north did not visit the farm again. he sent ruth a brief line: “i am better away.” that he made no apology and expressed no thanks gave her the measure of his trust in her and her friendship.
she answered his brief communication by one equally brief: “try not to think of it at all if you cannot think the right way.”
so north buried himself in his work, forced and drove himself to think of nothing else. slept at night from sheer weariness, and grew more haggard and more silent day by day. at least if he could not be on the side of the angels he would not help the devils.
the month was mostly wild and wet, with here and there days of supreme beauty. it was on one of these, the last day of october, that ruth and violet went, as they often did, for a long tramp through the wet woods and over the wind-swept hills towards the sea. the atmosphere was that exquisite clearness which often follows much rain. the few leaves remaining on the trees, of burnished golden-brown, came falling in soft rustling showers with each gust 248of the fresh strong wind. they had walked far, so far that they had come by hill and dale as the crow flies to where the fall of the ground came so abruptly as to hide the middle distance, and the edge of the downs, broken by its low dark juniper-bushes, stood before them, clear-cut, against the great sweep of coastline far away beneath. pale gold and russet, the flat lands stretched, streaked with the sullen silver of sea-bound river and stream, to where, like a hard steel-blue line on the horizon, lay the sea itself. and behind that straight line, black and menacing, and touched with a livid ragged edge, rolled up the coming of a great storm.
it made a noble picture, and ruth watched it for a few moments, her face responding, answering to its beauty. she loved these landscapes of england, loved them not only with her present self, but also with some far-away depth of forgotten experience. and it seemed to her that she loved with them also those “unknown generations of dead men” to whom they had been equally dear. for these few moments, as she looked out over the edge of the downs, she forgot the haunting evil which was darkening all her days, forgot everything but the beauty of great space, of the wild rushing wind, the freedom—the escape.
odd bits of quotations came to her, as they 249always did in these moments; one, more insistent than the others, sang, put itself into music, clear, bell-like, mysterious:
“when i have reached my journey’s end,
and i am dead and free.”
and in that moment her sense of being in touch with dick carey came back to her. came flooding in like a great tide of help and encouragement and power.
“and i am dead and free.”
and yet people were afraid of death!
the great winds came up from the sea across the earth-scented downs, shouting as they came. she loved them, and the big dark masses of cloud. she could have shouted too, for joy of that great sense of freedom, of power, of control, because she was one with those magnificent forces of nature. in her too was that strength and freedom which bowed only to the one who is all.
the blood tingled in her veins; in the full sweep of the wind she was warm—warm with life. she forgot violet riversley cowering at her side. forgot the little dogs crouching, tucked against her feet, and swept for one wild moment out into the immensity of a great freedom. then, suddenly, the steel-blue line of sea 250broke into white, the storm-clouds met and crashed, and lightning, like the sharp thrust of a living sword, struck across the downs, struck and struck again. heaven and earth and the waters under the earth shuddered and reeled in the grip of the storm, and violet riversley, screaming with terror, fell on her knees by ruth, clasping her, crying:
“keep it away from me! keep it away! god! i can’t bear it any longer! keep it away!”
and at her cry all the motherhood in ruth’s nature, never concentrated only on the few, leapt into full life and splendour, spread its white wings of protection. and away and beyond her own love and pity she felt that of another. away and above her own fight was a greater fight, infinitely greater. she picked the girl up into the shelter of her arms, and her whole heart cried out in a passion of pity. she said odd little foolish words of tenderness, as mothers will, for the form she held was as light as that of a little child; just a shell it felt, nothing more.
and then, suddenly, the rain fell in one blinding rushing flood, drenching the little group to the skin, blotting out everything with its torrential flow.
“ah, look!” said ruth, almost involuntarily. 251a great flash of light had broken through from the west, and against the violet black sky the rain looked like a silver wall. it was amazingly, even terribly, beautiful.
“we are in for a proper ducking,” she said, trying to regain the normal. “wet to the skin already, all of us. and sarah and selina frightened to death, the little cowards! you’d better keep moving, dear. come along.”
it seemed a weary way home. never had ruth been more thankful for the presence of miss mccox in her household. fires, hot baths, hot coffee, all were ready; and she dried even selina, though surreptitiously, behind the kitchen door that none might behold her weakness, with her own hand. she put violet to bed after her hot bath, and ordered her to stay there. nothing but asserting herself forcibly kept ruth from a like fate.
