The Three Sisters
May Sinclair
The Three Sisters XLVIII Page 1
Alice had sent for Gwenda.
Three months had gone by since her sister's wedding, and all her fears were gathered together in the fear of her father and of what was about to happen to her.
And before Gwenda could come to her, Rowcliffe and Mary had come to the Vicar in his study. They had been a long time with him, and then Rowcliffe had gone out. They had sent him to Upthorne. And the two had gone into the dining-room and they had her before them there.
It had come to that. For Ned, the shepherd at Upthorne, had told he had seen. He had told it to Maggie, who told it to Mrs. Gale. He had told it to the head-gamekeeper at Garthdale Manor, who had a tale of his own that he too had told. And Dr. Harker had a tale. Harker had taken his friend's practice when Rowcliffe was away on his honeymoon. He had seen Alice and Greatorex on the moors at night as he had driven home from Upthorne. And he had told Rowcliffe what he had seen. And Rowcliffe had told Mary and the Vicar.
And at the cottage down by the beck Essy Gale and her mother had spoken together, but what they had spoken and what they had heard they had kept secret.
It was Mary who spoke.
"I ha--haven't."
"Don't lie," said the Vicar.
"I'm not. They're l-l-lying," said Ally, shaken into stammering now.
"Who do you suppose would lie about it?" Mary said.
"Well--I may tell you, Ally, that you're wrong. Essy's kept your secret. So has Mrs. Gale. You ought to go down on your knees and thank the poor girl--after what you did to her."
"It _was_ Essy. I know. She's mad to marry him herself, so she goes lying about _me_."
"Nobody's lying about her," said the Vicar, "but herself. And she's condemning herself with every word she says. You'd better have left Essy out of it, my girl."
"I tell you that she's lying if she says she's seen me with him. She's never seen me."
"It wasn't Essy who saw you," Mary said.
"Somebody else is lying then. Who was it?"
"If you _must_ know who saw you," the Vicar said, "it was Dr. Harker. You were seen a month ago hanging about Upthorne alone with that fellow."
"Only once," Ally murmured.
"You own to 'once'? You--you----" he stifled with his fury. "Once is enough with a low blackguard like Greatorex. And you were seen more than once. You've been seen him after dark." He boomed. "isn't a poor drunken slut in the village who's disgraced herself like you."
Mary intervened. "Sh--sh--Papa. They'll hear you in the kitchen."
"They'll hear _her_." (Ally was moaning.) "Stop that whimpering and whining."
"She can't help it."
"She can help it if she likes. Come, Ally, we're all here----Poor Mary's come up and Steven. There are things we've got to know and I insist on knowing them. You've the most awful trouble and shame on me and your sister and brother-in-law, and the least you can do is to answer truthfully. I can't stand any more of this distressing altercation. I'm not going to extort any painful confession. You've only got to answer a simple Yes or No. Were you anywhere with Jim Greatorex before Dr. Harker saw you in December? Think before you speak. Yes or No."
She thought.
"N-no."
"Remember, Ally," said Mary, "he saw you in November."
"He didn't. Where?"
The Vicar answered her. "At your sister's wedding."
She recovered. "Of course he did. Jim Greatorex wasn't there, anyhow."
"He was _not_."
The stress had no significance for Ally. Her brain was utterly bewildered.
"Well. You say you were never anywhere with Greatorex before December. You were not with him in--when was it, Mary?"
Ally simply stared at him in her white bewilderment. Dates had no meaning as yet for her cowed brain.
He helped her.
At that she cried out with a voice of anguish. "No--No--No!"
But Mary had her knife ready and she drove it home.
"Ally--Ned Langstaff _saw_ you."
When Rowcliffe came back from Upthorne he found Alice cowering in a corner of the couch and crying out to her tormentors.
Mary turned to her husband.
"Steven--will you speak to her? She won't tell us anything. We've been at it more than half an hour."
Rowcliffe stared at her and the Vicar with strong displeasure.
"I should think you had by the look of her. Why can't you leave the poor child alone?"
At the sound of his voice, the first voice of compassion that had yet spoken to her, Alice cried to him.
