“I always knew this was bound to happen,” she said. “I knew a day would come when you would see me as I am, and not just as you chose to see me. You’ve always made an idol of me, though I’ve tried hard enough, in all conscience, to undeceive you! I’m not a goddess to be worshipped or a baby to be petted and soothed. I’m simply a woman chock-full of faults, and if you’d shown me you knew it and didn’t mind, you could have had me long since. Now—I’ll never be your idol again. It’s true that I knew Mr. Grant cared—true that I encouraged him. I won’t lie to you. I was jealous of his influence in the village, and I knew that if he fell in love with me he’d have to lay down his arms. So I led him on. Do you hear, Larry? Take that home, and get it deep down into your soul. I led him on!”
Larrupper winced sharply and unmistakably, but he smiled quite pleasantly.
“What’s the use of worryin’?” he replied, falling back upon his usual formula. “We’ll all be feelin’ better, to-morrow, an’ we’ll swim along somehow without smashin’ one another, you’ll see! You’ll not think me rude to be goin’, will you? I’m sure I can hear old Grange weepin’ outside.”
He opened the door; then paused again.
“There’s just one other thing, if you don’t mind my mentionin’ it? You told old Grant that you were goin’ to marry Lionel Lyndesay. Well, it isn’t true about Lionel, whatever it may once have been about Larry. Larry’s wantin’ you with every little bit of him, but Lionel isn’t goin’ to take the risk!”
CHAPTER XIX
A threatening sky was scudding before a fast-rising gale, and an ominous dread lay over the marsh, but Roger Lyndesay walked in a sheltered corner at Kilne between borders of yellow crocus. The hill behind stood like a giant screen between him and the rough weather coming straight from the sea. There was a stone seat let into the side of the fell, where he rested every now and again, looking through the swaying veil of budding branches to the creepered house where he and his forefathers had lived so long, and from its windows had watched ceaselessly over Crump. Even now, though the years were passing, the prestige of the agency still remained with old Roger. Any old tenant, questioned in a hurry, would still have given his name. Rent-day found most of them still besieging his door. Even Callander had a curious feeling that he himself was no more than pupil or assistant to the fine old man.
Pacing slowly in his shelter, Roger found himself wishing, with the ache of an old hurt apparently long healed, that Deborah had been a boy. With his own death, and her possible marriage to a stranger, their particular branch would be cut from the old root for ever. It hurt him to think that Kilne would pass into other hands, that others, not of his blood, would sit in his window and look across the river with different eyes. They would never know the myriad faces of the land as he knew them; nor watch as he for the continual miracle of the sun springing red over Cappelside, or dropping yellow behind the Hall, or flinging long shafts of gold down the shadowed aisles of beech. In how many years would they learn the perfect moment when the avenue was at its best; the time of year when the rooks held parliament on the hill; and just what trick of wind brought the clearest music from the kennels? In how many generations would they come to pass the deer without seeing a single head raised in fear, or stretch an empty hand for the gentle nibbling of the collared King of the Herd? Would they heed the kingfisher at his evening drink, or the corncrake calling the scythe all night long, or the sleek head of the otter rising from the deep pool under the old bridge? And would they sit in the dark, alone and perfectly content, watching the lights of Crump across the black water as men watch shrine-candles in the dim church of their worship? These things, that made the life of his soul, were the natural heritage of a son of Kilne, who needed scant initiation into their mysteries. But there was no son at Kilne; only a daughter, into whose hands the birthright of love and service could never fall.
He was roused from his brooding by the sound of hoofs stamping at the gate, and with some curiosity he trod slowly round to find Slinker’s wife on the point of slipping from the saddle. His mind had been so much in the past that his fast-fading memory failed to put a name to her, and as she stooped with a smile to hand him a letter, mourning-edged, his courtly old heart warmed to her grace and spirit.
“For Deb,” she told him, as he took the envelope, and was on the point of asking to see her when her horse, which had been plunging and backing, swung her across the road and almost on to the iron railing.