When Hetty recovered from the astonishment into which Mr. William Crawford's words and manner had cast her, the first fact which struck her memory was that he had called her Hetty. That might, no doubt, be excused in a man of his time of life to a girl of hers (she considered his thirty-six years entitled him to be considered quite middle-aged). But she would have felt more comfortable if the question had not been raised at all. It was, she urged in mitigation, to be taken into account that he spoke under great excitement and in haste. But, after all, the thing was not worth a moment's thought.
There was, however, a fact worth considering. This man, sleeping or waking, did seem to have a special care of the lives of others. Had he not rescued his wife from fire?--and here now was this dream, this dreadful dream about the odious old ice-house. No doubt some men were born with a natural taste for encountering risks, but her inclination did not lead her to plunge into burning houses or flooded ice-houses. For her part she would rather run away twenty miles.
And then what were these words he had said about herself? Now that they came back to her they seemed foolish, impertinent, and she ought to have been angry with him for laughing at her. But no; he had not been laughing at her. He could not laugh at anything on earth after having such an awful dream, and no doubt what he had said of herself was only his exaggerated way of describing how terribly hard he had wanted to save the drowning woman. But there was no person really drowning, and it would be nonsense not to forget the whole interview with him.
Yet it could hardly be got rid of in that way, for how would Alfred take it? The whole affair was very provoking and horrible, and she felt disposed to cry. Perhaps Alfred was right in his first estimate of Crawford, and he was a little mad.
Yes, clearly the man ought to be in a lunatic asylum, and not allowed to go about the country dreaming and terrifying people.
She had no doubt that in a few minutes a procession of men, carrying planks on their shoulders and bags of tools in their hands, would arrive and make the place unbearable with noise and chips.
Hetty would have made her mind quite easy on the last score if she could have seen into the mind of William Crawford as he left the door. For he had no more notion of going to any carpenter that day about the job than he had of flinging himself off Welford Bridge into the South London Canal. What he did intend doing was, to come back in a week and say he found the wretched carpenters to whom he had given the order had wholly misunderstood him and botched the job. This would be economical as far as the doors were concerned, and would give him another interview with Hetty.
He had no notion of keeping his promise to his wife either. What could be easier and more pleasant than to enjoy a few hours' freedom in town, and tell her on his return to Richmond that the difficulties to be overcome at the ice-house were much greater than he had anticipated, and that he had been most grievously delayed against his will.
From a map he had discovered, since his former visit, that he could come or go by water. At the end of one of the Pine Groves lay the Mercantile Pier, and Crawford turned in that direction, resolved to get to town by river.
It pleased him to know that there were two ways of approaching his office, and the line from Crawford's House to the Mercantile Pier was directly away from Camberwell, whereas the route by road was only at right angles to it.
"I think what I said to Hetty must create some effect," he thought, as he walked with brisk footstep and alert body. "It did all I intended anyway. She may, when she gets over her surprise, be either pleased or indignant; but she cannot be indifferent, she is too imaginative for that."
He passed by the Neptune public-house, and entered the Pine Grove leading to the Mercantile Pier. He had no need to ask his way: he carried the map of the place in his head.
Here on either side of him rose the tall black palings. The path between them was only a footway, and wound along sinuously for half a mile between the great docks on either side. The path bent so acutely that it was impossible to see further than a hundred yards before or behind.
To Crawford, who was always expecting to find Philip Ray spring forth, feel a burning sting, hear a report, and know that vengeance had overtaken him at last, this characteristic had one great advantage: it left both his sides protected. He could be approached only from the front or rear.
The place was very secret and retired. There was not a sound beyond the far-off hum of the city. Spying through the chinks in the palings one could see nothing but broken dark grey ground littered with all kinds of odds and ends of timber and metal objects, looking as dreary and deserted and forlorn as a locked-up and deserted graveyard. Overhead spread the faint blue sky, with the sun behind a dull grey cloud, and above the paling to right and left, and, as it were, rising from hulls lying far off inland, the lofty motionless spars of great ships in the stillness of the upper air.
From the time Crawford entered the Pine Grove until he had got more than half-way through he encountered no one. Then all at once he became aware that he was gradually overtaking a woman who was walking in front, and that footsteps which he had heard for some time behind him were gradually gaining upon him.
With him every unknown woman was an object of curiosity: every unknown man Philip Ray. The woman in front was poorly clad, and walked with lagging step and dejected head. She did not promise to interest him. He turned round. The man was not Philip Ray. Without further thought of either he continued his walk.
Presently the man was level with him, and said, "Beg pardon, sir, but I saw you pass the Neptune, and I thought I'd ask you if you had any odd job hereabout on your property."
Crawford started and looked sharply at the man out of his dark furtive eyes. The speaker he recognised as the man who had acted as his guide, and explained to him the means of Philip Ray's mysterious disappearance from the tow-path.
"No," he said sharply, "I have no job," and turned away to show he did not wish to be spoken to again.
"Perhaps, sir, you don't know the stage is off?"
