at it. But it was inevitable. But would Annette on her side be willing to marry him and bear the obliquy that must fall upon her? Would she not prefer to leave Riff and him for ever? That was what he must ask her. In his heart he believes she would still take him. She would bear it for my sake, he said to himself. Annette is very brave, and she thinks nothing of herself. A faint glimmer of her character is beginning to dawn in her lover's shaken mind. The son of my soul, tame canary, fancy portrait of his own composition, on which he had often fondly dwelt, did not prove much of a mainstay of this crisis, perhaps because it lacked life. Who can lean upon a wooden heart? It is sad that some of us never perceive the nobility of those we love until we need it. Roger had urgent need of Annette's generosity and unsophishness, urgent need of her humility. He unconsciously wanted all the greatest qualities of her heart and mind from her. He who had been drawn towards her, as Janey well knew, only by little things, by her sweet face and her violent eyes, and the curl on her white neck. After all, would it be best for her that they should part? Something in Roger cried out in such mortal terror of its life that that thought was dismissed as unendurable. We can't part, said Roger to himself. The truth is, I can't live without her, and I won't. We'll face it together. But there was anguish in the thought. His beautiful lady who loved him, that he who held her so dear, only asked to protect her from pain and ill, that he should be the one to cast a slur upon her. But there was no way out of it. He sobbed against his pillow. And in the silence came the stammered, half-choked words. A net. A net. But only the room heard them, which had heard the same appeal on a September night, just a year ago. End of Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Twice I have stood a beggar before the door of God Emily Dickinson I don't find either of you very helpful," said Aunt Harriet plaintively. Her couch had been wheeled out under the apple-tree, and her sister and niece were sitting with her under its shade after luncheon. During the meal Aunt Harriet had a considerable length expounded one of the many problems that agitated her, the solution of which would have robbed her of her principal happiness in life. Her mind, what little there was of it, was spasmodically and intermittently employed in what she called threshing out things. The real problems of life never got within shouting distance of Aunt Harriet, but she would argue for days together whether it was right, not for others but for her, to repeat, as if she assented to them, the somewhat unsympathetic utterances of the Athanasian creed as to the fate in store for those who did not hold its tenets. "'And I don't believe they will all go to Hell far,' she said mournfully. "'I'm too wide-minded, and I've lived too much in a highly cultivated society. The Miss Blinkets may, but I don't. And I know it's a fact that Mr. Harriet does not believe it either. Though, of course, I do accept the Athanasian creed. I was able to assure Canon Weatherbid so only yesterday when I discussed the subject with him. He said it was the cornerstone of the church, and that in these agnostic days we church people must all hold firmly together shoulder to shoulder. I see that, and I don't want to undermine the church, but suppose you were to leave out that one response about Hell far, said Annette, and say all the rest. I'm afraid my silence might be noticed. It was different in London, but in a place like Riff where we, Maria, of course, more than I, but still where we both stand, as I may say, in the forefront, take the lead in the religious life of the place. Good example, influential attitude, every eye upon us. It is perplexing. For as it is quite truthful to keep silence, dare to be true, nothing can need a lie. How do you meet that, Annette? Or, do I know myself be true, and it will follow as the night to-day? I mean, as the day to-night? Can't not them be false to anybody? What do you say to that, Annette? Annette appeared to have nothing to say, and did not answer. Aunt Maria slowly turning the leaves of her presentation volume from Mr. Harvey, said nothing either. I don't find either of you particularly helpful, said Aunt Harriet again. You are both very fortunate, I'm sure, not to have any spiritual difficulties. Are from which I had not such an active mind. I think I better ask Mr. Black to come and see me about it. He is always kind. He tells me people constantly unburden themselves to him. That is an excellent idea, said Aunt Maria, properly, with a total lack of consideration for Mr. Black, who perhaps, however, deserved his fate for putting his lips to his own trumpet. He studied these as subjects more than Annette and I have done, asked him to luncheon to-morrow. Aunt Harriet, somewhat modified, settled herself among her cushions, and withdrew her teeth as a preliminary to her daily siesta. Aunt Maria, who had been bolt upright at her desk since half-past nine, took off her spectacles and closed her eyes. Fly, my dear fly! said Aunt Harriet, catch Hodgkins and tell her that we are not at