“She frightened me,” the girl murmured. “She always frightens me. Do you think she would really have made me go back with her to the house—to meet Brand and Mrs. Renshaw and all? I couldn’t have done it,” she put her hands to her cheeks and trembled as she spoke, “I couldn’t—I couldn’t! It would have been too shameful! And yet I believe she was really going to make me. Do you think she was, Nance? Do you think she could have done such a thing?”
Nance gripped the arms of her chair savagely.
“Why didn’t you leave her, dear?” she exclaimed. “Why didn’t you simply leave her and run off? She isn’t a witch. She’s simply a girl like ourselves.”
Linda smiled. “How fierce you look, darling! I believe if it had been you you’d have slapped her face or pushed her down or something.”
Nance gazed out of the window, frowning. She wondered to herself by what spiritual magic Mr. Traherne and his white rat proposed to obliterate the poisonous rage of jealousy. She wondered what he would say, the devoted priest, to this uncalled for and cruel attack upon her sister. She had never heard him mention Philippa at any time in their talks. Was he as much afraid of her beauty as he pretended to be of her own? Did he make Philippa hide her ankles in her skirt when she visited him? But she supposed she never did visit him. It was somehow very difficult to imagine the sister of Brand Renshaw in the priest’s little study.
From Traherne, Nance’s mind wandered to Dr. Raughty. How kind he had been to her when she was in despair about Linda! She had never seen him half so serious or troubled. She could hardly help smiling as she remembered the peculiar expression he wore and the way he pulled on his coat and laced up his boots. She had let him give her a little glass of crême de menthe and she could see now, with wonderful distinctness, the gravity with which he had watched her drink it. She felt certain his hand had shaken with nervousness when he took the glass from her. She could hear him clearing his throat and muttering some fantastic invocation to what sounded like an Egyptian divinity. Surely the effect of extreme anxiety could produce upon no one else in the world but Dr. Raughty a tendency to allude to the great god Ra! And what extraordinary things he had put into his little black bag as he sallied forth with her to the bridge! Linda might have been in need of several kinds of surgical operations from the preparations he made.
He had promised to spend that day on a fishing trip, out to sea, with Adrian and Baltazar. She wondered whether their boat was still in sight or whether they had got beyond the view of Rodmoor harbour.
“Linda, dear,” she said presently, catching her sister’s hand feeling about under her pillows for the fir-cone she had hidden, “Linda, dear, if I’m to forgive you for what you did last night, for running away from me, I mean, and pretending things, will you do something that I want now? Will you come down to the shore and see if we can see anything of Adrian’s boat? He’s fishing with Dr. Raughty and Mr. Stork, and I’d love to get a sight of their sail. I know it’s a sailing boat they’ve gone in because Dr. Raughty said he was going to take his mackintosh so that when they went fast and the water splashed over the side he might be protected. I think he was a little scared of the expedition. Poor dear man, between us all, I’m afraid we give him a lot of shocks!”
Linda jumped up quite eagerly. She felt prepared at that moment to do anything to please her sister. Besides, there were certain agitating thoughts in her brain which cried aloud for any kind of distraction. They dressed and went out, choosing, as suited the holiday occasion, brighter frocks and gayer hats than they had worn for many weeks. Nance’s position in the Pontifex shop was a favourable one as far as their wardrobe was concerned.
They made their way down to the harbour. They were surprised, and in Linda’s case at any rate not very pleasantly surprised, to find tied to a post where the wharf widened and the grass grew between the cobble-stones the little grey pony and brown pony-cart which Mrs. Renshaw was in the habit of using when the hot weather made it tiring for her to walk.