The Three Sisters

by May Sinclair

XLVIII

Alice had sent for Gwenda.

Three months had gone by since her sister's wedding, and all her fears were gathered together in the fear of her father and of what was about to happen to her.

And before Gwenda could come to her, Rowcliffe and Mary had come to the Vicar in his study. They had been a long time with him, and then Rowcliffe had gone out. They had sent him to Upthorne. And the two had gone into the dining-room and they had her before them there.

It was early in a dull evening in February. The lamps were lit and in their yellow light Ally's face showed a pale and quivering exaltation. It was the face of a hunted and terrified thing that has gathered courage in desperation to turn and stand. She defended herself with sullen defiance and denial.

It had come to that. For Ned, the shepherd at Upthorne, had told what he had seen. He had told it to Maggie, who told it to Mrs. Gale. He had told it to the head-gamekeeper at Garthdale Manor, who had a tale of his own that he too had told. And Dr. Harker had a tale. Harker had taken his friend's practice when Rowcliffe was away on his honeymoon. He had seen Alice and Greatorex on the moors at night as he had driven home from Upthorne. And he had told Rowcliffe what he had seen. And Rowcliffe had told Mary and the Vicar.

And at the cottage down by the beck Essy Gale and her mother had spoken together, but what they had spoken and what they had heard they had kept secret.

"I haven't been with him," said Alice for the third time. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Ally—there's no use your saying that when you've been seen with him."

It was Mary who spoke.

"I ha—haven't."

"Don't lie," said the Vicar.

"I'm not. They're l-l-lying," said Ally, shaken into stammering now.

"Who do you suppose would lie about it?" Mary said.

"Essy would."

"Well—I may tell you, Ally, that you're wrong. Essy's kept your secret. So has Mrs. Gale. You ought to go down on your knees and thank the poor girl—after what you did to her."

"It was Essy. I know. She's mad to marry him herself, so she goes lying about me."

"Nobody's lying about her," said the Vicar, "but herself. And she's condemning herself with every word she says. You'd better have left Essy out of it, my girl."

"I tell you that she's lying if she says she's seen me with him. She's never seen me."

"It wasn't Essy who saw you," Mary said.

"Somebody else is lying then. Who was it?"

"If you must know who saw you," the Vicar said, "it was Dr. Harker. You were seen a month ago hanging about Upthorne alone with that fellow."

"Only once," Ally murmured.

"You own to 'once'? You—you——" he stifled with his fury. "Once is enough with a low blackguard like Greatorex. And you were seen more than once. You've been seen with him after dark." He boomed. "There isn't a poor drunken slut in the village who's disgraced herself like you."

Mary intervened. "Sh—sh—Papa. They'll hear you in the kitchen."

"They'll hear her." (Ally was moaning.) "Stop that whimpering and whining."

"She can't help it."

"She can help it if she likes. Come, Ally, we're all here——Poor Mary's come up and Steven. There are things we've got to know and I insist on knowing them. You've brought the most awful trouble and shame on me and your sister and brother-in-law, and the least you can do is to answer truthfully. I can't stand any more of this distressing altercation. I'm not going to extort any painful confession. You've only got to answer a simple Yes or No. Were you anywhere with Jim Greatorex before Dr. Harker saw you in December? Think before you speak. Yes or No."

She thought.

"N-no."

"Remember, Ally," said Mary, "he saw you in November."

"He didn't. Where?"

The Vicar answered her. "At your sister's wedding."

She recovered. "Of course he did. Jim Greatorex wasn't there, anyhow."

"He was not."

The stress had no significance for Ally. Her brain was utterly bewildered.

"Well. You say you were never anywhere with Greatorex before December.
You were not with him in—when was it, Mary?"

"August," said Mary. "The end of August."

Ally simply stared at him in her white bewilderment. Dates had no meaning as yet for her cowed brain.

He helped her.

"In the Three Fields. On a Sunday afternoon. Did you or did you not go into the barn?"

