The Jade God by Alan Sullivan (snow like ashes series txt) 📕

behind the blow, the power that dealt it. Where her mother was inclined to give way with a hopeless wonder at the cruelty of fate, Jean perceived that the hand that thus struck the helpless might not have been stayed by her father’s blood. If her father were in the way of something⁠—she knew not what⁠—might there not be others similarly threatened? The resiliency of her youth refused merely to accept the situation.

They came to a fork in the lane, one turn of which led past Beech Lodge and then on to their own small house. Mrs. Millicent took the other turn instinctively, but Jean, for some reason she could never explain, felt a sudden impulse to pass this time by the road they had both hitherto avoided. She stopped, and her mother glanced back with surprise.

“What is it, dear?”

“I don’t know, mother, but”⁠—she hesitated⁠—“I rather want to go this way.”

“But why?”

“I can’t tell you, really. It’s rather an odd feeling. Would you much sooner not?”

It flashed into Mrs. Millicent’s mind that perhaps she had been unwise in allowing her own shrinking timidity to influence the girl. The only reason she had to put forward sounded a little too personal to carry much weight, and if time was healing the wound in Jean’s heart, should she not be thankful⁠—and show it?

“Very well, dear,” she said slowly. “Perhaps it is better to begin this way. I think I’d like your arm.”

They went on thus, with unvoiced recognition of remembered things. Came the bend in the lane beyond which lay Beech Lodge, and the older woman seemed to feel the knife in her own throat. So many times had she walked here, and so happily. The dip in the hedge, the glimpse of rolling fields patched with woodland, the belt of timber that marked the grounds of Beech Lodge, the cluster of old trees with their pale gray trunks close by the roadside; then the white gates and tiny red-roofed cottage. Her fingers tightened on the girl’s strong arm.

“My dear, my dear,” she whispered. “Just two years ago!”

Jean nodded sympathetically but did not speak. She was staring up the drive at the house with its shining windows, its clustering ivy, and the wide door, in every timber of which seemed to be a welcome.

“Isn’t it strange?” she whispered. “So different, and yet so unchanged.” She paused, then went on uncertainly. “I sometimes wonder, mother, whether houses have some kind of consciousness and are aware of us who live in them. Isn’t it queer, but I feel now as though Beech Lodge was somehow glad to see us, and was wondering why we had never come before.”

Mrs. Millicent shook her head. “It’s a pretty fancy, child, but⁠—”

Jean stopped, nearly opposite the white gates. “Who’s that at the window⁠—your old room? Mother, it looks like Perkins!”

“It is Perkins. You knew she stayed on when the Thursbys left.”

“Yes, but I did not know she was still here. And yet I’m not surprised. She’s part of the house. I wonder if the Derricks like her.”

“She always had a very peculiar manner, but she was an excellent servant.”

Mrs. Millicent’s voice faltered. This inspection was becoming too poignant, and she moved on. It seemed that any moment there might emerge that well-remembered figure, with the straight, familiar form and those clear, thoughtful eyes. She had turned away, her lips trembling, when Jean spoke quickly and sharply.

“Mother, who is that?”

From the climbing rosebushes that bordered the wide drive, a figure had emerged, shears in hand, a figure that halted and stared. The broad shoulders, the uncouth head, the powerful and deliberate movements of the man were unmistakable.

“Martin!” she said under her breath. “It’s Martin!”

Mrs. Millicent stopped, turned, and came unsteadily back. Then she too looked, and became weak and agitated.

“It is Martin⁠—”

“But where can he have come from, and why come back here?”

For a moment her mother could not answer, being too shaken by this quivering recognition of one who she felt held the key to her husband’s tragic death. It was Martin who had moved with threatening domination through the nightmare of her dreams for the last two years. Now the threat was alive again. It had returned with him. Then she heard Jean. The color had fled from the girl’s cheeks, but her eyes were alight with some thrilling instinct.

“What does it mean, mother?”

“I do not know, child. Come away now, please; I must get home.”

Jean held back. Something more was stirring in her soul than Martin’s return. He had come back to strangers who probably knew nothing of him. If they did, he could not be at Beech Lodge. And Perkins was there, too, and Perkins knew all. It followed, then, that the woman had not spoken. Was it all in preparation for another tragedy? At this thought she felt frightened and choked. Someone must speak⁠—before speech was too late. She glanced again at the motionless figure. Martin was staring, too, and he also had recognized. He touched his cap, and at the curve of that arm she nearly cried out.

“Mother,” she whispered again, “we must tell them.”

“Tell them what, Jean? Come along. I can’t stand this.”

The girl held her ground. “We must tell the Derricks about Martin. Don’t you see it would be utterly unfair, and perhaps cowardly, if we didn’t? They’ve taken the place and, being strangers, can have known very little about it. They have probably heard about father’s death through Perkins, but perhaps not. The agent would naturally say nothing about it, and I don’t suppose the Thursbys would advertise the truth. Perkins has evidently said nothing about Martin, or the Derricks would not have engaged him. We know all, and the suspicions as to Martin, and we simply cannot be silent. Oh, we must tell them, and now!”

“If you feel so strongly I’ll write tonight,” protested her mother faintly, “but, Jean, I cannot go in now. I could not walk past that man.”

The girl was unmoved. “That won’t do, mother. There are too many things one