The Three Sisters | Page 3

Presently a tremor crept through Gwenda's young body as her heart
shook it.
She rose and went to the window.

IV
She was slow and rapt in her going like one walking in her sleep,
moved by some impulse profounder than her sleep.
She pulled up the blind. The darkness was up against the house, thick
and close to the pane. She threw open the window, and the night
entered palpably like slow water, black and sweet and cool.
From the unseen road came the noise of wheels and of a horse that in
trotting clanked forever one shoe against another.
It was young Rowcliffe, the new doctor, driving over from Morthe to
Upthorne on the Moor, where John Greatorex lay dying.
The pale light of his lamps swept over the low garden wall.
Suddenly the four hoofs screamed, grinding together in the slide of
their halt. The doctor had jerked his horse up by the Vicarage gate.

The door at the back opened and shut again, suddenly, sharply, as if in
fear.
A voice swung out like a mournful bell into the night. A dalesman's
voice; such a voice as the lonely land fashions sometimes for its own
delight, drawling and tender, hushed by the hills and charged with the
infinite, mysterious sadness of their beauty.
It belonged to young Greatorex and it came from the doorway of the
Vicarage yard.
"That yo, Dr. Rawcliffe? I wuss joost gawn oop t'road t' see ef yo wuss
coomin'."
"Of course I was coming."
The new doctor was short and stern with young Greatorex.
The two voices, the soft and the stern, spoke together for a moment,
low, inaudible. Then young Greatorex's voice was heard again, and in
its softness there was the furtive note of shame.
"I joost looked in to Vicarage to leave woord with Paason."
The noise of the wheels and hoofs began again, the iron shoes clanked
together and struck out the rhythm that the sisters knew.
And with the first beat of it, and with the sound of the two voices in the
road, life, secret and silent, stirred in their blood and nerves. It quivered
like a hunting thing held on the leash.

V
Their stillness, their immobility were now intense. And not one spoke a
word to the other.
All three of them were thinking.

Mary thought, "Wednesday is his day. On Wednesday I will go into the
village and see all my sick people. Then I shall see him. And he will
see me. He will see that I am kind and sweet and womanly." She
thought, "That is the sort of woman that a man wants." But she did not
know what she was thinking.
Gwenda thought, "I will go out on to the moor again. I don't care if I
am late for Prayers. He will see me when he drives back and he will
wonder who is that wild, strong girl who walks by herself on the moor
at night and isn't afraid. He has seen me three times, and every time he
has looked at me as if he wondered. In five minutes I shall go." She
thought (for she knew what she was thinking), "I shall do nothing of the
sort. I don't care whether he sees me or not. I don't care if I never see
him again. I don't care."
Alice thought, "I will make myself ill. So ill that they'll have to send for
him. I shall see him that way."

VI
Alice sat up. She was thinking another thought.
"If Mr. Greatorex is dead, Dr. Rowcliffe won't stay long at Upthorne.
He will come back soon. And he will have to call and leave word. He
will come in and I shall see him."
But if Mr. Greatorex wasn't dead? If Mr. Greatorex were a long time
over his dying? Then he might be kept at Upthorne, perhaps till
midnight, perhaps till morning. Then, even if he called to leave word,
she would not see him. When she looked deep she found herself
wondering how long Mr. Greatorex would be over his dying. If she had
looked a little deeper she would have found herself hoping that Mr.
Greatorex was already dead.
If Mr. Greatorex was dead before he got to Upthorne he would come
very soon, perhaps before prayer-time.

And he would be shown into the drawing-room.
Would he? Would Essy have the sense? No. Not unless the lamp was lit
there. Essy wouldn't show him into a dark room. And Essy was stupid.
She might have no sense. She might take him straight into the study
and Papa would keep him there. Trust Papa.
Alice got up from her sofa and left the room; moving with her weary
grace and a little