At that definite picture she controlled her mind again.She pulled it up as a driver drags back a restive horse.Her first real thought was: "How hard that this letter should have come now when I was just going to put everything right with Paul." Her next: "Poor Paul! But I don't care for him a bit...I don't care for any one but Martin.I never did." Her next: "Why did I ever think I did?" And her next: "Why did I ever do this?" She knew with a strange calm certainty that from this moment she would never be rid of Martin's presence again.She had maintained for more than a year a wonderful make-believe of indifference.She had fancied that by, pushing furiously with both hands one could drive things into the past.But Fate was cleverer than that.What he wanted to keep he kept for you--the weaving of the pattern in the carpet might be your handiwork, but the final design was settled before ever the carpet was begun.
Not that any of these fine thoughts ever entered Maggie's head.All that she thought was "I love Martin.I want to go to him.He's ill.
I've got to do my duty about Paul." She settled upon that last point.She bound her mind around it, fast and secure like thick cord.She put Mr.Magnus' letter away in the shell-covered box, the wedding-present from the aunts; in this box were the programme of the play that she had been to with Martin, the ring with the three pearls, Martin's few letters, and some petals of the chrysanthemum, dry and faded, that she had worn on the great day of the matinee.
Something had warned her that it was foolish to keep Martin's letters, but why should she not? She had never hidden her love for Martin.Then, standing in the middle of the room, close beside the large double-bed, with a football-group and "The Crucifixion"staring down upon her, she had her worst hour.Nothing in all life could have moved her as did that picture of Martin's loneliness and sickness.Wave after wave of persuasion swept over her: "Go! Go now!
Take the train to Paris.You can find out from Mr.Magnus where he was living.He is sick.He needs you.You swore to him that you would never desert him, and you have deserted him.They don't want you here.Grace hates you, and Paul is too lazy to care!"At the thought of Paul resolution came to her.She looked up at the rather fat, amiable youth with the stout legs and the bare knees in the football photograph, and prayed to it: "Paul, I'm very lonely and tempted.Care for me even though I can't love you as you want.
Don't give me up because I can't let you have what some one else has got.Let's be happy, Paul--please."She was shivering.She looked back with a terrified, reluctant glance to the drawer where Mr.Magnus' letter was, then she went downstairs.
Soon after they started for Little Harben.The last days in Skeaton had scarcely been happy ones.Grace had erected an elaborate scaffolding of offended dignity and bitter misery.She was not bitterly miserable, indeed she enjoyed her game, but it was depressing to watch Paul give way to her.He was determined to leave her in a happy mind.Any one could have told him that the way to do that was to leave her alone altogether.Instead he petted her, persuading her to eat her favourite pudding, buying her a new work-box that she needed, dismissing a boy from the choir (the only treble who was a treble) because he was supposed to have made a long-nose at Grace during choir-practice.
Ht adopted also a pleading line with her."Now, Grace dear, don't you think you could manage a little bit more?""Do you think you ought to go out in all this rain, Grace dear?""Grace, you look tired to death.Shall I read to you a little?"He listened to her stories with a new elaborate attention.He laughed heartily at the very faintest glimmer of a joke.Through it all Grace maintained an unreleased solemnity, a mournful superiority, a grim forbearance.
Maggie, watching, felt with a sinking heart that she was beginning to despise Paul.
His very movement as he hurried to place a cushion for Grace sent a little shiver down her back."Oh, don't do it, Paul!" she heard herself cry internally, but she could say nothing.She had won her victory about Harben.She could only now be silent.Still, she bore no grudge at all against Grace.She even liked her.
Grace made many sinister allusions to her fancied departure."Ah, in November...Oh! of course I shall not be here then!" or, "That will be in the autumn then, won't it? You'd better give it to some one who will be here at the time." With every allusion she scored a victory.It was evident that Paul was terrified by the thought that she should leave him.He did not see what he would do without her.
His world would tumble to pieces.
"But she hasn't the remotest intention of going," said Maggie.
"She'll never go."
"Well, I don't know.It would be strange without her, Maggie, I must confess.You see, all our lives we've been together--all our lives."Nevertheless he felt perhaps some relief, in spite of himself, when they were safely in a train for Little Harben.It was rather a relief, just for a day or two, not to see Grace's reproachful face.
Yes, it was.He was quite gay, almost like the boy he used to be.
Little Harben was one of the smallest villages in Wiltshire and its Rectory one of the most dilapidated.The Rectory was sunk into the very bottom of a green well.Green hills rose on every side above it, green woods pressed in all around it, a wild, deserted green garden crept up to the windows and clambered about the old walls.
There was hardly any furniture in the house, and many many windows all without curtains.Long looking-glasses reflected the green garden at every possible angle so that all the lights and shadows in the house were green.There was a cat with green eyes, and the old servant was so aged and infirm that she was, spiritually if not physically, covered with green moss.
From their bedroom they could see the long green slope of the hill.