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Three Sisters

<h2 id="id01312" style="margin-top: 4em">XXVI</h2> It was Wednesday, the day after the concert. Mr. Cartaret was standing before the fire in his study. He had just rung the bell and now he waited in an attitude of wisdom and of patience. It was only ten o'clock in the morning and wisdom and patience should not be required of any man at such an hour. But the Vicar had a disagreeable duty to perform. Whenever the Vicar had a disagreeable duty to perform he performed it as early as possible in the morning, so that none of its disagreeableness was lost. The whole day was poisoned by it. He waited a little longer. And as he waited his patience began to suffer imperceptibly, though his wisdom remained intact. He rang again. The bell sounded through the quiet house, angry and terrifying. In another moment Essy came in. She had on a clean apron. She stood by the roll-top desk. It offered her a certain cover and support. Her brown eyes, liquid and gentle, gazed at him. But for all her gentleness there was a touch of defiance in her bearing. "Did you not hear me ring?" said the Vicar. "Naw, sir." Nothing more clear and pure than the candor of Essy's eyes. They disconcerted him. "I have nothing to say to you, Essy. You know why I sent for you." "Naw, sir." She thought it was a question. He underlined it. "You—know—why." "Naw. I doan' knaw, sir." "Then, if you don't know, you must find out. You will go down to the surgery this afternoon and see Dr. Rowcliffe, and he will report on your case." She started and the red blood rose in her face. "I s'all not goa and see him, Mr. Cartaret." She was very quiet. "Very good. Then I shall pay you a month's wages and you will go on Saturday." It was then that her mouth trembled so that her eyes shone large through her tears. "I wasn't gawn to staay, sir—to be a trooble. I sud a gien yo' nawtice in anoother moonth." She paused. There was a spasm in her throat as if she swallowed with difficulty her bitter pride. Her voice came thick and hoarse. "Woan't yo' kape me till th' and o' t' moonth, sir?" Her voice cleared suddenly. "Than I can see yo' trow Christmas." The Vicar opened his mouth to speak; but instead of speaking he stared. His open mouth stared with a supreme astonishment. Up till now, in his wisdom and his patience, he had borne with Essy, the Essy who had come before him one evening in September, dejected and afraid. He hated Essy and he hated her sin, but he had borne with her then because of her sorrow and her shame. And here was Essy with not a sign of sorrow or of shame about her, offering (in the teeth of her deserved dismissal), actually offering as a favor to stay over Christmas and to see them through. The naked impudence of it was what staggered him. "I have no intention of keeping you over Christmas. You will take your notice and your wages from to-day, and you will go on Saturday." "Yes, sir." In her going Essy turned. "Will yo' taake me back, sir, when it's all over?" "No. No. I shouldn't think of taking you back." The Vicar hid his hands in his pockets and leaned forward, thrusting his face toward Essy as he spoke. "I'm afraid, my girl, it never will be all over, as long as you regard your sin as lightly as you do." Essy did not see the Vicar's face thrust toward her. She was sidling to the door. She had her hand on the doorknob. "Come back," said the Vicar. "I have something else to say to you." Essy came no nearer. She remained standing by the door. "Who is the man, Essy?" At that Essy's face began to shake piteously. Standing by the door, she cried quietly, with soft sobs, neither hiding her face nor drying her tears as they came. "You had better tell me," said the Vicar. "I s'all nat tall yo'," said Essy, with passionate determination, between the sobs. "You must." "I s'all nat—I s'all nat." "Hiding it won't help you," said the Vicar. Essy raised her head. "I doan' keer. I doan' keer what 'appens to mae. What wae did—what wae did—lies between him and mae." "Did he tell you he'd marry you, Essy?" Essy sobbed for answer. "He didn't? Is he going to marry you?" "'Tisn' likely 'e'll marry mae. An' I'll not force him." "You think, perhaps, it doesn't matter?" She shook her head in utter helplessness. "Come, make a clean breast of it." Then the storm burst. She turned her tormented face to him. "A clane breast, yo' call it? I s'all mak' naw clane breasts, Mr. Cartaret, to yo' or anybody. I'll 'ave nawbody meddlin' between him an' mae!" "Then," said the Vicar, "I wash my hands of