“them as will be foolish, there is no reasoning with,” said miss mccox, with dignity, and retreated to the kitchen muttering like the storm.
after a lull, it had returned again with renewed force. the old house rocked as the great wind hurled itself upon it, shrieking against the shuddering windows as if demanding admittance. sheets of wild rain broke upon the panes, and every now and then the thunder 252crashed and broke and rent. after her dinner ruth went up and sat by the log fire in violet’s room. the pillow on which she lay was hardly whiter than the girl’s face. her great gold eyes gazed out into the shadows blankly. very small and young and helpless she looked, and ruth’s heart ached for her. she chatted on cheerfully, as she wove a woollen garment for some little child of france with her ever-busy fingers; chatted of the little things about the farm; told little quaint stories of the animals and flowers. had she known it, just so had dick carey often talked, in the winter evenings over the fire, to the listening children. but violet riversley just lay still, gazing into the shadows, taking little notice. she made no allusion to her violent attack of terror out in the storm, and it grew on ruth uncannily and horribly that the girl who had clung to her, crying for help, had slipped away from her again, somewhere out into the darkness and silence, torn from all known anchorage.
the little dogs had remained in their baskets downstairs; only larry had followed her up, and lay across the doorway, his nose upon his paws, his eyes gleaming watchfully out of the shadow. every now and then, when the shattering wind with increasing violence struck against the house again and again and wailed 253away like a baffled spirit, he growled in his throat as at a visible intruder.
it was late before ruth gathered her work up and said good-night. she was honestly tired in mind and body, but an unaccountable reluctance to leave violet held her. and yet the girl was apparently less restless, more normal, than usual. tired out, like herself, surely she would sleep. her terror out in the storm seemed entirely to have gone.
so ruth reasoned to herself as she went downstairs.
in the sitting-room the little dogs slept soundly in their baskets. the fire still burned, a handful of warm red ashes. the whole place seemed full of peace and comfort, in marked contrast to the rush and wail of the storm outside. ruth crossed to the lamp to see that it was in order, and moved about putting little tidying touches to the room, as women do the last thing before they go upstairs to bed. she was fully alive to the fact that the three weeks of violet’s visit had been a heavy strain on her, mentally and bodily. it would be quite easy to imagine things, to let this knowledge that she was fighting steadily, almost fiercely, against some awful unseen force overwhelm her, to drive her beyond the limits of what was sanely and reasonably possible. with her renewed 254sense of awareness of dick carey’s presence had come an indefinable yearning tenderness for violet riversley which had been lacking before in her kindly interest and friendship. to give way to fear or dread was the surest way to fail in both.
she looked out at the night. by the light streaming from the window she could see a streak of rain-washed lawn, and, dimly, beyond, the tortured branches of trees bowed and strained under the whip of the wind. she drew all the forces of her mind to the centre of her being.
“lord of the heights and depths, who dwellest in all the forms that thou hast made.”
she let the blind fall into its place and moved back into the room. larry had settled himself in the big armchair which had been dick carey’s. she stooped to stroke his head, and he looked at her with eyes that surely understood.
“lord of the heights and depths, who dwellest in all the forms that thou hast made.”
she kept the words and the thought in her mind quite steadily. almost as soon as she lay down she passed into sleep, and dreamt—dreamt that she was walking in the buttercup field with dick carey and it was early morning in the heart of the springtime. and he told her many things, many and wonderful and beautiful 255things, which afterwards she tried to recall and could not. and then, suddenly, he was calling to her from a distance, and she was broad wide awake sitting up in bed, and larry in the room below barked fiercely, then was silent.
the next instant she had thrown her dressing-gown over her shoulders and was running bare-footed across the landing and down the stairs. midway across the big old hall she stopped dead, for on her had fallen, swiftly and terribly, that old horror of her small childhood, a sense of all-pervading blackness. it gripped her as forcibly as it had done in those far-off days. again she was a small utterly helpless thing in its hideous clutch. the light streaming from under the sitting-room door accentuated the blackness, gleamed evilly, assumed a sinister and terrible importance.
