CHAPTER XXVI
The sun was shining high in the heavens as McTaggart crossed the station yard to the Railway Inn of the little town that lay in the trough of the crumpled hills.
The straggling street, with its poor shops, curving away to the left, was void of life. Not a soul stirred; it might have been a deserted village.
He walked briskly into the bar, where a man in shirt sleeves dozed on a stool behind the counter and woke up with a sudden start at the sight of a stranger.
"Are you the landlord?" asked McTaggart.
"No"—the man stared at him—"he's away, gone to the meeting."
"Well—I want a conveyance at once. I see you keep a livery stable."
"Can't be done," said the man slowly—"there's no carriages left, whatever."
McTaggart frowned. "Where can I get one?"
"Nowheres"—the other smiled sourly. He seemed to enjoy the stranger's plight. "Everything's gone over to Cluar—even the carts—you'd best walk. It's only a mile or two, whatever."
He relapsed again, his arms on the counter, with an air of dismissing the visitor.
McTaggart glanced up at the clock and saw there was no time to lose. He decided to take the barman's advice, but had yet to learn by experience the elastic properties of a mile in Wales by local measurement.
"Which is the nearest way?" he asked, drawing a shilling out of his pocket.
The man sprang up as if worked by a spring. "I'll show you, sir"—his manner had changed. "Indeed to goodness I'm sorry, sir, we've got no carriage in just now, but you'll cut off a corner across the fields if you'll come through here..." he led McTaggart down a grimy passage that smelt of beer out on to greasy cobblestones where they were faced by a tumble-down building advertising "Excellent Garage."
But as they crossed the stable yard McTaggart heard the note of a horn, and turned to see a motor car, covered with dust, pass through the arch and draw up throbbing in their rear.
"Morning, David"—the chauffeur called out. He sprang down. "I've come for the petrol."
"Whose car?" asked McTaggart quickly.
"Mister Llewellyn's," the barman replied, "from Cluarside. That's your way sir"—he opened the gate—"keep straight on, down that path, until you come to the cross roads. Then to the right and up the hill. Thank you, sir." He clutched the coin. "Coming, Charlie..." and was off to the visibly impatient chauffeur.
A sudden thought struck McTaggart. As the barman vanished into the house, he turned back into the yard, with a quick glance at the powerful car.
"Look here..." he addressed the driver. "Could you give me a lift to the meeting?" He felt in his pocket and drew out a sovereign—"I'd make it well worth your while."
The man stared at him, surprised.
"D'you know Mr. Llewellyn, sir?"
McTaggart smiled.
"I'm afraid not. But I've got to get at once to Cluar—and I can't find any other conveyance." He saw the chauffeur's greedy eyes fixed on his hand, and lowering his voice:
"If you can take me there, now," he added, "wait a few minutes and get me back to the station, it's ... five pounds in your pocket."
The man gave a little gasp. McTaggart went on steadily. "I've got to deliver a certain message"—(it seemed the best excuse on the moment)—"then catch the London train (with Jill"—he said to himself—"but that can come later.")
"Mr. Llewellyn's gone to town"—the chauffeur was thinking aloud—"I must get this petrol first..." he glanced back over his shoulder nervously at the barman, who reappeared dragging two tins from under the low stone archway.
"I daren't take you in here, sir," he stooped down as he spoke, pretending to examine a tyre, "but if you'd go across the fields, I'd pick you up at the cross roads."
"All right—that's settled." McTaggart again raised his voice. "A nice car—I wasn't sure who the maker was. Thanks. Good day."
Off he went with a careless nod. The sun poured down on his head, which ached from his long night journey. The stony path felt hot to his feet, adding to his sense of fatigue.
For sleep had been impossible. With every throb of the rocking train he had seemed to hear Bethune's voice and recall scattered, angry phrases.
"I thought ... you meant ... the straight ... game!" This was one of the refrains. The wheels had pounded out the words with the scanded beat of a Greek chorus. Well?—so he did—Bethune was mad! He tried to thrust the thought aside that blame could be attached to him: that, through any carelessness of his, Jill might have suffered. But still it rankled.
