The breathless moment

Front matter

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Chapter I

W ITH the letter tightly clasped in her hand, Sabine turned away from the office and paused at the head of the shallow steps leading to the hotel gardens.

A stout gentleman on the porch, enjoying an equally stout cigar, glanced up with appreciation, endeavouring to catch her eye. Failing in this, he resorted to speech.

“ Going to be hot,” he suggested with a suitably judicial air. Sabine nodded absently, her fingers playing with the seal, as yet unbroken, of the letter.

“Unusually hot for the time of year.” The elderly bore believed in persistence. “Though you look cool enough, Miss Fane.” He continued to stare at the silent figure, slim in her straight linen gown, loosely girdled at the waist. “Nothing like white for a woman — white or black. Don’t give me colours! That’s where your sex, if I may say so — ” He paused, his mouth half-open. Sabine had slipped past him. “Well — !” He grunted, discomfited, watching her skim the hot gravel where little grains of flint glittered under the fierce rays of the sun, and admiring, a trifle grudgingly, her free step, instinct with youth. “She might have had the civility — ” He left the grumble unfinished as he saw her turn her dark head; a voice had hailed her from the lawn:

“Come and play? Just a knock-up?” A flapper, alone on the tennis-court, in the midst of practising a vicious over-hand “serve,” was waving her racket invitingly.

Sabine resisted the temptation.

“Not just now. Later, perhaps.”

“Oh, very well!” The flapper scowled and cut a ball across the net with a backward kick of a long, thin leg encased in

IO diaphanous silk stocking. The elderly gentleman moved his chair to a better point of vantage, and resumed his study of the sex.

On went Sabine, avoiding a group of people under a shady tree, one of whom beckoned to her, and, skirting the thick valerian hedge where the dull red flowers drooped in the heat, she passed through a little gate and emerged on to no man’s land, a strip of wiry, sun-bleached turf fringing the edge of the cliff. This she crossed and made her way down a zigzag path to where a bench, sheltered by feathery tamarisk, commanded a wide view of the bay. Beyond the seat a diminutive landslip had loosened the rich red soil, forming a natural barricade. Here was the solitude she sought.

She settled herself on the low bench. In the action was the unconscious grace of a woman sure of herself and accustomed to move in a social crowd. It added to the sense of perfection in every line of her dress, simple yet dainty, holding a hint of dignity unusual in youth. A “girl of the world,” some man had called her, and the epithet had been well-chosen.

Beneath her lay the blue sea, smooth and metallic, motionless, save where a quiver ran along the border of the pebbly beach, or its sucked-in breath marked the presence of a halfsubmerged rock. The sky was like a tight blue cloth, without a crease, through which the sun had burnt a hole with frayed edges. In the still air was the presage of thunder.

“Now!” said Sabine and opened her letter.

Her face was pale beneath its tan. Her mouth — the one perfect feature in her irregular, charming face — was compressed to a thin, red line, betraying the tension of her mood.

She went through the letter deliberately twice, as though committing the words to heart, with no quickening of the breath, no flicker of the lowered eyelids. Only her dark brows drew together, suggestive of concentration.

Finally she raised her head and stared out across the sea, oblivious of the picture made by the slumbering fishing-fleet, brown sails sagging limply, becalmed on the other side of the bay.

ii

Slowly, in the depths of her eyes — brown eyes with golden lights — something stirred: a flicker of laughter. For, a shade bewildered, she realised that her most definite sensation was not of despair but of relief; an immense relief that bordered humour.

To know the worst; to be sure at last; to have done with those endless legal letters and stand braced, to meet the future — what a relief, what a blessed relief! Spontaneously she laughed aloud. And with the clear, musical note a memory rose of her father, on a certain night when he had learnt of the failure of a speculation dear to his heart — one of many! She could see again that handsome face, dark with anger and resentment, and then the swift bewildering change, typical of his volatile nature, as he digested the sorry jest, the loss but whetting his appetite for further fields of adventure. Yes, she was a Fane too. She straightened her graceful shoulders. Life was not only a question of ease, of monotonous, fair sailing; life at its best was a sporting affair, of taking risks with a tight lip, winning here, losing there. This was a new test of courage.

