XI
AT two o'clock in the morning the freckled boy from Creston stopped hissleepy horse at the door of the red house, and Charity got out. Harneyhad taken leave of her at Creston River, charging the boy to drive herhome. Her mind was still in a fog of misery, and she did not remembervery clearly what had happened, or what they said to each other, duringthe interminable interval since their departure from Nettleton but thesecretive instinct of the animal in pain was so strong in her that shehad a sense of relief when Harney got out and she drove on alone.
The full moon hung over North Dormer, whitening the mist that filled thehollows between the hills and floated transparently above the fields.Charity stood a moment at the gate, looking out into the waning night.She watched the boy drive off, his horse's head wagging heavily to andfro; then she went around to the kitchen door and felt under the mat forthe key. She found it, unlocked the door and went in. The kitchenwas dark, but she discovered a box of matches, lit a candle and wentupstairs. Mr. Royall's door, opposite hers, stood open on his unlitroom; evidently he had not come back. She went into her room, bolted herdoor and began slowly to untie the ribbon about her waist, and to takeoff her dress. Under the bed she saw the paper bag in which she hadhidden her new hat from inquisitive eyes....
She lay for a long time sleepless on her bed, staring up at themoonlight on the low ceiling; dawn was in the sky when she fell asleep,and when she woke the sun was on her face.
She dressed and went down to the kitchen. Verena was there alone: sheglanced at Charity tranquilly, with her old deaf-looking eyes. There wasno sign of Mr. Royall about the house and the hours passed without hisreappearing. Charity had gone up to her room, and sat there listlessly,her hands on her lap. Puffs of sultry air fanned her dimity windowcurtains and flies buzzed stiflingly against the bluish panes.
At one o'clock Verena hobbled up to see if she were not coming down todinner; but she shook her head, and the old woman went away, saying:"I'll cover up, then."
The sun turned and left her room, and Charity seated herself in thewindow, gazing down the village street through the half-opened shutters.Not a thought was in her mind; it was just a dark whirlpool of crowdingimages; and she watched the people passing along the street, DanTargatt's team hauling a load of pine-trunks down to Hepburn, thesexton's old white horse grazing on the bank across the way, as if shelooked at these familiar sights from the other side of the grave.
She was roused from her apathy by seeing Ally Hawes come out of theFrys' gate and walk slowly toward the red house with her uneven limpingstep. At the sight Charity recovered her severed contact with reality.She divined that Ally was coming to hear about her day: no one elsewas in the secret of the trip to Nettleton, and it had flattered Allyprofoundly to be allowed to know of it.
At the thought of having to see her, of having to meet her eyes andanswer or evade her questions, the whole horror of the previous night'sadventure rushed back upon Charity. What had been a feverish nightmarebecame a cold and unescapable fact. Poor Ally, at that moment,represented North Dormer, with all its mean curiosities, its furtivemalice, its sham unconsciousness of evil. Charity knew that, althoughall relations with Julia were supposed to be severed, the tender-heartedAlly still secretly communicated with her; and no doubt Julia wouldexult in the chance of retailing the scandal of the wharf. The story,exaggerated and distorted, was probably already on its way to NorthDormer.
Ally's dragging pace had not carried her far from the Frys' gate whenshe was stopped by old Mrs. Sollas, who was a great talker, and spokevery slowly because she had never been able to get used to her new teethfrom Hepburn. Still, even this respite would not last long; in anotherten minutes Ally would be at the door, and Charity would hear hergreeting Verena in the kitchen, and then calling up from the foot of thestairs.
Suddenly it became clear that flight, and instant flight, was the onlything conceivable. The longing to escape, to get away from familiarfaces, from places where she was known, had always been strong in her inmoments of distress. She had a childish belief in the miraculous powerof strange scenes and new faces to transform her life and wipe outbitter memories. But such impulses were mere fleeting whims compared tothe cold resolve which now possessed her. She felt she could not remainan hour longer under the roof of the man who had publicly dishonouredher, and face to face with the people who would presently be gloatingover all the details of her humiliation.
Her passing pity for Mr. Royall had been swallowed up in loathing:everything in her recoiled from the disgraceful spectacle of the drunkenold man apostrophizing her in the presence of a band of loafers andstreet-walkers. Suddenly, vividly, she relived again the horrible momentwhen he had tried to force himself into her room, and what she hadbefore supposed to be a mad aberration now appeared to her as a vulgarincident in a debauched and degraded life.
While these thoughts were hurrying through her she had dragged outher old canvas school-bag, and was thrusting into it a few articles ofclothing and the little packet of letters she had received from Harney.From under her pincushion she took the library key, and laid it in fullview; then she felt at the back of a drawer for the blue brooch thatHarney had given her. She would not have dared to wear it openly atNorth Dormer, but now she fastened it on her bosom as if it were atalisman to protect her in her flight. These preparations had taken buta few minutes, and when they were finished Ally Hawes was still at theFrys' corner talking to old Mrs. Sollas....