you." But he said it to an empty room. Essy had left him. * * * * * In the outer room the three sisters sat silent and motionless. Their faces were turned toward the closed door of the study. They were listening to the sounds that went on behind it. The burden of Essy hung heavy over them. The study door opened and shut. Then the kitchen door. "Poor Essy," said Gwenda. "Poor Essy," said Alice. She was sorry for Essy now. She could afford to be sorry for her. Mary said nothing, and from her silence you could not tell what she was thinking. The long day dragged on to prayer time. The burden of Essy hung heavy over the whole house. * * * * * That night, at a quarter to ten, fifteen minutes before prayer time, Gwenda came to her father in his study. "Papa," she said, "is it true that you've sacked Essy at three days' notice?" "I have dismissed Essy," said the Vicar, "for a sufficient reason." "There's no reason to turn her out before Christmas." "There is," said the Vicar, "a very grave reason. We needn't go into it." He knew that his daughter knew his reason. But he ignored her knowledge as he ignored all things that were unpleasant to him. "We must go into it," said Gwenda. "It's a sin to turn her out at three days' notice." "I know what I'm doing, Gwenda, and why I'm doing it." "So do I. We all do. None of us want her to go—yet. You could easily have kept her another two months. She'd have given notice herself." "I am not going to discuss it with you." The Vicar put his head under the roll top of his desk and pretended to be looking for papers. Gwenda seated herself familiarly on the arm of the chair he had left. "You'll have to, I'm afraid," she said. "Please take your head out of the desk, Papa. There's no use behaving like an ostrich. I can see you all the time. The trouble is, you know, that you won't think. And you must think. How's Essy going to do without those two months' wages she might have had? She'll want every shilling she can lay her hands on for the baby." "She should have thought of that before." The Vicar was answering himself. He did not acknowledge his daughter's right to discuss Essy. "She'll think of it presently," said Gwenda in her unblushing calm. "Look here, Papa, while you're trying how you can make this awful thing more awful for her, what do you think poor Essy's bothering about? She's not bothering about her sin, nor about her baby. She's bothering about how she's landed us." The Vicar closed his eyes. His patience was exhausted. So was his wisdom. "I am not arguing with you, Gwenda." "You can't. You know perfectly well what a beastly shame it is." That roused him. "You seem to think no more of Essy's sin than Essy does." "How do you know what Essy thinks? How do I know? It isn't any business of ours what Essy thinks. It's what we do. I'd rather do what Essy's done, any day, than do mean or cruel things. Wouldn't you?" The Vicar raised his eyebrows and his shoulders. It was the gesture of a man helpless before the unspeakable. He took refuge in his pathos. "I am very tired, Gwenda; and it's ten minutes to ten." * * * * * It may have been because the Vicar was tired that his mind wandered somewhat that night during family prayers. Foremost among the many things that the Vicar's mind refused to consider was the question of the status, of the very existence, of family prayers in his household. But for Essy, though the Vicar did not know it, it was doubtful whether family prayers would have survived what he called his daughters' godlessness. Mary, to be sure, conformed outwardly. She was not easily irritated, and, as she put it, she did not really mind prayers. But to Alice and Gwendolen prayers were a weariness and an exasperation. Alice would evade them under any pretext. By her father's action in transporting her to Gardale, she considered that she was absolved from her filial allegiance. But Gwendolen was loyal. In the matter of prayers, which—she made it perfectly clear to Alice and Mary—could not possibly annoy them more than they did her, she was going to see Papa through. It would be beastly, she said, not to. They couldn't give him away before Essy. But of the clemency and generosity of Gwendolen's attitude Mr. Cartaret was not aware. He believed that the custom of prayers was maintained in his household by his inflexible authority and will. He gloried in them as an expression of his power. They were a form of coercion which it seemed he could apply quite successfully to his womenkind, those creatures of his flesh and blood, yet so alien and intractable. Family