She saw and heard Philip saying: ‘If I could I’d send you your fortune by post. From Philip. With love.’
A sudden rage blotted every other emotion. ‘After all these years. I don’t want anything from her,’ she said.
She looked at Richard, and as the writer had known they would the closing words of the letter paid all. ‘I should like it very well if you brought with you a photograph of your boy.’ Her heart turned in her side. If she will do something for Richard I will forgive her anything, she thought.
Her grandmother’s new house was seven miles from Danesacre by the moor road—six, from her present lodging. She decided to walk the distance, so that she would not come there until the afternoon but could start at once. She could not wait.
She left Richard at Miss Holland’s. Walking, on that road, with the moors turning their great shoulders to the sky, and then the lines of the farther hills folding in, one below the other, falling to the valleys, she thought of everything that could happen. Once she ran, because of the excitement. Her happiness was so great that it was hardly she kept quiet. Towards the last of the way she could only think that she was safe. Now every step she took brought her closer to the moment in which she would say to herself, Now Richard can have everything. When she reached the first gates she stopped to dust her shoes: to her vexation one had sprung a crack during the long walk. She went in, past the pines, to the drive proper, and so up to the house. Her heart was beating to choke her, and she felt empty inside her.
The double doors of the house were open. As she hesitated on the step a man came forward, she supposed a head servant. She found that it was hard to speak. ‘I am Miss Russell and I wish to see Mrs Hervey,’ she said stiffly.
The man was looking into her face. ‘Mrs Hervey is ill.’
‘Yes?’ Hervey said. She felt as though she had fallen out of the world. She stood in ,the midst of nothing. ‘I should like to see someone,’ she said, in a moment.
The man left her standing in the hall and went by another door into the garden. She looked through the window and saw the light falling on the hedge in such a way that it seemed full of holes through which the light poured. She heard steps behind her and swung round. A young man came towards her. She stared at him, at first sight pleased by his looks, the eyes quick and kind, nose finely and lightly arched, the mouth short and fine.
‘We’re cousins, I think.’ He smiled at her. ‘I’m Nicholas Roxby. First cousins.’
Suddenly she wanted to make a good impression on him, but felt dull and awkward. She suffered in feeling herself exposed to his glances, to be liked or despised. Following him into the drawing-room, she could think of nothing more to say than : ‘I came to see my grandmother.’
‘She’s ill,’ Nicholas said.
Hervey felt in her bag and took out the letter. She kept her hand over it. ‘Is she very ill?’
‘She’s dying, I’m afraid.’
I must go, Hervey thought. She was at the end of her courage in this house. It was an agony to her to push herself forward. But she made another effort. ‘Is she too ill to see me?’
She heard Nicholas answer that Mary Hervey was speechless and dying. She did not say anything. By now she was past caring what he thought, except that she would die of shame if he saw that she had expected something from this visit. She forced herself still, her face showed nothing. All at once she could have laughed, knowing what she had thought on the way here.
‘Well, I’m alive,’ she said.
She stood up to go. Her hands were full of the things she had emptied out of her bag to reach the letter, with them the photograph of Richard. Nicholas picked up a bunch of keys she let drop. ‘Stay to tea,’ he said. She felt an impulse to talk to him, to say no matter what, if it came from the heart. But, no, she would not stay in this house. She marched out, walking quickly yet blindly, her head dropped forward.
Now that she was outside, and had got nothing, she felt a rough gaiety. No one must ever know about this, she thought with passion: no one shall ever know. Courage came back to her. She laughed, she was almost happy, except when she considered what a dull poor figure she had cut before her cousin. Then she stood still with vexation in the road, frowning and biting her lip. She wanted very strongly to stand well with him. As she walked, she kept him before her mind, with so much eagerness that she forgot how awkward she had been. With the whole force of her massive clumsy mind she wished to see him again.
She gave a thought or two to her grandmother, that arrogant old woman, near her end. So long and strange a life, and now to become nothing. This thought angered her, denying the life in herself. She could not believe that she would die.
A narrow track crossed the moor at one point, leaving the road out of sight. She took it, and so missed the car in which her mother was hurrying to Mary Hervey’s house. But it came into her mind to wonder if they had sent for her mother. Again she thought with hot anger of Mary Hervey. If she had been kinder my mother would not have had to work so hard or do with so little, she thought; and her heart ached for her mother, that she had had so little. What’s it been for, all your work and struggle? she cried. But wait, wait: that rich old woman did nothing for you, her daughter; I, your child, will give you everything. So she went on, not even caring to keep her shoes from being worse scratched by the heather.
She came to the turn of the road above Danesacre, where she could see it. The sky, so blue, so calm, dissolved into the sea. The town appeared new, though it was a thousand years old, the roofs shining in the light, the grass on the cliff edge greener than that close at hand. Hervey sat down on the ground to look at it and to think over her plans. I shall accept, she thought, Evelyn’s offer, I shall write and work; in a few months I shall have enough to take a small house near London, with a garden for Richard; there I shall live quietly, more like a scholar than a novelist. It was an excellent plan, yet when she had tested it thoroughly on every side, and approved it, and told herself that at last she was on the step of making her fortune, she found her heart still waiting, and impatient, but for what?
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
Copyright © Storm Jameson 1934
First published in Great Britain
by Cassell & Co. Ltd 1934
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any
part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical,
mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the
publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
ISBN: 9781448200443
eISBN: 9781448201761
Visit www.bloomsburyreader.com to find out more about our authors and their books
You will find extracts, author interviews, author events and you can sign up for
newsletters to be the first to hear about our latest releases and special offers
Company Parade Page 34