She had said to herself, as she always said in moments of revolt: "I'llgo to the Mountain--I'll go back to my own folks." She had never reallymeant it before; but now, as she considered her case, no other courseseemed open. She had never learned any trade that would have given herindependence in a strange place, and she knew no one in the big towns ofthe valley, where she might have hoped to find employment. Miss Hatchardwas still away; but even had she been at North Dormer she was the lastperson to whom Charity would have turned, since one of the motivesurging her to flight was the wish not to see Lucius Harney. Travellingback from Nettleton, in the crowded brightly-lit train, all exchange ofconfidence between them had been impossible; but during their drivefrom Hepburn to Creston River she had gathered from Harney's snatches ofconsolatory talk--again hampered by the freckled boy's presence--thathe intended to see her the next day. At the moment she had found a vaguecomfort in the assurance; but in the desolate lucidity of the hours thatfollowed she had come to see the impossibility of meeting him again.Her dream of comradeship was over; and the scene on the wharf--vile anddisgraceful as it had been--had after all shed the light of truth on herminute of madness. It was as if her guardian's words had stripped herbare in the face of the grinning crowd and proclaimed to the world thesecret admonitions of her conscience.
She did not think these things out clearly; she simply followed theblind propulsion of her wretchedness. She did not want, ever again, tosee anyone she had known; above all, she did not want to see Harney....
She climbed the hill-path behind the house and struck through the woodsby a short-cut leading to the Creston road. A lead-coloured sky hungheavily over the fields, and in the forest the motionless air wasstifling; but she pushed on, impatient to reach the road which was theshortest way to the Mountain.
To do so, she had to follow the Creston road for a mile or two, and gowithin half a mile of the village; and she walked quickly, fearing tomeet Harney. But there was no sign of him, and she had almost reachedthe branch road when she saw the flanks of a large white tent projectingthrough the trees by the roadside. She supposed that it sheltered atravelling circus which had come there for the Fourth; but as she drewnearer she saw, over the folded-back flap, a large sign bearing theinscription, "Gospel Tent." The interior seemed to be empty; but a youngman in a black alpaca coat, his lank hair parted over a round whiteface, stepped from under the flap and advanced toward her with a smile.
"Sister, your Saviour knows everything. Won't you come in and lay yourguilt before Him?" he asked insinuatingly, putting his hand o
n her arm.
Charity started back and flushed. For a moment she thought theevangelist must have heard a report of the scene at Nettleton then shesaw the absurdity of the supposition.
"I on'y wish't I had any to lay!" she retorted, with one of her fierceflashes of self-derision and the young man murmured, aghast: "Oh,Sister, don't speak blasphemy...."
But she had jerked her arm out of his hold, and was running up thebranch road, trembling with the fear of meeting a familiar face.Presently she was out of sight of the village, and climbing into theheart of the forest. She could not hope to do the fifteen miles to theMountain that afternoon but she knew of a place half-way to Hamblinwhere she could sleep, and where no one would think of looking for her.It was a little deserted house on a slope in one of the lonely rifts ofthe hills. She had seen it once, years before, when she had gone on anutting expedition to the grove of walnuts below it. The party had takenrefuge in the house from a sudden mountain storm, and she rememberedthat Ben Sollas, who liked frightening girls, had told them that it wassaid to be haunted.
She was growing faint and tired, for she had eaten nothing sincemorning, and was not used to walking so far. Her head felt light and shesat down for a moment by the roadside. As she sat there she heard theclick of a bicycle-bell, and started up to plunge back into the forest;but before she could move the bicycle had swept around the curve of theroad, and Harney, jumping off, was approaching her with outstretchedarms.
"Charity! What on earth are you doing here?"
She stared as if he were a vision, so startled by the unexpectedness ofhis being there that no words came to her.
"Where were you going? Had you forgotten that I was coming?" hecontinued, trying to draw her to him; but she shrank from his embrace.
"I was going away--I don't want to see you--I want you should leave mealone," she broke out wildly.
He looked at her and his face grew grave, as though the shadow of apremonition brushed it.
"Going away--from me, Charity?"
"From everybody. I want you should leave me."
He stood glancing doubtfully up and down the lonely forest road thatstretched away into sun-flecked distances.
"Where were you going?'
"Home."
"Home--this way?"
She threw her head back defiantly. "To my home--up yonder: to theMountain."
As she spoke she became aware of a change in his face. He was no longerlistening to her, he was only looking at her, with the passionateabsorbed expression she had seen in his eyes after they had kissed onthe stand at Nettleton. He was the new Harney again, the Harney abruptlyrevealed in that embrace, who seemed so penetrated with the joy ofher presence that he was utterly careless of what she was thinking orfeeling.