home. I am not equal to see any one until four o'clock. I shall have thought all the neighbourhood must have realised that by now. Save me, Annette! Annette hurried into the house, and then, through a side-window, suddenly caught sight of Mrs. Toddart's long, grim face under a parasol, and ran out to her and dragged her out of the carriage. I thought she had gone, she said, holding her tightly by her mantilla, as if Mrs. Toddart might elute her even now. The older woman looked at Annette's drawn face and thrust out her underlip. She had feared there would be trouble when Annette told Roger of her past, and had asked Mr. Sterling to let her stay on her noise a few days longer. As she sat by Annette in the parlor at Redriff, she saw that trouble had indeed come. You have told your Roger? she said, leconically, looking at the girl with anger and respect. I don't need to ask how he has taken it. Annette recounted what had happened, and once again Mrs. Toddart experienced a shock. She had come prepared to hear that Roger had withdrawn the light of his countenance from Annette, and to offer stern consolation. But the complication caused by Annette having informed Roger of the existence of the will, and the fact that she had witnessed it, overwhelmed her. A swift spasm passed over her face. This is the first I've heard of you witnessing it, she said, sitting very about upright on the sofa. Annette owned. She had entirely forgotten that she had done so, until Roger had told her no will was forthcoming. Then it all came back to me, she said. It not to be wondered at that you did not remember, considering you became unconscious with brain fever a few hours later, said Mrs. Toddart, in a perfectly level voice. And then without any warning she began to cry. Annette gazed at her thunderstruck. She had never seen her cry before. What that able woman did, she did thoroughly. I thought I had seen to everything, she said presently, her voice shaking with anger, taken every precaution, stopped out every hole where discovery could leak out and fortune favoured you. My only fear was that Dick's valet who was at the funeral might recognise you, but he didn't. I told him he did not see me at the station that day I went with Dick. I know you did, but I thought he might have seen you all the same. But he evidently didn't, or he would have mentioned it to the family at once. And now, now all my trouble and cleverness and planning view are thrown away, are made absolutely useless by yourself, Annette, because of your suicidal simpleness and witnessing that accursed will, it's enough to make a saint swear. Mrs. Toddart wiped her eyes and shook her fist in the air. Providence never does play fair, she said. I've been outwitted, beaten, but it wasn't cricket. I keep myself respect. The question remains what is to be done? I shall wait till Roger comes back before I do anything. I take for granted that Roger Manvers and his cousin Janey will never say a word against you, that they will never tell, as the children say. I'm sure they never will. How much good that will do you when your signature is fixed to Dick's will. That fact must become known, and your position of front-of-blur is bound to leak out. Roger can't prove the will without giving you away. Do you understand that? I had not thought of it. That every Mayan woman and child at Riff, including your aunts, will know about you. Yes. I bet he fainted, yes, through white lips. And they will all with one consent, especially your aunts, believe the worst. I'm afraid they will. There was a long silence. You can't remain here, Annette. You said before at Fontainebleau that I could not remain, but I did. Mrs. Doddart recognised, not for the first time, behind Annette's mildness and obstinacy before which she was parlous. As usual, she tried another tack. For the sake of your aunts, you ought to leave at once, and you ought to persuade them to go with you before the first breath of scandal reaches Riff. Yes, we must all go. Of course, we can't go on living here. But I would rather see Roger first. Roger is good, and he is so kind. He will understand about the aunts, and give me a few days to make it as easy to them as it can be made, poor dears. You ought to prepare their minds for leaving Riff. I should not think that would be difficult, for they lamented to me that they were buried here, and only remained on your account. Yes, they will always say that. I will tell them I don't like it, and as they don't like it either, it would be best if we went away. You're wishing that nothing had been kept from them in the first instance? said Mrs. Doddart, deeply wounded, that she kept an inflexible face. Yes, said Annette. Yet I have always been thankful in a way they did not know. I felt the last few days of if the only thing I really could not bear was telling the aunts. For this will be even worse. I mean that you say everybody will know. If we'll wound them in their pride, and upset them dreadfully. And they are fond of me now, which will make it worse for them if it is publicly known. They might have got over it, if any Roger and Janie knew. But they will never forgive me putting them to public shame. Come