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"Where did you get that thin face, Miss Mary? Not in Rathdale, I'll be bound." He looked at you with small grey eyes blinking under weak lids and bared the shark's tooth, smiling. A kind, hungry shark. "They must have starved you at your school. No? Then they made you study too hard. Kate what d'you think Bill Acroyd's done now?
"What regiment are they?" he said. "Camerons, sir. Going to the Front." The clear, uncanny eyes of Veronica's father pursued him now. At last he had got away from it. In Rathdale, at any rate, there was peace. The hills and their pastures, and the flat river fields were at peace. And in the villages of Morfe and Renton there was peace; for as yet only a few men had gone from them.
It had come upon her at first sight as they drove between twilight and night from Reyburn through Rathdale into Garthdale. It was when they had left the wooded land behind them and the moors lifted up their naked shoulders, one after another, darker than dark, into a sky already whitening above the hidden moon.
Gwenda in Peacock's trap had left the town before she heard behind her the clanking hoofs of Rowcliffe's little brown horse. She thought, "He will pass 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 pass her.
It was up Rathdale he was going, or to Greffington, or to smoke a pipe with Ned Alderson, or to turn in for a game of billiards at the village club. And whenever he lied to her she saw through him. She was prepared for the lie. She said to herself, "He is going to see Gwenda. He can't keep away from her." And then she remembered what Alice had said to her. "You'll know some day." She knew.
On an unearned thousand a year you can live like a rich man in Rathdale. Not that Rowcliffe had any idea of giving up. He was well under forty and as soon as old Hyslop at Reyburn died or retired he would step into his practice. He hadn't half enough to do in Morfe and he wanted more. Meanwhile he had bought the house that joined on to his own and thrown the two and their gardens into one.
Down the Back Lane and through the gap in the lower fields, along the flagged path to the Bottom Lane and through the Rathdale fields to the river. Over the stepping stones. She took the stones at a striding run. He followed, running and laughing. Up the Rathdale fields to Renton Moor. Not up the schoolhouse lane, or on the Garthdale Road, or along the fields by the beck.
Garthdale in front of it, Rathdale at its side, meeting in the fields below its bridge. Morfe was beautiful. She loved it with love at first sight, faithless to Ilford. Straight, naked houses. Grey walls of houses, enclosing the wide oblong Green. Dark grey stone roofs, close-clipped lest the wind should lift them.
He was asking Roddy when he was coming to play tennis, and whether his sister played. They might turn up tomorrow. The light played on his curling, handsome smile. He hoped she liked Rathdale. "She only came yesterday," Roddy said. "Well come along to-morrow. About four o'clock. I'll tell my wife." And Roddy said, "Thanks," as if it choked him. Mr. Sutcliffe went on down the hill.
And perhaps they were tired already when it happened." "Yes, that must be it. They're old and tired." And now it was the last adventure of their last day. They were walking on the slope of Renton Moor that looks over Rathdale towards Greffington Edge.
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