“All the same,” she thought aloud, “I’m glad the poor old darling’s gone, before this war — that he didn’t know. It’s odd that his one impulse of prudence should have ended in disaster. If he’d left his money where it was there would have been a certain income. But now Germany is the winner.” Her eyes grew sombre. “That’s what hurts! How I wish we’d never gone to Frankfort and met Baron von Freiling and his friends. To say nothing of his wife! ”

A faint smile, half-pitiful, half-charged with irony, was checked by teeth that caught her lip. She felt the sudden fear of those who think lightly of the dead.

For Fane’s weakness had not escaped the eyes of his only daughter. She knew the extent of his attraction for the opposite sex and how it had formed a useful lever in his business, yet become at times a dangerous weapon that turned against the man himself in the crises of emotion. With all his knowledge of the world he had preserved a curious freshness, an exuberance of vitality, that warred with the caution of his brain. His affair with the German Baroness had been the last of a long series of Continental adventures. In this instance the husband had scored.

Sabine’s mind drifted back, through the changing scenes of early years, to her mother, a gracious presence but always remote, absorbed in her husband and the endless whirl of social endeavour.

Her money, generously offered, had been the turning-point in his fortune. Connected with an insurance firm of good standing but old-fashioned views, Fane, shortly after his marriage, decided upon a more vigorous programme, sacrificing the capital his wife had brought him in a course of entertaining, at first sight reckless, but justified by results. Wherever the gay crowd moved, there could be found Fane and his wife and the open hospitality of their villa or their yacht. They sowed money and reaped it twofold. Fane’s gambling spirit was satisfied.

Homburg, Cairo, Trouville, Monte were the brief stations of Sabine’s childhood between the longer intervals of her education at Lausanne, a convenient centre for her parents. Often she spent her holidays at the pleasant Swiss school, or in some quiet pension with Dillon, her faithful nurse, half-forgotten by her mother save for brief flying visits. But, after the latter’s sudden death, Fane, stunned by the heavy blow, had turned instinctively to his daughter. To Sabine there opened out a magical life, shorn of lessons beyond a few accomplishments, in her father’s company at an age when most English girls are kept firmly in the background. She rose to it like an eager fledgling. At twentyone she was on a par mentally with the average woman ten years her senior; a competent mistress of a house, an able linguist, with perfect assurance and a secret distrust of the ways of men which, without embittering her outlook, preserved her from the obvious pitfalls of her father’s easy rule. Not that he neglected her or permitted any light adventure. But thoughtlessly, as the years rolled on, he accepted this girl with her clever brain, her love of life which equalled his own, and her charm inherited from himself, as his equal and confidante, filling the gulf left by his wife. They were partners in the Great Game, with few reserves and a mutual indulgence.

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She saved him from remarriage; at once his excuse and his defence. For Fane loved his liberty. But she could not save him from the results of his ardent temperament, though at first he shielded her from the knowledge. Only his wife could have done this. Mixing in a gay crowd, cosmopolitan in its morals, her young eyes probed his secrets. They bred in her, after the first bewilderment and disillusion, an unusual clearness of vision. Men were plainly polygamists. It behoved her, therefore, to be wary and hold aloof from romance, enjoying their society, but resolute in her reserves.

When in doubt she turned to Dillon, a true-hearted Irishwoman who occupied a position more akin to friendship than to service and never swerved in her loyalty to her widowed master and his child.

Her homely philosophy — the philosophy of a peasant accepting the “ways of Nature,” a shade biased where her affections were inextricably involved — proved a refuge and consolation to her sorely puzzled charge. If “Dilly” knew, it was all right. “Dilly’s” statement that “the master, bless him,” must not be hardly judged on account of his “great sorrow” and the “charm of him that lepped to the eyes,” held good for many a day. Yet it made her fastidious in her friendships. For her were no maiden fancies. Only an exceptional man, as yet unmet, could reconcile her to the disadvantages of a slate so intimate as marriage, yet bound by so frail a tie.