and live with me, said Mrs. Doddart fiercely. I love you, Annette. And in her heart she thought that if her precious only son, her adored Mark, did fall in love with Annette, he could not do better. Come and live with me. I will gladly come and live with you for a time, later on. Come now. Not yet. It's no use stopping, she said, taking the girl by the shoulders. What's the good? Your Roger won't marry you, my poor child. No, said Annette firmly, though her lips had blanched. I know he will not. But I ran away before when someone would not marry me, and it did not make things any better, any much, much worse. My mind is made up. I will stay this time. In later years Annette remembered little of the days that passed while Roger was in France. They ought to have been terrible days, days of suspense and foreboding, but they were not. Her mind was at rest. It had long oppressed her that her two best friends, Roger and Janie, were in ignorance of certain facts about her which their friendship for her and their trust in her gave them a right to know. With the sinking of the heart, she said to herself, They know now, but that was easier to bear than they ought to know. If she had hoped for a letter from Roger, none came, but I hardly think she was so foolish as to hope it. Janie had been to see her, had climbed up to her little attic and had stretched out her arms to her, and Annette and she had held each other closely and looked into each other's eyes and kissed each other in silence. No words passed between them, and then Janie had gone away again. The remembrance of that wordless embrace lay heavy on Janie's sore heart. Annette, pallid and worn, had blamed no one, had made no excuse for herself. How she had misjudged Annette. She, her friend. But if Annette felt relief about Roger and Janie, the thought of the aunt brought a pang with it, especially since Mrs. Doddard's visit. They had reached the state of nerves when the sweeps are an event, a broken window-call and occasion for fortitude, a patch of damp on the ceiling, a disaster. They would be wounded to the quick in their pride and in their affection, if any scandal attached to her name, for they had become fond of her since she had devoted herself to them. While she had been as a young girl a claim on their time and attention, they had not cared much about her. But now she was indispensable to them, and she who formally could do nothing right could now hardly do anything wrong. Oh! Why had she concealed anything from them in the first instance? Why had she allowed kind, clever Mrs. Doddard to judge for her what was right when she ought to have followed her in instinct of telling them before they had come to lean upon her? Mrs. Doddard only thought of me, Annette said to herself. She never considered the answer at all, which was about the truth. Their whole happiness would be destroyed, the even tenor of their lives broken up. Our barrier often talked as if she had plumbed the greatest depths to which human nature can sink. Aunt Harriet had more than hinted that many dark and even improper problems had been unraveled in tears beside her couch. But Annette knew very well that these utterances were purely academic and had no connection with anything real, indicating only the anxious desire of middle age, half conscious that it is her backwater to impress on itself and others that, to use its own pathetic phrase, it is keeping in touch with life. The aunts must leave Riff and quickly. Mrs. Doddard was right. Annette realised that their lives could be reconstructed like other mechanisms, taken down like an arm-building and put up elsewhere. They struck no root in Riff, as she herself had done. Aunt Harriet had always had a leaning towards Bournemouth. No doubt they could easily form there another little circle where they would be abhorred and appreciated. There must be the equivalent of Canemweatherby wherever one went. Yes, they must leave Riff. Fortunately both aunts had only consented, much against the grain, to live in the country on account of their sister's health. Both lamented that they were cut off from congenial literary society. Both frequently regretted the move. She would have no difficulty in persuading them to leave Riff, for already she had to exercise a certain amount of persuasion to induce them to remain. She must prepare their minds without delay. For once Fortune favoured her. Aunt Harriet did not come down to breakfast, and the meal was, in consequence, one of the pleasantest of the day, in spite of the fact that Aunt Maria was generally oppressed with the thought of the morning's work which was hanging over her. She was unhappy and irritable if she did not work, and pessimistic as to the quality of what she had written if she did work. But Aunt Harriet had a knack of occasionally trailing and untoileted in her dressing-gown without her toupee during breakfast, ostensibly in order to impart interesting items of news culled from her morning letters, but in reality to deem up any small scraps of information in the voluminous correspondence of her sister. She did so the morning after Mrs. Stoddart's visit, carrying in one hand her air-cushion and with the