prayers gave him a keener spiritual satisfaction than the church services in which, outwardly, he cut a far more imposing figure. In a countryside peopled mainly by abominable Wesleyans and impure Baptists (Mr. Cartaret spoke and thought of Wesleyans and Baptists as if they were abominable and impure pure) he had some difficulty in procuring a congregation. The few who came to the parish church came because it was respectable and therefore profitable, or because they had got into the habit and couldn't well get out of it, or because they liked it, not at all because his will and his authority compelled them. But to emerge from his study inevitably at ten o'clock, an hour when the souls of Mary and Gwendolen and Alice were most reluctant and most hostile to the thought of prayers, and by sheer worrying to round up the fugitives, whatever they happened to be doing and wherever they happened to be, this (though he said it was no pleasure to him) was more agreeable to Mr. Cartaret than he knew. The very fact that Essy was a Wesleyan and so far an unwilling conformist gave a peculiar zest to the performance. It was always the same. It started with a look through his glasses, leveled at each member of his household in turn, as if he desired to satisfy himself as to the expression of their faces while at the same time he defied them to protest. For the rest, his rule was that of his father, the schoolmaster, before him. First, a chapter from the Bible, the Old Testament in the morning, the New Testament in the evening, working straight through from Genesis to Revelation (omitting Leviticus as somewhat unsuitable for family reading). Then prayers proper, beginning with what his daughter Gwendolen, seventeen years ago, had called "fancy prayers," otherwise prayers not lifted from the Liturgy, but compiled and composed in accordance with the freer Evangelical taste in prayers. Then (for both Mr. Cartaret and the schoolmaster, his father, held that the Church must not be ignored) there followed last Sunday's Collect, the Collect for Grace, the Benediction, and the Lord's Prayer. Now, as his rule would have it, that evening of the fifth of December brought him to the Eighth chapter of St. John, in the one concerning the woman taken in adultery, which was the very last chapter which Mr. Cartaret that evening could have desired to read. He had always considered that to some minds it might be open to misinterpretation as a defense of laxity. "'Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?' "She said, 'No man, Lord.' And Jesus said unto her, 'Neither do I condemn thee.'" Mr. Cartaret lowered his voice and his eyes as he read, for he felt Gwendolen's eyes upon him. But he recovered himself on the final charge. "'Go'"—now he came to think of it, that was what he had said to Essy—"'and sin no more.'" (After all, he was supported.) Casting another and more decidedly uneasy glance at his family, he knelt down. He felt better when they were all kneeling, for now he had their backs toward him instead of their faces. He then prayed. On behalf of himself and Essy and his family he prayed to a God who (so he assumed his Godhead) was ever more ready to hear than they to pray, a God whom he congratulated on His ability to perform for them far more than they either desired or deserved; he thanked him for having mercifully preserved them to the close of another blessed day (as in the morning he would thank him for having spared them to see the light of another blessed day); he besought him to pardon anything which that day they had done amiss; to deliver them from disobedience and self-will, from pride and waywardness (he had inserted this clause ten years ago for Gwendolen's benefit) as well as from the sins that did most easily beset them, for the temptations to which they were especially prone. This clause covered all the things he couldn't mention. It covered his wife, Robina's case; it covered Essy's; he had dragged Alice's case as it were from under it; he had a secret fear that one day it might cover Gwendolen's. Gwendolen was the child who, he declared and believed, had always given him most trouble. He recalled (perversely) a certain thing that (at thirteen) she had said about this prayer. "It oughtn't to be prayed," she had said. "You don't really think you can fool God that way, Papa? If I had a servant who groveled to me like that I'd tell him he must learn to keep his chin up or go." She had said it before Robina who had laughed. And Mr. Cartaret's answer to it had been to turn his back on both of them