He had no sooner descended the hill to his own cottage, in the fast gathering dusk, than Eliza Daunt emerged. She left the light burning in the keeper's kitchen, and some cold supper on the table. Then with a laugh which was half a sob of excitement she ran down the path leading to the garden cottages.
She was met by a clamour of rebellious children, as she opened Mrs. Cresson's door. "Where's Daddy, Liza?—where's Daddy! Why can't we go home! We want our Daddy!"
"Hold your noise!" said Eliza roughly—"or it'll be the worse for you—Daddy won't be home for a couple of hours yet, and I promised Fred Cresson, I'd get Mrs. Cresson's tea for her. Lily, stop crying—and get the tray!"
The crippled child, red-eyed, unwillingly obeyed. Neither she nor her sisters could understand why they had been brought over to tea with Mrs. Cresson of whose queer half-imbecile ways they were all terrified. Their father had gone off in a great hurry—because of the telegram which had come. And Fred had bicycled down to Latchford to see somebody about a gardener's place. And now there was no one left but Liza and Mrs. Cresson—of whom, for different reasons, the three little girls were equally afraid. And Lily's heart especially was sore for her father. She knew very well they were all doing what was forbidden. But she dared not complain. They had found Cousin 'Liza a hard woman.
After Eliza Daunt had left Daunt's kitchen, for the space of half an hour, a deep and brooding quiet settled on Monk Lawrence. The old house held that in its womb, which must soon crash to light; but for this last brief space, all was peace. The twilight of a clear February evening mellowed the grey walls, and the moss-grown roofs; the house spoke its last message—its murmured story, as the long yoke-fellow of human life—to the tranquil air; and the pigeons crooned about it, little knowing.
Presently from the same door which had seen Eliza Daunt depart, a woman cautiously emerged. She was in dark clothes, closely veiled. With noiseless step, she passed round the back of the house, pausing a moment to look at the side door on the north side which had been lately strengthened by Sir Wilfrid's orders. Then she gained the shelter of the close-grown shrubbery, and turning round she stood a few seconds motionless, gazing at the house. In spite of her quiet movements, she was trembling from head to foot—with excitement, not fear.
"It's beautiful," she was saying to herself—"and precious—and I've destroyed it." Then—with a fierce leap in the blood—"Beauty! And what about the beauty that men destroy? Let them pay!"
But as she stood there a sudden disabling storm of thought—misgiving—argument—swept through her brain. She seemed to hear on all sides voices in the air—the voices of friends and foes, of applause and execration—Delia's voice among them! And at the mere imagination of it, a shiver of anger ran through her. She thought of Delia now, only as of one who had deserted and disobeyed.
But with the illusion of the ear, there came also an illusion of vision. The months of her recent life rose before her, in one hurrying spectacle of scenes and faces, and the spectacle aroused in her but one idea—one sickening impression—of crushing and superhuman effort. What labour!—what toil! She shuddered under it. Then, suddenly, her mind ran back to the early years before, beyond, the days of "war"—sordid, unceasing war—when there had been time to love, to weep, to pity, to enjoy; before wrath breeding wrath, and violence begetting violence, had driven out the Spirits of Tenderness and Hope. She seemed to see, to feel them—the sad Exiles!—fleeing along desert ways; and her bitter heart cried out to them—for the only—the last time. For in the great names of Love and Justice, she had let Hate loose within her, and like the lion-cub nurtured in the house, it had grown to be the soul's master and gaoler; a "doom" holding the citadels of life, and working itself out to the appointed end.
But the tumult in which she stood began to unnerve her. By a last exercise of will she was able to pull herself together.