Life, meanwhile, was very pleasant, full of movement and adventure. The gaiety that goes hand in hand in the South with all love intrigue, so different from the gloomy remorse that seems to haunt Northern races, blurred the issue, and Sabine’s youth detected the element of sport.

At times she watched her father’s skill with the fairer sex in admiration, scolding him openly, a twinkle in her brown eyes. Fane, shameless, would plead guilty but suggest that it was “good for business.”

Yet, oddly enough, the happiest year in all their wandering companionship had for its setting a quiet house in a green English lane. Fane’s health had been failing fast. Settling his business he retired to the old scenes of his boyhood, renting a small property with beautiful grounds in the West Country.

Here were new joys for Sabine. Long rides, when his health permitted, with Fane, aged but ever brilliant, and quiet evenings devoted to books, music and drifting conversation, opened up to the young girl another vista more generous in its simple happiness, cleaner, sweeter than she had known. For the first time she owned her father. She took the country to her heart. England claimed her, the home of her forbears. Even the narrow moral code that refused to probe beneath the surface, drawing a rigid black line between conventional virtue and vice, held something definite and restful. The sense of the cruel parting before them — for Fane was doomed from the start — brought a more poignant touch of affection into the still and tranquil days. She knew that love which is, perhaps, the sweetest in a woman’s life when a virile man attacked by weakness turns to his dear one to drain courage and consolation through darkest hours.

His end justified his creed of the gambler’s luck, and upset all conventional theories. No saint could have had a more peaceful passing. As Sabine kissed the still lips that had brushed so many laughing cheeks, now cold but fixed in a peaceful smile, she could thank God brokenly that pain held no more terrors for him.

There followed long, blank days as the leaves grew golden and slipped from the trees and Dillon watched over the living and wove strange fancies around the dead. In the depths of her faithful heart she was assured of Fane’s “salvation.” A mere pinch of Purgatory and then reunion with Sabine’s mother, waiting proudly in Paradise where he would have a fine welcome. Not even the Blessed Virgin herself could withstand “the master’s charm”!

Winter was to be the test of Sabine’s new-found love of the country. She emerged victorious from the ordeal and at the end of the short lease, left with regret the low, white house with its fern-like cloak of wistaria.

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Spring found the pair in London to complete affairs with the lawyers. Partly on Baron von Freiling’s advice but mainly through the curious fear of a man who feels the approach of death and becomes insecure in his own opinions, Fane had invested the greater part of his capital, weakened by speculations, in various German industrial stocks with which his new friend was connected. No shadow of war then dimmed the land and Sabine, though temporarily affected by the death duties and standing debts, was assured of a good income. She escaped from the dust and noise of London to a quiet hotel in Devonshire where she could “economize” — as she called it — and make plans for the future.

Although she still mourned her father, the knowledge that an outward show of grief would have been repugnant to him and her own healthy common sense forced her out into the open. She made friends easily with the pleasant holiday crowd, more or less stunned and incredulous when war suddenly broke loose, but optimistic as to its length. It was more obvious in the papers than in its effect on daily life in this quiet backwater, washed by those waves which England still ruled and buttressed by Tradition,

Then, like a shell from the far-off guns, fell the ominous legal warning, followed by others — long-winded, involved — camouflaging financial ruin. For weeks she had hung on the brink of disaster, hoping, fearing, no definite news available in the vast debacle and harassed by uncertainty.

Now, at last, she knew the worst. The capital was locked up, if not irretrievably lost; there could be no dividends. Her credit at the bank was low. From a solitary English source she could expect, if all went well, a pittance that amounted to her normal expenses in shoes and gloves. Otherwise she had no prospects. The senior partner who had known her father for many years wrote a grave letter of sympathy and advised her to seek “a home with relations.”

Sabine smiled, her eyes on the sea, considering this suggestion. Fane had cut himself adrift long since from his family, but at his funeral a gaunt brother had appeared with an air of conferring i6 a favour; had engaged and lost in a passage of arms with Dillon, who resented his manner and his suspicious questionings, retiring finally with the air of washing his hands of the younger branch. Mrs. Fane had been an orphan; there were no links to reforge on that side. “Uncle Herbert” stood alone. Sabine played for a moment with the appalling thought of turning to him for assistance.