"She's only a child..." he said to himself. "She understands. Bethune's an ass! ... And as to 'Aunt Elizabeth'..."
Back it came with hammering force:
"I thought ... you meant ... the straight ... game! ... I thought ... you meant..." He swore aloud.
As the dawn stole in through the windows, wan over the misty hills, the words suddenly changed to these:
"Jill's—not the girl—to love—twice."
They brought a new throb of pain and the man stirred restlessly.
If, after all, Bethune were right? What then...?
He shrank from the thought. Jill to suffer because of him!—Little Jill ... the child he loved....
"Hardly a child!" Bethune had said. On went the wheels, merciless.
"Jill's—not the girl—to love—twice..."
McTaggart remembered suddenly how she had looked on his return when Roddy had played his innocent trick. He could see her sway and clutch the chair.
"Peter!" He heard again the note, strange and emotional in her voice.
And then at the Fair, two years ago, her face when he offered his tawdry gift—the double heart—and the way she had left him, driving home in front with Bethune.
Had he been blind? Did she care?
If so—his face was white and grave—the only decent thing to do was to go away out of her life.
And at the thought he stopped aghast, his whole world upside down.
"I can't do it!"—the words broke from him with a ring of genuine consternation, echoing in the empty carriage that penned him in like a prison cell. For a space he sat, his head bowed down between his hands, blotting out the light, rosy now on a dewy land, heralding in the newborn day.
Then, slowly he looked up, a great wonder on his face.
The rays of the sun were dim beside the white truth that poured in on him.
"Jill ... little Jill..." he whispered her name, conjuring up the grey eyes under their dark curling lashes, and the frank gaze that met his own.
Jill, with her courage and endurance, clever brain and heart of a child. For a moment he held her in his arms—his to teach the meaning of love...
Then—with a sigh—he put her away. For the first time for long years he placed another's happiness before his own. Was it fair to her?
Was he fit to marry Jill? A new-born sense of unworthiness swept aside his desire.
His past life rose up, his old mistrust of himself, the mystery of his "double heart" ... his light and pleasure-loving nature.
He thought of Fantine and Cydonia, of many a pretty woman's face; of this last year in Italy with its careless sequence of adventures.
Could he be faithful to the end?
"Yes!" cried his heart. "Wait," said his brain.
Reason warred with emotion; he stood at the crossroads of his life.
And the stronger, cleaner side of the man rose up in his soul's defence.
He must prove himself, know himself before Jill could become his wife.
He took a vow then and there to pass through a period of probation. But Jill was worth waiting for.
If she cared? ... A doubt stabbed him and he set his teeth, his face dogged.
He would win her—come what may! His thoughts forged fast ahead, he felt the keen thrill of pursuit.
And then the figure of his friend, square set, with honest eyes—that other lover of Jill's—flashed up into the foreground of the picture.
He felt ashamed. He thought of Bethune with a sudden new understanding; the deep sincerity of the man, the meaning of his last words...
Here was love at its highest, purged from all mere passion—a love based on unselfishness, its one object Jill's happiness.
He saw a hard fight ahead, not only with his own desire, but to keep his vow in the knowledge that the girl might suffer through his silence.
Nevertheless, a few hours later, as he crossed the fields, impatience stirred, a longing he had never known for the sight of a loved woman's face. And as he climbed the last stile and found at the meeting of the roads the powerful car awaiting him he hailed the chauffeur with delight.
"There you are!"—he clambered up, seating himself by the driver—"let her go." They were off, the dust in a whirling cloud behind them.
They wound between high rocks, jutting out over the road, through a barren land—it seemed to McTaggart—of lonely hills and sombre valleys; crossed a bridge of crumbling stone over a river shallow and brown, turned a corner, sharp as a knife, and heard the roar of rushing water.
"Falls of Ghyll," said the chauffeur.
Far above them, out of the crags that seemed to pierce the sapphire sky, poured a stream dazzling white, wreathed in spray, mad to escape; leaping down like a storm spirit to kiss the river, that laughed below, with a rippling note of sheer delight, under the golden shafts of sunshine.
