The Three Sisters | Page 3

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 air of boredom and of unconcern. She was always most unconcerned when she was most intent.
Outside in the passage she stood a moment, listening. All the ways of the house gave upon the passage in a space so narrow that by stretching out one arm she could have touched both walls.
With a door open anywhere the passage became a gully for the north wind. Now, with all doors shut, it was as if the breath of the house was being squeezed out there, between closing walls. The passage, instead of dividing the house, drew it together tight. And this tightness was