At that she cried out with a voice of anguish. "No—No—No!"

But Mary had her knife ready and she drove it home.

"Ally—Ned Langstaff saw you."

* * * * *

When Rowcliffe came back from Upthorne he found Alice cowering in a corner of the couch and crying out to her tormentors.

"You brutes—you brutes—if Gwenda was here she wouldn't let you bully me!"

Mary turned to her husband.

"Steven—will you speak to her? She won't tell us anything. We've been at it more than half an hour."

Rowcliffe stared at her and the Vicar with strong displeasure.

"I should think you had by the look of her. Why can't you leave the poor child alone?"

At the sound of his voice, the first voice of compassion that had yet spoken to her, Alice cried to him.

"Steven! Steven! They've been saying awful things to me. Tell them it isn't true. Tell them you don't believe it."

"There—there——" His voice stuck in his throat.

He put his hand on her shoulder, standing between her and her father.

"Tell them——" She looked up at him with her piteous eyes.

"She's worried to death," said Rowcliffe. "You might have left it for to-night at any rate."

"We couldn't, Steven, when you've sent for Greatorex. We must get at the truth before he comes."

Rowcliffe shrugged his shoulders.

"Have you brought him?" said the Vicar.

"No, I haven't. He's in Morfe. I've sent word for him to come on here."

Alice looked sharply at him.

"What have you sent for him for? Do you suppose he'd give me away?"

She began to weep softly.

"All this," said Rowcliffe, "is awfully bad for her."

"You don't seem to consider what it is for us."

Rowcliffe took no notice of the Vicar.

"Look here, Mary—you'd better take her upstairs before he comes. Put her to bed. Try and get her to sleep."

"Very well. Come, Ally." Mary was gentler now.

Then Ally became wonderful.

She stood up and faced them all.

"I won't go," she said. "I'll stay till he comes if I sit up all night. How do I know what you're going to do to him? Do you suppose I'm going to leave him with you? If anybody touches him I'll kill them."

"Ally, dear——"

Mary put her hand gently on her sister's arm to lead her from the room.

Ally shook off the hand and turned on her in hysteric fury.

"Stop pawing me—you! How dare you touch me after what you've said.
Steven—she says I took Essy's lover from her."

"I didn't, Ally. She doesn't know what she's saying."

"You did say it. She did, Steven. She said I ought to thank Essy for not splitting on me when I took her lover from her. As if she could talk when she took Steven from Gwenda."

"Oh—Steven!"

Rowcliffe shook his head at Mary, frowning, as a sign to her not to mind what Alice said.

"You treat me as if I was dirt, but I'd have died rather than have done what she did."

"Come, Alice, come. You know you don't mean it," said Rowcliffe, utterly gentle.

"I do mean it! She sneaked you from behind Gwenda's back and lied to you to make you think she didn't care for you——"

"Be quiet, you shameful girl!"

"Be quiet yourself, Papa. I'm not as shameful as Molly is. I'm not as shameful as you are yourself. You killed Mother."

"Oh—my—God——" The words were almost inaudible in the Vicar's shuddering groan.

He advanced on her to turn her from the room. Ally sank on her sofa as she saw him come.

Rowcliffe stepped between them.

"For God's sake, sir——"

Ally was struggling in hysterics now, choking between her piteous and savage cries.

Rowcliffe laid her on the sofa and put a cushion under her head. When he tried to loosen her gown at her throat she screamed.

"It's all right, Ally, it's all right."

"Is it? Is it?" The Vicar hissed at him.

"It won't be unless you leave her to me. If you go on bullying her much longer I won't answer for the consequences. You surely don't want——"

"It's all right, Ally. Lie quiet, there—like that. That's a good girl. Nobody's going to worry you any more."

He was kneeling by the sofa, pressing his hand to her forehead. Ally still sobbed convulsively, but she lay quiet. She closed her eyes under Rowcliffe's soothing hand.

"You might go and see if you can find some salvolatile, Mary," he said.

Mary went.