and leave the room. At least he thought it was his answer. Gwendolen had thought that in a flash of intellectual honesty he agreed with her, only that he hadn't quite enough honesty to say so before Mummy. All this he recalled, and the question she had pursued him with about that time. "What are the sins that do most easily beset us? What are the temptations to which we are especially prone?" And his own evasive answer. "Ask yourself, my child." Another year and she had left off asking him questions. She drew back into herself and became every day more self-willed, more solitary, more inaccessible. And now, if he could have seen things as they really were, Mr. Cartaret would have perceived that he was afraid of Gwenda. As it was, he thought he was only afraid of what Gwenda might do. Alice was capable of some things; but Gwenda was capable of anything. * * * * * Suddenly, to Gwenda's surprise, her father sighed; a dislocating sigh. It came between the Benediction and the Lord's Prayer. For, even as he invoked the blessing Mr. Cartaret suddenly felt sorry for himself again. His children were no good to him. By which he meant that his third wife, Robina, was no good. But he did not know that he visited his wife's shortcomings on their heads, any more than he knew that he hated Essy and her sin because he himself was an enforced, reluctant celibate. <h2 id="id01429" style="margin-top: 4em">XXVII</h2> The next day at dusk, Essy Gale slipped out to her mother's cottage down by the beck. Mrs. Gale had just cleared the table after her tea, had washed up the tea-things and was putting them away in the cupboard when Essy entered. She looked round sharply, inimically. Essy stood by the doorway, shamefaced. "Moother," she said softly, "I want to speaak to yo." Mrs. Gale struck an attitude of astonishment and fear, although she had expected Essy to come at such an hour and with such a look, and only wondered that she had not come four months ago. "Yo're nat goain' t' saay as yo've got yoresel into trooble?" For four months Mrs. Gale had preserved an innocent face before her neighbors and she desired to preserve it to the last possible moment. And up to the last possible moment, even to her daughter, she was determined to ignore what had happened. But she knew and Essy knew that she knew. "Doan yo saay it, Assy. Doan yo saay it." Essy said nothing. "D'yo 'ear mae speaakin' to yo? Caann't yo aanswer? Is it thot, Assy? Is it thot?" "Yas, moother, yo knaw 'tis thot." "An' yo dare to coom 'ear and tell mae! Yo dirty 'oossy! Toorn an' lat's 'ave a look at yo." Now that the innocence of her face was gone, Mrs. Gale had a stern duty to perform by Essy. "They've gien yo t' saack?" "T' Vicar give it mae." "Troost'im! Whan did 'e gie it yo?" "Yasterda'." "T'moonth's nawtice?" "Naw. I aassked 'im t' kape me anoother two moonths an' 'e woonna. I aassked 'im t' kape me over Christmas an' 'e woonna. I'm to leaave Saturda'." "Did yo expact 'im t' kape yo, yo gawpie? Did yo think you'd nowt to do but t' laay oop at t' Vicarage an' 'ave th yoong laadies t' do yore wark for yo, an' t' waait on yo 'and an' foot? Miss Gwanda t' mak' yore bafe-tae an' chicken jally and t' Vicar t' daandle t' baaby? "'Oo's goan t' kape yo? Mae? I woonna kape yo an' I canna' kape yo. Yo ain' t' baaby! I doan' waant naw squeechin', squallin' brats mookin' oop t' plaace as faast as I clanes it, An' 'E woonna kape yo—ef yo're raakonin' on 'im. Yo need na tall mae oo t' maan is. I knaw." "'Tis'n 'im, Moother. 'Tis'n 'im." "Yo lil blaack liar! 'Tis 'im. Ooo alse could it bae? Yo selly! Whatten arth possessed yo t' goa an' tak oop wi' Jim Greatorex? Ef yo mun get into trooble yo medda chawsen battern Jim. What for did I tak' yo from t' Farm an' put yo into t' Vicarage ef 't wasn't t' get yo out o' Jimmy's road? 'E'll naver maarry yo. Nat 'e! Did 'e saay as 'e'd maarry yo? Naw, I warrant yo did na waat fer thot. Yo was mad t' roon affter 'im afore 'e called yo. Yo dirty cat!" That last taunt drew blood. Essy spoke up. "Naw, naw. 'E looved mae. 