“I think that Charity would be strained on both sides,” she decided, “in a ‘home’ with Uncle Herbert. Though it might be diverting to watch Dilly — ” She paused, aghast. For the first time the full force of the blow reached her. She could no longer afford a maid. Dillon was involved in her ruin.

The dazzling scene ran blurred before her; brown sails and blue sea merged in an opalescent mist. With an effort she mastered the feeling of panic, clutching at a saving grace.

“But Dilly is provided for. She can’t starve. Thank Heaven! I’m glad the old darling thought of that.” Her beautiful mouth took a tender curve.

For Fane had rewarded the faithful creature a few months before his death with the gift of an annuity that brought her in eighty pounds a year. He foresaw that a large sum in money might lay her open to designs wearing a matrimonial cloak, at the hands of some worthless fellow. Unwittingly he secured for her a steadier income than for his child.

A whimsical idea caught Sabine as she realised the situation: Dilly, mistress of a cottage and herself the dutiful maid-of-allwork. A paradox bred by war!

“I shouldn’t mind.” Her eyes twinkled. “I’d rather clean Dilly’s boots any day than Uncle Herbert’s. To begin with they’d be smaller!”

From the rocks below a clamour rose, some sharp dispute among the gulls. Silvery wings flashed in the sunshine. Then, as swiftly as it had begun, the raucous outburst died away, swallowed up in the sultry peace. Sabine leaned forward, chin propped on her slender hands, the light glinting from off her rings and drawing a flash from the steel buckles on her pretty grey shoes.

“And those aren’t paid for yet,” she thought.

The rueful reminder steadied her. It was no use dreaming in the sunshine. She must evolve some plan of action. To what purpose could her education and knowledge of life be put at this juncture? She would never live on charity and as to marriage — she shrugged her shoulders. She was no great believer in love. She had seen its shadow, satiety, dogging passion too closely. Resolutely she put away the memory of two men who had refused to abandon hope.

“I shall never sell myself,” she decided. “If it has to come, love must be a gift.”

By her side on the blistered bench was a crumpled copy of the Times , left by a former occupant. She picked it up and opened it at the crowded advertisement page. It might give her some idea of posts open at the moment.

The war checked her at the outset. Languages were her strongest asset. But who needed a travelling companion, or a foreign chaperon nowadays? The Continent was forbidden ground, given over to the armies. As yet there had been no call for women to replace men, though an eager rush to Red Cross lectures had resulted from the first demand for hospital work. The nursing profession entailed long training and she could not afford to undertake any voluntary task. There remained the traditional role for women thrown back on their own resources, and educated: to teach the young. She studied the openings for governesses.

She found her knowledge inadequate. To speak diplomatic French without competent mathematics and a whole host of other subjects, music, harmony, elocution, “physical culture” — whatever that meant — was to descend obviously to the rank of “nursery governess” according to the Timers requirements. Salary thirty pounds a year! Sabine gave a scornful chuckle.

“Dilly’s boots before that! What an amazing amount they expect. With ‘refinement’, ‘good temper’, superb health and ‘religion.’ In return for a mere pittance — sufficient to hide one’s nakedness. Impossible to dress on it! I’d far sooner be a i8 servant. They are decently provided for and allowed some liberty. I could insist on my ‘days out’!” She laughed aloud at the thought.

But she struggled on through the dazzling print, past “competent nurses” and “mother's helps” — a post that set her wondering — to “lady-cooks,” the baits too obvious, until she came to “housekeepers.”

The heading brought a faint sense of relief. It held a certain suggestion of power, a midway post between ruler and ruled. She felt an amused interest in it. If she had managed her father's house in many countries, adapting herself to local conditions of service and food, surely her experiences fitted her for this post in England, with all its wealth of home comforts.

“I should have some corner to myself, even if it were a bare one.” She smoothed out the crumpled sheet before her. “I might even find room for Dilly. She'd undertake any work to live under the same roof. Or she could settle in a cottage in the vicinity. I could visit her on my ‘evenings out'.” Her optimism clutched at the straw.

She began to consider it seriously.

