The Guarded Heights Part 42

"You are too bitter against your father. After all, he was a good man."

"Why should death," he asked her, musingly, "make people seem better than they were in life? It isn't so."

"That's wicked. If your father could rise----"

His attention was caught by an air of pointing the oblong box had, as if to something infinitely farther than ambition and success, yet so close it angered him he couldn't see or touch it. His father had gone there, beyond the farthest horizon of all. Old Planter couldn't make trouble for him now. He was quite safe.

Over in Europe, he reflected, they didn't have enough coffins.

The oblong box for the first time made him think of that war, that was making him rich, in terms of life instead of dollars and cents. He felt dissatisfied.

"There should be more light here," he said, defensively.

But his mother shook her head.

He arranged a chair for her and sat near by while they discussed the details of her departure. She let him see that she shrank from leaving the house, against which, nevertheless, she had bitterly complained ever since Old Planter had got it. Evidently she wanted to linger in her familiar rut, awaiting with the att.i.tude of a martyr whatever fate might offer. That was the reason people had to be helped, because they preferred vicious inertia to the efforts and risks of change. Then why did they want the prizes of those who had had the courage to go forth and fight? Why couldn't Squibs see that?

Patiently George told her she needn't worry about money again. She had a sister who years ago had married and moved West to a farm that was not particularly flouris.h.i.+ng. Undoubtedly her sister would be glad to have her and her generous allowance. So his will overcame his mother's reluctance to help herself. She glanced up.

"Who is that?"

He listened. The women in the kitchen were standing again. Light feet crossed the floor.

"Maybe somebody from the big house," his mother whispered. "They sent Simpson last night."

For a moment the entire building was as silent as the oblong box. Then the door opened.

Sylvia Planter slipped in and closed the door.

George caught his breath, studying her as she hesitated, accustoming herself to the insufficient light. She wore a broad-brimmed hat that gave her the charm and the grace of a portrait by Gainsborough. When she recognized him, indeed, she seemed as permanently caught as a portrait.

"Miss Sylvia!" his mother wors.h.i.+pped.

"They told me I would find you here," Sylvia said, uncertainly. "I didn't know----"

She broke off, biting her lip. George strolled around the oblong box to the window, turning there with a slow bow. Even across that desolate, dead sh.e.l.l, the obstinate distaste and the challenge were lively in her glance.

"It was very kind of you to come," he said.

But he was sorry she had come. To see him in such surroundings was a stimulation of the ugly memories he had struggled to destroy. He read her instinct to hurt him now as she had hurt the impertinent man, Morton, who had lived in this house.

"When one of our people is in trouble----" she began, deliberately. "I thought I might be of some help to your mother."

Even over the feeling of security George had just tried to give her the old menace reached the uneasy woman.

"You--you remember him, Miss Sylvia?"

"Very well," Sylvia answered. "He used to be my groom."

"The t.i.tle comes from you," George said, dryly.

His mother's glance fluttered from one to the other. What did she expect--Old Planter stalking in to carry out his threats?

"After all these years I scarcely knew him myself."

Sylvia's colour heightened. He appraised her rising temper.

"Bad servants," he said, "linger in good employers' memories."

"I know, Miss Sylvia," his mother burst out, "that he wasn't to come back here, but----"

She unclasped her nervous hands. One indicated the silent cause of his disobedience. George moved toward the door. Sylvia stepped quickly aside. He felt, like a physical wave, her desire to hurt.

"At such a time," she said, "it's natural he should come back to his home. I think my father would be glad to have him with his mother."

George shrugged his shoulders, slipped out, navigated the shoals of whispering women, and reached the clean air. He b.u.t.toned his overcoat and shuffled through the dead leaves beneath the trees until he found himself at the spot where Lambert and he had fought. He recalled his hot boasts of that day. Fulfilment had seemed simple enough then. The scene just submitted reminded him how short a distance he had actually travelled.

He knew she would pa.s.s that way on her return to the big house, so he waited, and when he heard her feet disturbing the dead leaves he didn't turn. She came closer than he had expected, and he heard her contralto voice, quick and defiant:

"I hadn't expected to see you. I didn't quite realize what I was saying.

I should have had more respect for any one's grief."

Having said that, she was going on, but he turned and stopped her. As he looked at her he reflected that everything had altered since that day--she most of all. Then the woman had been a little visible in the child. Now, he fancied, the child survived in the woman only through the persistence of this old quarrel. He stared at her lips, recalling his boast that no man should touch them unless it were George Morton. He was no nearer them than he had been that day. Unless he got nearer some man would. It was incredible that she hadn't married. She would marry.

"In the sense you mean, I have no grief," he said.

"Then I needn't have bothered. I once said you were a--a----"

"Something melodramatic. A beast, I think it was," he answered. "If you don't mind I'll walk on with you for a little way."

"No," she said.

"If you please."

"You've no perception," she cried, angrily.

"Don't you think it time," he suggested, "that you ceased treating me like a groom? It isn't very convincing to me. I doubt if it is to you. I fancy it's really only your pride. I don't see why you should have so much where I am concerned."

Her hand made a quick gesture of repulsion.

"You've not changed. You may walk on with me while I tell you this: If you were like the men I know and can be friends with you'd leave me alone. Will you stop this persecution? It comes down to that. Will you stop forcing me to dance with you, to listen to you?"

He smiled, shaking his head.

"I'll make you dance with me more than ever. I've seen very little of you lately. I hope this winter----"

She stopped, facing him, her cheeks flaming.

"You see! You remind me every time I meet you of just what you are, just what you came from, just what you said and did that day."