'E wanted mae bad." "'E wanted yo? Coorse 'e wanted yo. Yo sud na 'ave gien in to 'im, yo softie. D'yo think yo're the only woon thot's tampted? Look at mae. I could 'a got into trooble saven times to yore woonce, ef I 'ad'n kaped my 'ead an' respected mysel. Yore Jim Greatorex! Ef a maan like Jim 'ad laaid a 'and on mae, 'e'd a got soomthin' t' remamber afore I'd 'a gien in to 'im. An' yo've naw 'scuse for disgracin' yoresel. Yo was brought oop ralegious an' respactable. Did yo aver 'ear saw mooch aa a bad woord?" "It's doon, Moother, it's doon. There's naw good taalkin'." "Eh! Yo saay it's doon, it's doon, an' yo think nowt o' 't. An' nowt yo think o' t' trooble yo're brengin' on mae. I sooppawse yo'll be tallin' mae naxt yo looved 'im! Yo looved'im!" At that Essy began to cry, softly, in her manner. "Doan' yo tall mae thot taale." Mrs. Gale suddenly paused in her tirade and began to poke the fire with fury. "It's enoof t' sicken t' cat!" She snatched the kettle that stood upon the hob; she stamped out to the scullery and re-filled it at the tap. She returned, stamping, and set it with violence upon the fire. She tore out of the cupboard a teapot, a cup and a saucer, a loaf on a plate and a jar of dripping. Still with violence (slightly modulated to spare the comparative fragility of the objects she was handling) she dashed them one by one upon the table where Essy, with elbows planted, propped her head upon her hands and wept. Mrs. Gale sat down herself in the chair facing her, and kept one eye on the kettle and the other on her daughter. From time to time mutterings came from her, breaking the sad rhythm of Essy's sobs. "Eh dear! I'd like t' knaw what I've doon t' ave this trooble!"— —"'Tis enoof t' raaise yore pore feyther clane out of 'is graave!"— —"'E'd sooner 'ave seed yo in yore coffin, Assy."— She rose and took down the tea-caddy from the chimney-piece and flung a reckless measure into the tea-pot. "Ef 'e'd 'a been a-livin', 'E'd a killed yo. Thot's what 'e'd 'a doon." As she said it she grasped the kettle and poured the boiling water into the tea-pot. She set the tea-pot before Essy. "There's a coop of tae. An' there's bread an' drippin'. Yo'll drink it oop." But Essy, desolated, shook her head. "Wall," said Mrs. Gale. "I doan' want ter look at yo. 'T mak's mae seek." As if utterly revolted by the sight of her daughter, she turned from her and left the kitchen by the staircase door. Her ponderous stamping could be heard going up the staircase and on the floor overhead. There was a sound as of drawers opening and shutting and of a heavy box being dragged from under the bed. Essy poured herself out a cup of tea, tried to drink it, choked and pushed it from her. She was still weeping when her mother came to her. Mrs. Gale came softly. All alone in the room overhead she had evidently been doing something that had pleased her. The ghost of a smile still haunted her bleak face. She carried on her arm tenderly a pile of little garments. These she began to spread out on the table before Essy, having first removed the tea-things. "There!" she said. "'Tis the lil cleathes fer t' baaby. Look, Assy, my deear—there's t' lil rawb, wi' t' lil slaves, so pretty—an' t' flanny petticut—an' t' lil vasst—see. 'Tis t' lil things I maade fer 'ee afore tha was born." But Essy pushed them from her. She was weeping violently now. "Taake 'em away!" she cried. "I doan' want t' look at 'em." Mrs. Gale sat and stared at her. "Coom," she said, "tha moos'n' taake it saw 'ard, like." Between the sobs Essy looked up with her shining eyes. She whispered. "Will yo kape mae, Moother?" "I sail 'ave t' kape yo. There's nawbody 'll keer mooch fer thot job but yore moother." But Essy still wept. Once started on the way of weeping, she couldn't stop. Then, all of a sudden, Mrs. Gale's face became distorted. She got up and put her hand heavily on her daughter's shoulder. "There, there, Assy, loove," she said. "Doan' tha taake on thot road. It's doon, an' it caann't be oondoon." She stood there in a heavy silence. Now and again she patted the heaving shoulder, marking time to Essy's sobs. Then she spoke. "Tha'll feel batter whan t' lil baaby cooms." Profoundly disturbed and resentful of her own emotion Mrs. Gale seized upon the tea-pot as a pretext and shut herself up with it in the scullery. * * * * * Essy, staggering, rose and dried her eyes. For a moment or so she stared idly at the square window with the blue-black night behind it. Then she looked down. She smiled faintly. One by one she took the little garments spread out in front of her. She folded them in a pile. Her face was still and dreamy. She opened the scullery door and looked in. "Good-night, Moother." "Good-night, Assy." * * * * * It was striking seven as she passed the church. Above the strokes of the hour she heard through the half-open door a sound of organ playing and of a big voice singing. And she began to weep again. She knew the singer, and the player too. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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