# Possession (de la Roche, February 1923)/Part 1/Chapter 10

Edmund wrote that he had got leave from his regiment, The Royal Canadians, and would spend Christmas with Derek. They had never been separated for so long before and Derek counted the days till he should meet him at the station with his new red sleigh and black bear robes. But winter seemed loath to descend from the low grey skies or to set his foot sharply on the quiescent earth. November was hazy and warm; December was like Indian Summer; on Christmas Eve there had not been a fleck of snow. Derek, in disgust, ordered Gunn to wash the muddy trap, and scrub the bay gelding's sides, for he had seen fit to roll on the muddy bank of the stream.
It seemed that train-time would never come. He looked at his watch every five minutes; he went upstairs twice to inspect Edmund's room. He even wound the grandfather clock in the hope that he might hurry Time along.
At last Gunn's rosy face appeared in the door. "Hadn't we better be gettin' along, sir?" he asked.
"Yes, yes," said Derek, "it must be time."
He and Gunn got into the cart and Phœbe ran ahead to open the gate. Jock snapped at the gelding's legs, and circled the trap with exasperating yelps. They sped quickly along the hard road, for now it seemed that after all the waiting they were a little late. As they passed the graveyard they saw Solomon Sharroe's grave surmounted by the skeleton of the Gates Ajar, a few dead leaves clinging to ​the wire frame. The pier at Mistwell was white with gulls, basking in the sun. Before they reached the station they heard the train whistle at a crossing.
Derek drove the horse behind the station and gave the reins to Gunn just as the roar of the locomotive subsided to a hiss. He hurried along the platform looking eagerly for his brother. Edmund alighted from the last coach, followed by a porter with his travelling-bag.
"I've got a trunk somewhere," he said, after they had shaken hands.
"I'll give the check to the 'bus driver and he can bring it later. My trap is behind the station. Jove, you look well!"
"So do you. I expected you to meet me on a load of hay, wearing a coon coat. You're far too swell for a farmer."
Derek felt boyishly happy as they rolled briskly along towards Grimstone. It was good to have Edmund with him; he had scarcely realized how fond he was of him; he wished Gunn were not behind so they might be quite alone. He fired rapid questions at him about friends in Halifax. Edmund told him the latest jokes of his regiment, and he laughed uproariously. As they neared Grimstone he looked anxiously at his brother to see what effect the place would have on him.
"Nice old house, but rather bleak," was the verdict.
"You should see it in summer. Isn't that a great view?"
"Fine. Where do the Jerrolds live?"
"Over there. You can't see the house. She's a lovely girl, Ted, bronzy hair, and eyes almost violet. . . . There's my barn and stables. If it isn't too dark after tea we'll go and have a look at the stock. Have a beautiful filly."
"Is she at home now?"
​"At home? Oh, yes, she's not broken in yet."
"Good heavens! I meant Miss Jerrold."
Derek heard Gunn snigger. He looked at him sternly as they alighted at the door. He felt that some day he should cuff Gunn's ears.
Edmund Vale was a year younger than Derek, slenderer, more supple, and not so tall. They bore a brotherly resemblance, but their eyes were so different that the difference was more pronounced than the resemblance. Derek's, wide-open, nearer green than blue, were expectant, confident, mirthful; Edmund's, velvety brown with a slightly oblique slant, were questioning rather than expectant, pleading rather than confident, malicious rather than mirthful. His lips were pouting, and when he smiled, as he did readily, he showed excellent white teeth.
He was immensely amused by Derek's situation at Grimstone; he chaffed him about the number of his "retainers" and the beauty of his "handmaidens." It was easy to see that he had at once slipped into the good graces of Mrs. Machin. When she and Derek were alone for a moment she said that she could not see for the life of her what his uncle had had against Edmund. For her part she thought him a fine young man that any uncle might be proud to make his heir.
