"My dear sweetheart, of course! Come, Nollie, get up. The sun"s been too much for you."
Noel got up, and put her hands on her father"s shoulders. "Forgive me for all my badness, and all my badness to come, especially all my badness to come!"
Pierson smiled. "I shall always forgive you, Nollie; but there won"t be--there mustn"t be any badness to come. I pray G.o.d to keep you, and make you like your mother."
"Mother never had a devil, like you and me."
He was silent from surprise. How did this child know the devil of wild feeling he had fought against year after year; until with the many years he had felt it weakening within him! She whispered on: "I don"t hate my devil.
"Why should I?--it"s part of me. Every day when the sun sets, I"ll think of you, Daddy; and you might do the same--that"ll keep me good. I shan"t come to the station tomorrow, I should only cry. And I shan"t say good-bye now. It"s unlucky."
She flung her arms round him; and half smothered by that fervent embrace, he kissed her cheeks and hair. Freed of each other at last, he stood for a moment looking at her by the moonlight.
"There never was anyone more loving than you; Nollie!" he said quietly.
"Remember my letter. And good night, my love!" Then, afraid to stay another second, he went quickly out of the dark little room....
George Laird, returning half an hour later, heard a voice saying softly: "George, George!"
Looking up, he saw a little white blur at the window, and Noel"s face just visible.
"George, let the goat loose, just for to-night, to please me."
Something in that voice, and in the gesture of her stretched-out arm moved George in a queer way, although, as Pierson had once said, he had no music in his soul. He loosed the goat.
IV
1
In the weeks which succeeded Pierson"s departure, Gratian and George often discussed Noel"s conduct and position by the light of the Pragmatic theory. George held a suitably scientific view. Just as he would point out to his wife--in the physical world, creatures who diverged from the normal had to justify their divergence in compet.i.tion with their environments, or else go under, so in the ethical world it was all a question of whether Nollie could make good her vagary. If she could, and grew in strength of character thereby, it was ipso facto all right, her vagary would be proved an advantage, and the world enriched.
If not, the world by her failure to make good would be impoverished, and her vagary proved wrong. The orthodox and academies--he insisted--were always forgetting the adaptability of living organisms; how every action which was out of the ordinary, unconsciously modified all the other actions together with the outlook, and philosophy of the doer. "Of course Nollie was crazy," he said, "but when she did what she did, she at once began to think differently about life and morals. The deepest instinct we all have is the instinct that we must do what we must, and think that what we"ve done is really all right; in fact the--instinct of self-preservation. We"re all fighting animals; and we feel in our bones that if we admit we"re beaten--we are beaten; but that every fight we win, especially against odds, hardens those bones. But personally I don"t think she can make good on her own."
Gratian, whose Pragmatism was not yet fully baked, responded doubtfully:
"No, I don"t think she can. And if she could I"m not sure. But isn"t Pragmatism a perfectly beastly word, George? It has no sense of humour in it at all."
"It is a bit thick, and in the hands of the young, deuced likely to become Prigmatism; but not with Nollie."
They watched the victim of their discussions with real anxiety. The knowledge that she would never be more sheltered than she was with them, at all events until she married, gravely impeded the formation of any judgment as to whether or no she could make good. Now and again there would come to Gratian who after all knew her sister better than George--the disquieting thought that whatever conclusion Noel led them to form, she would almost certainly force them to abandon sooner or later.
Three days after her father"s departure Noel had declared that she wanted to work on the land. This George had promptly vetoed.
"You aren"t strong enough yet, my dear: Wait till the harvest begins.
Then you can go and help on the farm here. If you can stand that without damage, we"ll think about it."
But the weather was wet and harvest late, and Noel had nothing much to do but attend to her baby, already well attended to by Nurse, and dream and brood, and now and then cook an omelette or do some housework for the sake of a gnawing conscience. Since Gratian and George were away in hospital all day, she was very much alone. Several times in the evenings Gratian tried to come at the core of her thoughts, Twice she flew the kite of Leila. The first time Noel only answered: "Yes, she"s a brick."
The second time, she said: "I don"t want to think about her."
But, hardening her heart, Gratian went on: "Don"t you think it"s queer we"ve never heard from Captain Fort since he came down?"
In her calmest voice Noel answered: "Why should we, after being told that he wasn"t liked?"
"Who told him that?"
"I told him, that Daddy didn"t; but I expect Daddy said much worse things." She gave a little laugh, then softly added: "Daddy"s wonderful, isn"t he?"
"How?"
"The way he drives one to do the other thing. If he hadn"t opposed my marriage to Cyril, you know, that wouldn"t have happened, it just made all the difference. It stirred me up so fearfully." Gratian stared at her, astonished that she could see herself so clearly. Towards the end of August she had a letter from Fort.
"DEAR MRS. LAIRD,
"You know all about things, of course, except the one thing which to me is all important. I can"t go on without knowing whether I have a chance with your sister. It is against your father"s expressed wish that she should have anything to do with me, but I told him that I could not and would not promise not to ask her. I get my holiday at the end of this month, and am coming down to put it to the touch. It means more to me than you can possibly imagine.
"I am, dear Mrs. Laird,
"Your very faithful servant,
"JAMES FORT."
She discussed the letter with George, whose advice was: "Answer it politely, but say nothing; and nothing to Nollie. I think it would be a very good thing. Of course it"s a bit of a make-shift--twice her age; but he"s a genuine man, if not exactly brilliant."
Gratian answered almost sullenly: "I"ve always wanted the very best for Nollie."
George screwed up his steel-coloured eyes, as he might have looked at one on whom he had to operate. "Quite so," he said. "But you must remember, Gracie, that out of the swan she was, Nollie has made herself into a lame duck. Fifty per cent at least is off her value, socially. We must look at things as they are."
"Father is dead against it."
George smiled, on the point of saying: "That makes me feel it must be a good thing!" But he subdued the impulse.
"I agree that we"re bound by his absence not to further it actively.
Still Nollie knows his wishes, and it"s up to her and no one else. After all, she"s no longer a child."
His advice was followed. But to write that polite letter, which said nothing, cost Gratian a sleepless night, and two or three hours"
penmanship. She was very conscientious. Knowledge of this impending visit increased the anxiety with which she watched her sister, but the only inkling she obtained of Noel"s state of mind was when the girl showed her a letter she had received from Thirza, asking her to come back to Kestrel. A postscript, in Uncle Bob"s handwriting, added these words:
"We"re getting quite fossilised down here; Eve"s gone and left us again.
We miss you and the youngster awfully. Come along down, Nollie there"s a dear!"
"They"re darlings," Noel said, "but I shan"t go. I"m too restless, ever since Daddy went; you don"t know how restless. This rain simply makes me want to die."
2
The weather improved next day, and at the end of that week harvest began. By what seemed to Noel a stroke of luck the farmer"s binder was broken; he could not get it repaired, and wanted all the human binders he could get. That first day in the fields blistered her hands, burnt her face and neck, made every nerve and bone in her body ache; but was the happiest day she had spent for weeks, the happiest perhaps since Cyril Morland left her, over a year ago. She had a bath and went to bed the moment she got in.