The Vicar, who had turned his back on this scene, went, also, into his study.

Ally still kept her eyes shut.

"Has Mary gone?"

"Yes."

"And Papa?"

"Yes. Lie still."

She lay still.

* * * * *

There was the sound of wheels on the road. It brought Mary and the
Vicar back into the room. The wheels stopped. The gate clanged.

Rowcliffe rose.

"That's Greatorex. I'll go to him."

Ally lay very still now, still as a corpse, with closed eyes.

The house door opened.

Rowcliffe drew back into the room.

"It isn't Greatorex," he said. "It's Gwenda."

"Who sent for her?" said the Vicar.

"I did," said Ally.

She had opened her eyes.

"Thank God for that, anyhow," said Rowcliffe.

Mary and her father looked at each other. Neither of them seemed to want to go out to Gwenda. It struck Rowcliffe that the Vicar was afraid.

They waited while Gwenda paid her driver and dismissed him. They could hear her speaking out there in the passage.

The house door shut and she came to them. She paused in the doorway, looking at the three who stood facing her, embarrassed and expectant. She seemed to be thinking that it was odd that they should stand there. The door, thrown back, hid Alice, who lay behind it on her sofa.

"Come in, Gwenda," said the Vicar with exaggerated suavity.

She came in and closed the door. Then she saw Alice.

She took the hand that Rowcliffe held out to her without looking at him. She was looking at Alice.

Alice gave a low cry and struggled to her feet.

"I thought you were never coming," she said.

Gwenda held her in her arms. She faced them.

"What have you been doing to her—all of you?"

Rowcliffe answered. Though he was the innocent one of the three he looked the guiltiest. He looked utterly ashamed.

"We've had rather a scene, and it's been a bit too much for her," he said.

"So I see," said Gwenda. She had not greeted Mary or her father.

"If you could persuade her to go upstairs to bed——"

"I've told you I won't go till he comes," said Ally.

She sat down on the sofa as a sign that she was going to wait.

"Till who comes?" Gwenda asked.

She stared at the three with a fierce amazement. And they were abashed.

"She doesn't know, Steve," said Mary.

"I certainly don't," said Gwenda.

She sat down beside Ally.

"Has anybody been bullying you, Ally?"

"They've all been bullying me except Steven. Steven's been an angel.
He doesn't believe what they say. Papa says I'm a shameful girl, and
Mary says I took Jim Greatorex from Essy. And they think——"

"Never mind what they think, darling."

"I must protest——"

The Vicar would have burst out again but that his son-in-law restrained him.

"Better leave her to Gwenda," he said.

He opened the door of the study. "Really, sir, I think you'd better.
And you, too, Mary."

And with her husband's compelling hand on her shoulder Mary went into the study.

The Vicar followed them.

* * * * *

As the door closed on them Alice looked furtively around.

"What is it, Ally?" Gwenda said.

"Don't you know?" she whispered.

"No. You haven't told me anything."

"You don't know why I sent for you? Can't you think?"

Gwenda was silent.

"Gwenda—I'm in the most awful trouble——" She looked around again.
Then she spoke rapidly and low with a fearful hoarse intensity.

"I won't tell them, but I'll tell you. They've been trying to get it out of me by bullying, but I wasn't going to let them. Gwenda—they wanted to make me tell straight out, there—before Steven. And I wouldn't—I wouldn't. They haven't got a word out of me. But it's true, what they say."

She paused.

"About me."

"My lamb, I don't know what they say about you."

"They say that I'm going to——"

Crouching where she sat, bent forward, staring with her stare, she whispered.

"Oh—Ally—darling——"

"I'm not ashamed, not the least little bit ashamed. And I don't care what they think of me. But I'm not going to tell them. I've told you because I know you won't hate me, you won't think me awful. But I won't tell Mary, and I won't tell Papa. Or Steven. If I do they'll make me marry him."

"Was it—was it——"

Ally's instinct heard the name that her sister spared her.

"Yes—Yes—Yes. It is."