almost she turned and fled—fled out of the door behind her into the storm-swept night, away to the clean air, to the darkness which was full of beauty and healing. not this—this that stifled, and soiled, and buried. away—anywhere—anyhow—from what was behind that flickering evil light, which made the hideous blackness visible as well as tangible.
almost, but not quite. that which the long years of patience and endurance had built into her, held. dick carey had called to her. what 256if he were in there, fighting, fighting against odds. for the world was full of this evil let loose, the vibrations became palpable, engulfed her, beat her down. for a moment that seemed endless she fought for more than physical life.
then she moved forward again, and it was as in dreams when feet are leaden-weighted and we move them with an effort that seems past our strength. but she did not hesitate again. steadily she opened the door. dragging those leaden feet she went in and closed it behind her.
a blast of hot air met her, insufferably hot. some one had made up the fire again. piled high with logs it burnt fiercely. the room was in disorder. in the far corner by the south window the little dogs lay cringing with terror, trembling, while before them larry crouched, his white fangs bare, his lips lifted till the gums showed, his blazing eyes fixed on the figure in the centre of the room—the figure of violet riversley.
before her, piled on the floor, were various articles, books and papers, gathered together and heaped in the shape of a bonfire. at her feet lay the bronze lamp. in her right hand she held the wick, still alight. curiously, the light from the blazing logs played on the long folds of her white gown. almost it seemed as if she were clothed in flame.
257it was more subconsciously than in any other way that ruth took in these details, for every sense she had—and all had become most acutely alive—concentrated on the terrific and hideous fact that, enveloping violet, encasing her as it were, was a great outstanding figure or presence. fear gripped her to the soul like ice. she could have screamed with very terror, but she was beyond the use of the body, beyond, it seemed, all help. for the entity that was not violet riversley, very surely not violet riversley, but a being infinitely stronger and more powerful, looked at her with the eyes of a soul self-tortured, self-maimed, and she saw in all their terrific hideousness hate and revenge incarnate.
and as she looked a worse horror gripped her. the thing was trying to master her, to make her its instrument, even as it had made violet riversley. the very hair of her head rose upon it as she felt her grip on herself loosening, weakening. her individuality seemed to desert her, to disintegrate, to disappear.
it might have been a moment; it might have been an eternity.
then, as from a long way off, she heard larry give a strange cry. something between a howl and a bay its vibration stirred the air through miles. the cry of the wolf to the pack for help. 258the old dog had stood up, his jowl thrust forward, his body tense, ready for the spring.
with a final desperate effort, which seemed to tear her soul out of her body, ruth cried too—cried to all she had ever thought or dreamed or held to of good; and in that moment her awareness of dick carey suddenly became acute. afterwards, in her ordinary consciousness, ruth always found it impossible to recapture, or in any way adequately to remember, the sensations of the next overwhelming moment. not only were they beyond speech they seemed beyond the grip of ordinary thought.
after that moment of supreme terror, of incredible struggle, with the acute return of her awareness of dick carey, with some crash of warring elements and forces, mingling as part of and yet distinct from the raging of the outside storm, she regained herself. was out as it were, in illimitable space, fighting shoulder to shoulder, hand to hand, one with dick carey. one, too, with some mighty force, fighting gloriously, triumphantly, surely; fighting through all the ages, through all the past, on through all the future, beyond space and beyond time.
then, suddenly, she was carried out—in no other way could she describe it afterwards—out of the stress and the battle on a wave of very 259pure and perfect compassion into the heart of a radiance before which even the radiance of the fullest sunlight would be as a rush candle. and into that infinite radiance came too the deadly hatred, the unspeakable malice, the craving for revenge, the bitterness, the rebellion—came and was swallowed up, purified, transmuted. in a great and glorious moment she knew that the force was one and the same, and that it is the motive power behind which makes it good or evil.
then the outside storm concentrated and fell in one overwhelming crash. the house rocked, and rocked again. ruth, mechanically stepping forward, caught in her arms a body which fell against her almost like a paper shell. very swiftly she carried it out into the hall. her normal senses were suddenly again acute; they worked quickly. and on the stair, infinitely to her relief, appeared the shining polished countenance of miss mccox. her attire defied description, and in her hands she held, one in each, at the carry, the proverbial poker and tongs. behind her came gladys, open-mouthed, dishevelled, likewise fully armed, and accomplishing a weird sound which appeared to be a combination of weeping and giggling.
ruth struggled with delightful and inextinguishable 260laughter, which she felt might very easily degenerate into hysterics, for she was shaking in every limb.