other holding out a card to Aunt Maria, sitting bolt upright, neatly groomed, self-respecting behind her silver teapot. Aunt Maria, see what we miss by living in the country! Aunt Maria adjusted her past-nay, unexpected the card. Mission to the women of the Zambezi. The Bishop will speak himself, almost wailed Aunt Harriet. Don't you see it, Maria? We'll address the meeting, our own dear Bishop! If you're alluding to the Bishop of Boodywoga, you never went to the previous meeting of the Sir Society when we were in London. Could I help that? said Aunt Harriet, much wounded. Really, you sometimes speak, Maria, as if I had not a weak spine and could move about as I liked. No one was more active than I was before I was struck down, and I suppose it is only natural that I should miss the vaivien, the movement, the clash of wits of London. I never have complained, I never do complain, but I'm completely buried here, and that's the truth. We came here on Catherine's account, said Aunt Maria. No one regretted the move more than I did, except Mr. Sterling, there is no one I really care to associate with down here. Why remain, then, said Annette, if none of us like it? Both the aunts stared at her aghast. Leave Red Riff, said Aunt Maria, as if it had been suggested that she should leave this planet altogether. Why, Annette, said Aunt Harriet, with dignity. Of course we should not think of doing such a selfish thing. Now we have you to think of. At least I speak for myself. You love the country. It suits you. You are not intellectual, not like us, passionately absorbed in the problems of the day. You have your little milieu, and your little innocent local interests, the quoi, the Sunday school, your friends, the Miss Blinkeds, the manvers, the blacks. It would be too cruel to uproot you now, and I for one should never consent to it. Aren't you happy here, Annette, that you wish to move? Said Aunt Maria, dryly. It slid through Annette's mind that she understood why Aunt Maria complained that a few of her friends had remained loyal to her. She looked straight in front of her. There was a perceptible pause before she spoke again. I have been happy here, but I should not like Red Riff as a permanency. Oh, my dear love, said Aunt Harriet, suddenly lurching from her chair and kneeling down beside Annette, while the little air cushion ran with unusual vigor into the middle of the room, and then subsided with equal suddenness on the floor. I fear this. I have seen it coming. Men are like that, even the clergy. I may say more especially the clergy. They know not what they do, or what a fragile thing a young girl's heart is. But are you not giving away to despair too early in the day? Don't you agree with Maria? This may be only the night of sorrow. Joy may come in the morning. Annette could not help smiling. She raised her aunt, retrieved the air cushion, replaced her upon it, and said, You are making a mistake. I am not interested in Mr. Black. I never thought for a moment you were, said Aunt Maria bluntly. Mr. Black is all very well. A most estimatable person, I have no doubt. But I don't see why you are in such a hurry to leave Red Riff. You both want to go, so do I. As we all three wish to go, why stay? Personally, I am in no hurry to go till I have finished the Silver Cross, said Aunt Maria. No one misses the stimulus of cultivated society more than I do. But I always feel London life with its large demands upon one, somewhat of a strain when I am composing. And the conclusion of the country is certainly conducive to work. As for myself, said Aunt Harriet, with dignity, I would not willingly place a great distance between myself and dear Cathy's grave. Aunt Maria and Annette winced. And I am sure I don't know who is wanting to leave Red Riff if it isn't you, Maria. Haven't I just said that I never do complain? Have I ever complained? And there is no doubt, as delicate as I am, I am the better for the country air. Aunt Harriet was subsiding into tears and a handkerchief. See, only nine miles off, crow flies, fresh cream, new laid eggs, more colour. Can and whether be noticed it, he said, someone's looking well. A nearly a pound gain since last wade. And now all this talk about leaving and putting it on me as if it was my suggestion. It was mine, said Annette cheerfully, with the dreadful knowledge which is mercifully only the outcome of affection. I retracted. After all, why should you both leave Red Riff if you liked living here? Let us each go on our own way and do what suits us best. You must both stay, and I will go. There was a dead silence. The two aunts looked aghast at Annette, and she saw, almost without shame, how entirely she had the whip-hand. Their dependence on her was too complete. I don't understand this sudden change on your part, said Aunt Maria at last. Is it only a preamble to the fact that you intended to leave us a second time? Not if you live in London, said Annette firmly, or Bournemouth, but I don't care for the country all the year round, and I would prefer to move before the winter. I'm rather afraid of the effect the snow might have on me. Aunt Harriet looked terrified. I believe it lies very deep, feet