"Steven! Steven! They've been saying awful things to me. Tell them it isn't true. Tell them you don't believe it."
"There--there----" His voice stuck in his throat.
He put his hand on her shoulder, standing between her and her father.
"Tell them----" She looked up at him with her piteous eyes.
"She's worried to death," said Rowcliffe. "You might have left it for to-night at any rate."
"We couldn't, Steven, when you've sent for Greatorex. We _must_ get at the truth before he comes."
Rowcliffe shrugged his shoulders.
"Have you brought him?" said the Vicar.
"No, I haven't. He's in Morfe. I've sent word for him to come on here."
Alice looked sharply at him.
"What have you sent for _him_ for? Do you suppose _he'd_ give me away?"
She began to weep softly.
"All this," said Rowcliffe, "is awfully bad for her."
"You don't seem to consider what it is for us."
Rowcliffe took no notice of the Vicar.
"Look here, Mary--you'd better take her upstairs before he comes. Put her to bed. Try and get her to sleep."
"Very well. Come, Ally." Mary was gentler now.
She stood up and faced them all.
"Ally, dear----"
Mary put her hand gently on her sister's arm to lead her from the room.
Ally shook off the hand and turned on her in hysteric fury.
"Stop pawing me--you! How dare you touch me after what you've said. Steven--she says I took Essy's lover from her."
"I didn't, Ally. She doesn't know what she's saying."
"You _did_ say it. She did, Steven. She said I ought to thank Essy for not splitting on me when I took her lover from her. As if _she_ could talk when _she_ took Steven from Gwenda."
"Oh--Steven!"
"You treat me as if I was dirt, but I'd have died rather than have done what she did."
"Come, Alice, come. You know you don't mean it," said Rowcliffe, utterly gentle.
"Be quiet, you shameful girl!"
"Be quiet yourself, Papa. I'm not as shameful as Molly is. I'm not as shameful as you are yourself. You killed Mother."
"Oh--my--God----" The words were almost inaudible in the Vicar's shuddering groan.
He advanced on her to turn her from the room. Ally sank on her sofa as she saw him come.
Rowcliffe stepped between them.
"For God's sake, sir----"
Ally was struggling in hysterics now, choking between her piteous and savage cries.
Rowcliffe laid her on the sofa and put a cushion under her head. When he tried to loosen her gown at her throat she screamed.
"It's all right, Ally, it's all right."
"_Is_ it? _Is_ it?" The Vicar hissed at him.
"It won't be unless you leave her to me. If you go on bullying her much longer I won't answer for the consequences. You surely don't want----"
"It's all right, Ally. Lie quiet, there--like that. That's a good girl. Nobody's going to worry you any more."
He was kneeling by the sofa, pressing his hand to her forehead. Ally still sobbed convulsively, but she lay quiet. She closed her eyes under Rowcliffe's soothing hand.
"You might go and see if you can find some salvolatile, Mary," he said.
Mary went.
The Vicar, who had turned his back on this scene, went, also, into his study.
Ally still kept her eyes shut.
"Has Mary gone?"
"Yes."
"And Papa?"
"Yes. Lie still."
* * * * *
There was the sound of wheels on the road. It brought Mary and the Vicar back into the room. The wheels stopped. The gate clanged.
Rowcliffe rose.
"That's Greatorex. I'll go to him."
Ally lay very still now, still as a corpse, with closed eyes.
The house door opened.
Rowcliffe drew back into the room.
"It isn't Greatorex," he said. "It's Gwenda."
"Who sent for her?" said the Vicar.
"I did," said Ally.
She had opened her eyes.
"Thank God for that, anyhow," said Rowcliffe.
They waited while Gwenda paid her driver and dismissed him. They could hear her speaking out there in the passage.
The house door shut and she came to them. She paused in the doorway, looking at the three who stood facing her, embarrassed and expectant. She seemed to be thinking that it was odd that they should stand there. The door, thrown back, hid Alice, who lay behind it on her sofa.
"Come in, Gwenda," said the Vicar with exaggerated suavity.