They had a hearty meal, and it was pleasant indeed to Derek to have someone to talk and laugh with, over his food, after eating so long by himself. After the meal it was still light enough for a casual inspection of the stock and farm. They filled their pockets with apples for the horses, and Edmund could hardly tear himself away from the two Welsh ponies who, like forward children, pushed and jostled each other and their new friend in their desire to be fed and petted. In fact he seemed more interested ​in them than in the skittish filly, or the two "drivers," or the broad-backed farm horses. When Derek took him to the cow-stable he had little enough to say about the two fine Holstein cows that had been purchased in the autumn to mate with the young son of Gretta van Lowe. Yet he hung fascinated over the calf-pen to watch Phœbe feed twin Jersey calves, late comers in the season, her arm rising, round and white, from the warm, sickly-smelling milk, her face flushed with exertion as she cuffed back the other twin.
"Hello," said Derek, sharply, "you dropped a cigarette stub. If you were a hired man I'd fire you." He put his foot on the smouldering spark.
"Mr. Vale's awful partic'ler about cigarette stubs," said Phœbe, drawing her hand from the clinging mouth of the calf. "He nearly sacked Bob Gunn for dropping one once."
"Very well," said Edmund, petulantly, "if I can't drop a few cigarette stubs about the place, I'd better go home, eh Phœbe?"
"Come along," said Derek, "you scarcely saw the bull. Then there are the pigs and sheep and poultry."
The turkeys had got into the poultry house and were resting on the highest perch, pecking the heads of the unhappy fowls beneath, so that most of the hens had huddled together in a corner on the floor, while the cocks with ruffled plumage strode up and down before the perches, longing but not daring to attack the intruders. Derek began to throw the turkeys out over the half-door. With heavy beating of wings they alit in the barnyard and, with scornful dignity, walked unhurriedly to the rail fence where they were supposed to perch.
"Why do they want to be in here?" asked Edmund, cautiously grasping the white hen-turkey.
"Pure cussedness. They know the fowls hate them, ​and they know we'll throw them out if we catch them, yet they persist."
"Perhaps they're cold."
"Not a bit. Feel the depth of that plumage." He plunged his hand into the downy whiteness of her breast. She drew her head back sharply, uttering a strange hissing noise, and staring into his mouth with her wild black eyes.
"She'd like to peck out one of my teeth. Put your hand on her neck."
"She's lovely. Like a graceful, pale woman. She's afraid, poor thing. I'll send her after the others." He dropped her lightly over the half-door, and they watched her as she delicately walked into the dusk, trailing her long feet.
"She's absolutely useless," said Derek. "She should have been eaten for Christmas. She set twice last summer and didn't hatch a poult. But she's so damned decorative—" He closed the door and bolted it, and they turned to go. Their feet scuffled the deep, clean straw; the perches were full of gentle, puffed-out hens, with here and there the toothed comb of a cock rising watchfully. On the lowest perch a row of immaculately white Wyandotte pullets pressed shoulder to plump shoulder. The air, smelling of straw and feathers, was full of comfortable, sleepy twitterings and duckings, sometimes broken by a complaining note as some greedy perch fellow pressed too close against another.
They passed between the dim rows of cows, gently clanking their chains as they stooped for cut hay and chop, and came upon Hugh McKay putting mangolds through the pulping machine. Behind him the blackness of the root cellar yawned like a cave, but his strong body and swinging arms were illuminated by the red glow of a lantern that hung from a rafter above. His shirt was thrown open and the curly hairs on his broad breast glistened in the light. ​The machine gave forth a crunching, pulpy sound as it disgorged the cut-up mangolds that lay in a juicy mound on the floor, white, rosy pink, and purple. The nearest cow stretched her neck towards it, protruding her tongue, and rolling her liquid, dark eyes.
As they went up the stairs Derek said to his brother: "That fellow, Hugh, is sweet on Phœbe, the girl who was feeding the calves."
"He is a fine-looking fellow. Looks as though he would be a good worker."
"He is. He has only two interests in life—the farm, and Phœbe. I wish you could see her dance. She used to be a hop-picker in the Old Country."
