Part 66 (1/2)

That shall be yours.”

He sat there for an hour, and while he smoked she was idle. His eyes hardly left her face, but hers were for the fire, though sometimes she looked at him, and then she saw him behind tobacco smoke, and once she smiled.

”What's that for?” he asked.

”I was thinking of the fires on the moor--the heather burning.”

”What made you think of that?”

”You--behind the smoke. If the snow comes, the fires will be put out, but there will still be your smoke.”

”I don't know what you're talking about,” he said.

”I like to see you--behind the smoke.”

”I'm glad you're pleased with something.”

”I like a fair exchange,” she said, and laughed at him, ”but I shall offer up no more prayers.”

”I don't understand this joke, but I like to see you laugh.” Possession had emboldened him. ”Helen, you're pretty.”

”I'm sleepy. It's after ten. Good-night.”

”I'll come tomorrow.”

”But not on Sat.u.r.day. Rupert comes home then.”

”He goes on Sunday night?”

”Yes.” She locked the door on him, blew out the light, and ran upstairs.

She thought Mr. Pinderwell pa.s.sed her with no new sorrow on his face.

”It's worse for me,” she said to him. ”Jane, it's worse for me.”

She went cautiously to her window and peeped through. She saw George standing on the lawn, and tremblingly she undressed in darkness.

The next day, Mildred Caniper called Helen to her side.

”I feel--rested,” she said. Her voice had for ever lost its crispness, and she spoke with a slovenly tongue. ”I don't like strangers--looking at me. And she--she--”

”I know. She shall go. Tomorrow I'll sleep with you.”

Her heart lightened a little, and through the day she thought of Mildred Caniper's room as of a hermitage, but without the nurse the house was so much emptier of human life that it became peopled with the thoughts of all who had lived in it; and while Helen waited for George's coming, she felt them moving round her.

There were the thoughts of the people who had lived in the house before Mr. Pinderwell, and these were ma.s.sed and indistinct, yet the more troubled; they were too old for form, too young for indifference, and they thronged about her, asking for deliverance. She could not give it, and she was jostled by a crowd that came closer than any one of flesh and blood: it got inside her brain and frightened her. The thoughts of Mr. Pinderwell were familiar, but now she could better understand his wild young despair, the pain of his lonely manhood, the madness of his old age. Yet, when she thought of him, she said again, ”It's worse for me.” Mr. Pinderwell had not been obliged to marry some one else, and, though he did not know it, his children lived. Nearer than his thoughts, but less insistent than the formless ones that pressed about her, begging shamelessly, were those of Mildred Caniper. Helen saw them in the dining-room where they had been made, and they were rigid under suffering, dignified, but not quite lost to humour, and because she did not know their cause, because their creator lay upstairs, dead to such activities, Helen had a horror of them that made her watch the clock for George's hour. She was less afraid of George than of these shapeless, powerful things, this acc.u.mulated evidence of what life did with its own; and until he came she talked to Jim, quickly and incessantly, careless of what she said, if words could calm her.

”Jim, Jim, Jim! I must say something, so I'll say your name, and then other things will come. I do not intend to be silly. I won't let you be silly, Helen. You mustn't spoil things. It's absurd--and wicked! And there's snow outside. It's so deep that I shan't hear him come. And I wish he'd come, Jim. Funny to wish that. Jim, I'm afraid to turn my head. It feels stiff. And I ought to go upstairs and look at Notya's fire, but I don't like the hall. That's where they all meet. And I don't know how I dare say these things aloud. I'll talk about something else.

Suppose I hadn't you? What shall we have for dinner tomorrow? There's a bone for you, and the jelly for Notya, and for me--an egg, perhaps.

Boiled, baked, fried, poached, scrambled, omeletted? Somehow, somehow.