She had been in the scullery only a few minutes considering him thus, when to her straining ears came the harsh, different sound of his voice, saying:
"You've finished, Nessie! You can get into the parlour and begin your work now!" Immediately she steeled herself and reentered the kitchen and, observing Nessie rising in a sad, dejected manner with a cowed look in her eyes to obey his command, at the submission of the child she felt a sudden rush of courage within her and in a quiet voice she addressed her father.
"Father, could Nessie not come for a walk with me before she begins her work?"
But he might have been deaf to her words and utterly oblivious of her presence, for any evidence which he manifested of having heard or seen her; continuing to look at Nessie, he resumed, in a harder tone:
"Off with you, now. And see you stick into it. I'll be in to see how you're getting on."
As Nessie went humbly out of the door, Mary bit her lip and flushed deeply, finding in his silent contempt of her first words to him the realisation of how he proposed to treat her. She could be there, but for him she would not exist! She made no comment, but when he had arisen from the table, and the old woman too had finished and gone out of the room, she began to clear away the dishes into the scullery, observing as she passed in and out of the kitchen that he had taken a bottle and glass from the dresser and had settled himself to drink steadily, with an appearance of habitual exactitude as though he proposed to continue imbibing regularly for the course of the entire evening.
She washed and dried the dishes, cleaned and tidied the scullery, then, with the intention of joining Nessie in the parlour, she entered the kitchen and was about to pass through it, when suddenly, and without looking at her, Brodie shouted from his corner in a fierce, arresting tone:
"Where are you going?"
She halted, looking at him appealingly as she replied:
"I was only going in to see Nessie for a moment, Father not to speak only to watch her."
"Don't go, then," he shot at her, still fixing his eye upon the ceiling and away from her. “I’ll do all the watching of Nessie that's required. You'll kindly keep away from her."
"But, Father," she faltered, "I'm not going to disturb her. I haven't seen her for so long I like to be near her."
"And I like that you shouldn't be near her," he replied bitterly. "You're not the company I want for my daughter. You can cook and work for her and for me too, but keep your hands off her. I'll brook no interference with her or with the work she's set on." This indeed was what she expected, and asking herself why she had come back if it were not to succour Nessie, she stood firmly contemplating him with her quiet gaze, then, mustering all her courage, she said:
"I'm going to Nessie, Father," and moved towards the door.
Only then he looked at her, turning the full force of his malignant eyes upon her, and seizing the bottle by his side he drew himself to his feet and advanced slowly towards her.
"Move another step towards that door," he snarled, "and I'll smash your skull open;" then, as though he hoped that she might disobey him, he stood confronting her, ready to swing fiercely at her head, She retreated, and as she slipped back from him he watched her sneeringly, crying, "That's better. That's much better! We'll have to teach ye manners again, I can see. But, by God! Keep away from Nessie and don't think you can fool me. No woman living can do that now. Another step and I would have finished ye for good."
Then suddenly his ferocious manner dropped from him and he returned to his chair, sat down and, sinking back into his original air of morose and brooding apathy, he resumed his drinking, not apparently for the achievement of gaiety, but as though in a vain, despairing endeavour to obtain oblivion from some secret and unforgettable misery.
Mary sat down at the table. She was afraid to leave the room. Her fear was not physical, not for herself, but for Nessie, and had she not been concerned solely for her sister, she would a moment ago have advanced straight into the threatening sweep of the weapon with which her father had menaced her. Life was of little value to her now, but nevertheless she realised that if she were to help Nessie from the frightful danger which threatened her in this house, she must be not only brave, but wise. She saw that her presence and, indeed, her purpose in the house would mean a bitcer perpetual struggle with her father for the possession of Nessie, and she felt that her own resources were insufficient to cope with this situation to which she had returned. As she sat there watching Brodie soak himself steadily, yet ineffectually, in liquor, she determined to seek assistance without delay and planned carefully what she would do on the following day. When her conception of what she must do lay clearly defined in her mind, she looked around for something to occupy her, but could find nothing no book to read no sewing which she might do, and she was constrained to remain still in the silence of the room, gazing at her father, yet never finding his gaze upon her.
The evening dragged slowly on with lagging hours until she felt that it would never end, that her father would never move, but at last he got up and saying, coldly, "You have your own room. Go to it, but leave Nessie alone in hers", went out and into the parlour where she heard his voice questioning, admonishing Nessie. She put out the light and went slowly upstairs to her own, old room where she undressed and sat down to wait, hearing first Nessie come up, then her father, hearing the sounds of their undressing, finally hearing nothing. Silence filled the house. She waited a long time in this small room where she had already known so much waiting and so much bitter anguish. Fleeting visions of the past rushed before her, of her vigils at the window when she gazed so ceaselessly at the silver trees, of Rose where was she now ? and the throwing of
the apple, of the storm, of her discovery, and in the light of her own sad experience she resolved that she would save Nessie from unhappiness, even at the sacrifice of herself, if it lay within her human power. At this thought she arose noiselessly, opened her door, crept across the landing without a sound, passed into Nessie's room, and slipped into bed beside her sister. She folded her arms around the cold, fragile figure of the child, chafing her frigid feet, warming her against her own body, stilling her sobs, comforting her in endearing whispers and at last soothing her into sleep. There, holding in her embrace the sleeping form of her sister, she remained awake long into the night, thinking.
VI
MARY looked at the picture which hung in solitary distinction against the rich, deep red background of the wall of the room with a rapt contemplation which removed her momentarily from the anxiety and confusion which beset her. She stood, her clear profile etched against the window beyond, head thrown back, lips faintly parted, her luminous eyes fixed absorbedly upon the painting out of which breathed a cool, grey mist that lay upon still, grey water, shrouding softly the tall, quiet trees as silvery as her own trees and sheathing itself around the thin, immobile wands of the rushes which fringed the pool; she was elevated from the confusion of mind in which she had entered this house by the rare and melancholy beauty of the picture which, exhibiting with such restraint this passive mood of nature, seemed to move from out its frame and touch her like a reverie, like a sad yet serene meditation upon the sorrow of her own life.
So engrossed was she by her consideration of the picture, which had caught her eye as she sat embarrassed amongst the tasteful furnishings of the room, so moved from her conflicting feelings by the strange, appealing beauty of the painting which had compelled her to rise involuntarily to stand before it, that she failed to observe the smooth movement of the polished mahogany door as it swung open upon its quiet hinges; nor did she observe the man who had entered the room, and who now gazed at her pale, transfigured profile with a sudden intentness, as silent and as entranced as her own contemplation of the picture. He stood as motionless as she did, as though afraid to break the spell which her appearance had laid upon him, but regarding her with pleasure; waiting, too, until she should have filled her eyes enough with the loveliness of the placid pool.