She added, "I don't care."

"Ally—what made you do it?"

"I don't—know."

"Was it because of Steven?"

Ally raised her head.

"No. It was not. Steven isn't fit to black his boots. I know that——"

"But—you don't care for him?"

"I did—I did. I do. I care awfully——"

"Well——"

"Oh, Gwenda, can they make me marry him?"

"You don't want to marry him?"

Ally shook her head, slowly, forlornly.

"I see. You're ashamed of him."

"I'm not ashamed. I told you I wasn't. It isn't that——"

"What is it?"

"I'm afraid."

"Afraid——"

"It isn't his fault. He wants to marry me. He wanted to all the time.
He never meant that it should be like this. He asked me to marry him.
Before it happened. Over and over again he asked me and I wouldn't
have him."

"Why wouldn't you?"

"I've told you. Because I'm afraid."

"Why are you afraid?"

"I don't know. I'm not really afraid of him. I think I'm afraid of what he might do to me if I married him."

"Do to you?"

"Yes. He might beat me. They always do, you know, those sort of men, when you marry them. I couldn't bear to be beaten."

"Oh——" Gwenda drew in her breath.

"He wouldn't do it, Gwenda, if he knew what he was about. But he might
if he didn't. You see, they say he drinks. That's what frightens me.
That's why I daren't tell Papa. Papa wouldn't care if he did beat me.
He'd say it was my punishment."

"If you feel like that about it you mustn't marry him."

"They'll make me."

"They shan't make you. I won't let them. It'll be all right, darling. I'll take you away with me to-morrow, and look after you, and keep you safe."

"But—they'll have to know."

"Yes. They'll have to know. I'll tell them."

She rose.

"Stay here," she said. "And keep quiet. I'm going to tell them now."

"Not now—please, not now."

"Yes. Now. It'll be all over. And you'll sleep."

* * * * *

She went in to where they waited for her.

Her father and her sister lifted their eyes to her as she came in.
Rowcliffe had turned away.

"Has she said anything?"

(Mary spoke.)

"Yes."

The Vicar looked sternly at his second daughter.

"She denies it?"

"No, Papa. She doesn't deny it."

He drove it home. "Has—she—confessed?"

"She's told me it's true—what you think."

In the silence that fell on the four Rowcliffe stayed where he stood, downcast and averted. It was as if he felt that Gwenda could have charged him with betrayal of a trust.

The Vicar looked at his watch. He turned to Rowcliffe.

"Is that fellow coming, or is he not?"

"He won't funk it," said Rowcliffe.

He turned. His eyes met Gwenda's. "I think I can answer for his coming."

"Do you mean Jim Greatorex?" she said.

"Yes."

"What is it that he won't funk?"

She looked from one to the other. Nobody answered her. It was as if they were, all three, afraid of her.

"I see," she said. "If you ask me I think he'd much better not come."

"My dear Gwenda——" The Vicar was deferent to the power that had dragged Ally's confession from her.

"We must get through with this. The sooner the better. It's what we're all here for."

"I know. Still—I think you'll have to leave it."

"Leave it?"

"Yes, Papa."

"We can't leave it," said Rowcliffe. "Something's got to be done."

The Vicar groaned and Rowcliffe had pity on him.

"If you'd like me to do it—I can interview him."

"I wish you would."

"Very well." He moved uneasily. "I'd better see him here, hadn't I?"

"You'd better not see him anywhere," said Gwenda. "He can't marry her."

She held them all three by the sheer shock of it.

The Vicar spoke first. "What do you mean, 'he can't'? He must."

"He must not. Ally doesn't want to marry him. He asked her long ago and she wouldn't have him."

"Do you mean," said Rowcliffe, surprised out of his reticence, "before this happened?"

"Yes."

"And she wouldn't have him?"

"No. She was afraid of him."

"She was afraid of him—and yet——" It was Mary who spoke now.

"Yes, Mary. And yet—she cared for him."

The Vicar turned on her.