deep, all over Lorshire. Mrs. Todd ought to ask me to winter with her in London, so perhaps I better write and tell her I will do so. And I must go and order dinner. She got up and left the room, leaving her two aunts staring as blankly at each other as after their sister's funeral. Maria, said Aunt Harriet in a hollow voice, we have no knowledge of the effect of wide areas of snow upon our constitution. And so that was what Mrs. Todd ought came over about yesterday, said Aunt Maria. She wants to get Annette away from us and make her act as unpaid companion to her. I must say it is fairly bare faced. Annette's places with us until she marries, and if it is necessary, I shall inform Mrs. Todd ought of that fact. At the same time I've had it in my mind for some time past that it might be advisable to shut up this house for the winter months and take one in London. End of chapter 41 Chapter 42 of Not Withstanding by Mary Chumley There are seasons in human affairs when qualities fit enough to conduct the common business of life are feeble and useless, when men must trust the emotion for that safety which reason at such times can never give. Sidney Smith Annette had been waked early by two young swallows which had flown into her room and had circled swiftly round it with sharp ecstatic cries, and then had sped out again into the door. She dressed and went noiselessly into the garden, and then wandered into the long meadows that stretched in front of the house. The low, slanting sunshine was piercing the mist which moved slowly along the ground and curled up into the windless air like smoke. The dew was on everything. She wondered the blades of grass could each bear such a burden of it. Every spider's web in the hedgerow, and what numbers there seemed, all of a sudden had become a glistening silver-beaded pocket. Surely no fly, however heedless, would fly therein. And everywhere the yellow tips of the ground-salt had expanded into tiny white fluffy balls of down, stirring the empty fields, floating with the floating mist. But though it was early, the little world of Riff was a star. In the distance she could hear the throb of the mill, and close at hand across the lane, two great yellow horses were solemnly pacing an empty clover-field, accompanied by much jingling of machinery and a boyish whistle. Men with long rakes were drawing the weeds into heaps, and weaves of smoke mingled with the mist. The thin fires leaped and crackled, the pale flames hardly wavering in the still, sunny air. Instinctively Annette's steps turned towards the sound of the mill. She crossed the ford by the white stepping-stones, dislodging a colony of ducks preening themselves upon the biggest stone, and followed the willow-ed stream to the mill. There had been rain in the night, and the little ribbon chaffed and girded against the mill-race. She watched it. As a year ago she had watched the sane chaff against its great stone bastions. The past rose before her of the sight and sound of the water, and the crinkling and circling of the eddies of yellow foam. How unendurable her life had seemed to her on that day! And now to-day life was valueless. Once again it had been shattered like glass. She had been cast forth then. Now she was cast forth once more. She made herself a little niche, crept into a crevice where she had thought no angel with a flaming sword would find her and drive her out. But she was being driven out once more into the wilderness. She had no abiding city anywhere. From where she stood she looked past the mill to the released and pacified water circling round the village, and then stretching away, silver-band beyond silver-band, in the direction of Riban Bridge. The sun had vanquished the mist and lay warmly on the clustered cottages and the Great Church Tower, and on the old red and blue façade of Halver among its hollies, and very high up above it all stretched a sky of tiny shredded clouds like a flock of a thousand thousand sheep. How tranquil it all was, and how closely akin to her have fraught with mysterious meaning. As the kind meadows and trees ever do seem fraught where we have met love, even the love that is unequal and presently passes away. She must leave it all, and she must part with Roger. She had thought of him as her husband. She had thought of the children she should bear him. She looked at the water with eyes as tearless as a year ago, and saw her happiness pass like a bubble on its surface, break like the iridescent bubble that it is on life's rough river. But the water held no temptation for her to-day. She had passed the place where we are intolerant of burdens. She saw that they are the common lot. Roger and Janey had borne theirs in patience and in silence and without self-pity for years. They were her ideal, and she must try to be like them. She did not need her solemn promise to Dick to keep her from the water's edge, though her sense of desolation was greater to-day than it had been a year ago. For there have been pride and resentment in her heart, then, and it is not a wounded devotion, but a wounded self-love which arises resentment in our hearts. She felt no anger to-day, no bitter sense of humiliation. But