McTaggart's blue eyes drank it in. The picture blent with his own mood. So, he would carry Jill away, borne on the flood tide of his love.
"Over that hill, sir," said the chauffeur—"is where the fire was—Miss Morgan's house—the Suffragettes, at it again—I expect you saw it in the papers?"
"Yes—confound them!" said McTaggart.
The man nodded, approving the sentiment.
"They say, sir, they're up to mischief to-day—going to upset the speech-making. I don't envy them if they does!"
The note in his voice spurred McTaggart's fears.
"A rough lot about here?"
"There'll be murder done," said the man grimly. "They don't stop at much when they're roused."
"Are we nearly there?"
The chauffeur nodded. "In five minutes. Just over the rise and down to the valley. The meeting's held on the football ground in Cluar itself. I passed it as I came along. When we get there, sir, I'd best drop you, a bit before, and then run by, turn and come back and wait for you at the foot of the hill, if that will do?"
"Sounds all right—keep the engine going. I shan't be long if I can help it." He swallowed down his anxiety as they started to mount the incline.
Up and up ... Then, with a sense of open space 'neath the roof of heaven, a panorama spread before them like a vast sea of green and gray.
The swelling curves of the mighty Earth, patched with woods and blackened crags, rolled up in giant waves that broke on the sky line, blurred with heat.
Purple mountains, silvery vales; and above, like a scroll of parchment drawn to an endless length across the world and worked on by some long-dead monk in azure and gold illumination, the veil of the sky was stretched, superb, shutting out the face of God.
"What a view!" McTaggart sighed.
Below in the valley he saw grey roofs, like stones carelessly pitched downhill, tiny fields and a gleam of blue where the river glided in and out.
Now they were hovering like a bird over the village; then, as the road, steep and winding, swept them down, the cottages rose all about them. They passed a church, a school, a bridge, and slackened speed.
"Here we are. It's through that gate on the right, sir," the chauffeur pointed down the road.
They could see a field packed with people about an erection of wooden planks, and as the engine ceased to throb McTaggart caught another sound—once heard, never forgotten—the snarling note of an angry crowd.
"Up to mischief," said the chauffeur.
But McTaggart was out, cutting along as hard as his long legs would go, a sick fear in his heart. Where was Jill in this turmoil?
He sprang through a torn gap in the hedge and pushed his way determinedly through the loose fringe of the crowd that surged round the high platform. All around him people were shouting; the mob moved in little rushes, swaying forward, beaten back from the moving centre of disturbance.
Then above the angry hum a shriek rose, shrill with fear. McTaggart saw, for a moment, a figure raised above the heads. A young girl with a bleeding face, hair streaming on the breeze, one shoulder bare and white where the tattered dress had fallen away.
"Down her!" "Duck her!" "To the river..." Wild cries in uncouth Welsh.
McTaggart swore out aloud. He was fighting his way, using his fists, forcing a path mercilessly.
Again he caught a glimpse of the girl. Thank God! it was not Jill.
As he paused to get his breath, an old hag with an evil face sprang up toward the victim and clutched at a streaming lock of hair. With a coarse laugh she tore at it, the claw-like fingers with their trophy waved aloft, as again a scream rent the air and the crowd cheered.
McTaggart's blood went cold at the sight. It was horrible enough for men to lay their rough hands on a girl, but a fellow-woman, a mother, perhaps? He felt physically sick.
For a moment, wedged in and powerless, his brain flashed up another picture, that of the French Revolution and the foul women of the Halles, pressing round the guillotine to dip their hands in the blood of the victims. Was this what Woman's Rights involved?—this civil war among themselves?
And then above the angry hum a clear and brave young voice rang out:
"Votes for Women!"
McTaggart groaned, pride and agony in his heart.
"Jill!"—he shouted with all his strength—"Jill! where are you?"
He felt the serried ranks slacken as the crowd swung back to this new offender.
"Votes for Women!"
Again it rang.
"Votes for..." the voice choked on the word.
McTaggart went fighting mad. He was in the thick of it, charging through, giving and taking blow for blow. Men and women scattered before him.
