Rodmoor (14 page)

A
FTER her talk with Mr. Traherne, Nance went straight to the village and visited the available lodging. She found the place quite reasonably adapted to her wishes and met with a genial, though a somewhat surprised reception from the woman of the house. It was arranged that the sisters should come to her that very evening, their more bulky possessions—and these were not, after all, very extensive—to follow them on the ensuing day, as suited the
convenience
of the local carrier. It. remained for her to
secure
her sister’s agreement to this sudden change and to announce their departure to Rachel Doorm. The first of these undertakings proved easier than Nance had dared to hope.

During these morning hours Miss Doorm gave Linda hardly a moment of peace. She persecuted her with questions about the events of the preceding day and betrayed such malignant curiosity as to the progress of the love affair with Brand that she reduced the child to a condition bordering upon hysterical prostration. Linda finally took refuge in her own room under the excuse of changing her dress but even here she was not left alone. Lying on her bed, with loosened hair and wide-open, troubled eyes fixed upon the ceiling, she heard Rachel moving uneasily from room to room
below
like a revengeful ghost disappointed of its prey.
The young girl put her fingers in her ears to keep this sound away. As she did so, her glance wandered to the window through which she could discern heavy dark clouds racing across the sky, pursued by a pitiless wind. She watched these clouds from where she lay and her
agitated
mind increased the strangeness of their ominous storm-blown shapes. Unable at last to endure the sight of them any longer she leapt to her feet and, with her long bare arms, pulled down the blind. To any one seeing her from outside as she did this she must have appeared like a hunted creature trying to shut out the world. Flinging herself upon her bed again she pressed her fingers once more into her ears. In crossing the room she had heard the heavy steps of her enemy
ascending
the staircase. Conscious of the vibration of these steps, even while she obliterated the sound they made, the young girl sat up and stared at the door. She could see it shake as the woman, trying the handle, found it locked against her.

Nothing is harder than to keep human ears closed by force when the faculty of human attention is strained to the uttermost. It was not long before she dropped her hands and then in a moment her whole soul concentrated itself upon listening. She heard Miss Doorm move away and walk heavily to the end of the passage. Then there was a long pause of deadly silence and then, tramp—tramp—tramp, she was back again.

“I won’t unlock the door! I won’t! I won’t! I won’t!” muttered the girl, and as if to make certain that her body obeyed her will she stretched herself out stiffly and clutched the iron bars above her head. She lay like this for some minutes, her lips parted, her eyes
wildly alert and her breast rising and falling under her bodice.

Once more the door shook and she heard her name pronounced in a low clear-toned voice.

“Linda! Linda!” the voice repeated. “Linda! I must talk to you!”

Unable to endure the tension any longer and
finding
the dimness of the room more trying than the view of the sky, the girl ran to the window and pulled up the blind as hastily as she had pulled it down. She gazed out, pressing her face against the pane. The clouds, darker and more threatening than ever, followed one another across the heavens like a huge herd of
monstrous
beasts driven by invisible herdsmen. The Loon swirled and eddied between its banks, its waters a pale brownish colour and here and there, floating on its
surface
, pieces of seaweed drifted. The vast horizon of fens, stretching away towards Mundham, looked almost black under the sky and the tall pines of Oakguard seemed to bow their heads as if at the approach of some unknown menace.

The door continued to be shaken and the voice of Rachel Doorm never ceased its appeal. Linda went back to her bed and sat down upon it, propping her chin on her hands. There is something about the
darkening
of a house by day, under the weight of a
threatened
storm, that has more of what is ominous and evil in it than anything that can occur at night. The “demon that walketh by noonday” draws close to us at these times.

“Linda! Linda! Let me in! I want to speak to you,” pleaded the woman. The girl rose to her feet and, rushing to the door, unlocked it quickly.
Returning
to her bed she threw herself down on her face and remained motionless. Rachel Doorm entered and, seating herself close to Linda’s side, laid her hand upon the girl’s shoulder.

