‘I passed this about. It’s a very special piece of stone. I bought it from a slaver in Zanzibar—you will appreciate its value to him when I tell you that in the hand of a virgin it changes colour and turns blue. Which is also
interesting; you can trace there the derivative trend of Christianity. Mary’s colour is blue, is it not? I gave two hundred guineas for this, and it is worth every penny. Tonight, for example … it turned colour once—a little creature with flaxen hair and a pink dress. Before I could reach you and ask you her name she’d vanished, and presently she slipped back into the dance looking rather sheepish. I invited her to hold it again … and alas …’ He ended with a laugh. Then, abruptly serious, he said, ‘After all, it is a thing we must face. We need one by the end of October and some preparation will be necessary. They’re so damned coy. I know: I’ve been through this before. It is very difficult to make them believe that it’s a purely passive part. To have one handy, one capable of being worked upon, would be very convenient. The best subject I ever found was at Medmenham—quite simple-minded, with a passion for port wine. Believe it or not, it had no effect upon her, she drank it as a kitten drinks milk, liking the taste and wanting more and more. I only wish I had her now,’ said Mr Mundford wistfully. ‘She was just right; but then Medmenham, as I’ve told you before, was wrong. I said so at the time. If you credit one side with power, then you must credit the other; and that was an abbey, consecrated soil, and there was the stumbling-block. Dashwood didn’t really believe either way … what I attained I attained despite him and the other fools.” As always on the rare occasions when he spoke frankly of his intentions and aims, a startling change came over him; into his suety face and tallowy fingers the blood seemed to flow, carrying warmth and colour and vitality; his ordinarily cold eyes grew luminous. When he spoke of the Power he sought it seemed to be already his; when he spoke of the Power he worshipped it seemed to be there, in the room, oppressively overwhelming, even to Richard Shelmadine. He could make the incredible seem credible, the fantastic merely a matter of common sense.
Damask first learned of the Fullers’ return from exile when she met Danny face to face along the drive just
before dusk on a Saturday evening late in September— the evening of the Harvest Horkey. She usually chose Saturday evenings for her visits to her mother, since Amos was almost certain to be out of the house then, either working on his new chapel or attending a week-night meeting in one already established. She had, with some reluctance, abandoned the attempt to give Julie bacon and cheese and butter and plum cake and other solid comestibles which seemed of such small value in the Dower House and of such enormous worth on the Waste. Julie dared only accept a little tea and sugar and, at intervals, fresh bottles of the medicines, and these she hid away, furtively.
that Amos had sold him the land, and once or twice the mention of the facts had been ‘on the tip of her tongue’, as she put it to herself; but she shrank from saying anything which might cast the slightest gloom over these brief visits. Damask had survived—had enjoyed, indeed, a stroke of wonderful good fortune; still, you never knew how deep a wound might have gone or how it might ache, all hidden away. Once, during the summer, Julie herself had suffered a pang when she saw Sally Ashpole— Mrs Danny Fuller—visiting her mother and carrying a really bonny bouncing baby in her arms. Nice dresses and pretty ornaments and what Julie called ‘plenty to do with’ were all very well, but did they entirely make up? Her grandmotherly instincts called out that they did not. On that day she had felt with renewed force that Amos in selling Danny the land had been disloyal to his daughter. Damask closed the door of the Dower House behind her that Saturday evening, settled the basket with the tea and sugar and medicines more comfortably on her arm and began to trip along the drive. It curved slightly around a clump of laurels, now neatly clipped back, and as she rounded the curve there was Danny. They came face to face and it was a perceptible while before he recognised her. Matt Ashpole had said in his gossipy way that she was at the Dower House and the old lady thought
the world of her, but that had not prepared him for this elegant vision; he had indeed been wondering whether she would answer the door to him, and what their attitude towards each other would be. Now, recognising her, he gave a sheepish grin, ‘Why, hullo, Damask.’
‘Good evening,’ she said coldly. ‘What are you doing here, Danny Fuller?’ As she spoke she lifted one slim, white, beringed hand and settled the gauzy scarf which lay, light as mist, over her curls and then encircled her neck. She had felt the pulse in her throat leap to life and pulled the scarf closer to hide it.
‘I wanted to have a word with Miss Parsons. Is she at home?
‘She’s always at home. But you can’t see her now. She never sees anyone unless I am there, and I am just going out. What did you want with her?’
‘Just a bit of business.’ Be demned if he’d tell her, acting so high-handed. ‘I’ll come another time.’
‘You might just as well tell me now and save yourself a long walk. I handle all her business now.’
‘I don’t mean housekeeping. I mean business. And it isn’t a long walk—we’re back in the old house. Didn’t you know?’
‘No. I … why, I…” She collected herself quickly. ‘I’m out of touch with village gossip nowadays. No, I hadn’t heard. Did you get the land back too?’
‘Why, no. Just the house. I’ve got some land—nineteen acres your own father sold me. Didn’t you even know that? Nineteen acres, but that’s no enough. That was why I was calling on Miss Parsons. She got her share of the Waste and I wondered whether she’d rent me a bit. You see, I…”
‘I can answer that now. None of Miss Parsons’ land is for hire.’
‘Now you can’t answer for that, Damask. Not without even asking. I’d pay a good rent and get the land in good heart…’
‘Not Miss Parsons’ land you won’t.’
‘I don’t see how you can be so sure …’ By this time she
was completely mistress of herself again and be able to meet his eyes. She looked at him, and strangely, since nothing in the situation had altered, he was certain that Miss Parsons had no land for hire. ‘Well, if you’re so sure,’ he said, all the spirit and hope and fight seeping out of him.
‘I’m sure. And now if you’ll excuse me …’ She began to walk along the drive again. He turned and began to walk in the same direction, not quite with her, about half a pace behind as a dog might.
‘You’re angry with me, aren’t you? Rightly so, I reckon. It was just—aw, something I couldn’t talk about, Damask. But I … well, I’m sorry if I … if I made you angry.’ It was the best he could do on the spur of the moment, taken aback as he’d been by the way she looked and then shattered by that cold, strange stare. And so much had happened during the last eighteen months, and he himself had changed so much, was now so worn down by work and worry, that he could hardly remember exactly what had been between them … at least, that was not quite true; he could remember her saying ‘I don’t want to be one of your jilts’—that was at the beginning; and he could remember the scene in the wood—that was at the end; but there were blanks.
She gave a little light laugh, a lady’s laugh, and said:
‘Why should I be angry with you? You did me no wrong. And the girl you did wrong you married, didn’t you? Why should anybody by angry?’
She was still slightly ahead of him, walking so quickly, so lightly and not turning her head, that he forgot that look she had given him and remembered only his land hunger.
‘No,’ he said in eager agreement, ‘I never did you much wrong, Damask. And if you feel that way and aren’t angry with me you might put in a word with Miss Parsons. Her bit of the Waste now, it’s fenced but not ploughed…’
‘It is being ploughed on Monday,’ Damask said. They had reached the gate and she halted and waited as a lady