There were only four advertisements. The first three she passed over. They were for London and the suburbs and her scheme called for a rural background. But the last fulfilled this requirement.

Wanted: a lady to undertake the management of a quiet house and light secretarial duties. No housework save charge of dairy. Two in family. Four servants. Must be able to drive and fond of the country. Good salary if competent. Permanent situation. Write Vallance, Liddingcombe, Devon.

She read it through thoughtfully, caught by something in the wording.

“It's original. ‘Secretarial duties’? I wonder what that implies? Either the owner’s been well served or is a confirmed idealist to add that ‘Permanent situation’ as a lure to the modern retainer. Or perhaps it means that it’s not for War-time, to end when Peace is declared? But it doesn’t ask me to be a Christian according to my employer’s creed. Only to understand my business! That’s a distinct advantage. With no allusion to my temper — I needn’t even be ‘refined’! Liddingcombe? The name’s familiar. If it’s anywhere near here I’ve a great mind to go prospecting before I write. I’d prefer to form my own impressions, and letters are rarely enlightening.”

She tore out the advertisement and rose to her feet. For a long moment she studied the blue expanse of sea. It seemed to embody a sense of freedom and there came a tightening at her heart.

Far away on the sky-line were two long dots that moved swiftly. Her eyes narrowed. Ships of war. She turned on herself angrily. Across that strip of blue water there were men fighting, giving their lives for the freedom of the world, and yet she shrank from a touch of discomfort!

Work? It was a fine adventure. Meanwhile there was Dilly to soothe and placate — poor, dear, old Dilly!

“And that’s the hardest part,” thought Sabine.

Chapter II

T HERE were no cabs at Lidding Junction. A five-mile walk lay before Sabine, “seeking a situation” — the first check to her ardour.

The narrow lanes with their high banks were oppressively hot and deep in dust as she tramped on determinedly, recalling the station-master’s directions.

Lidding St. Mary would come first, with its village and the manor house. Then the turning near the church that would lead her to the path by the river, which wound between high wooded banks on its last great adventure, meeting its tidal lover in the fishing hamlet of Liddingcombe.

The station-master had been vague in answer to Sabine’s eager questions regarding her destination, his knowledge of Liddingcombe confined apparently to the fact that an aunt of his had once lived there and found it very “out o’ the way.” It could not compare with Lidding Junction for purposes of gaiety.

Sabine smiled, remembering this, as she trudged on through the sleepy silence. She seemed to be mounting steadily, with little dips between the hills where she drew breath in the shade of the trees that clung to the verdant hollows. But, at last, after a sterner climb she emerged on to open moorland, where the gorse stretched in yellow waves, beating back the fierce heat like a golden shield, faintly studded by dwarfed bushes of whortleberry. Here and there a vivid patch of sun-stained moss marked the source of a dried-up spring amidst spikes of rush. Larks sang in the blue heavens.

“I wonder they’re not cooked,” thought Sabine, blinking in the dazzling glare.

She sat down on a hillock to remove an intrusive pebble that had found its way into one grey shoe.

The solitude seemed overpowering. Still nursing her injured foot she scanned the wide scorching prospect. In vain she sought for the church spire of Lidding St. Mary, the promised landmark dwelt upon by the station-master. No sign of human habitation loomed up on the hazy horizon; only the far-off line of the sea.

She thought of Dillon, red-eyed, prophetic, from whom she had parted at the hotel, obstinate in her contention that her mistress was “never intinded for work. And what would the poor master (God rest him) say? With her living on his money!” No good would come from this expedition. If only she would be “led by Dilly.”

The faithful creature had pleaded in vain for a cottage maintained by her savings, together with the annuity, where Sabine could keep up a modest farce of gentility, whilst Dillon laboured to support them both “till the cloud blew over.” The war could not last for long. Dillon here was optimistic. Meanw r hile an active woman could easily find daily employment. There was no need for Fane’s daughter to dream of “soiling her pretty hands.”

But Sabine held to her intention, kissing away the old woman’s tears. Dilly could live in a cottage close by and keep an eye on her darling. She was set upon going to Liddingcombe.

