CHAPTER XII
“I LOVE YOU!”
DERRICK got back to Beech Lodge in time for lunch and plunged at once into a vastly different atmosphere. The house was servantless, and this very fact had kept Edith too busy to indulge in any morbid reflections, even had her resilient nature felt so inclined. She was moved by the knowledge that her brother had been under a strain which, however incomprehensible to herself, was nevertheless to him very real. It was reflected in his eyes, his restless manner, and the notes that had lain untouched for weeks. She wanted him to get back to his work, to be normal, and above all things happy. She recognized and admired the creative side of him, made allowances for what she considered the essential vagaries of his temperament, and had long since decided to sacrifice herself if necessary on so unusual an altar. She could feel for him, if not with him.
So, returning from the grim scene of Bamberley jail, he found an energetic, practical young person, obviously full of work, and over whom hung but little of the tragedy of the immediate past. She supplied the touch that the moment demanded. He welcomed this, leaned on it far more than he realized, and sat down at the table with a feeling of prodigious relief. The hand of the domestic artist was visible here, and if at times the diaphanous shape of the stiff figure of Perkins seemed to stand close to his shoulder, the sensation did not oppress him. Edith talked generalities till, nearly at the end of the meal, she sent him a frank questioning look.
“Of course I’m just dying to know if anything new came out this morning. Martin turned up an hour ago. He seemed to me like another man, got out his tools and went to work without a word, and it made me more curious than ever. That queer puzzling expression has gone out of his eyes, and I couldn’t help thinking he was something like a dog that had been stolen and found his way back to his old home.”
Derrick nodded cheerfully. “I rather fancy he feels like that, just for the present, anyway, but we’ll probably have to find another gardener. He won’t want to stay here.”
“No, I suppose he couldn’t.” She hesitated a moment, then gave him the straightforward glance he knew so well. “Do you know, Jack, I think we’ve all been rather stupid about that poor woman; yes, I mean you, too.”
“It’s quite possible,” he admitted, “but why?”
“Well, I suppose it’s easy to put things together, afterward; but, looking back at everything, what happened seems in a way as natural as it was dreadful. The poor soul had her terrible secret and took the only way out of it, but couldn’t we have anticipated that somehow?”
“It was the last thing one could imagine.” He went on, and told her some of what had transpired that morning in Bamberley jail, but not all. She listened silently, with little gestures of wonder, and a softened light in her honest, brown eyes. At the story of Martin’s devotion they filled with tears.
“One has heard of men like that with one great passion in their lives that no one else can understand because there seems nothing to bring it to life. Perhaps women are apt to be hard on women, but it’s hard to see how Perkins could have roused such a thing. After all, it may be the men who are queer, and not us. I suppose this story will be all over England in a few days?”