It had grown dark outside. "It is too late to see anything more tonight," said Derek. "Tomorrow morning I shall take you all over the place. We are to have dinner' with the Jerrolds at two, and in the evening I'm giving a party for the 'help.' Phœbe's been begging for one for a month and I thought we might as well have it while you are here."
"By George, I shall dance with Phœbe!"
"Not too often or you will have Hugh after you."
"Are they engaged?"
"I expect so, but he's far too good for her. She's not to be trusted."
"Where is the woman who is?" exclaimed Edmund, cynically.
For the first time since he had come to the farm Derek had a lamp lighted in the drawing-room. Edmund sat down at the old square piano and played with lightness and vigour popular music, and some of Derek's favourites from the operas; Derek lounged on the brocaded sofa and ​smoked, while the eyes of those who had built and cherished Grimstone looked soberly down from the walls.
In a pause of the music Derek said: "Oh, I say, Edmund, I have a Christmas present for you. Shall I give it to you now or shall you wait till tomorrow?"
Edmund swung around on the stool and faced him. "I think I'll wait. I have something for you too. Only a trifle. Not at all what I should have liked, but you know how it is with me. I'm always hard up."
"Oh, that's all right. How would you like a game of cribbage? I should like to give you a good licking before you go."
"All right. The piano is out of tune but it has a nice tone. Better get it tuned before it's too late."
"For whom?" asked Derek.
"Miss Jerrold, of course. I see her firmly established here as mistress by my next visit."
"Rot. I've no intention of getting married. I like the freedom of my life just as it is. I'm wedded to old Grimstone."
"Well, get the cribbage board, and I'll make you sorry you spoke."
They went to the dining room to play. The doors of the pantry between it and the kitchen were open and their game was frequently interrupted by noisy talk and laughter.
"Deuce take those hoodlums," muttered Derek. "I'll shut the doors."
"Not for a bit. I want to hear them. One of the Scotchmen is reading aloud—something from 'Jack Canuck,' I think. He sounds aggressive."
"He is—in the kitchen. That's Gunn. There; I peg two on you. That's what you get for not attending to the game."
"Whatever are they doing now? Listen."
​A hoarse guffaw came from the kitchen. "There goes Newbigging! Ho! ho! ho! There goes Gunn! Gie a blink, Phœbe, and knock Windmill off. There he goes—ho! ho! ho!"
"What are they up to, Derek?"
"Phœbe is sticking apple-seeds to her eyelids. She names each of them for one of the boys, and the one that hangs on longest" . . . .
"Now there's only Hughie and the two chaps in yonder." . . . "Aw, she put a extra dod o' spit on them, ye can be sure." Mrs. Machin spoke. "Sh. They'll hear you." A smothered burst of laughter followed, and a whispered—"There go Hugh and the master! Gosh! There's only Captain Vale left." Mrs. Machin then slammed the door.
"Now, Ted," said Derek, sternly, "are you going to play or are you not?"
Edmund was going to play, and played so well that he won two games, with Derek many points behind. Then supper was laid on the table—good cold beef, cheese, and baked apples, and Derek fetched two bottles of ale from the cupboard beneath the stairs. As they sat down, the party from the kitchen filed past on their way to bed, Phœbe in a state of impending collapse from stifled laughter. She had removed her spectacles for the test of the apple-pips, and, being almost blind without them, she clutched Hughie's sleeve for guidance.
The brothers, left to themselves, grinned at each other across the table.
"This place of yours is a regular picnic," said Edmund. "Tell me, are you always so hilarious? I wouldn't have missed it for anything. I like your old dining room. That china greyhound on the chimney-piece seems a friendly soul, and, even the pictures, though at first glance they seem depressing, are really jolly. I've never seen dying ​men look so neat and comfortable as those chaps scattered about Wellington and Blucher. Except perhaps the fellow bent across the cannon. Then that 'Trial of William, Lord Russell'—there's a good, solid air of comfort about it. Yes, I like your house and your stock and, above all, your 'help.' No one could feel blue with Hugh and Phœbe about. I'm awfully glad to find you so comfortable here, Derek."
