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Updated: June 2, 2025
And on the road to Upthorne, under the arches by the sinister towers, Alice Cartaret, crouching on her stone, sobbed and shivered. Not long after seven Essy's child was born. Just before ten the three sisters sat waiting, as they had always waited, bored and motionless, for the imminent catastrophe of Prayers. "I wonder how Essy's getting on," said Gwenda. "Poor little Essy!" Mary said.
"She's got something to do with young Rowcliffe's not turning up, I think. I met the two of them half way between Upthorne and Bar Hill at half past four." He took out his watch. "And it's ten past six now." He sat down, turning his chair so as not to see her face. He did not, at the moment, care to look at her. "You might go and ask Mrs. Gale to send me in a cup of tea." Alice went out.
"It's a quarter past six now," she said to herself. "They must come back from Bar Hill by Upthorne. I shall meet them at Upthorne if I start now." She slipped her rough coat over the new gown and started. Her fear drove her, and she went up the hill at an impossible pace. She trembled, staggered, stood still and went on again.
Its lamps swung a shaft of light over the low garden wall. At the garden gate the car made a shuddering pause. Gwenda's face and all her body listened. A little unborn, undying hope quivered in her heart always at that pausing of the car at her gate. It hardly gave her time for one heart-beat before she heard the grinding of the gear as the car took the steep hill to Upthorne.
It had come to that. For Ned, the shepherd at Upthorne, had told what he had seen. He had told it to Maggie, who told it to Mrs. Gale. He had told it to the head-gamekeeper at Garthdale Manor, who had a tale of his own that he too had told. And Dr. Harker had a tale. Harker had taken his friend's practice when Rowcliffe was away on his honeymoon.
Greatorex was dead before he got to Upthorne he would come very soon, perhaps before prayer-time. And he would be shown into the drawing-room. Would he? Would Essy have the sense? No. Not unless the lamp was lit there. Essy wouldn't show him into a dark room. And Essy was stupid. She might have no sense. She might take him straight into the study and Papa would keep him there. Trust Papa.
So ill that they'll have to send for him. I shall see him that way." Alice sat up. She was thinking another thought. "If Mr. Greatorex is dead, Dr. Rowcliffe won't stay long at Upthorne. He will come back soon. And he will have to call and leave word. He will come in and I shall see him." But if Mr. Greatorex wasn't dead? If Mr. Greatorex were a long time over his dying?
He had sighted Mary Cartaret two or three times in the village, and once, on the moor below Upthorne, a figure that he recognised as Alice; he had also overtaken Mary on her bicycle, and once he had seen her at a shop door on Morfe Green. He was grateful to her for her absorption while he saw through it. He had always known that Mary was a person of tact.
"If I could live on air!" said Alice. "You can you do to a very large extent. You certainly can't live without it." Downstairs he lingered. But he refused the tea that Gwenda offered him. He said he hadn't time. Patients were waiting for him. "But I'll look in next Wednesday, if I may." "At teatime?" "Very well at teatime." "How's Alice?" said the Vicar when he returned from Upthorne.
After being caught on the moor at dawn, it was preposterous that she should show herself in the doorway of Upthorne at night. How was he to know that she hadn't done it on purpose? Girls did these things. Poor little Ally had done them. And it was because Ally had done them that she had been taken and hidden away here where she couldn't do them any more. But couldn't she?
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