A soft pink afterglow had crept across the garden, though it would be yet light for several hours. In silver flakes through the tree branches the west glowed clear and warm. All of them, even Mrs. Fell, were silent, staring at the tea-service. A wicker chair creaked. Distantly they could hear the clank and jangle of bells; and Rampole pictured the cows, somehow lonely in a vast meadow, being driven home through mysterious dusk. A deeper hum pulsed in the air.
Dorothy Starberth rose suddenly.
"Stupid of me!" she said. "I'd almost forgot. I must go in to the village and get some cigarettes before the tobacconist closes." She smiled at them, with an affected ease which deceived nobody; the smile was like a mask. She glanced with elaborate carelessness at her watch. "It's been divine being here, Mrs. Fell. You must come over to the Hall soon. I say," with an air of inspiration, to Rampole,
"wouldn't you like to walk along with me? You haven't seen our village yet, have you? We've rather a good early Gothic church, as Mr. Saunders would tell you."
"Yes, indeed." The rector seemed to hesitate, looked at them in a heavily paternal way, and waved his hand. "Go along, do. I'll have another cup of tea, if Mrs. Fell doesn't mind. It's so comfortable here," he beamed on his hostess; "makes one ashamed of being lazy."
He sat back with a smug air, as of one who murmurs, "Ah, I was young once!" but Rampole had the impression that he didn't like it at all. It suddenly struck the American that this patronizing old bald-head (sic, in Rampole's inflamed thoughts) had a more than clerical interest in Dorothy Starberth. Why, damn the man-! Come to think of it, the way he had hung over her shoulder, smoothly, as they walked down the lane….
"I had to get out of there," the girl said, half breathlessly. Their quick footsteps rustled in the grass. "I wanted to walk, fast."
"I know."
"When you're walking," she explained, in that same breathless voice, "you feel free; you don't feel you have to keep things in the air, like a juggler, and strain yourself not to drop one Oh!"
They were going down the shadowed lane, where the grass muffled their footsteps. Its junction with the road was hidden by the hedgerows, but they became aware of feet scuffling in the dust out there, and a murmur of conversation. Abruptly one voice rose. It came twitching through the soft air, alive and ugly.
"You know the word for it right enough," the voice said. "The word is Gallows. Yes, and you know it as well as I do."
The voice laughed. Dorothy Starberth stopped, and her face-sharp against the dark-green hedge-was a face of fear.
Chapter 4
"I shall have to hurry to catch that tobacconist," the girl declared, instantly. Her small voice was raised, insistent to be heard. "Good Lord! it's past six o'clock! — But then he always reserves a box of my special brand, every day, and if I'm not there… I say! Hullo, Martin!"
She stepped out into the road, motioning Rampole to follow. The murmur of voices had frozen. Standing in the middle of the road, still with his hand half lifted, a slightly built young man had twisted round to face her. He had the spoiled, self-conscious face of one who generally gets his way with women, with dark hair and a contemptuous mouth; and he was a little drunk. He swayed a little now. Behind him Rampole could see a crooked track in the white dust to show his progress.
"Hello, Dot!" he said, abruptly. "You can certainly sneak up on a fellow. What's the idea?"
He spoke with a strong attempt at an American accent. Laying a hand on the arm of the person with him, he assumed dignity. This latter was obviously a relation; his features were blunt where the other's were delicate, his clothes rode high on him, and his hat did not have the same careless curve as Martin Starberth's, but there was an undeniable resemblance. He looked embarrassed, and his hands seemed too big.
"Been — been in to tea, Dorothy?" he asked, fumbling. "Sorry we're late. We — we were detained."
"Of course," the girl said, impassively. "May I present: Mr. Rampole, Mr. Martin Starberth, Mr. Herbert Starberth. Mr. Rampole's a countryman of yours, Martin."
"You an American?" demanded Martin, in a brisk manner. "That's good. Whereya from? New York? That's good. I just left there. I'm in the publishing business. Whereya staying? — Fell's? That old codger. Look here, come on up to the house and I'll give you a little drink."
"We're going to tea, Martin," Herbert said, with a sort of stolid patience.
"Ah, yell with that tea stuff. Listen, you come up to the house―"
"You'd best not go to tea, Martin," said his sister; "and, please, no more to drink. I wouldn't care, but you know why."
Martin looked at her. "I'm going to tea," he said, sticking out his neck, "and, what's more, I'm going_ to have another little drink. Come on, Bert."
He had forgotten Rampole, for which the American was grateful. He adjusted his hat. He brushed his arms and shoulders, though there was no dust on him, and straightened up, clearing his throat. As the stolid Herbert guided him on, Dorothy whispered: "Don't let him go there, and see that he's all right by dinner-time. Do you hear?"
Martin heard it, too. He turned, put his head on one side; and folded his arms.
"You think I'm drunk, don't you?" he demanded, studying her.
"Please, Martin!"
"Well, I'll show you whether I'm drunk or not! Come on, Bert."
Rampole quickened his step beside the girl as they moved off the other way. As they turned a bend in the road he could hear the cousins arguing, Herbert in a low voice, and Martin vociferously, his hat pulled down on his eyebrows.
For a time they walked in silence. That momentary encounter had jarred against the fragrance of the hedgerows, but it was swept away by the wind over the grass in the meadows that surrounded them. The sky was watery yellow, luminous as glass, along the west; firs stood up black against it, and even the low bog water had lights of gold.
Here were the lowlands, sloping up into wolds; and from a distance the flocks of white-faced sheep looked like toys out of a child's Noah's ark.
"You mustn't think," the girl-said, looking straight ahead of her and speaking very low — "you mustn't think he's always like that. He isn't. But just now there's so much on his mind, and he tries to conceal it by drinking, and it comes out in bravado."
"I knew there was a lot on his mind. You can't blame him." '
"Dr. Fell told you?"
"A little. He said it was no secret."
She clenched her hands. "Oh no. That's the worst of it. It's no secret. Everybody knows, and they all turn their heads away. You're alone with it, do you see? They can't talk about it in public; it isn't done. They can't talk about it to me. And I can't mention it either… "
A pause. Then she turned to him almost fiercely.
"You say you understand, and it's nice of you; but you don't! Growing up with the thing… I remember, when Martin and I were tiny children, mother holding us each up to the window so that we could see the prison. She's dead now, you know. And father."
He said, gently, "Don't you think you're making too much of a legend?"
"I told you — you wouldn't understand."
Her voice was dry and monotonous, and he felt a stab. He was conscious of searching desperately for words, feeling his inadequacy every time he found one; yet groping after a common point with her, as he might have groped after a lamp in a haunted room.
"I'm not intelligent about practical things," he said, blankly. "When I get away from books or football, and up against the world, I'm just mixed up. But I think that, whatever you told me, I would understand it, provided it concerned you."