She came in and closed the door. Then she saw Alice.
She took the hand that Rowcliffe held out to her without looking at him. She was looking at Alice.
Alice gave a low cry and struggled to her feet.
"I thought you were never coming," she said.
Gwenda held her in arms. She faced them.
"What have you been doing to her--all of you?"
Rowcliffe answered. Though he was the innocent one of the three he looked the guiltiest. He looked utterly ashamed.
"We've had rather a scene, and it's been a bit too much for her," he said.
"So I see," said Gwenda. She had not greeted Mary or her father.
"If you could persuade her to go upstairs to bed----"
"I've told you I won't go till he comes," said Ally.
She sat down on the sofa as a sign that she was going to wait.
"Till who comes?" Gwenda asked.
She stared at the three with a fierce amazement. And they were abashed.
"She doesn't know, Steve," said Mary.
"I certainly don't," said Gwenda.
She sat down beside Ally.
"Has anybody been bullying you, Ally?"
"They've all been bullying me except Steven. Steven's been an angel. He doesn't believe what they say. Papa says I'm a shameful girl, and Mary says I took Jim Greatorex from Essy. And they think----"
"Never mind what they think, darling."
The Vicar would have burst out again but his son-in-law restrained him.
"Better leave her to Gwenda," he said.
He opened the door of the study. "Really, sir, I think you'd better. And you, too, Mary."
And with her husband's compelling hand on her shoulder Mary went into the study.
The Vicar followed them.
* * * * *
As the door closed on them Alice looked furtively around.
"What is it, Ally?" Gwenda said.
"Don't you know?" she whispered.
"No. You haven't told me anything."
Gwenda was silent.
"Gwenda--I'm in the most awful trouble----" She looked around again. Then she spoke rapidly and low with a fearful hoarse intensity.
"I won't tell them, but I'll tell you. They've been trying to get it out of me by bullying, but I wasn't going to let them. Gwenda--they wanted to make me tell straight out, there--before Steven. And I wouldn't--I wouldn't. They haven't got a word out of me. But it's true, what they say."
She paused.
"About me."
"My lamb, I don't know what they say about you."
"They say I'm going to----"
Crouching where she sat, bent forward, staring with her stare, she whispered.
"Oh--Ally--darling----"
"I'm not ashamed, not the least little bit ashamed. And I don't care what they think of me. But I'm not going to tell them. I've told _you_ because I know you won't hate me, you won't think me awful. But I won't tell Mary, and I won't tell Papa. Or Steven. I do they'll make me marry him."
"Was it--was it----"
Ally's instinct heard the name that her sister spared her.
"Yes--Yes--Yes. It is."
She added, "I don't care."
"Ally--what made you do it?"
"I don't--know."
"Was it because of Steven?"
Ally raised her head.
"No. It was _not_. Steven isn't fit to black his boots. I know that----"
"But--you don't care for him?"
"I did--I did. I do. I care awfully----"
"Well----"
"Oh, Gwenda, can they _make_ me marry him?"
"You don't want to marry him?"
Ally shook her head, slowly, forlornly.
"I see. You're ashamed of him."
"I'm _not_ ashamed. I told you I wasn't. It isn't that----"
"What is it?"
"I'm afraid."
"Afraid----"
"It isn't his fault. He wants to marry me. He wanted to all the time. He never meant that it should be like this. He asked me to marry him. Before it happened. Over and over again he asked me and I wouldn't have him."
"Why wouldn't you?"
"I've told you. Because I'm afraid."
"Why are you afraid?"
"I don't know. I'm not really afraid of _him_. I think I'm afraid of what he might do to me if I married him."
"_Do_ to you?"
"Yes. He might beat me. They always do, you know, those sort of men, when you marry them. I couldn't bear to be beaten."
"Oh----" Gwenda drew in her breath.
"He wouldn't do it, Gwenda, he knew what he was about. But he might if he didn't. You see, they say he drinks. That's what frightens me. That's why I daren't tell Papa. Papa wouldn't care if he did beat me. He'd say it was my punishment."
"If you feel like that about it you mustn't marry him."
"They'll make me."