Now Dillon’s parting words recurred to her, with their flicker of temper: “ ’Tis lost you’ll be in them heathenish parts. With tramps and the heat beyond bearing. ’Tis going agin the face of Nature.”

Sabine, smoothing her silk stocking, decided that the face of Nature on Lidding Moor was not reassuring. Had she, by chance, missed the road?

Across her mood, which veered between exasperation and amusement, came a distant and most welcome sound, the steady beat of approaching hoofs. She glanced back along the road with a lightening of the spirit. On the brow of the hill was a black dot that resolved itself into a heavy landau, drawn by a strong pair of horses in charge of a burly coachman, grotesque in a new panama. Beside him was revealed its twin on the head of a lean footman. Both men were in plum-coloured livery, their buttons glinting in the sunshine. The yellow wheels of the carriage added a touch of magnificence.

Sabine hurriedly slid on her shoe and stood up. Here was a chance of settling the doubt in her mind. As the carriage slowly drew abreast she stepped forward and hailed the coachman. He seemed to be half-asleep and drew in his horses with a jerk.

“Liddingcombe?” He stared at her stupidly, resenting the check.

From the roomy interior of the landau came a drowsy voice:

“Eh? What’s that?”

Sabine, despairing of the driver, turned her attention to his employer.

She saw a stout, red-faced woman propped up against a cushion of plum-coloured silk, her eyes blinking; small but goodhumoured eyes buried in fat that seemed to invade the whole of her ornate person.

“I’m so sorry to trouble you, but I’m afraid I’ve lost my way.” Instinctively Sabine smiled; the stout lady looked so friendly. “I’m trying to get to Liddingcombe. Is this the direct road?”

“You don’t mean Lidding St. Mary?” In the question was an eagerness that puzzled Sabine.

“Well, partly. I understand that comes first — that Liddingcombe is farther still?”

“A good mile,” said the stout lady. She put up a hand in a tight kid glove and straightened a hat that seemed to contain every well-known type of flower; then solemnly raised her lorgnette and stared at the questioner. This scrutiny seemed to satisfy her. “It’s a long step.” Her smile widened. “If you like” — she hesitated, then plunged — “I could give you a lift. I live at the Manor, Lidding St. Mary. I’m on my way ’ome now.”

Sabine, inwardly taken aback, murmured indistinct thanks.

The footman descended from the box slowly. His lean face looked mistrustful as he opened the carriage door.

“He doesn’t approve,” thought Sabine, amused. “But I’m not going to lose this gift from the gods.”

“It’s very kind of you,” she said, aloud, to her benefactress; “it is so hot, walking, to-day.”

“Then get in, m’dear,” said the stout lady.

The footman solemnly arranged the dust-cloth across her knees. It had a large monogram embroidered in plum-colour in the centre, a J and G intertwined. The carriage rolled on again. Sabine leaned back with a sigh of relief.

“Perhaps you’re staying in these parts?” Again the girl caught a note of eagerness in the question, but without waiting for an answer the stout lady babbled on: “If so, you’ll have heard of me. I’m Lady Gull.” She stole a glance sideways to mark the effect of this. “Wife of Sir Joshua Gull. Lidding St. Mary’s our country seat.”

The thought flashed across Sabine that it must be a solid one.

“Indeed?” She steadied her expression. “It’s a charming country, isn’t it?”

“So every one says.” The stout lady appeared to be undecided. “I dare say I’ll get used to it. You see I come from the North. I suppose I miss the old faces. We knew every one in Bradford. Every one as was worth knowing.” She sank deeper into her cushion. “If I go to sleep, mind you wake me. I’m afraid it’s a bad ’abit of mine. My daughter’s always at me about it. But there’s something in carriage exercise that makes me want to shut me eyes.”

“It’s drowsy weather,” Sabine responded, struggling with her inward mirth.

“Ah, you feel the ’eat yerself?” The stout lady looked pleased. “Henrietta’s so energetic. Never still, like ’er father! I don’t wonder that she’s thin. Too thin.” She laid stress on the words with a faint vindictiveness. “In my time we thought a girl — a young girl — ought to be plump, but now they want to look like flag-poles. And I’m sure they don’t enjoy life, not as we used to.