John Powys - Rodmoor

The unhappy child actually succeeded at last in freeing herself and sprang away towards the open. Nance flung herself after her and, seizing her in her arms, half-dragged her, half-carried her, back to where the trees grew thick. But even there the struggle continued. The girl kept gasping out, “He loves me, I tell you! He loves me!” and with every repetition of this cry she fought fiercely to extricate herself from the other’s embrace. While this went on the wind, which had been gusty all the afternoon, began to increase in violence, blowing from the north and making the branches of the pines creak and mutter over their heads. A heavy bank of clouds covered the sun and the air grew colder. Nance felt her strength weakening. Was fate indeed going to compel her to give up, after all she had endured?

She twined her arms round her sister’s body and the two girls swayed back and forwards over the dry, sweet-scented pine-needles. Their scantily-clothed limbs were locked tightly together and, as they struggled, their breasts heaved and their hearts beat in desperate reciprocity.

“Let me go! I hate you! I hate you!” gasped Linda, and at that moment, stumbling over a moss-covered root, they fell together on the ground.

The shock of the fall and the strain of the struggle threw the younger girl into something like a fit of hysteria. She began screaming and Nance, fearful lest the sound should reach Brand’s ears, put her hand over the child’s mouth. The precaution was unnecessary. The wind had increased now to such a pitch that through the moaning branches and rustling foliage nothing could be heard outside the limits of the wood.

“I hate you! I hate you!” shrieked Linda, biting in her frenzy at the hand which was pressed against her mouth. Nance’s nerves had reached the breaking point.

“Won’t you help me, God?” she cried out.

Suddenly Linda’s violence subsided. Two or three shuddering spasms passed through her body and her lips turned white. Nance released her hold and rose to her feet. The child’s head fell back upon the ground and her eyes closed. Nance watched her with fearful apprehension. Had she hurt her heart in their struggle? Was she dying? But the girl did not even lose consciousness. She remained perfectly still for several minutes and then, opening her eyes, threw upon her sister a look of tragic reproach.

“You’ve won,” she whispered faintly. “You’re too strong for me. But I’ll never forgive you for this — never — never — never!”

Once more she closed her eyes and lay still. Nance, kneeling by her side, tried to take one of her hands but the girl drew it away.

“Yes, you’ve won,” she repeated, fixing upon her sister’s face a look of helpless hatred. “And shall I tell you why you’ve done this? Shall I tell you why you’ve stopped my going to him?” she went on, in a low exhausted voice. “You’ve done it because you’re jealous of me, because you can’t make Adrian love you as you want, because Adrian’s got so fond of Philippa! You can’t bear the idea of Brand loving me as he does — so much more than Adrian loves you!”

Nance stared at her aghast. “Oh, Linda, my little Linda!” she whispered, “how can you say these terrible things? My only thought, all the time, is for you.”

Linda struggled feebly to her feet, refusing her sister’s help.

“I can walk,” she said, and then, with a bitterness that seemed to poison the air between them, “you needn’t be afraid of my escaping from you. He wouldn’t like me now, you’ve hurt me and made me ugly.”

Nance picked up her bundle of mud-stained clothes. The smell of the river which still clung to them gave her a sense of nausea.

“Come,” she said, “we’ll follow the park wall.”

They moved off slowly together without further speech and never did any hour, in either of their lives, pass more miserably. As they came within sight of Oakguard, Linda looked so white and exhausted that Nance was on the point of taking her boldly in and begging Mrs. Renshaw’s help, but somehow the thought of meeting Philippa just at that moment was more than she was able to endure, and they dragged on towards the village.

Emerging from the park gates and coming upon the entrance to the green, Nance became aware that it would be out of the question to make Linda walk any further and, after a second’s hesitation, she led her across the grass and under the sycamores to Baltazar’s cottage.

The door was opened by Mr. Stork himself. He started back in astonishment at the sight of their two figures pale and shivering in the wind. He led them into his sitting-room and at once proceeded to light the fire. He wrapped warm rugs round them both and made them some tea. All this he did without asking them any questions, treating the whole affair as if it were a thing of quite natural occurrence. The warmth of the fire and the pleasant taste of the epicure’s tea restored Nance, at any rate, to some degree of comfort. She explained that they had walked too far and that she had tried to cross the river to get help for her sister. Linda said hardly anything but gazed despairingly at the picture of the Ambassador’s secretary. The young Venetian seemed to answer her look and Baltazar, always avid of these occult sympathies, watched this spiritual encounter with sly amusement. He had wrapped an especially brilliant oriental rug round the younger girl and the contrast between its rich colours and the fragile beauty of the face above them struck him very pleasantly.

In his heart he shrewdly guessed that some trouble connected with Brand was at the bottom of this and the suspicion that she had been interfering with her sister’s love affair did not diminish the prejudice he had already begun to cherish against Nance. Stork was constitutionally immune from susceptibility to feminine charm and the natural little jests and gaieties with which the poor girl tried to “carry off” a sufficiently embarrassing Situation only irritated him the more.

“Why must they always play their tricks and be pretty and witty?” he thought. “Except when one wants to make love to them they ought to sit still.” And with a malicious desire to annoy Nance he began making much of Linda, persuading her to lie down on the sofa and wrapping an exquisite cashmere shawl round her feet.

To test the truth of his surmise as to the cause of their predicament, he unexpectedly brought in Brand’s name.

“Our friend Adrian,” he remarked, “refuses to allow that Mr. Renshaw’s a handsome man. What do you ladies think about that?”

His device met with instant success. Linda turned crimson and Nance made a gesture as if to stop him.

“Ha! Ha!” he laughed to himself, “so that’s how the wind blows. Our little sister must be allowed no kind of fun, though we ourselves may flirt with the whole village.”

He continued to pay innumerable attentions to Linda. Professing that he wished to tell her fortune he drew his chair to her side and began a long rigamarole about heart lines and life lines and dark men and fair men. Nance simply moved closer to the fire while this went on and warmed her hands at its blaze.

“I must ask him to fetch us a trap from the Inn,” she thought. “I wish Adrian would come. I wonder if he will, before we go.”

Partly by reason of the fact that he had himself arranged her drapery and partly because of a touch of something in the child’s face which reminded him of certain pictures of Pinturicchio, Baltazar began to feel tenderer towards Linda than he had done for years towards any feminine creature. This amused him immensely and he gave the tenuous emotion full rein. But it irritated him that he couldn’t really vex his little protégé’s sister.

“I expect,” he said, replacing Linda’s white fingers upon the scarlet rug, “I expect, Miss Herrick, you’re beginning to feel the effects of our peculiar society. Yes, that’s my Venetian boy, Flambard”—this was addressed to Linda—“isn’t he delicious? Wouldn’t you like to have him for a lover? — for Rodmoor is a rather curious place. It’s a disintegrating place, you know, a place where one loses one’s identity and forgets the rules. Of course it suits me admirably because I never consider rules, but you — I should think — must find it somewhat disturbing? Fingal maintains there’s a definite physiological cause for the way people behave here. For we all behave very badly, you know, Miss Herrick. He says it’s the effect of the North Sea. He says all the old families that live by the North Sea get queer in time, — take to drink, I mean, or something of that sort. It’s an interesting idea, isn’t it? But I suppose that sort of thing doesn’t appeal to you? You take — what do you call it? — a more serious view of life.”