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Three Sisters

<h2 id="id03758" style="margin-top: 4em">LIV</h2> One week in June Rowcliffe went up to Garthdale two nights running. He had never done this before and he had had to lie badly about it both to himself and Mary. He had told himself that the first evening didn't count. For he had quarreled with Gwenda the first evening. Neither of them knew how it had happened or what it was about. But he had hardly come before he had left her in his anger. The actual outburst moved her only to laughter, but the memory of it was violent in her nerves, it shook and shattered her. She had not slept all night and in the morning she woke tired and ill. And, as if he had known what he had done to her, he came to see her the next evening, to make up. That night they stayed out later than they had meant. As they touched the moor the lambs stirred at their mothers' sides and the pewits rose and followed the white road to lure them from their secret places; they wheeled and wheeled round them, sending out their bored and weary cry. In June the young broods kept the moor and the two were forced to the white road. And at the turn they came in sight of Greffington Edge. She stood still. "Oh—Steven—look," she said. He stood with her and looked. The moon was hidden in the haze where the gray day and the white night were mixed. Across the bottom on the dim, watery green of the eastern slope, the thorn trees were in flower. The hot air held them like still water. It quivered invisibly, loosening their scent and scattering it. And of a sudden she saw them as if thrown back to a distance where they stood enchanted in a great stillness and clearness and a piercing beauty. There went through her a sudden deep excitement, a subtle and mysterious joy. This passion was as distant and as pure as ecstasy. It swept her, while the white glamour lasted, into the stillness where the flowering thorn trees stood. * * * * * She wondered whether Steven had seen the vision of the flowering thorn trees. She longed for him to see it. They stood a little apart and her hand moved toward him without touching him, as if she would draw him to the magic. "Steven—" she said. He came to her. Her hand hung limply by her side again. She felt his hand close on it and press it. She knew that he had seen the vision and felt the subtle and mysterious joy. She wanted nothing more. "Say good-night now," she said. "Not yet. I'm going to walk back with you." They walked back in a silence that guarded the memory of the mystic thing. They lingered a moment by the half-open door; she on the threshold, he on the garden path; the width of a flagstone separated them. "In another minute," she thought, "he will be gone." It seemed to her that he wanted to be gone and that it was she who held him there against his will and her own. She drew the door to. "Don't shut it, Gwenda." It was as if he said, "Don't let's stand together out here like this any longer." She opened the door again, leaning a little toward it across the threshold with her hand on the latch. She smiled, raising her chin in the distant gesture that was their signal of withdrawal. But Steven did not go. * * * * * "May I come in?" he said. Something in her said, "Don't let him come in." But she did not heed it. The voice was thin and small and utterly insignificant, as if one little brain cell had waked up and started speaking on its own account. And something seized on her tongue and made it say "Yes," and the full tide of her blood surged into her throat and choked it, and neither the one voice nor the other seemed to be her own. He followed her into the little dining-room where the lamp was. The Vicar was in bed. The whole house was still. Rowcliffe looked at her in the lamplight. "We've walked a bit too far," he said. He made her lean back on the couch. He put a pillow at her head and a footstool at her feet. "Just rest," he said, and she rested. But Rowcliffe did not rest. He moved uneasily about the room. A sudden tiredness came over her. She thought, "Yes. We walked too far." She leaned her head back on the cushion. Her thin arms lay stretched out on either side of her, supported by the couch. Rowcliffe ceased to wander. He drew up with his back against the chimney-piece, where he faced her. "Close your eyes," he said. She did not close them. But the tired lids drooped. The lifted bow of her mouth drooped. The small, sharp-pointed breasts drooped. And as he watched her he remembered how he had quarreled with her in that room last night. And the thought of his brutality was intolerable to him. His heart ached with tenderness, and his tenderness was intolerable too. The small white face with its suffering eyes and drooping