He returned the following evening; the pattern was the same as I remembered it. I did not see him on his return; I only knew that he was in his room, that he did not appear for meals, and that trays were taken up to him.
When at length he did appear he looked so desolate that I longed to comfort him.
At dinner that evening I said to him: ” Father, you are not ill, are you?”
“Ill?” His brows were drawn together in dismay. Why should you think that? “
” Because you look so pale and tired and as though you have something on your mind. I wondered if there’s anything I can do to help. I’m not a child any more, you know.”
” I’m not ill,” he said, without looking at me.
“Then …”
I saw the expression of impatience cross his face, and hesitated. But I decided not to be thrust aside so easily. He was in need of comfort and it was the duty of his daughter to try to give it to him.
” Look here. Father,” I said boldly, ” I feel something is wrong. I might be able to help.”
He looked at me then and the impatience had given way to coolness.
I knew that he had deliberately put up a barrier between us and that he resented my persistence and construed it as inquisitiveness.
” My dear child,” he murmured, ” you are too imaginative.”
He picked up his knife and fork and began paying more attention to his food than he had before I had spoken. I understood. It was a curt dismissal.
I had rarely felt so alone as I did at that moment.
After that our conversation became even more stilted, and often when I addressed him he did not answer. They said in the house that he was suffering from one of his ” bad turns.”
Dilly wrote again, complaining that I never told her what was happening to me. Reading her letters was like listening to her talking; the short sentences, the underlining, the exclamation marks, gave the impression of breathless excitement. She was learning to curtsy; she was taking dancing lessons; the great day was approaching.
It was wonderful to have escaped from Madame and feel oneself no longer a schoolgirl, but a young lady of fashion.
I tried again to write to her, but what could I say? Only this: I’m desperately lonely. This house is a melancholy one. Oh, Dilys, you congratulate yourself because you have left your schooldays behind, and I am here in this sad house, wishing I were at school again.
I tore up that letter and went out to the stables to saddle my mare, Wanda, whom I had taken for my own on my return. I felt as though I were trapped in the web of my childhood, and that my life was going on in the same dismal way for ever.
And the day arrived when Gabriel Rockwell and Friday came into my life.
I had ridden out on to the moors that day as usual and had galloped over the peaty ground to the rough road when I saw the woman and the dog; it was the pitiful condition of the latter which made me slacken my speed. He was a thin pathetic-lo king creature, and about his neck was a rope which acted as a lead. I had always had a special feeling for animals, and the sight of any one of them in distress never failed to rouse my sympathy. The woman, I saw, was a gipsy; this did not surprise me for there were many wandering from encampment to encampment on the moors ; they came to the house selling clothes-pegs and baskets or offering us heather which we could have picked for ourselves. Fanny had no patience with them. ” They’ll get nowt from me,” she would say. ” They’re nob but lazy good-for-nothings, the lot of ‘em.”
I pulled up beside the woman and said: “Why don’t you carry him? He’s too weak to walk.”
“And what’s that to you?” she demanded, and I was aware of her sharp beady eyes beneath a tangle of greying black hair. Then her expression changed; she had noticed my smart riding-habit, my well-cared-for horse, and I saw the cupidity leap into her eyes. I was gentry, and gentry were for fleecing. ” It’s not a bite that’s passed me lips, lady, this day and last. And that’s the gospel truth, without the word of a lie.”
She did not, however, look as though she were starving, but the dog undoubtedly was. He was a little mongrel, with a touch of the terrier, and in spite of his sad condition his eyes were alert; the manner in which he looked at me touched me deeply because I fancied that he was imploring me to rescue him. I was drawn to him in those first moments and I knew that I could not abandon him.
” It’s the dog who looks hungry,” I commented.
” Lord love you, lady, I haven’t had a bite I could share with him these last two days.”
” The rope’s hurting him,” I pointed out. ” Can’t you see that?”
” It’s the only way I can get him along. I’d carry him, if I had the strength. With a little food in me I’d get back me strength.”
I said on impulse: “I’ll buy the dog. I’ll give you a shilling for him.”
” A shilling! Why, lady, I couldn’t bear to part with him. My little friend, that’s what he’s been.” She stooped to the dog, and the way in which he cowered betrayed the true state of affairs, so that I was doubly determined to get him.
“Times is hard, ain’t they, little ‘un?” she went on.
“But we’ve been together too long now for us to be parted for … a shilling.”
I felt in my pockets for money. I knew she would finally accept a shilling for him because she would have to sell a great many clothes-pegs to earn as much; but, being a gipsy, she was going to bargain first. Then to my dismay I discovered that I had come out without money. In the pocket of my habit was one of Fanny’s patties, stuffed with meat and onions, which I had brought with me in case I should not return for luncheon; but it was hardly likely that the gipsy would exchange the dog for that. It was money she wanted; and her eyes had already begun to glisten at the thought of it.
She was watching me intently; so was the dog. Her eyes had grown crafty and suspicious, and the dog’s were more appealing than ever.
I began: ” Look here, I’ve come out without money …”
But even as I spoke her lips curled in disbelief. She gave a vicious jerk at the rope round the dog’s neck and he gave a piteous yelp. “
Quiet!” she snapped; and he cowered again, with his eyes on me.
I wondered whether I could ask the woman to wait at this spot while I rode home to get the money, or whether she would allow me to take the dog and she could call at Glen House for it. I knew that was useless, for she would not trust me any more than I would trust her.
And it was then, as if by chance, that Gabriel appeared. He was galloping across the moor towards the road, and at the sound of a horse’s hoofs the woman and I turned to see who was coming. He was on a black horse which made him seem fairer than he actually was, but his fairness made an immediate impression; so did his elegance. His dark brown coat and breeches were of the finest material and cut; but as he came nearer it was his face which attracted my attention and made it possible for me to do what I did. Looking back afterwards it seemed a strange thing to do to stop a stranger and ask him to lend me a shilling to buy a dog. But there he was, I told him afterwards, like a knight in shining armour, a Perseus or St. George.
There was a brooding melancholy about his delicate features which immediately interested me, although’ this was not so apparent on our first meeting as it was to become later.
I called to him as he came on to the road: ” Stop a moment, please.”