The Three Sisters Part 64

They were his mother, his paternal uncle and aunt, his two youngest cousins, and Dr. Harker, his best friend and colleague who had taken his place in January when he had been ill.

They had all come down from Leeds for Rowcliffe's wedding.

Rowcliffe's trap and Peac.o.c.k's from Garthdale stood side by side in the station-yard.

Gwenda in Peac.o.c.k's trap had left the town before she heard behind her the clanking hoofs of Rowcliffe's little brown horse.

She thought, "He will pa.s.s in another minute. I shall see him."

But she did not see him. All the way up Rathdale to Morfe the sound of the wheels and of the clanking hoofs pursued her, and Rowcliffe still hung back. He did not want to pa.s.s her.

"Well," said Peac.o.c.k, "thot beats mae. I sud navver a thought thot t'

owd maare could a got away from t' doctor's horse. Nat ef e'd a mind t' paa.s.s 'er."

"No," said Gwenda. She was thinking, "It's Mary. It's Mary. How could she, when she _knew_, when she was on her honor not to think of him?"

And she remembered a conversation she had had with her stepmother two months ago, when the news came. (Robina had seized the situation at a glance and she had probed it to its core.)

"You wanted him to marry Ally, did you? It wasn't much good you're going away if you left him with Mary."

"But," she had said, "Mary knew."

And Robina had answered, marvelously. "You should never have let her.

It was her knowing that did it. You were three women to one man, and Mary was the one without a scruple. Do you suppose she'd think of Ally or of you, either?"

And she had tried to be loyal to Mary and to Rowcliffe. She had said, "If we _were_ three, we all had our innings, and he made his choice."

And Robina, "It was Mary did the choosing."

She had added that Gwenda was a little fool, and that she ought to have known that though Mary was as meek as Moses she was that sort.

She went on, thinking, to the steady clanking of the hoofs.

"I suppose," she said to herself, "she couldn't help it."

The lights of Morfe shone through the November darkness. The little slow mare crawled up the winding hill to the top of the Green; Rowcliffe's horse was slower. But no sooner had Peac.o.c.k's trap pa.s.sed the doctor's house on its way out of the village square, than the clanking hoofs went fast.

Rowcliffe was free to go his own pace now.

"Which of you two is going to hook me up?" said Mary.

She was in the Vicar's room, putting on her wedding-gown before the wardrobe gla.s.s. Her two sisters were dressing her.

"I will," said Gwenda.

"You'd better let me," said Alice. "I know where the eyes are."

Gwenda lifted up the wedding-veil and held it ready. And while Alice pulled and fumbled Mary gazed at her own reflection and at Alice's.

"You should have done as Mummy said and had your frock made in London, like Gwenda. They'd have given you a decent cut. You look as if you couldn't breathe."

"My frock's all right," said Alice.

Her fingers trembled as she strained at the hooks and eyes.

And in the end it was Gwenda who hooked Mary up while Alice held the veil. She held it in front of her. The long streaming net s.h.i.+vered with the trembling of her hands.

The wedding was at two o'clock. The church was crowded, so were the churchyard and the road beside the Vicarage and the bridge over the beck. Morfe and Greffington had emptied themselves into Garthdale.

(Greffington had lent its organist.)

It was only when it was all over that somebody noticed that Jim Greatorex was not there with the village choir. "Celebrating a bit too early," somebody said.

And it was only when it was all over that Rowcliffe found Gwenda.

He found her in the long, flat pause, the half-hour of profoundest realisation that comes when the bride disappears to put off her wedding-gown for the gown she will go away in. She had come out to the wedding-party gathered at the door, to tell them that the bride would soon be ready. Rowcliffe and Harker were standing apart, at the end of the path, by the door that led from the garden to the orchard.

He came toward her. Harker drew back into the orchard. They followed him and found themselves alone.

For ten minutes they paced the narrow flagged path under the orchard wall. And they talked, quickly, like two who have but a short time.

"Well--so you've come back at last?"

"At last? I haven't been gone six months."

"You see, time feels longer to us down here."

"That's odd. It goes faster."

"Anyhow, you're not tired of London?"

She stared at him for a second and then looked away.

"Oh no, I'm not tired of it yet."

They turned.

"Shall you stop long here?"

"I'm going back to-morrow."

"To-morrow? You're so glad to get back then?"

"So glad to get back. I only came down for Mary's wedding."