eyelids, the drooping breasts, the thin white arms slackened along the couch, the childlike helplessness of the tired body moved him with a vehement desire. And his strength that had withstood her in her swift, defiant beauty melted away. "Steven—" "Don't speak," he said. She was quiet for a moment. "But I want to, Steven. I want to say something." He sighed. "Well—say it." "It's something I want to ask you." "Don't ask impossibilities." "I don't think it's impossible. At least it wouldn't be if you really knew. I want you to be more careful with me." She paused. He turned from her abruptly. His turning made it easier for her. She went on. "It's only a little thing—a silly little thing. I want you, when you're angry with me, not to show it quite so much." He had turned again to her suddenly. The look on his face stopped her. "I'm never angry with you," he said. "I know you aren't—really. I know. I know. But you make me think you are; and it hurts so terribly." "I didn't know you minded." "I don't always mind. But sometimes, when I'm stupid, I simply can't bear it. It makes me feel as if I'd done something. Last night I got it into my head—" "What did you get into your head? Tell me—" "I thought I'd made you hate me. I thought you thought I was awful—like poor Ally." "You?" He drew a long breath and sent it out again. "You know what I think of you." He looked at her, threw up his head suddenly and went to her. His words came fast now and thick. "You know I love you. That's why I've been such a brute to you—because I couldn't have you in my arms and it made me mad. And you know it. That's what you mean when you say it hurts you. You shan't be hurt any more. I'm going to end it." He stooped over her suddenly, steadying himself by his two hands laid on the back of her chair. She put out her arms and pushed with her hands against his shoulders, as if she would have beaten him off. He sank to her knees and there caught her hands in his and kissed them. He held them together helpless with his left arm and his right arm gathered her to him violently and close. His mouth came crushing upon her parted lips and her shut eyes. Her small thin hands struggled piteously in his and for pity he released them. He felt them pushing with their silk-soft palms against his face. Their struggle and their resistance were pain to him and exquisite pleasure. "Not that, Steven! Not that! Oh, I didn't think—I didn't think you would." "Don't send me away, Gwenda. It's all right. We've suffered enough. We've got to end it this way." "No. Not this way." "Yes—yes. It's all right, darling. We've struggled till we can't struggle any more. You must. Why not? When you love me." He pressed her closer in his arms. She lay quiet there. When she was quiet he let her speak. "I can't," she said. "It's Molly. Poor little Molly." "Don't talk to me of Molly. She lied about you." "Whatever she did she couldn't help it." "Whatever we do now we can't help it." "We can. We're different. Oh—don't! Don't hold me like that. I can't bear it." His arms tightened. His mouth found hers again as if he had not heard her. She gave a faint cry that pierced him. He looked at her. The lips he had kissed were a purplish white in her thin bloodless face. "I say, are you ill?" She saw her advantage and took it. "No. But I can't stand things very well. They make me ill. That's what I meant when I asked you to be careful." Her helplessness stilled his passion as it had roused it. He released her suddenly. He took the thin arm surrendered to his gentleness, turned back her sleeve and felt the tense jerking pulse. He saw what she had meant. * * * * * "Do you mind my sitting beside you if I keep quiet?" She shook her head. "Can you stand my talking about it?" "Yes. If you don't touch me." "I won't touch you. We've got to face the thing. It's making you ill." "It isn't." "What is, then?" "Living with Papa." He smiled through his agony. "That's only another name for it. "It can't go on. Why shouldn't we be happy? "Why shouldn't we?" he insisted. "It's not as if we hadn't tried." "I—can't." "You're afraid?" "Oh, no, I'm not afraid. It's simply that I can't." "You think it's a sin? It isn't. It's we who are sinned against. "If you're afraid of deceiving Mary—I don't care if I do. She deceived me first. Besides we can't. She knows and she doesn't mind. She can't suffer as you suffer. She can't feel as you feel. She can't care." "She does care. She must have cared horribly or she wouldn't have done it." "She didn't. Anybody would have done for her as well as me. I tell you I don't want to talk about Mary or to think about her." "Then I must." "No. You must think of me. You don't owe anything to Mary. It's me you're sinning against. You think a lot about sinning