第41章

NORTH DORMER'S celebration naturally included the villages attached to its township, and the festivities were to radiate over the whole group, from Dormer and the two Crestons to Hamblin, the lonely hamlet on the north slope of the Mountain where the first snow always fell.On the third day there were speeches and ceremonies at Creston and Creston River; on the fourth the principal performers were to be driven in buck-boards to Dormer and Hamblin.

It was on the fourth day that Charity returned for the first time to the little house.She had not seen Harney alone since they had parted at the wood's edge the night before the celebrations began.In the interval she had passed through many moods, but for the moment the terror which had seized her in the Town Hall had faded to the edge of consciousness.She had fainted because the hall was stiflingly hot, and because the speakers had gone on and on....Several other people had been affected by the heat, and had had to leave before the exercises were over.There had been thunder in the air all the afternoon, and everyone said afterward that something ought to have been done to ventilate the hall....

At the dance that evening--where she had gone reluctantly, and only because she feared to stay away, she had sprung back into instant reassurance.As soon as she entered she had seen Harney waiting for her, and he had come up with kind gay eyes, and swept her off in a waltz.Her feet were full of music, and though her only training had been with the village youths she had no difficulty in tuning her steps to his.As they circled about the floor all her vain fears dropped from her, and she even forgot that she was probably dancing in Annabel Balch's slippers.

When the waltz was over Harney, with a last hand-clasp, left her to meet Miss Hatchard and Miss Balch, who were just entering.Charity had a moment of anguish as Miss Balch appeared; but it did not last.The triumphant fact of her own greater beauty, and of Harney's sense of it, swept her apprehensions aside.Miss Balch, in an unbecoming dress, looked sallow and pinched, and Charity fancied there was a worried expression in her pale-lashed eyes.She took a seat near Miss Hatchard and it was presently apparent that she did not mean to dance.Charity did not dance often either.

Harney explained to her that Miss Hatchard had begged him to give each of the other girls a turn; but he went through the form of asking Charity's permission each time he led one out, and that gave her a sense of secret triumph even completer than when she was whirling about the room with him.

She was thinking of all this as she waited for him in the deserted house.The late afternoon was sultry, and she had tossed aside her hat and stretched herself at full length on the Mexican blanket because it was cooler indoors than under the trees.She lay with her arms folded beneath her head, gazing out at the shaggy shoulder of the Mountain.The sky behind it was full of the splintered glories of the descending sun, and before long she expected to hear Harney's bicycle-bell in the lane.He had bicycled to Hamblin, instead of driving there with his cousin and her friends, so that he might be able to make his escape earlier and stop on the way back at the deserted house, which was on the road to Hamblin.They had smiled together at the joke of hearing the crowded buck-boards roll by on the return, while they lay close in their hiding above the road.Such childish triumphs still gave her a sense of reckless security.

Nevertheless she had not wholly forgotten the vision of fear that had opened before her in the Town Hall.The sense of lastingness was gone from her and every moment with Harney would now be ringed with doubt.

The Mountain was turning purple against a fiery sunset from which it seemed to be divided by a knife-edge of quivering light; and above this wall of flame the whole sky was a pure pale green, like some cold mountain lake in shadow.Charity lay gazing up at it, and watching for the first white star....

Her eyes were still fixed on the upper reaches of the sky when she became aware that a shadow had flitted across the glory-flooded room: it must have been Harney passing the window against the sunset....She half raised herself, and then dropped back on her folded arms.The combs had slipped from her hair, and it trailed in a rough dark rope across her breast.She lay quite still, a sleepy smile on her lips, her indolent lids half shut.There was a fumbling at the padlock and she called out: "Have you slipped the chain?" The door opened, and Mr.Royall walked into the room.

She started up, sitting back against the cushions, and they looked at each other without speaking.Then Mr.

Royall closed the door-latch and advanced a few steps.

Charity jumped to her feet."What have you come for?"she stammered.

The last glare of the sunset was on her guardian's face, which looked ash-coloured in the yellow radiance.

"Because I knew you were here," he answered simply.

She had become conscious of the hair hanging loose across her breast, and it seemed as though she could not speak to him till she had set herself in order.She groped for her comb, and tried to fasten up the coil.

Mr.Royall silently watched her.

"Charity," he said, "he'll be here in a minute.Let me talk to you first.""You've got no right to talk to me.I can do what Iplease."

"Yes.What is it you mean to do?"

"I needn't answer that, or anything else."

He had glanced away, and stood looking curiously about the illuminated room.Purple asters and red maple-leaves filled the jar on the table; on a shelf against the wall stood a lamp, the kettle, a little pile of cups and saucers.The canvas chairs were grouped about the table.

"So this is where you meet," he said.

His tone was quiet and controlled, and the fact disconcerted her.She had been ready to give him violence for violence, but this calm acceptance of things as they were left her without a weapon.