"Jill! ... Jill!" It was a war cry.
High above them on the platform a puppet of Government waved his arms like an excited marionette, in a shrill voice, urging more "moderation"!
Just as McTaggart reached Jill's side a burly miner caught the girl by the frail collar of her blouse. The thin stuff ripped down to her waist.
"Out you go, you —— ——!" But the last foul word went down his throat under McTaggart's clenched fist, and the man fell back, stunned and bleeding.
"Now—Jill—get behind—quick! Hold onto my coat."
He heard her breathless "Peter!—You!" as they started the perilous retreat.
Once again she cried his name, and, wheeling round, he rescued her from the clutches of two angry women and on again, fighting his way.
Once too he laughed aloud and stepped across a fallen body.
"Look out, Jill!" he shouted back and felt her stumble, dragging his coat.
So at last they cleared the crowd. As he swung her through the hedge something sharp struck his brow. He felt no pain, but a warm, wet stream that ran down, and he brushed it aside impatiently out of his eyes.
More stones whizzed about them. With one arm through Jill's, he started to run, but she gasped:
"I can't ... You go!"
He laughed, happy.
"Now, then..." stooping down, he picked her up in his arms. Her loosened hair fell about him, her bruised hands clasped his neck.
He felt then he could have started and fought the battle through again. He sheltered her, as best he could, striding along toward the car.
The chauffeur, with a white face, helped her in and sprang to his place.
"Now drive like Hell!" said McTaggart.
The man needed no second bidding.
Off they swept, past the church, up and up towards the sky.
McTaggart leaned back with a sigh as the shouts died away behind them. Jill was there—safe—beside him. He thanked God for the fact. Also for a good fight, as he looked down at his bleeding knuckles.
"Well—Jill?" he turned to her. "You all right?"
But she started up, with a shrill cry:
"Peter—your face!..."
Her grey eyes were wide with fear. She gave a little gasp, relaxed, and fell back in a dead faint. For her brave spirit had failed her at last. The sight of the blood still trickling down from the open cut on his smeared cheek had finished the strain on her overwrought nerves. Nature, outraged, had claimed her due, sending oblivion to the spirit in the interest of the taxed flesh.
"Jill—what is it?" McTaggart, frightened, bent over her white face. Mechanically he wiped his own, conscious at last of his injury.
The chauffeur turned his head at the cry.
"The lady ill? I don't wonder! I expect she's only fainted, sir. A nasty business for any man, let alone a woman, sir."
He felt somewhat a hero himself for the part he had played, true to promise.
"Another chap would 'ave driven off"—he soliloquized—"but there ... I couldn't!
"A deep one?—that 'e is!—never a word about 'is girl. But Lor'—'e can use 'is fists. 'E gave Ap Jones a fair knock-out—Serve 'im right too for mauling a lady—not that I hold with this Suffrage business, still"—he switched on the brake—"a lady's a lady, when all's said."
Then out aloud, as the car shot down into sight of the rock-bound valley:
"We'll be coming soon to the Falls of Ghyll. Some water may revive 'er, sir."
Meanwhile McTaggart propped her up, an arm around the limp shoulders. Never had she seemed so dear ... He felt a lump rise in his throat.
"Jill?" He whispered the appeal, but the girl was out of the reach of his voice, far away in those dark lands, whereof no man knows the boundary.
Tenderly he drew together the torn folds of her blouse which showed beneath it a white slip threaded with a narrow ribbon.
He felt a chivalrous pity to see the disorder of her simple dress, and, drawing the pin out of his tie, he tried clumsily, to repair it.
But as he did so he gave a start, a new fear gripping him.
For something red gleamed beneath the thin and tattered material. It looked like a great drop of blood against the fairness of her skin!
He set his teeth. Deliberately, but with unconscious reverence, he drew down the frill of lace where the ribbon held the folds together.
Then he gave a gasp of relief. Into his blue eyes came the light of love victorious; infinite wonder flooded his soul with tenderness.
For there it lay, in the soft hollow between the delicate curves of her breast, in ruby glass with its lover's knot, his "fairing"—the little "double heart"!