“Why haven’t you got on your frock?” she
murmured
. “Your arms must be cold as ice. Yes, so they are! Let me help you to dress as I used to in the old days.”

Linda drew herself away from her touch and with a convulsive jerk of her body turned over towards the wall.

“It’s a pity you didn’t think over everything,” Miss Doorm went on, “before you began this game with Mr. Renshaw. It’s begun to hurt you now, hasn’t it? Then why don’t you stop? Tell me that, Linda
Herrick
. Why don’t you stop and refuse to see him any more? What? You won’t answer me? I’ll answer for you then. You don’t stop now, you don’t draw back now, because you can’t! He’s got hold of you. You feel him even now—don’t you—tugging at your heart? Yes, you’re caught, my pretty bird, you’re caught. No more tossing up of your little chin and throwing back your head! No more teasing this one and that with your dainty ways—while you whistle them all down the wind. It’s you—you—that has to come now when some one else calls, and come quickly, too, wherever you may have run! How do you know he doesn’t want you now? How do you know he’s not waiting for you now over there by the pines? Take care, my girl! Mr. Renshaw isn’t a man you can play with, as you played with those boys in London. It’ll be you who’ll do the whining and crying this time. The day’s near when you’ll be on your knees to him begging
and begging for what you’ll never get! Did you think that a chit of a child like you, just because you’ve got soft hair and white skin, could keep and hold a man like that?

“Don’t say afterwards that Rachel Doorm hadn’t warned you. I say to you now, give him up, let him go, hide yourself away from him! I say that—but I know very well you won’t do what I say. And you won’t do it because you can’t do it, because he’s got your little heart and your little body and your little soul in the palm of his hand! I can tell you what that means. I know why you press your hands against your breast and turn to the wall. I’ve done that in my time and turned and tossed, long nights, and got no comfort. And you’ll turn and toss, too, and call and call to the darkness and get no answer—just as I got none. Why don’t you leave him now, Linda, before it’s too late? Shall I tell you why you don’t? Because it’s too late already! Because he’s got you for good and all—got you forever and a day—just as some one, no matter who, got Rachel once upon a time!”

Her voice was interrupted by a sudden splashing of rain against the window and the loud moaning gust of a tremendous wind making all the casements of the house rattle.

“Where’s Nance?” cried the young girl, starting up and leaping from the bed. “I want Nance! I want to tell her something!”

At that moment there were voices below and the sound of a vehicle driven to the rear of the house. Miss Doorm left the room and ran down the stairs. Linda flung on the first dress that offered itself and going to the mirror began hastily tying up her hair. She had
hardly finished when her sister entered. Nance stood on the threshold for a moment hesitating, and looking anxiously at the other. It was Linda who made the first movement.

“Take me away from here,” she gasped, flinging herself into her sister’s arms and embracing her
passionately
, “take me away from here!”

Nance returned the embrace with ardour but her thoughts whirled a mad dance through her brain. She had a momentary temptation to reveal at once her new plan and let her sister’s cry have no other answer. But her nobler instinct conquered.

“At once, at once! My darling,” she murmured. “Yes, oh, yes, let’s go at once! I’ve got some money and Mr. Traherne will send me some more. We’ll take the three o’clock train and be safe back in London before night. Oh, my darling, my darling! I’m so glad! We’ll begin a new life together—a new life.”

At the mention of the word “London” Linda’s arms relaxed their hold and her whole body stiffened.

“No,” she gasped, pushing her sister away and pressing her hand to her side, “no, Nance dear, I can’t do it. It would kill me. I should run away from you and come back here if I had to walk the whole way. I won’t see him. I won’t! I won’t! I won’t talk to him—I won’t let him love me—but I can’t go away from here. I can’t go back to London. I should get ill and die. I should want him so much that I should die. No, no, Nance darling, if you dragged me by force to London I should come back the next day
somehow
or another. I know I should—I feel it
here
—as she said.”

She kept her hand still pressed against her side and
gazed into Nance’s face with a look of helpless
pleading
.

