Part 10 (2/2)
Having spoken thus at length, Tryst lifted the teapot and poured out the dark tea into the three cups.
”Will 'ee have some, sir?”
Derek shook his head.
Taking the cups, Tryst departed up the narrow stairway. And Derek remained motionless, staring at the Bridal Wreath, till the big man came down again and, retiring into a far corner, sat sipping at his own cup.
”Bob,” said the boy suddenly, ”do you LIKE being a dog; put to what company your master wishes?”
Tryst set his cup down, stood up, and crossed his thick arms--the swift movement from that stolid creature had in it something sinister; but he did not speak.
”Do you like it, Bob?”
”I'll not say what I feels, Mr. Derek; that's for me. What I does'll be for others, p'raps.”
And he lifted his strange, lowering eyes to Derek's. For a full minute the two stared, then Derek said:
”Look out, then; be ready!” and, getting off the sill, he went out.
On the bright, slimy surface of the pond three ducks were quietly revelling in that hour before man and his d.a.m.ned soul, the dog, rose to put the fear of G.o.d into them. In the sunlight, against the green duckweed, their whiteness was truly marvellous; difficult to believe that they were not white all through. Pa.s.sing the three cottages, in the last of which the Gaunts lived, he came next to his own home, but did not turn in, and made on toward the church. It was a very little one, very old, and had for him a curious fascination, never confessed to man or beast. To his mother, and Sheila, more intolerant, as became women, that little, lichened, gray stone building was the very emblem of hypocrisy, of a creed preached, not practised; to his father it was nothing, for it was not alive, and any tramp, dog, bird, or fruit-tree meant far more. But in Derek it roused a peculiar feeling, such as a man might have gazing at the sh.o.r.es of a native country, out of which he had been thrown for no fault of his own--a yearning deeply m.u.f.fled up in pride and resentment. Not infrequently he would come and sit brooding on the gra.s.sy hillock just above the churchyard. Church-going, with its pageantry, its tradition, dogma, and demand for blind devotion, would have suited him very well, if only blind devotion to his mother had not stood across that threshold; he could not bring himself to bow to that which viewed his rebellious mother as lost. And yet the deep fibres of heredity from her papistic Highland ancestors, and from old pious Moretons, drew him constantly to this spot at times when no one would be about. It was his enemy, this little church, the fold of all the instincts and all the qualities against which he had been brought up to rebel; the very home of patronage and property and superiority; the school where his friends the laborers were taught their place! And yet it had that queer, ironical attraction for him. In some such sort had his pet hero Montrose rebelled, and then been drawn despite himself once more to the side of that against which he had taken arms.
While he leaned against the rail, gazing at that ancient edifice, he saw a girl walk into the churchyard at the far end, sit down on a gravestone, and begin digging a little hole in the gra.s.s with the toe of her boot. She did not seem to see him, and at his ease he studied her face, one of those broad, bright English country faces with deep-set rogue eyes and red, thick, soft lips, smiling on little provocation. In spite of her disgrace, in spite of the fact that she was sitting on her mother's grave, she did not look depressed. And Derek thought: 'Wilmet Gaunt is the jolliest of them all! She isn't a bit a bad girl, as they say; it's only that she must have fun. If they drive her out of here, she'll still want fun wherever she is; she'll go to a town and end up like those girls I saw in Bristol.' And the memory of those night girls, with their rouged faces and cringing boldness, came back to him with horror.
He went across the gra.s.s toward her.
She looked round as he came, and her face livened.
”Well, Wilmet?”
”You're an early bird, Mr. Derek.”
”Haven't been to bed.”
”Oh!”
”Been up Malvern Beacon to see the sun rise.”
”You're tired, I expect!”
”No.”
”Must be fine up there. You'd see a long ways from there; near to London I should think. Do you know London, Mr. Derek?”
”No.”
”They say 'tis a funny place, too.” Her rogue eyes gleamed from under a heavy frown. ”It'd not be all 'Do this' an' 'Do that'; an' 'You bad girl' an' 'You little hussy!' in London. They say there's room for more'n one sort of girl there.”
”All towns are beastly places, Wilmet.”
Again her rogue's eyes gleamed. ”I don' know so much about that, Mr.
Derek. I'm going where I won't be chivied about and pointed at, like what I am here.”
<script>