“This water-mint business,” muttered Sorio, “is worse than the shrew-mouse hunt. I suppose he collects groundsel and feverfew for all the old women in Rodmoor.”
Nance soon reached the limit of her patience. “Dr. Raughty!” she cried, and then in feminine desperation, “Fingal! Fingal!” she shouted.
The Doctor came hurrying back at that and to Sorio’s astonishment it appeared he had secured his desired plants. As he clambered up into the little cart a delicious aromatic fragrance diffused itself around Nance.
“I’ve found them all right,” he said. “They’re under my hat. Sorry I’ve only got room for one of you. Get on, Elizabeth!”
They drove off, Sorio making a final, Pilate-like gesture of complete irresponsibility.
“A noble creature — that sow,” the Doctor observed, glancing nervously at his companion, “a noble, beautiful animal! I expect it likes to feed on watermelons as well as any one. Did you observe its eye? Like a small yellow daisy! A beautiful eye, but with something wicked in it — didn’t you think so? — something menacing and malicious.”
Nance compelled herself to smile at this sally but her hands itched to snatch the whip and hasten the pony’s speed. They arrived at last at the New Bridge and Nance wondered whether the Doctor would be really amenable to her wishes or whether he would press her to visit his study again. But he drove on without a word, over the Loon, and westward again on the further side of it straight in the direction of Dyke House.
As they drew near the place Nance’s heart began to beat furiously and she cast about in her mind for some excuse to prevent her companion taking her any further. He seemed to read her thoughts for, with almost supernatural tact, he drew up when they were within a few hundred yards of the garden gate.
“I won’t come in if you don’t mind,” he said. “I have several patients to see before supper and I want to take Mrs. Sodderly her water-mint.”
Nance jumped quickly out of the cart and thanked him profusely.
“You’re looking dreadfully white,” he remarked, as he bade her good-bye. “Oh, wait a moment, I must give you a few of these.”
He carefully removed his hat and once more the aromatic odour spread itself on the air.
“There!” he said, handing her two or three damprooted stems with purplish-green leaves. She took them mechanically and was still holding them in her hands when she arrived with pale lips and drawn, white face, at the entrance to the Doorm dwelling.
All was quiet in the garden and not a sound of any living thing issued from the house. With miserable uncertainty she advanced to the door, catching sight, as she did so, of her own garden tools left lying on the weedy border and some newly planted and now sadly drooping verbenas fading by their side. She blamed herself even at that moment for having, in her excitement at going to meet Sorio, forgotten to water these things. She resolved — at the back of her mind — that she would pull up every weed in the place before she had done with it.
Never before had she realized the peculiar desolation of Dyke House. With its closed windows and smokeless chimneys it looked as if it might have been deserted for a hundred years. She entered and standing in the empty hall listened intently. Not a sound! Except for a remote ticking and the buzzing of a blue bottle fly in the parlour windows, all was hushed as the inside of a tomb. There came over her as she stood there an indescribable sense of loneliness. She felt as though all the inhabitants of the earth had been annihilated and she only left — she and the brainless ticking of clocks in forsaken houses.
She ran hurriedly up the staircase and entered the room she shared with Linda. The child’s neatly made little bed with the embroidered night-dress cover lying on the pillow, struck her with a passion of maternal feeling.
“My darling! My darling!” she cried aloud. “It’s all my fault! It’s all my fault!”
She moved to the window and looked out. In a moment her hands clasped tightly the wooden sash and she leaned forward with motionless intensity. The uninterrupted expanse of that level landscape lent itself to her quick vision. She made out, clearly and instantaneously, a situation that set her trembling from head to foot. In one rapid moment she took it in and in another moment she was prepared for swift action.
Moored on the further side of the river was a small boat and in the boat, sitting with his forehead bowed upon his hands, was Brand Renshaw. His head was bare and the afternoon sun shining upon it made it look red as blood. On the further side of the Mundham road — the very road she had so recently traversed — she could see the figure of a girl, unmistakably her sister — advancing quickly and furtively towards the shelter of a thin line of pine trees, the most western extremity of the Oakguard woods. The man in the boat could see nothing of this. Even if he rose to his feet he could see nothing. The river bank was too high. For the same reason the girl crossing the fields could see nothing of the man in the boat. Nance alone, from her position at the window, was in complete command of both of them. She drew back a little into the room lest by chance Brand should look up and catch sight of her. What a fortunate thing she had entered so quietly! They were taking every precaution, these two! The man was evidently intending to remain where he was till the girl was well concealed among the trees. Rachel Doorm, it seemed, had taken herself off to leave them to their own devices but it was clear that Brand preferred an assignation in his own park to risking an entrance to Dyke House in the absence of its mistress. For that, at any rate, Nance was devoutly thankful. Watching Linda’s movements until she saw her disappear beneath the pines, Nance hurried down the stairs and out into the garden. She realized clearly what she had to do. She had to make her way to her sister before Brand got wind she was there at all.
She knew enough of the Renshaw family to know that if she were to call out to him across the river he would simply laugh at her. On the other hand if he got the least idea she were so near he would anticipate events and hasten off at once to Linda.
But how on earth could she herself reach the girl? The Loon flowed mercilessly between them. One thing she had not failed to remark as she looked at Brand in his little sea boat and that was that the tide was now running very low. Sorio had been either mistaken or treacherous when he assured her it was at its height. It must have been falling even then.
She let herself noiselessly out of the gate and stood for a moment contemplating the river bank. No, Brand could not possibly see her. Without further hesitation she left the path and moved cautiously, ankle-deep in grass, to where the Loon made a sharp turn to the left. She had a momentary panic as she crawled on hands and knees up the embankment. No, even here, as long as she did not stand upright, she was invisible from the boat. Descending on the further side she slipped down to the brink of the river. The Loon was low indeed. Only a narrow strip of rapidly moving water flowed in the centre of the channel. On either side, glittering in the sun, sloped slimy banks of mud.
Her face was flushed now and through her parted lips the breath came heavily, in excited gasps.
“Linda — little Linda!” she murmured, “it’s my fault — all my fault!”
With one nervous look at the river she sank down on the sun-baked mud and took off her shoes and stockings. Then, thrusting the stockings inside the shoes and tying the laces of these latter together, she pulled up her skirts and secured them round her waist. As she did this she peered apprehensively round her. But she was quite alone and with another shuddering glance at the tide she picked up her shoes and began advancing into the slippery mud. She staggered a little at first and her feet sank deep into the slime but as soon as she was actually in the water she walked more easily, feeling a surer footing. The Loon swirled by her, sending a chill of cold through her bare white limbs. The water was soon high above her knees and she was hardly a quarter of the way across! Her heart beat miserably now and the flush died from her cheeks. It came across her mind like an ice-cold hand upon her throat, how dreadful it would be to be swept off her feet and carried down that tide — down to the Rodmoor harbour and out to sea — dead and tangled in weeds — with wide-open staring eyes and the water pouring in and out of her mouth. Nothing short of her desperate maternal instinct, intensified to frenzy by the thought that she was responsible for Linda’s danger, could have impelled her to press on. The tide was up to her waist now and all her clothes were drenched but still she had not reached the middle of the current.