“We can find somewhere to live, you and I, without going far away, somewhere where we shan’t see
her
any more—can’t we, Nance?”

It was then, and with a clear conscience now, that the elder girl, speaking hurriedly and softly,
communicated
the preparations she had made and the fact that they were free to leave Dyke House at any moment they chose.

“I’ve asked the man to put up the horse here for the afternoon,” she said, “so that we shall have time to collect the things we want. They’ll send for our trunks to-morrow.”

Linda’s relief at hearing this news was pathetic to see.

“Oh, you darling—you darling!” she cried, “I might have known you’d save me. I might have known it! Oh, Nance dear, it was horrid of me to say those things to you yesterday. I’ll be good now and do
whatever
you tell me. As long as I’m not far away from
him
—not too far—I won’t see him, or speak to him, or write to him! How sweet of Mr. Traherne to let me play the organ! And he’ll pay me, too, you say? So that I shall be helping you and not only be a
burden
? Oh, my dear, what happiness, what happiness!”

Nance left her and descended to the kitchen to help Miss Doorm prepare their midday meal. The two women, as they busied themselves at their task, avoided any reference to the issue between them, and Nance wondered if the man from the Admiral’s Head, who now sat watching their preparations and speculating whether they intended to give him beer as well as meat,
had intimated to Rachel the object of his delayed
departure
. When the meal was ready, Linda was
summoned
to share it and the thirsty ostler, sipping
lemonade
with a wry countenance, at a side table, was given the privilege of hearing how three feminine
persons
, their heads full of agitation and antipathy, could talk and laugh and eat as if everything in the wide world was smooth, safe, harmless and uninteresting.

When the meal was over Nance and Linda once more retired to their room and busied themselves with
selecting
from their modest possessions such articles as they considered it advisable to take with them. The rest they carefully packed away in their two leather trunks—trunks which bore the initials “N. H.” and “L. H.” and still had glued to their sides railway labels with the word “Swanage” upon them, reminiscent of their last seaside excursion with their father.

The afternoon slipped rapidly away and still the threatened storm hung suspended, the rain coming and going in fitful gusts of wind and the clouds racing along the sky. By six o’clock it became so dark that Nance was compelled to light candles. Their packing had been interrupted by eager low-voiced consultation as to how they would arrange their days when these were, for the first time in their lives, completely at their own disposal. No further reference had been made between them, either to Adrian or to Mr. Renshaw. The candles, flickering in the gusty wind, threw
intermittent
spots of light upon the girls’ figures as they stooped over their work or bent forward, on their knees, whispering and laughing. Not since either of them had arrived in Rodmoor had they been quite so happy. The relief at escaping from Dyke House lifted the
atmosphere
about them so materially that while they spoke of their lodging in the High Street and of the virtues of Mrs. Raps, Nance began to feel that Adrian would, after all, soon grow weary of Philippa and Linda
began
to dream that, in spite of all appearances, Brand’s attitude towards her was worthy of a man of honour.

At six o’clock they were ready and Nance went down to announce their departure to Rachel Doorm. She found their driver asleep by the kitchen fire and,
having
roused him and told him to put his horse into the trap, she went out to look for her mother’s friend.

She found Rachel standing on the tow path gazing gloomily at the river. She was bareheaded and the wind, wailing round her, fluttered a wisp of her grey hair against her forehead. Beneath this her sunken eyes seemed devoid of all light. She turned when she heard Nance’s step, her heavy skirt flapping in the wind as she did so, like a funereal flag.

“I see,” she said, pointing at the light in the sisters’ room where the figure of Linda could be observed
passing
and re-passing, “I see you’re taking her away. I suppose it’s because of Mr. Renshaw. May I ask—if it’s of any interest to you that I should care at all—what you’re going to do with her? She’s been—she and her mother—the curse of
my
life, and I fancy she’s now going to be the curse of yours.”

Nance wrapped herself more tightly in a cloak she had picked up as she came out and looked unflinchingly into the woman’s haggard face.