The moor had a pathetic attraction for her, because not very long ago a man and a woman had been lost, only a few steps from Borhedden Farm, in the mist—lost their way and been frozen during the night. Poor things! lovers, perhaps, they had been.
Maggie felt that here she could walk for miles and miles and that there was nothing to stop her; the clang of a gate, a house, a wall, a human voice was intolerable to her.
Her first thought as she went forward was disgust at her own weakness; once again she had been betrayed by her feelings. She could remember no single time when they had not betrayed her. She recalled now with an intolerable self-contempt her thoughts of her father at the time of the funeral and the hours that followed. It seemed to her now that she had only softened towards his memory because she had believed that he had left her money—and now, when she saw that he had treated her contemptuously, she found him once again the cruel, mean figure that she had before thought him.
For that she most bitterly, with an intensity that only her loneliness could have given her, despised herself. And yet something else in her knew that that reproach was not a true one. She had really softened towards him only because she had felt that she had behaved badly towards him, and the discovery now that he had behaved badly towards her did not alter her own original behaviour. She did not analyse all this; she only knew that there were in her longings for affection, a desire to be loved, an aching for companionship, and that these things must always be kept down, fast hidden within her. She realised her loneliness now with a fierce, proud, almost exultant independence. No more tears, no more leaning upon others, no more expecting anything from anybody. She was not dramatic in her new independence; she did not cry defiance to the golden mist or the larks or the hidden sun; she only walked on and on, stumping forward in her clumsy boots, her eyes hard and unseeing, her hands clasped behind her back.
Her expectation of happiness in her opening life that had been so strong with her that other day when she had looked down upon Polchester was gone. She expected nothing, she wanted nothing. Her only thought was that she would never yield to any one, never care for any one, never give to any one the opportunity of touching her. At moments through the mist came the figure of the cook, stout, florid, triumphant. Maggie regarded her contemptuously. "You cannot touch me," she thought. Of her father she would never think again. With both hands she flung all her memories of him into the mist to be lost for ever ...
She came suddenly upon a lonely farm-house. She knew the place, Borhedden; it had often been a favourite walk of hers from the Vicarage to Borhedden. The farmer let rooms there and, because the house was very old, some of the rooms were fine, with high ceilings, thick stone walls, and even some good panelling. The view too was superb, across to the Broads and the Molecatcher, or back to the Dreot Woods, or to the dim towers of Polchester Cathedral. The air here was fine—one of the healthiest spots in Glebeshire.
The farm to-day was transfigured by the misty glow; cows and horses could be faintly seen, ricks burnt with a dim fire. Somewhere dripping water falling on to stone gave a vocal spirit to the obscurity. The warm air seemed to radiate about the house like a flame that is obscured by sunlight.
The stealthy movements of the animals, the dripping of the water, were the only sounds. To Maggie the house seemed to say something, something comforting and reassuring.
Standing there, she registered her vow that through all her life she would care for no one. No one should touch her.
Had there been an observer he might have found some food for his irony in the contemplation of that small, insignificant figure so ignorant of life and so defiant of it. He would have found perhaps something pathetic also. Maggie thought neither of irony nor of pathos, but turned homewards with her mouth set, her eyes grave, her heart controlled.