"What!" cried Crawford, stopping and confronting the man. "What do you mean by the stage being off?" He remembered that Red Jim had told him about the floating stage at Boland's Ait. Could it be that the floating bridge had been removed, and that Ray's visit to the islet and its idiotic owner had ceased? or that the owner had taken himself away?
Jim pointed down the Grove. "The stage that goes from the land to the pier had to be taken away for repairs, and you have to get from the shore to the pier in a small boat, and when the tide is low, as it is now, you have to go down a long ladder so as to get to the bed of the river, and from the bed of the river to the small boat; and people with plenty of money don't care about doing that. So when I saw you turn into the Grove I thought I'd come and tell you, as I felt sure if you knew you wouldn't think of going by boat, and I remembered you gave me two tanners a fortnight ago."
"Then I won't give you anything now," said Crawford sharply, as he resumed his way. His anger had been aroused by the hopes raised and cast down by Red Jim's two speeches about the stage.
"Not as much as a tanner?"
"Not as much as half a farthing. I made a very bad bargain the last time, and this must be given in with what you did before. Besides, this is no use to me, for I intend going by boat all the same. Good-day. If you beg again I shall call the police."
The man abated his pace with a malediction, and Crawford went on, Red Jim followed him slowly, cursing his own luck.
The delay caused by the dialogue with Red Jim had given the woman a good start, and by the time Crawford reached the head of the ladder the woman was in the act of being handed into the small boat.
When Crawford looked down he was very sorry he had not given Red Jim sixpence for his news and advice, and gone back by land. But it was too late to retrace his steps. He felt a dogged determination not to give Jim anything or be jeered at by him.
Half the descent was easy enough, as it was by rude wooden stairs; but the other half had to be accomplished by means of a broad ladder of very muddy, slippery, and rotten looking steps. The foreshore, too, looked muddy, slimy, uninviting, and here and there was steaming in an unpleasant manner under the influence of the sun, now shining clearly between vast plains of pale grey clouds.
Crawford hated boats for two reasons. First, he couldn't pull; and, second, he always felt nervous in them, and he could not swim.
However, there was not much time for liking or disliking, for the men in the small boat beckoned him to come on. There were already in the boat the crew of two men, the woman who had preceded him down the lane, and six other women.
With repugnance he descended to the foreshore, and with repugnance and difficulty got into the boat. All the passengers except one were aft.
Crawford took a seat on the starboard side, next to the woman who had preceded him down the Grove.
She took no notice of his coming aboard. She appeared unconscious of everything round her. She wore a thick black veil, and kept her head bowed upon her chest, giving him the idea that she suffered from some deformity, or disease, or dire calamity. She clasped her elbow in one hand, her arm across her chest, and her other hand across her eyes. The moment she entered the boat she had assumed this posture, and had not moved since.
Her attitude was the result of two causes: her eyes were weak from recent illness, and she was suffering from incurable sorrows.
Her clothes were worn and betokened poverty, her purse penury. Under her thin frayed dress her shoulders bore marks of recent scratches; under the bosom of her dress her heart bore open wounds of anguish. She was on her way to a free hospital about her eyes.
Disease had lately threatened her life, but even Death refused to have her. At what she believed to be her last hour she provided for her only child, the apple of her eye, her solitary joy, by placing him in safety, but beyond the power of a recalling cry from her lips. She had then put aside money for her sepulchre.
Death had disdained her, and she was now wandering about alone with the vast world as a tomb and a solitude, and a broken heart and the fate of an outcast, and the undying gnawing remorse for company, with for the sustentation of her living body the money she had devised for its decay. An illness had taken away her voice, which was her bread.
Just as the boat shoved off, Red Jim reached the head of the stairs, and stood there regarding the progress of his patron. He noticed that the ebb tide was running very fast, and that the men kept the boat heading a little up stream to make allowance for leeway. He noticed that Crawford was the last passenger on the starboard side, and that, therefore, he would be on the inside when the boat got alongside. "I hope," thought Red Jim, "that there's some nice fresh paint or a nice long nail waiting for him when he's going up the side."
He saw the boat touch the side, and Crawford stagger instantly to his feet. He saw him sway to and fro, and then suddenly fall back against the hulk, boom the boat off with his legs, and drop overboard between the boat and the hulk.
Red Jim uttered a loud shout of triumph, and then began shouting and dancing like mad for joy.
"He'll shoot in under the hulk and be drowned!" cried Red Jim exultingly.
Then an oath:
"That ---- woman's got him!
"Catch him! Hold him!" cried the boatmen. "Hold on for your life or he'll be sucked under!"
The veiled woman had seized the sinking man and thrown herself on her knees--was holding on with all the power of her enfeebled arms.
"Trim the boat! Trim the boat, ---- you, or she'll capsize! On deck, there!" shouted the boatman to the hulk.