“no, no; it is not burglars!” she said. “put those things down, and take mrs. riversley. she has been walking in her sleep, and i am afraid has fainted. you know what to do. i must telephone the doctor.”
in her mind was the immediate necessity of dealing with that sinister bonfire before it could work damage, also before any eyes but her own should see it.
the lighted wick had fallen on to papers sprinkled with the oil, and already, when she returned to the sitting-room, little tongues of flame were alight and a thin pillar of smoke crowned its apex. she dealt swiftly with it with the heavy rugs luckily to her hand, and when the creeping fire was crushed out and stifled she put the injured remains of treasured books and ornaments hurriedly into the drawers of the big bookcase. the damage to the carpet there was no possibility of concealing, and after a moment of thought she took one of the charred logs, black and burnt out, and scattered it where the pile had been. then she took the wick in which the light still burned, true symbol of the life eternal, and restored it and the lamp to its own 261place, drew back the curtains, and opened the great window looking south.
it was early morning. the storm was riding away in broken masses of heavy cloud. drenched and dim, and covered with a rising silver mist, the racked world rested in a sudden calm. but the storm had left its traces in the broken branches strewing lawn and garden and field, and across the pathway a great elm-tree, snapped half-way up the main trunk, lay with its proud head prostrate, blocking the main entrance.
the coolness of the dawn touched like a benediction ruth’s tired face and black and bruised hands. for a few moments she stood looking up at the washed sky, the fading stars, while the dogs nestled against her, craving for notice. a great sense of life and happiness came flowing into her, flowing like a mighty tide with the wind behind it, and she knew that all was well.
she would have given a good deal to sit down and cry, but there was much to be done. that morning passed like a hurried nightmare, the whole house pervaded with that painful agitation which the shadow of death, coming suddenly, brings, for violet riversley was desperately and dangerously ill. she was in a 262high fever, wildly delirious, and ruth found it impossible to leave her. miss mccox took command in her absence, and moved about house and farm a very tower of strength in emergency, while gladys haunted her footsteps, crying at every word, as is the manner of her kind in such moments. in the sitting-room, roger north and his wife, summoned by telephone, waited while the doctor made his examination. the room had been stiffly set in order by miss mccox’s swift capable hands. over the scorched and blackened patch on the carpet she had set a table, nothing but a general air of bareness and smell of burning remained to hint of anything unusual. both windows were opened wide to the chill early morning air, and mrs. north crouched by the fire shivering.
she was utterly unnerved and overcome. the message had arrived just as she was dressing. she had swallowed a hurried breakfast, when, quite strangely, it did not matter that the coffee was not so good as usual, and the half-dozen notes and letters from various friends were of no real concern whatever. she had been engaged to lunch at the condors. in the afternoon she had promised to give away the prizes at a village work show. and into all this pleasant everyday life had come, shattering 263it all into little bits, the sudden paralyzing fact that violet had been taken dangerously ill during the night.
she and her husband had driven over in the little car to find the doctor still in the sick-room. ruth was also there, and questioning miss mccox was much like extracting information from the sphinx.
“i always disliked that woman; she has no more heart than a stone,” mrs. north complained tearfully. “and i do think she ought to tell miss seer we have arrived. it is dreadful to be kept away from one’s own child like this and not know what is happening.”
“eliot will be down soon, i expect,” said north. he was wandering aimlessly, restlessly, about the room, for as the time lengthened his nerves too grew strained with waiting. what had happened? all sorts of horrible possibilities pressed themselves upon him. if only ruth would come and he could see her alone for a moment!
he stopped in his restless pacing, and looked down kindly at his wife’s shivering form. “shall i shut the windows?” he asked.
“no,” she answered; “never mind. oh, roger, do you think she will die? i can’t bear it! oh, why doesn’t he come?”