What a decent fellow Edmund was! Not a hint of envy—of grudging him his good fortune! Derek made up his mind to destroy the cheque he had written for him and to write a more substantial one.
The ale had put an agreeable glow into their veins. They were as light-hearted as schoolboys. Derek told his brother of all his ambitions for Grimstone, and impressed him with the knowledge of farming he had gained in the past months. They went to the kitchen where the collie lay, stretched on his mat beside the cooking stove. Plates of apple-parings on the table reminded them of Phœbe's eyelids and the apple-pips. They laughed, and then suddenly began to scuffle. Around the kitchen they strained and heaved getting more in earnest every moment. At last Derek bent Edmund across the table and, holding his head down, administered some hearty thumps. The collie sprang up and began to bark.
"You blasted idiot, you've hurt me," groaned Edmund. "My hair's full of apple-parings!"
"Be a little soldier," said Derek. "Here, have a drink of cream. I'll wager you've never seen cream like this." He lifted the lid from an earthen crock and showed the bubbly, yellow foam.
Edmund came over, nursing his elbow. "You hurt me," he repeated. "I'm damned if I have another tussle with you. What cream!" He took the cup that Derek gave him, and dipped it. "I wonder if it will hurt me," he said.
​"No, but Mrs. Machin will if she finds out; we shall have to wash the cups."
The kitchen clock, with red roses on its dial, struck twelve. "We had better go to bed," said Derek. "I'll get a candle and light you to your room."
"Rot," said Edmund. "I'm going to sleep with you in that big four-poster."
"Good. It will be a regular Christmas Eve. We should hang up our stockings. Do you remember the time" . . . . Remembrances occupied them till they were in bed. They did not draw the blind, and the clear, wintry moonlight flooded the room. They stretched luxuriously side by side on the soft feather bed, their full, firm limbs outlined under the blankets. They lay in drowsy silence breathing the sharp, pure air that came in from the lake.
At last Derek said; "You remember those Indians I had here?"
"Of course."
"There was one young girl . . . she was really lovely . . . just half-civilized, you know . . . and her eyes—like a fawn's. She liked me and I liked her. One couldn't help it. Do you know what I mean? She was more like a tender, timid, audacious little animal than a woman. Only seventeen."
"Tell me about her," said Edmund, turning on his side and putting one arm across his brother.
They lay awake talking for a long time.
Edmund shivered and laughed on Christmas morning as he splashed the icy water from the ewer over his face and neck. From the kitchen came the sound of Phœbe's voice singing "Christians Awake," as she turned the separator. He had been mightily pleased with the cheque Derek had given him impulsively, as soon as they were out of bed, and ​Derek had been equally pleased by the old English hunting print brought from Halifax.
The day was fine, and so mild that the bare earth and moist, brown orchard trees seemed to be stretched in but a feline half-sleep and needed only a whisper or a touch to awaken to activity. They spent the morning in visiting every building on the farm. They walked to the wood, followed all the way up the lane by the two Welsh ponies. There the paths were slippery with pine needles; beds of moss dotted with scarlet wintergreen berries looked like diminutive cultivated gardens. They sat on a fallen tree watching the smoke from their cigars wind like a blue veil in and out among the pines. Rabbits and squirrels were about hopping and scampering in the sun. Presently the four men came to cut spruce and hemlock branches to decorate the house for the dance. Mrs. Machin and Phœbe were busy baking cakes and tarts, and decorating freshly-boiled hams with frills of fringed pink tissue paper. Into the fat they pressed many cloves.