"You're as bad as she is. How can you bring yourself to speak of it, if you're a modest girl? You've just told us that your sister's shameless. Are we to suppose that you're defending her?"

"I am defending her. There's nobody else to do it. You've all set on her and tortured her——"

"Not all, Gwenda," said Rowcliffe. But she did not heed him.

"She'd have told you everything if you hadn't frightened her. You haven't had an atom of pity for her. You've never thought of her for a minute. You've been thinking of yourselves. You might have killed her. And you didn't care."

The Vicar looked at her.

"It's you, Gwenda, who don't care."

"About what she's done, you mean? I don't. You ought to be gentle with her, Papa. You drove her to it."

Rowcliffe answered.

"We'll not say what drove her, Gwenda."

"She was driven," she said.

"'Let no man say he is tempted of God when he is driven by his own lusts and enticed,'" said the Vicar.

He had risen, and the movement brought him face to face with Gwenda. And as she looked at him it was as if she saw vividly and for the first time the profound unspirituality of her father's face. She knew from what source his eyes drew their darkness. She understood the meaning of the gross red mouth that showed itself in the fierce lifting of the ascetic, grim moustache. And she conceived a horror of his fatherhood.

"No man ought to say that of his own daughter. How does he know what's her own and what's his?" she said.

Rowcliffe stared at her in a sort of awful admiration. She was terrible; she was fierce; she was mad. But it was the fierceness and the madness of pity and of compassion.

She went on.

"You've no business to be hard on her. You must have known."

"I knew nothing," said the Vicar.

He appealed to her with a helpless gesture of his hands.

"You did know. You were warned. You were told not to shut her up. And you did shut her up. You can't blame her if she got away. You flung her to Jim Greatorex. There wasn't anybody who cared for her but him."

"Cared for her!" He snarled his disgust.

"Yes. Cared for her. You think that's horrible of her—that she should have gone to him—and yet you want to tie her to him when she's afraid of him. And I think it's horrible of you."

"She must marry him." Mary spoke again. "She's brought it on herself,
Gwenda."

"She hasn't brought it on herself. And she shan't marry him."

"I'm afraid she'll have to," Rowcliffe said.

"She won't have to if I take her away somewhere and look after her. I mean to do it. I'll work for her. I'll take care of the child."

"Oh, you—you——!" The Vicar waved her away with a frantic flapping of his hands.

He turned to his son-in-law.

"Rowcliffe—I beg you—will you use your influence?"

"I have none."

That drew her. "Steven—help me—can't you see how terrible it is if she's afraid of him?"

"But is she?"

He looked at her with his miserable eyes, then turned them from her, considering gravely what she had said. It was then, while Rowcliffe was considering it, that the garden gate opened violently and fell to.

They waited for the sound of the front door bell.

Instead of it they heard two doors open and Ally's voice calling to
Greatorex in the hall.

As the Vicar flung himself from his study into the other room he saw Alice standing close to Greatorex by the shut door. Her lover's arms were round her.

He laid his hands on them as if to tear them apart.

"You shall not touch my daughter—until you've married her."

The young man's right arm threw him off; his left arm remained round
Alice.

"It's yo' s'all nat tooch her, Mr. Cartaret," he said. "Ef yo' coom between her an' mae I s'all 'ave t' kill yo'. I'd think nowt of it. Dawn't yo' bae freetened, my laass," he murmured tenderly.

The next instant he was fierce again.

"An' look yo' 'ere, Mr. Cartaret. It was yo' who aassked mae t' marry Assy. Do yo' aassk mae t' marry Assy now? Naw! Assy may rot for all yo' care. (It's all right, my sweet'eart. It's all right.) I'd a married Assy right enoof ef I'd 'a' looved her. But do yo' suppawss I'd 'a' doon it fer yore meddlin'? Naw! An' yo' need n' aassk mae t' marry yore daughter—(There—there—my awn laass)—"

"You are not going to be asked," said Gwenda. "You are not going to marry her."