264she got up and clutched her husband’s coat-sleeve, hiding her face on his shoulder. “roger, i couldn’t bear her to die.”
never before had the great presence of death really come near to her, except to summon the very old whose life had already almost passed to the other side. and now, suddenly, like a bolt out of a serene blue sky, it was standing beside her, imminent, threatening, and, to her, unspeakably terrible.
roger north put an awkward arm round her. he felt uncomfortably stiff and useless, and ridiculously conscious of the fact that she had forgotten in her hurry and distress to take her hair out of the curler at the back of her neck.
he was honestly anxious to be sympathetic, to be all that was kind and helpful. his own anxiety racked him, and yet, absurdly enough, that curler obtruded itself on his notice until he found himself saying, “you have left one of your curlers in.”
he was acutely aware that it was about the last thing he should have said and wholly unsuitable to the moment, but his wife, fortunately, took no such view.
“it just shows the state of my mind!” she exclaimed, trying with shaking fingers to disentangle it. “i have never done such a thing 265in my life before! what a mercy you noticed it!”
he helped her to get the little instrument out, and put it in his pocket.
there was the sound of a closing door above, the hurried movement of feet, and mrs. north clutched her husband’s arm. they both looked towards the door. but silence fell again, and she began to cry.
“do you think she’s dying, roger?”
“no, no! eliot would send for us, of course.” he began his restless walk to and fro again. “i wish we had got here before eliot did. you could have gone in with him then.”
and here, at last, footsteps came down the stairs, across the hall, the door opened, and the doctor came in.
he was an unusual man to find buried in a country practice. a man of outstanding intellect and of a very charming presence. between him and north a warm friendship existed.
“ah, you have come!” he exclaimed.
he took mrs. north’s hand and looked down at her with exceeding kindness.
“the child is very ill and i fear brain trouble,” he said. “i gather she went for a long walk yesterday and got drenched in the storm, 266so it is possibly aggravated by a chill. do you know of any special worry or trouble?”
“nothing whatever,” said mrs. north decisively. “except, of course, poor dick’s death. she felt that very much at the time, and roger thinks she has never got over it, don’t you, roger?”
roger nodded. for a moment he considered laying before his friend the abnormal situation in which ruth seer believed, and which he himself had come anyway to recognize as within the realms of possibility. but the inclination faded almost as soon as born. he had had no speech yet with ruth, nor did it seem fair to violet. possibly, perhaps, some personal pride held him.
the doctor looked at him kindly. “poor little girl! well, she made a brave fight, i remember. now, mrs. north, no worrying. how old is the child? twenty-six? you can get over anything at twenty-six! i’m sending in a nurse, and that woman upstairs is worth her weight in gold. you couldn’t have her in better hands. now you’d like to go up and have a look at her. don’t get worried because she won’t know you; that’s part of the illness.”
but outside he looked at roger with an anxious face.
“she’s very ill, north,” he said. “it must 267have been coming on for some time. the storm—yes—that shook it up into active mischief, no doubt. we’ll pull her through, i hope; but would you like a specialist’s opinion? these brain troubles are very obscure.”
“i leave it to you,” said north, his whole being sick and empty.
“well, we’ll see how she goes on in the next twenty-four hours.”
he sped away, and roger wandered aimlessly about the farm, looking at the wreckage of the storm, with larry and the little dogs, conscious in their dumb way that their beloveds were in trouble, keeping at his heel.
by one of those vagaries which make the english climate so lovable in spite of its iniquities, it was, after the day and night of storm and rain, that very wonderful thing a perfectly beautiful morning in november. the sun shone with astonishing warmth, scattering great masses of grey and silver cloud, against which the delicate black tracery of bough and twig, stripped of every lingering leaf, showed in exquisite perfection.
the farm was wide awake and astir with the life of a new day. but vi, little vi, was lying up there, at the door of death. recollections of her as a soft-headed, golden-eyed baby came back to him; as a small child flitting like a white 268butterfly about the garden; as a swift vision of long black legs and a cloud of dark hair, running wild with the boys; as the glorious hoyden who had taken her world by storm in the days just before the war. and now she lay there a broken thing, tossed and driven to death in the purposeless play of soulless and unpitying forces. he ground his teeth in impotent rage, overcome with a very anguish of helpless pain and wrath. if only ruth would come and tell him what had happened!