At two o'clock the brothers were met at the door of Durras by Mr. Jerrold himself. He took them into the drawing-room where there were already Grace Jerrold, Mr. Ramsey, and a young lady from Brancepeth of whom the Vicar spoke as "my tower of strength in the Chancel Guild." Miss Edna Pearsall was dark-haired, pale, with square, plump jaws, permanent dimples in her cheeks, and glistening grey eyes. The presence of four unattached males exhilarated her pleasantly. She had an especial air for each of them. Towards the Vicar she was at once deferential and mischievous; towards Mr. Jerrold child-like and yet knowing—even naughty; towards Edmund, worldly, richly cultivated; but towards Derek there was a deadly seriousness in her manner that alarmed him. They were seated beside each other at table, and Mr. Ramsey smiled encour​agingly at them. Edmund, on Grace's right hand, seemed entirely absorbed by her, talking in a low voice, and only joining in the general conversation occasionally. Mr. Jerrold and the Vicar were boisterously happy, praising the juicy turkey and drinking freely of the good wine. Wreaths of holly hung against the pannelled walls; dark pictures reflected the ruddy candle shades.
"How invigorating and cheering is this excellent port!" intoned Mr. Ramsey, as they reached the walnuts and raisins. "There is no drink so healthful, and so calculated to bring out the most amiable qualities in one, as wine, taken in moderation, of course. I deplore the taste for whiskey in our country. It comes, I suppose, from our strongly Scotch ancestry. Now, if our working-classes drank light wines, as the French do, it would be better for them."
"Canadian wines are very poor," said Mr. Jerrold. "The summer is so short, even in the Niagara peninsula, that there is very little natural sugar in the grapes. Probably the soil has something to do with it, too. Consequently we have to sweeten the wine with manufactured sugar, which makes it very indigestible. I think the working man is safer with his glass of whiskey."
"Why not beer? The Americans and English drink beer."
"We are a stubborn Northern race," said Edmund. "Beer is too insipid for us."
"I think if a drink could be invented with a flavour like whiskey but without its evil effect, it would very soon supplant it, don't you, Mr. Vale?" said Miss Pearsall, arranging her fingers about the stem of her wine glass.
Vale's dislike of her was turning to hatred. He had an overwhelming desire to shock her, even if in doing it he dis​gusted Grace Jerrold. "Just to show what a childish illusion that is," he said in a sulky, muffled voice, "I shall tell you a little story about a hunting party I was once with. There were six of us deer shooting in the North, and we had taken a keg of Scotch with us. The weather was so cold and rainy that it went much faster than we had expected. We could plainly see that the last week there would be nothing to drink. One of the party got an empty bottle and, unknown to the rest of us, filled it from the keg and hid it, so that on the last day when we should be preparing the cabin for the winter, and have a twelve mile walk through the forest ahead of us he might produce this pleasant surprise. The last week was a sterile one, no deer—nothing to drink but prepared coffee. The last morning broke cold and damp. Everyone out of sorts. Then appeared our friend, beaming, with his bottle of Scotch. Now the sad thing was that the empty bottle he had got, though it had a good Scotch label on it, had once been filled with coal oil, and the idiot had never smelled it. Imagine our feelings when we tasted it! Imagine the abuse we heaped on his head!"
"You would just have to throw it out, wouldn't you, Mr. Vale?"
"No. That's the strange part of it. We kept sniffing it and tasting it to see how bad it was till, if you'll believe me, we ended by drinking every drop of it, and by that time we loved the taste of coal oil."
"How horrible!" said Grace Jerrold, on a note of disgust.
"I don't agree with you, Grace," cried Miss Pearsall. "To me there was something fine about those huntsmen. Their single-mindedness, their subduing of the flesh—"
"To the spirits," suggested Mr. Jerrold.
"It seems to me that such a man," she went on, "would be capable of tremendous self-sacrifice for one he loved."
​"Dear Edna," said the Vicar, "she has the temperament of the artist. By the way, you young men must hear her sing. She has a lovely soprano voice. . . ."
In the drawing-room after dinner she sang. Like most singers she was easy to start and hard to stop. Grace Jerrold played her accompaniments. She sang, her glistening grey eyes on Derek's face, and a professional's smile deepening the dimples in her cheeks. It irritated Derek to see his brother's supple figure lounging against the piano. Edmund was already more familiar with Grace, he thought, than he who had known her so long. It was the first time he had ever come to Durras when he had not thoroughly enjoyed himself. He wished he had not told that story of the hunting party. He was always doing things he afterwards regretted. Good heavens, couldn't Edmund tear himself away from the piano? He thought of their tussle the night before, and wished he had hurt him more. If they had another. . . .
