John Powys - Rodmoor

Quite ten minutes elapsed before her host returned. He returned in radiant spirits but all that was visible to the eye as the result of his prolonged toilet was a certain smoothness in the lock of hair which fell across his forehead and a certain heightening of the colour of his cheeks. This latter change was obviously produced by vigorous rubbing, not by the application of any cosmetic.

He drew a chair close to her side and ignored with infinite kindness the fact that his pile of books lay untouched where he had placed them.

“Your neck is just like a column of white marble,” he said. “Are your arms the same — I mean are they as white — under this?”

Very gently and using his hands as if they belonged to someone else, he began rolling up the sleeve of her summer frock. Nance was sufficiently young to be pleased at his admiration and sufficiently experienced not to be shocked at his audacity. She let him turn the sleeve quite far back and smiled sadly to herself as she saw how admirably its freshly starched material showed off the delicacy and softness of the arm thus displayed. She was not even surprised or annoyed when she found that the Doctor, having touched several times with the tips of his fingers the curve of her elbow, possessed himself of her hand and tenderly retained it. She continued to look wistfully and dreamily out of the window, her lips smiling but her heart weary, thinking once more what an ironic and bitter commentary it was on the little ways of the world that amorousness of this sort — gentle and delicate though it might be — was all that was offered her in place of what she was losing.

“You ought to be running barefooted and full of excellent joy,” the voice of Dr. Raughty murmured, “along the sands to-day. You ought to be paddling in the sea with your skirts pinned round your waist! Why don’t you let me take you down there?”

She shook her head, turning her face towards him and releasing her fingers.

“I must get back now,” she remarked, looking him straight in the eyes, “so please give me my things.”

He meekly obeyed her and she put on her hat and gloves. As they were going downstairs, she in front of him, Nance had a remote consciousness that Dr. Raughty murmured something in which she caught Adrian’s name. She let this pass, however, and gave him her hand gratefully as he opened the door for her.

“Mayn’t I even see you home?” he asked.

Once more she shook her head. She felt that her nerves, just then, had had enough of playful tenderness.

“Good-bye!” she cried, leaving him on his threshold.

She cast a wistful glance at Baltazar’s cottage as she crossed the green.

“Oh, Adrian, Adrian,” she moaned, “I’d sooner be beaten by you than loved by all the rest of the world!”

It was with a slow and heavy step that Dr. Raughty ascended his little staircase after he had watched her disappear. Entering his room he approached the pile of books left beside her chair and began transporting them, one by one, to their places in the shelves.

“A sweet creature,” he murmured to himself as he did this, “a sweet creature! May ten thousand cartloads of hornified devils carry that damned Sorio into the pit of Hell!”

NANCE was so absorbed, for several days after this, in making her final arrangements with the dressmaker and getting into touch with the work required of her that she was able to keep her nerves in quite reasonable control. She met Sorio more than once during this time and was more successful than she had dared to hope in the effort of suppressing her jealous passion. Her feelings did not remain, she admitted that to herself sadly enough, on the sublime platonic level indicated by Mr. Traherne, but as long as she made no overt reference to Philippa nor allowed her intercourse with her friend to be poisoned by her wounded pride, she felt she had not departed far from the priest’s high doctrine.

It was from Sorio himself, however, that she learned at last of a new and alarming turn of events, calculated to upset all her plans. This was nothing less than that her fatal presentiment in the churchyard had fulfilled itself and that Brand and Linda were secretly meeting. Sorio seemed surprised at the tragic way she received this news and she was equally indignant at his equanimity over it. The thing that made it worse to her was her deep-rooted suspicion that Rachel Doorm was implicated. Adrian laughed when she spoke of this.

“What did you expect?” he said. “Your charming friend’s an old crony of the Renshaws and nothing would please her better than to see Linda in trouble. She probably arranges their meetings for them. She has the look of a person who’d do that.”

They were walking together along the Mundham road when this conversation took place. It was then about three o’clock and Nance remembered with a sudden sinking of her heart how cheerfully both of her companions had encouraged her to make this particular excursion. She was to walk with Sorio to Mundham and return late in the evening by train.

“I shall go back,” she cried, standing still and looking at him with wild eyes. “This is too horrible! They must have plotted for me to be out of the way. How could Linda do it? But she’s no more idea than a little bird in the hedge what danger she’s in.”

Sorio shrugged his shoulders.

“You can’t go back now,” he protested. “We’re more than two miles away from the bridge. Besides, what’s the use? You can’t do anything. You can’t stop it.”

Nance looked at him with flashing eyes.

“I don’t understand what you mean, Adrian. She’s in danger. Linda’s in danger. Of course I shall go. I’m not afraid of Brand.”

She glanced across the wide expanse of fens. On the southern side of the road, as she looked back, the park trees of Oakguard stood out against the sky and nearer, on the northern side, the gables of Dyke House itself rose above the bank of the river.

“Oh, my dear, my dear,” she cried distractedly, “I must get back to them! I must! I must! Look — there’s our house! You can see its roof! There’s some way — surely — without going right back to the bridge? There must be some way.”

She dragged him to the side of the road. A deep black ditch, bordered by reeds, intersected the meadow and beyond this was the Loon. A small wooden enclosure, isolated and forlorn, lay just inside the field and from within its barrier an enormous drab-coloured sow surveyed them disconsolately, uttering a lamentable squeal and resting its front feet upon the lower bar of its prison, while its great, many-nippled belly swung under it, plain to their view. Their presence as they stood in a low gap of the hedge tantalized the sow and it uttered more and more discordant sounds. It was like an angry impersonation of fecundity, mocking Nance’s agitation.

“Nothing short of wading up to your waist,” said Sorio, surveying the scene, “would get you across that ditch, and nothing short of swimming would get you over the river.”

Angry tears came into Nance’s eyes. “I would do it,” she gasped, “I would do it if I were a man.”

Sorio made a humorous grimace and nodded in the direction of the sow.

“What’s your opinion about it — eh, my beauty?”

At that moment there came the sound of a trotting horse.

“Here’s something,” he added, “that may help you if you’re bent on going.”

They returned to the road and the vehicle soon approached, showing itself, as it came near, to be the little pony-cart of Dr. Raughty. The Doctor proved, as may be imagined, more than willing to give Nance a lift. She declared she was tired but wouldn’t ask him to take her further than the village.