The Prisoners of Hartling

by J. D. Beresford

She, on her side, seemed disinclined to add anything to what she had already said, and for some minutes they sat in silence. Eleanor returned to her study of the distant downs and Arthur, with his head in his hands, furiously sought an escape from the dilemma imposed by her two alternatives.

It was Eleanor who at last broke the long silence. "I must be going now," she said—sighed, rose to her feet, and began to brush and shake the grass from her skirt. "There is absolutely nothing more to be said," she continued, "and in any case we shall have plenty of time to say it on the way back."

He nodded rather resentfully and followed a pace or two behind her as they made their way down the hill. He could not as yet overcome the feeling that it was "hard lines" on him to be sent away from Hartling. For that was what it all amounted to. He would have to go—promise or no promise. He could not possibly allow her to get work in some city office, or enter herself as probationer at a hospital, while he idled away his time at Hartling. Also he hated the thought of her mixing either with city clerks or young medical students. They were a coarse lot, and she would certainly meet with all kinds of beastly advances. In imagination he could hear the men at the hospital talking about her among themselves, and his face burnt with anger, first at the intolerable familiarities of his hypothetical students, and then with himself for thinking these thoughts in connection with her. Still she would know how to protect herself. No one could be more aloof and cold than she was sometimes. If that warm generosity of hers did not betray her? Those silly young fools at the hospital would not understand. They.... He found a relief in mentally cursing the particular type of young medical student he had all too vividly pictured. He saw himself taking one of them by the throat and choking the life out of him.

No, it was obvious that in no circumstances whatever, could she be permitted to face that kind of life. Plenty of nice girls did, of course; but she was different. And a city office would be just as bad, or worse. It was impossible to imagine her mixing with a crowd of dirty little Cockney clerks or greasy business men. Damn them.

After all, Peckham would not be so bad. Somers was one of the best and would be tremendously glad to hear that he was coming back. Only—that would be the end, so far as any hope of seeing Eleanor was concerned—until the old man died—and it was perfectly true, as she had said, that he might be an example of one of those exceptional cases of longevity. He saw the probability more clearly now that his interest was more detached. Up there at the house, they were compelled to cheat themselves with the belief that it could not last much longer. Life would not be endurable without that hope. They had been living on it, some of them, for forty years....

He suddenly awoke to the fact that this might be the last time he would be alone with Eleanor and that he was wasting it in these perfectly detestable reflections, when he might be talking to her.

"I've made up my mind," he said, quickening his pace to catch her up. "I'll go. You're quite right. I can't stay there now."

She looked up at him with a hint of question in her face.

"I couldn't stand the thought of your going into a hospital or an office," he continued. "You've no idea of the sort of thing that you have to put up with and the people that you have to mix with; no idea."

"Oh! but I don't want you to go in order to save me," she exclaimed.