At last Miss Pearsall ceased singing and a game of billiards was proposed. Mr. Jerrold, Mr. Ramsey, Miss Pearsall, and Derek went upstairs to the billiard-room. The other two said they would follow later; they were going to try over some music. Derek enjoyed the billiards. One could not help enjoying a game with Mr. Jerrold. He threw himself into it with such zest, made such daring, brilliant shots, and was so unconscious of his fine physique and power. Grace and Edmund appeared after a while and remained as spectators.
It was dark, and the tea-things had been taken away when Derek remembered the party at Grimstone. "We shall have to go," he said. "I am giving a dance for Phœbe and the boys to-night and I must see how they get on."
"How interesting!" exclaimed Miss Pearsall. "I should love to see peasants dancing."
"There are fishermen, and farm hands, and berry-pickers, ​and servant girls, but there are no peasants that I know of," said Derek, coldly.
"Ah. I love peasants. One always thinks of the Happy Peasant!"
"Why not the Hungry Peasant? Or the Half-hanged Peasant? Or the Hideous Peasant?"
Miss Pearsall gave a little shriek. "How brutal you are! Is your brother always so cruel, Captain Vale? But indeed, I have no repartee. All I can do is to dance in the sun and sing!" She danced a few graceful steps, and trilled a bar or two.
The Vicar was warming his legs before the fire. He said: "It would not be a bad idea, really, for me to drop in on the dancers. Many of them must be parishioners of mine. It might encourage them if I put in an appearance, eh?"
"They don't need encouraging in what they're up to this evening," said Mr. Jerrold. "I shouldn't go, if I were you."
"One thing that has surprised me since I came here," said Derek, "is that the Scots do not go to church. I had always thought they were inveterate churchgoers."
"We all have our illusions," laughed Mr. Jerrold. "I used to think that the Englishman of the labouring class was a domineering fellow, rather rough with his womenfolk. I know now that, whatever he may be abroad, he is amazing meek at home and it is the woman who does the bossing. They are tartars, too."
Grace followed Derek to the hall when he went for his top-coat. "I like your brother," she said.
"I liked him too—until today."
She flushed and said plaintively: "You do take sudden dislikes, don't you? You don't like Miss Pearsall; you have turned against your own brother; shall I be the next?"
"Well, be careful what you do," he warned.
The footsteps of the brothers rang crisply on the smooth, hard road as they returned to Grimstone. On their left, the frosty stubble of the shore meadows swept in silvery undulations beneath the bright half-moon that, like a noble ship, ploughed her way across a billowy sky. Clouds and moon were alike reflected on the still, burnished shield of the lake.
As they neared the house they heard the scrape of fiddles, and the stamp of jigging feet. Lights streamed from the dining room, kitchen, and back-kitchen. Derek quickened his steps. He strained towards the crude jollity of the dance. Here, at least, there would be no Miss Pearsall.
They entered quietly by the front door, hanging their caps and coats in the hallway before they went to the dining room. The dancing was in full swing, but there was a moment of hesitation and embarrassment when the Vales entered. Derek at once introduced Edmund to Miss Carss, the handsome daughter of the head gardener at Durras, who was too proud to dance with any of the Mistwell lads, or any of Vale's men, except Windmill. She had been brought by Hobbs, who looked rather horsey in a check suit, red tie, and hunting-crop tie pin. Derek took as his partner the plump daughter of a fisherman, Nan Hinton. She was a good dancer in a hearty, stamping way, and a certain roughness in his nature responded to the appeal of her throbbing, healthy body, her coarse, curly hair which tickled his cheek, and the clasp of her strong, freckled hand. The rooms were hot and heavy with the perfume of the balsam and hemlock boughs which the Scotchmen had hung above the doorways. He saw Mrs. Machin staring at him with disapproval in her eyes. He held Nan the closer for that, and threw himself with more energy into the dance. Gunn was whirling round and round with a black-eyed, plump girl, as rosy as himself. They looked into each other's eyes, grinning happily. New​bigging had kissed his partner, and she was protesting loudly that she would dance with him no more, the while she still jigged on and courted another kiss. Only Hugh McKay looked glum, standing in a corner, gnawing his knuckle, for Phœbe hung exultantly on the shoulder of a young fisherman whose eyes shone in his tanned face, blue as the winter lake. Derek felt sorry for Hugh and when the waltz was over he went to Phœbe and said sternly:
"You must go and dance with Hugh, Phœbe. He's getting very huffish."