the cowman, who was helping the gardener clear away the remains of the storm, came up from the fallen tree and spoke to him. he was sorry to hear there was illness at the house. north thanked him mechanically and escaped into the flower garden. the few remaining flowers were beaten to the ground, their heads draggled in the wet earth. he got out his knife and began to cut them off and tidy up the border. he could watch the house at the same time. the minutes dragged like hours, and then, at last, the door on to the terrace opened, and ruth came out.
she looked round and, catching sight of him, hurried by the shortest way, across the wet grass, to meet him. his pain-ravaged face smote her with a great pity. she held out both her hands to meet his.
269“i could not come before,” she said. “she is quieter now. oh, do not feel like that! she will get well. i know she will get well.”
“where can we go to be alone?” he asked. “i must hear what happened. it is that which has been driving me mad.”
“let us go and walk along the path under the ‘house on the wall,’” she said. “no one will come there and it is sheltered and warm in the sun.”
and there, pacing up and down, she told him, as well as she could, the happenings of the night before.
north ground his teeth. “she would be better dead,” he said. “and yet——” he looked at her, a new horror growing in his haggard eyes, a question——?
“she will not die,” said ruth. “but don’t you understand, don’t you believe, whether she lives or dies the evil is conquered, is transmuted, is taken in to the eternal good?”
“no, i cannot believe,” said north harshly. “i think you are playing with words. it seems to me that only evil is powerful. if anything survives, it is that.”
ruth looked at him with very gentle eyes. “wait,” she said. “have just a little patience. she will get well, and then you will believe.”
“i cannot believe,” said roger north. the 270words fell heavily, like stones. he paced restlessly backwards and forwards, crunching the wet gravel viciously under his feet.
“the house might have been burnt down. you—i suppose you think that was the object?”
“yes, i think it must have been so. at any rate one of them.”
“that is the loathsome horror of it all!” north burst forth savagely. “i believe just enough, because in no other way can i account for what has happened, to make me dread death for her in a way i should never have dreaded it otherwise. i have always looked on our personal grief as fundamentally selfish.”
ruth was silent. he seemed beyond the reach of help, and she would have given so much to help him. that he, at any rate for the moment, gave no thought to what she had been through disturbed her not at all.
“listen,” she said presently. “you may think it all imagination, or what people call imagination, but if you could only have seen it, as i did, you would know it was very, very real. it was when i was alone with her waiting for doctor eliot. i went to the window to pull the blind down a little, and when i turned round again—i saw”—she stopped, searching for adequate words—“i saw what looked like a wall 271of white light. i can’t describe it any other way, though it was not like any light we know of here, more wonderful, alive in some strange way. it was all round her. no evil thing could get through. i am so sure.”
she looked at him with her heart in her eyes, but roger north shook his head.
“it leaves me cold,” he said. “is that why you feel so sure she will get well?”
“no. but i am sure; that is all i know.”
and to that ruth held through the days of tense anxiety that followed, through the visit of the specialist from london, who gave little hope, through the despair of others. she moved among them as one carrying a secret store of strength. mrs. north, pitiably broken up, clung to her for help and comfort, but north, after the talk in the garden, had withdrawn into himself and kept aloof. the ravages day after day marked on his face went to ruth’s heart when he came over to inquire. but for the moment he was beyond her reach or help. whatever devils from the bottomless pit rent and tore his soul during these dark days, he fought them single-handed, as indeed, ultimately, they must be fought by every man.
mrs. north and fred riversley stayed at thorpe.
272“uncommonly decent of miss seer,” said mr. pithey to his wife. “turning her house into a hotel as well as a hospital! that stuck-up little mrs. north, too. i’ve heard her say things about miss seer that have put my bristles up. give me lady condor every time. paint or no paint!”
but mrs. pithey had learnt things down in the dark valley. she was not so censorious as of old.