her heart ached for Roger. Something in her needed him, needed him. There was no romance now, as she had once known it, no field of lilies under a new moon. Her love for Roger had gone deeper where all loved must go, if it is to survive its rainbow youth. She had thought she had found an abiding city in Roger's heart. But he had let her leave him without a word after her confession. He had not called her back. He had not written to her since. I am not good enough for him, said Annette to herself. That is the truth. He and Janey are too far above me. She longed for a moment that the position might have been reversed, that it might have been she who was too good for Roger. Only it was unthinkable. But if he had been under some cloud, then she knew that they would not have had to part. She reached the style where the water-medos begin, and instinctively she stood still and looked at her little world once more, and thankfulness flooded her heart. After all, Roger had come in for his inheritance, for this place which he loved so stubbornly. She was not what he thought. But if she had been, if she had never had had a mired moment, if she had never gone to Fontainebleau, it was almost certain Dick would never have made his will. She had at any rate done that for Roger. Out of evil, good had come, if not to her, to him. She crossed the style where the river bent away from the path, and then came back to it, slow and peaceful once more, whispering amid its reeds, the flurry of the mill-race all forgotten. Would she one day, when she was very old, would she also forget? Across the empty field, thin smoke wreaths came drifting. Here too they had been burning the weeds. At her feet, at the water's edge, blue eyes, forget-me-not, peered suddenly at her. It had no right to be in flower now. She stooped over the low bank, holding by a twisted willow-branch, and reached it, and put it in her bosom. And as she looked at it, it seemed to her net that in some forgotten past she had wandered in a great peace by a stream such as this, a kind, understanding stream, and she had gathered a spray of forget-me-not such as this, and had put it in her bosom, and she met beside the stream one that loved her. And all had been well, exceeding well. A great peace infolded her, as her mother infolds her newborn babe. She was wrapped away from pain. Along the narrow path by the water's edge, Roger was coming. Now deemly seen through the curling smoke, now visible in the sunshine. And it felt no surprise at seeing him. She had not heard of his return, but she knew now that she had been waiting for him. He came up to her, and then stopped. Neither held out a hand, as they looked gravely at each other. Then he explained something about having missed the last train from Ipswich, and how he had slept there, and had come out to Riban Bridge by the first train this morning. "'I have the will,' he said, and touched his breast. And his eyes passed beyond her to the familiar picture he knew so well, of Riff beyond the river, and the low church tower, and the old house among the trees. He looked long at it all, and in it saw that his inheritance was his first thought. It seemed to her natural. There were many, many women in the world, but only one Halva. His honest, tired face quivered. "'I owed to you,' he said.' She did not answer. She turned with him, and they went a few steps in silence. And if she had not been wrapped away from all pain, I think she must have been wounded by his choosing that moment to tell her that the notary had pronounced Halva he there, and that those French lawyers were a very ignorant lot. But he was in reality only getting ready to say something, and it was his habit to say something else while doing so. He had no fear of being banal. It was a word he had never heard. He informed her which hotel he put up at in Ipswich, and how he had had a couple of poached eggs on arrival. Then he stopped. "'Anette,' he said. "'Of course you understand about my not writing to you, because I ought to have written.' Anette said faintly, as all women must say, that she had understood. No doubt she had, but not in the sense which he imagined. "'I owe it all to you,' he said again. But I shouldn't have any happiness in it, unless I had you too.' "'Anette, will you marry me?' She shook her head. But there would be no marriages at all if men took any notice of such baggattels as that.' Roger pressed stoddedly forward. "'I had not time to say anything the other day,' he said, hurrying over what even he realised was thin ice. You were gone all in a flash, but, Anette, nothing you said then makes any change in my feeling for you. I wanted to marry you before, and I want to marry you now.' "'Didn't they?' the doctor, and the notary. "'Didn't they tell you when you saw my signature that I was guilty?' "'Yes,' the Roger firmly, they did. The doctor spoke of you with great respect, but he did think so. "'But you have told me you were not. That is enough for me. Would you marry me, Anette?' "'You are good,' Roger,' she said, looking at him with a great tenderness. "'Good all through. That is why you think I am good too. But the will remains. My signature to it remains. That