"Huffish, is he? Oh, the very idear! How can he be huffish after the way I bear with him month in and month out? Oh, he's an unnatural lover if ever there was one!"
But she went to him and, though at first he refused her belated compliance, he was before long dancing in sulky submission.
After supper, which was hot and substantial, Hobbs took Miss Carss away, lest the increasing roughness should offend her. He told Derek he was glad to see him mixing with his "help." "I'm a good mixer, myself," he said.
As the evening wore on the room became very hot, the music wilder, the dancers more abandoned to pleasure. The faces of the men grew red, their collars sagged, the eyes of the girls grew languorous, it seemed that their hair must fall down; the rhythmic beat of their feet on the floor, the swaying of their healthy bodies, their clasped, hot hands held them in a spell. Mrs. Machin had gone to bed. An epidemic of kissing broke out. Derek and Edmund slipped quietly into the passage, and went upstairs to the cold little study.
"Have you had enough?" Derek asked.
"I've never spent such a Christmas!" declared Edmund, thumping him joyously on the shoulder. "I've enjoyed every minute of it. There's something about those simple, coun​try wenches that is very attractive. I danced with every blessed one of them. . . . How cold it is here!"
"Light your pipe," said Derek, "that will help warm you. They'll go very soon." He got a travelling rug and laid it over his brother's knees.
Edmund stayed two weeks with Derek. A part of almost every day was spent with the Jerrolds. The roads were good, the air pleasantly crisp; the four took long rides together. Derek felt that he had shown himself churlish on Christmas Day, so after that he almost invariably dropped behind to ride with Mr. Jerrold while Edmund and Grace cantered ahead.
On New Year's Day, as they rode beside the bluffs, Grace's horse took fright at a white cat that crossed the road dragging the body of a rabbit, and shied almost to the edge of the rocky steep. It was Edmund who reached her first, who caught the bridle, and led the rearing horse to safety. Father and daughter seemed to look on him as a splendid fellow. And so he was! A brother to be proud of. Why then the sullen, burning anger when the voice of Grace floated back next day, calling him Edmund? Was this shameful feeling jealousy? Derek thought not. One must be in love first. . . . He was scarcely in love with Grace. He liked her, admired her; the thought of her pretty hair would come to him at the most unexpected times. Sometimes he met her eyes or her cool, amused, little smile in his dreams. Still, that was scarcely love. He could spend whole days among his horses and cattle and never think of her. And she so near! He concluded that it was just a precious friendship, and that some base strain in himself resented the thought of Edmund's being admitted to the same friendship. As a kind of discipline then, he would stay at home sometimes and let Edmund go to Durras alone. ​Or was it cowardice that kept him home? The childish fear of seeing them together?
He was not introspective. He was singularly inarticulate. He did not try to analyze his feelings or find words for them. He groped among them as he tramped over his fields or exercised his arms in currying the silken sides of the new filly who blew her sweet breath down his neck as she turned to nose him. The brothers did not speak of Grace until they stood on the platform the day of Edmund's departure. Then Derek said:
"I don't suppose I need look forward to a long separation, Ted. . . . Not with such an attraction next door."
Edmund answered seriously: "I can never hope for anything there. I'm too damned poor."
"Is she—going to write to you?"
"Of course."
There was that wretched stab at the heart again! He was thankful for the shriek of the locomotive. He wrung Edmund's hand.
He did not go to the Jerrolds for a fortnight.