against Mary, but you think nothing about sinning against me." "When did I ever sin against you?" "Last year. When you went away. That was the beginning of it all. Why did you go, Gwenda? You knew. We should have been all right if you hadn't." "I went because of Ally. She had to be married. I thought—perhaps—if I wasn't there——" "That I'd marry her? Good God! Ally! What on earth made you think I'd do that? I wouldn't have married her if there hadn't been another woman in the world." "I couldn't be sure. But after what you said about her I had to give her a chance." "What did I say?" "That she'd die or go mad if somebody didn't marry her." "I never said that. I wouldn't be likely to." "But you did, dear. You frightened me. So I went away to see if that would make it any better." "Any better for whom?" "For Ally." "Oh—Ally. I see." "I thought if it didn't—if you didn't marry her—I could come back again. And when I did come back you'd married Mary." "And Mary knew that?" "There's no good bothering about Mary now." Utterly weary of their strife, she lay back and closed her eyes. "Poor Gwenda." Again he had compassion on her. He waited. "You see how it was," she said. "It doesn't help us much, dear. What are we going to do?" "Not what you want, Steven, I'm afraid." "Not now. But some day. You'll see it differently when you've thought of it." "Never. Never any day. I've had all these months to think of it and I can't see it differently yet." "You have thought of it?" "Not like that." "But you did think. You knew it would come to this." "I tried not to make it come. Do you know why I tried? I don't think it was for Molly. It was for myself. It was because I wanted to keep you. That's why I shall never do what you want." "But that's how you would keep me. There's no other way." She rose with a sudden gesture of her shoulders as if she shook off the obsession of him. She stood leaning against the chimney-piece in the attitude he knew, an attitude of long-limbed, insolent, adolescent grace that gave her the advantage. Her eyes disdained their pathos. They looked at him with laughter under their dropped lids. "How funny we are," she said, "when we know all the time we couldn't really do a caddish thing like that." He smiled queerly. "I suppose we couldn't." * * * * * He too rose and faced her. "Do you know what this means?" he said. "It means that I've got to clear out of this." "Oh, Steven——" The brave light in her face went out. "You wouldn't go away and leave me?" "God knows I don't want to leave you, Gwenda. But we can't go on like this. How can we?" "I could." "Well, I can't. That's what it means to me. That's what it means to a man. If we're going to be straight we simply mustn't see each other." "Do you mean for always? That we're never to see each other again?" "Yes, if it's to be any good." "Steven, I can bear anything but that. It can't mean that." "I tell you it's what it means for me. There's no good talking about it. You've seen what I've been like tonight." "This? This is nothing. You'll get over this. But think what it would mean to me." "It would be hard, I know." "Hard?" "Not half so hard as this." "But I can bear this. We've been so happy. We can be happy still." "This isn't happiness." "It's my happiness. It's all I've got. It's all I've ever had." "What is?" "Seeing you. Or not even seeing you. Knowing you're there." "Poor child. Does that make you happy?" "Utterly happy. Always." "I didn't know." He stooped forward, hiding his face in his hands. "You don't realise it. You've no idea what it'll mean to be boxed up in this place together, all our lives, with this between us." "It's always been between us. We shall be no worse off. It may have been bad now and then, but conceive what it'll be like when you go." "I suppose it would be pretty beastly for you if I did go." "Would it be too awful for you if you stayed?" He was a long time before he answered. "Not if it really made you happier." "Happier?" She smiled her pitiful, strained smile. It said, "Don't you see that it would kill me if you went?" And again it was by her difference, her helplessness, that she had him. He too smiled drearily. "You don't suppose I really could have left you?" He saw that it was impossible, unthinkable, that he should leave her. He rose. She went with him to the door. She thought of something there. "Steven," she said, "don't worry about to-night. It was all my fault." "You—you," he murmured. "You're adorable." "It was really," she said. "I made you come in." She gave him her cold hand. He raised it and brushed it with his lips and put it from him. "Your little conscience was always too tender." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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