Free Cunning Murrell by Arthur Morrison Page B

bereavement. Indeed, this was the
way on and about the marshes, where an inevitable rheumatism weighted the
years of those past middle life; and now there was nothing for her mind but
her troubles. So that she wept and brooded, and indulged real and imaginary
terrors; being relieved only by intervals of blank forgetfulness. And at
night she was restless and wakeful.
    The afternoon on Castle Hill in some degree soothed her for the time it
lasted, though Dorrily was hard put to it to keep a cheerful face while her
eyes and ears were strained toward the village, and her wits were busy
devising ways of retreat in case of the approach of folk from the fair.
    Jack’s letters were read and re-read—short, frank, and ill-spelled,
on thin paper, two letters in each envelope, one for his mother and one for
Dorrily; and his mother found a childish interest in speculating on each sail
as it rose on the distant sea-line, with the counterfeit hope that it might
bring his ship on some unforeseen errand home. All the long sunny afternoon
they sat undisturbed on the grass of the hilltop, looking out across the
great width of green marsh and blue water, and no human creature came in
sight nearer than a man, far down on Casey Marsh, who seemed to crawl like an
insect, and hopped now and again at a ditch. There was an unfamiliar hum from
over the ridge behind—the noise of the fair; and as the afternoon went
the noise grew louder and more varied, though still it was a dull noise
enough. Dorrily was a little startled about this time by a fancy of her
aunt’s that somebody was in the copse just below the castle, watching them.
There was no sound, and nobody was to be seen; and as Mrs Martin admitted
that she neither heard nor saw anybody, though she “felt quite sure” that
somebody or something was there, Dorrily concluded that it was a mere
baseless fancy, and turned eyes and ears again toward Hadleigh.
    And so the afternoon grew into evening. The sun went down in blue and
gold, and the Nore light burst out in the midst of the darkening sea. The
sounds of the fight’s last skirmish had come clearly from the nearer meadow
whereinto it had straggled, and now the village was comparatively quiet. With
the coming of dusk Mrs Martin grew uneasy, and even Dorrily had no wish to
stay longer on Castle Hill; and as they went down toward the lane, Mrs
Martin’s apprehensions of something in the copse—something leaving it
now, she insisted, and following them—rose tenfold, and hastened their
steps, while Dorrily’s strained nerves took alarm from each of the tiny night
sounds that the stillness brought to her ear. But they reached the cottage
with no greater disquiet, and took their rest.
    But the days that succeeded, though easier for Dorrily, since she felt no
fear of actual violence once the disorder of the fair was over, saw little
change in her aunt. She grew sensitive to the manners and aspect of her
neighbours. Mrs Banham remained sullen, hostile, half-defiant; but the rest
displayed a curiously timid deference, an ostentatious anxiety to give no
offence, a wish even to propitiate, that might have been gratifying in other
circumstances; though as it plainly disguised mere aversion and disgust, and
was accompanied by an unmistakable desire to keep at the safest possible
distance, its effect was to cause a suppressed torment and irritation which
increased with time. And Mrs Martin’s angry looks and frowns askance were
popularly taken for plain proofs of witchcraft in themselves.
    But her angry looks were for the outer world alone, to which she lifted
her bravest face. At home she was pensive and abstracted, and now Dorrily
felt indeed that loneliness that she had vaguely apprehended—a
loneliness that made her head of the little household, and was loneliness
only in the sense that unaided and uncounselled she must bear the burdens of
both.
    Almost every morning she went up to the village