"Gwenda," said the Vicar, "you will be good enough to leave this to me."

"It can't be left to anybody but Ally."

"It s'all be laft to her," said Greatorex.

He had loosened his hold of Alice, but he still stood between her and her father.

"It's for her t' saay ef she'll 'aave mae."

"She has said she won't, Mr. Greatorex."

"Ay, she's said it to mae, woonce. But I rackon she'll 'ave mae now."

"Not even now."

"She's toald yo'?"

He did not meet her eyes.

"Yes."

"She's toald yo' she's afraid o' mae?"

"Yes. And you know why."

"Ay. I knaw. Yo're afraid o' mae, Ally, because yo've 'eard I haven't always been as sober as I might bae; but yo're nat 'aalf as afraid o' mae, droonk or sober, as yo' are of yore awn faather. Yo' dawn't think I s'all bae 'aalf as 'ard an' crooil to yo' as yore faather is. She doosn't, Mr. Cartaret, an' thot's Gawd's truth."

"I protest," said the Vicar.

"Yo' stond baack, sir. It's for 'er t' saay."

He turned to her, infinitely reverent, infinitely tender.

"Will yo' staay with 'im? Or will yo' coom with mae?"

"I'll come with you."

With one shoulder turned to her father, she cowered to her lover's breast.

"Ay, an' yo' need n' be afraaid I'll not bae sober. I'll bae sober enoof now. D'ye 'ear, Mr. Cartaret? Yo' need n' bae afraaid, either. I'll kape sober. I'd kape sober all my life ef it was awnly t' spite yo'. An' I'll maake 'er 'appy. For I rackon theer's noothin' I could think on would spite yo' moor. Yo' want mae t' marry 'er t' poonish 'er. I knaw."

"That'll do, Greatorex," said Rowcliffe.

"Ay. It'll do," said Greatorex with a grin of satisfaction.

He turned to Alice, the triumph still flaming in his face. "Yo're nat afraaid of mae?"

"No," she said gently. "Not now."

"Yo navver were," said Greatorex; and he laughed.

That laugh was more than Mr. Cartaret could bear. He thrust out his face toward Greatorex.

Rowcliffe, watching them, saw that he trembled and that the thrust-out, furious face was flushed deeply on the left side.

The Vicar boomed.

"You will leave my house this instant, Mr. Greatorex. And you will never come into it again."

But Greatorex was already looking for his cap.

"I'll navver coom into et again," he assented placably.

* * * * *

There were no prayers at the Vicarage that night.

* * * * *

It was nearly eleven o'clock. Greatorex was gone. Gwenda was upstairs helping Alice to undress. Mary sat alone in the dining-room, crying steadily. The Vicar and Rowcliffe were in the study.

In all this terrible business of Alice, the Vicar felt that his son-in-law had been a comfort to him.

"Rowcliffe," he said suddenly, "I feel very queer."

"I don't wonder, sir. I should go to bed if I were you."

"I shall. Presently."

The one-sided flush deepened and darkened as he brooded. It fascinated
Rowcliffe.

"I think it would be better," said the Vicar slowly, "if I left the parish. It's the only solution I can see."

He meant to the problem of his respectability.

Rowcliffe said yes, perhaps it would be better.

He was thinking that it would solve his problem too.

For he knew that there would be a problem if Gwenda came back to her father.

The Vicar rose heavily and went to his roll-top desk. He opened it and began fumbling about in it, looking for things.

He was doing this, it seemed to his son-in-law, for quite a long time.

But it was only eleven o'clock when Mary heard sounds in the study that terrified her, of a chair overturned and of a heavy body falling to the floor. And then Steven called to her.

She found him kneeling on the floor beside her father, loosening his clothes. The Vicar's face, which she discerned half hidden between the bending head of Rowcliffe and his arms, was purple and horribly distorted.

Rowcliffe did not look at her.

"He's in a fit," he said. "Go upstairs and fetch Gwenda. And for God's sake don't let Ally see him."