must be known when the will is proved. Mr. Stoddart says so. She said my good name must suffer. I am afraid, if I married you, that you and Janie would be the only two people in Riff who would believe that I was innocent. And is not my belief enough?' She looked at him with love unspeakable. "'It is enough for me,' she said, but not for you. He would not be happy, or any for a little bit, not for long, with a wife whom everyone, everyone from the bishop to the common, believed to be dicks, cast off mysteries. Roger set his teeth and became his usual plum-colour. We would live it down.' "'No,' she said. That is the kind of thing that is never lived down, at least not in places like this. I know enough to know that.' He knew it too. He knew it better than she did. He got the will slowly out of his pocket and opened it. They looked together at her signature. Roger saw it through tears of rage and crushed the paper together again into his pocket. "'Oh, a net!' he said with a groan. Why did you sign it?' "'I did it to please Dick,' she said. Across the water the church bell called to an early service. Roger looked once more at his little world, grown shadowy and indistinct in a veil of smoke. It seemed as if his happiness were fading and eddying away into thin air with the eddies of blue smoke. "'We must part,' said a net. I'm sure you see that.' The forget-me-not fell from her bosom, and she let it lie. He looked back at her. He had become very pale. "'I see one thing,' he said fiercely, and that is that I can't live without you, and what is more, I don't mean to. If you will marry me, I'll stand the racket about the scandal. Halver is no good to me without you. My life is no good to me without you. If you won't marry me, I'll marry no one, so help me God. If you won't take me, I shall never have any happiness at all.' So now you know, with your talk of parting.' She did not answer. She did not answer. She stooped and picked up the forget-me-not again and put it back in her bosom. Perhaps she thought that was an answer. "'A net,' he said slowly. Do you care for me enough to marry me and live here with me? You as my wife and Halver as my home are the two things I want. But that is all very well for me. The scandal will fall worst on you. If I can stand it, can you?' Yes. It will come very hard on you, Annette. I don't mind. I shan't be able to shield you from evil tongues. There's not a soul in the village that won't end by knowing sooner or later. And they think all the world of you now. Can you bear all this for my sake?' Yes. And yet you're crying, Annette. I was thinking about the aunts. They will feel it so dreadfully. And so will Mrs. Nichols. I'm very fond of Mrs. Nichols.' He caught her to him and kissed her passionately. "'Do you never think of yourself?' he stammered. You chucked your name away to please poor Dick, and you're ready to marry me and brave it out to please me?' You were enough for me, Roger. She clung to him. He trembled exceedingly, and wrenched himself away from her. "'Am I? Am I enough? A man who will put you through such a thing, even if you're willing, Annette?' You stick at nothing. You're willing, but—' My God! I'm not!' She looked dumbly at him with anguish in her violet eyes. She thought he was going to discard her, after all. "'I thought I wanted Halver more than anything in the world!' He said wildly, tearing the will out of his pocket. But the price is too high. My wife's good name. I won't pay it, Annette. I will not pay it!' And he strode to the nearest bonfire and flung the will into it. His make eddied and blew suddenly towards them. The fire hesitated a moment, and then, as Annette gazed, stupefied, a little flame curled busily along the open sheet. Before he knew she had moved, she had rushed past him, but her thrust her hand into the fire and torn out the burning paper. The flame ran nibly up her arm, devouring her thin sleeve, and in any just time to beat it out with his hands before it reached her hair. He drew her out of the smoke and held her forcibly. She panted hard, swabbing a little. The will gripped, tightened her hand, was pressed against her breast and his. Annette! he said, haulsily, over and over again. Still holding the will fast, she drew it away from him, and opened it with trembling, bleeding fingers, staining the sheet. It is safe. She said, it's safe. It's only scorched. You can see the writing quite clear through the brown. Look, Roger, but you mustn't touch it. I can't trust you to touch it. It is safe. Only the bottom of the sheet is burnt, where there wasn't anything written. Look! Dick's name is there, and the doctors, and the notaries. Only mine is gone. Oh, Roger! Now my name is gone. The will is just about right, isn't it? Roger drew in his breath, and looked at the blood-smeared, smoked-stained page. It is all right now! he said in a strangled voice. And then he suddenly fell on his knees and hid his convulsed face in her gown. You mustn't cry, Roger, and you mustn't kiss the hem of my gown. Indeed you mustn't. It makes me ashamed. Nor my hands. They're quite black. Oh, how my poor Roger cries! End of Chapter 42 End of Notwithstanding by Mary Chumley