He caught her hands with a laugh. "How do you suppose I found you?" hesaid gaily. He drew out the little packet of his letters and flourishedthem before her bewildered eyes.
"You dropped them, you imprudent young person--dropped them in themiddle of the road, not far from here; and the young man who is runningthe Gospel tent picked them up just as I was riding by." He drew back,holding her at arm's length, and scrutinizing her troubled face with theminute searching gaze of his short-sighted eyes.
"Did you really think you could run away from me? You see you weren'tmeant to," he said; and before she could answer he had kissed her again,not vehemently, but tenderly, almost fraternally, as if he had guessedher confused pain, and wanted her to know he understood it. He wound hisfingers through hers.
"Come let's walk a little. I want to talk to you. There's so much tosay."
He spoke with a boy's gaiety, carelessly and confidently, as if nothinghad happened that could shame or embarrass them; and for a moment, inthe sudden relief of her release from lonely pain, she felt herselfyielding to his mood. But he had turned, and was drawing her back alongthe road by which she had come. She stiffened herself and stopped short.
"I won't go back," she said.
They looked at each other a moment in silence; then he answered gently:"Very well: let's go the other way, then."
She remained motionless, gazing silently at the ground, and he went on:"Isn't there a house up here somewhere--a little abandoned house--youmeant to show me some day?" Still she made no answer, and he continued,in the same tone of tender reassurance: "Let us go there now and sitdown and talk quietly." He took one of the hands that hung by her sideand pressed his lips to the palm. "Do you suppose I'm going to let yousend me away? Do you suppose I don't understand?"
The little old house--its wooden walls sun-bleached to a ghostlygray--stood in an orchard above the road. The garden palings had fallen,but the broken gate dangled between its posts, and the path to the housewas marked by rose-bushes run wild and hanging their small pale blossomsabove the crowding grasses. Slender pilasters and an intricate fan-lightframed the opening where the door had hung; and the door itself layrotting in the grass, with an old apple-tree fallen across it.
Inside, also, wind and weather had blanched everything to the samewan silvery tint; the house was as dry and pure as the interior of along-empty shell. But it must have been exceptionally well built, forthe little rooms had kept something of their human aspect: the woodenmantels with their neat classic ornaments were in place, and the cornersof one ceiling retained a light film of plaster tracery.
Harney had found an old bench at the back door and dragged it into thehouse. Charity sat on it, leaning her head against the wall in a stateof drowsy lassitude. He had guessed that she was hungry and thirsty,and had brought her some tablets of chocolate from his bicycle-bag, andfilled his drinking-cup from a spring in the orchard; and now he sat ather feet, smoking a cigarette, and looking up at her without speaking.Outside, the afternoon shadows were lengthening across the grass, andthrough the empty window-frame that faced her she saw the Mountainthrusting its dark mass against a sultry sunset. It was time to go.
She stood up, and he sprang to his feet also, and passed his arm throughhers with an air of authority. "Now, Charity, you're coming back withme."
She looked at him and shook her head. "I ain't ever going back. Youdon't know."
"What don't I know?" She was silent, and he continued: "What happened onthe wharf was horrible--it's natural you should feel as you do. But itdoesn't make any real difference: you can't be hurt by such things.You must try to forget. And you must try to understand that men... mensometimes..."
"I know about men. That's why."
He coloured a little at the retort, as though it had touched him in away she did not suspect.
"Well, then... you must know one has to make allowances.... He'd beendrinking...."
"I know all that, too. I've seen him so before. But he wouldn't havedared speak to me that way if he hadn't..."
"Hadn't what? What do you mean?"
"Hadn't wanted me to be like those other girls...." She lowered hervoice and looked away from him. "So's 't he wouldn't have to go out...."
Harney stared at her. For a moment he did not seem to seize her meaning;then his face grew dark. "The damned hound! The villainous lowhound!" His wrath blazed up, crimsoning him to the temples. "I neverdreamed--good God, it's too vile," he broke off, as if his thoughtsrecoiled from the discovery.
"I won't never go back there," she repeated doggedly.
"No----" he assented.
There was a long interval of silence, during which she imagined that hewas searching her face for more light on what she had revealed to him;and a flush of shame swept over her.
"I know the way you must feel about me," she broke out, "...telling yousuch things...."
But once more, as she spoke, she became aware that he was no longerlistening. He came close and caught her to him as if he were snatchingher from some imminent peril: his impetuous eyes were in hers, and shecould feel the hard beat of his heart as he held her against it.
"Kiss me again--like last night," he said, pushing her hair back as ifto draw her whole face up into his kiss.
/>