“i don’t cotton to mrs. north myself,” she answered. “she’s a woman who overprices herself. but she’s a mother, and miss seer could do no less than take her in. you might take down some of these best musk cat grapes after tea, ’erb. p’raps mrs. riversley could fancy ’em.”
everyone indeed was very kind, but with the exception of lady condor and mr. fothersley, ruth kept visitors away from mrs. north.
fred riversley had astonished everyone by turning out a wonderful nurse, and what little rest violet had was in his strong arms, nursed like a child. she seemed nothing more, and in her delirium had gone back to the days of her childhood and talked of little else, and more and more happily as the time went by.
“one might as well try to keep a snow wreath,” he said one afternoon to ruth, who 273was giving him tea after his usual tramp round the fields for some fresh air and exercise.
even as he spoke there was a little bustle and scurry outside the door, and before it opened riversley was on his feet and moving towards it.
mrs. north stood there, half laughing, half crying. “oh, she is better!” she cried. “she has gone into a real sleep. nurse says we may hope. she will get well.”
she dropped on to her knees by the fire and buried her face against the cushions of the sofa, sobbing and crying, while riversley tore across the hall and up the stairs two steps at a time.
it was early on the following morning that violet riversley opened her eyes and looked at her husband with recognition in them.
“dear old freddy,” she said weakly. “what’s the matter?”
he put his arms round her with the tears running down his cheeks, and she nestled to him like a tired child and fell asleep again.
when she woke the second time the room was full of the pale november sunshine. she looked round it curiously for a moment, then her mind seemed to give up the effort to remember where she was and she looked at him.
274“i do love you, freddy,” she said.
the morning sounds of the farm came in through the open window and she smiled. “of course, i’m at thorpe. i dreamt i was with dick.”
outside, ruth went across the terrace to her farm work. her face was that of one who holds secure some hidden store of happiness. she sang to herself as she went:
“when i have reached my journey’s end,
and i am dead and free.”
the words floated up clear and sweet through the still air.
“dead and free.” violet repeated them in a small faint voice, and again fear gripped riversley by the throat. he longed to hold her more closely and dared not. there seemed no perceptible substance to hold. his mouth went dry while he struggled with his difficulty of speech.
“the journey is worth making too, vi,” he said.
the husky strangled voice made its appeal. she looked with more of understanding into his bloodshot eyes, his haggard ravaged face, and her own face became suddenly very sweet and of a marvellous brightness.
275“yes,” she said, “the journey is worth making too.”
more distant came the sound of ruth’s song:
“i pray that god will let me go
and wander with them to and fro,
along the flowered fields i know,
that look towards the sea,
that look towards the sea.”
the white pigeons swooped down about her. the dogs, so long kept in to heel, rushed wildly over the lawn and down to the river, uttering sharp cries of joy. a robin, perched on the coping of the old wall, sang sweet and shrill. she looked out over her beloved fields, over the long valley full of misty sunshine, and was content. the farm was itself again. she moved on across the lawn leaving footprints on the silver wet grass, to where, standing by the gate, she saw roger north.
he turned at the sound of her coming, and she called to him:
“she has slept ever since i ’phoned to you. she will get well.”
“thank god!” he said, as men will in these moments, whether they believe or no.
his face was curiously alive, alight with some great happening; there was an air of joyous 276excitement about him. he moved towards her, and smiled a little, rather shamefaced smile, and the odd likeness to a schoolboy who is feeling shy was very apparent. then he blurted it out.
“i have seen him,” he said.
“ah!” the exclamation was a note of pure joy. “oh, tell me about it!”
“he was leaning over the gate. he was looking for me, waiting for me, just as he used to do. and he looked at me with his dear old grin. it was ever so real.”
“yes. yes.”
“and he spoke. just as you have told me. it isn’t the same as speaking here. it’s something like a thought passing——”
he stopped, his face all alight. he looked years younger. the heavy lines were hardly visible.
“i wish i had spoken. somehow at the moment i couldn’t.”
“i know. one cannot. i believe it is because of the vibrations. i suppose——” ruth hesitated. “can you tell me?”
“what he said? it—it seems so ridiculous. one expected it would be something important, something—well, different.”
she laughed, looking at him with affection, 277with that wonderful look of pure friendliness.
“but why should it?”
he laughed too—joyously. as he had not laughed since boyhood. surely again the world was full of wonder and of glory. again all things were possible, in the light of the horizon beyond eternity.
“he said—just as he used to, you know—‘come on, old roger!’”