By this time aid had come from the deck, and the submerged man had been seized by the hooks and had hold of a line. Up to this the boatmen had been completely powerless, for all the women had crowded to the starboard side, and bore down the boat's gunwale until it washed level with the water, and if the men attempted to get near the starboard side aft the boat must have gone over at once. And now the passengers went on board the hulk.
When the woman who had saved him was relieved of his weight, she gave a loud cry, and fell back fainting in the boat.
Two men came down from deck and carried the fainting woman up, and brought her into the pier-master's little room, and left her to the kindly offices of some sympathetic women; while the two boatmen dragged the half-stunned, half-drowned Crawford out of the river over the stern of the boat, and then, after allowing some of the water to run out of his clothes, helped him up the accommodation-ladder to the deck of the hulk.
Here men squeezed his clothes and rubbed him down, and told him how thankful he ought to be that he had not been drowned, as he was within an ace of being drawn under the hulk, and if once that had happened his chance of ever seeing daylight again would have been small indeed. Was he a good swimmer?
No, he could not swim a yard.
Well, then, he had better for the future keep out of the water. Yes, of course he had lost his hat; but a sou'wester of the pierman's was at his service temporarily. No? He wouldn't have it? Very well. Better any day lose one's hat than one's life. He was very wet indeed; but, then, when a man has been in the river one must expect to turn out wet upon fetching port.
Why had his position been so very dangerous? Was it more dangerous than that of a man falling overboard under ordinary circumstances?
A thousand times. For he had fallen against the hulk and boomed off the boat, and in booming her off his back had slid down the side of the hulk until his heels were higher than his head, and as he left the boat his heels, driven by the force of the tide on the sheer of the boat, would thrust him inward and downwards and so under the bottom of the hulk, and then good-bye to him, particularly as he could not swim.
And how then came he to be saved?
Why, by the woman laying hold of him just as he slipped out, and sticking to him; for, owing to the list to starboard the passengers gave the boat, the boatmen durst not move, or she'd capsize for certain.
The woman laying hold of him? It was all dark to him.
Of course it was all dark to him, and a good job it had ever come light to him again. Why, the woman who had sat beside him! A poor sorrowful-looking creature, who wore a veil and kept her hands across her eyes.
He had noticed her. And where was she now?
In the master's room in a dead faint. She had fainted the moment they told her she might let him go. She looked a poor soul that had had her troubles, and if he thought well of doing such a thing, perhaps he might do worse than give her a trifle by way of reward.
A trifle! A trifle for saving his life! He could and he would reward her most handsomely. Had she recovered yet?
It was believed not. And now they had squeezed all they could out of him--unless he'd like to give them something for their trouble, for they had to go back at once.
He handed a wet and clammy five-pound note to be divided as they thought best among themselves.
He was generous, for had not a great life been at stake?
Was he going ashore, or going on? He had better get dry clothes.
He should stay until that woman was well enough to receive the reward for the great services she had rendered him.
The boatmen descended the accommodation-ladder, and Crawford, partly to keep off a chill and partly to prevent the people on the pier from accosting him, began walking up and down the deck at a brisk rate.
He had two reasons for not going to Welford for dry clothes. First, he did not wish to weaken the effect of his visit and words of that morning by so early a reappearance; and second, he did not care to present himself to Hetty in his miserable and undignified plight.
When he had money he liked carrying large sums about with him, for he never felt so sure of the possession of it as when he could tap a pocket-book containing a sheaf of notes.
He made up his mind to give this woman fifty pounds, for had she not done him the greatest service any man, woman or child ever performed towards him? had she not saved his life, and was she not worthy of the highest reward he could pay? He had no more than fifty pounds and some broken money.
In a few minutes the pier-master, who had heard him speak of the reward, came and said the poor woman had fully recovered, and asked if Crawford would wish to see her.
"By all means. I must get these wet clothes off as soon as possible. When is the next boat up?"
"In about five or ten minutes." The pier-master moved off, and returned immediately to say the woman was ready and willing to receive him. Adding, "It's a kind of thing we'd like to see done, as we saw her save your life, and know you are open-handed and have a good heart; but she says she'd rather there was only you two."
"Alone!" said Crawford in a tone of surprise. "It is a kind of thing generally done openly. Did you tell her I wished to give her a reward?"
"Yes, sir. She said you would know before you left her why she preferred no one should be present."
"Well," said Crawford, who felt that this was an attempt to keep the generosity of his gift from the eyes of others, "I am going to give her these five tenners." He held out the notes in his hand and turned them over, and then, still keeping them in his hand lest some one might suspect a trick, stepped into the pier-master's private room or cabin.
It was a very tiny room, with a small table in the middle, a writing-table in one of the two windows, and three chairs. There seemed to be no space for moving about. Even if the chairs were out of the way, two people could not walk abreast round the centre table.
Standing with her back to the second window Crawford found the woman who had saved his life less than half-an-hour ago. Her veil, which had been disarranged in the struggle, was now close drawn.
With the notes in one hand and holding out the other to grasp hers in his gratitude, he was about to advance, when she held up her hand and said in a hoarse dull voice, "No nearer. I have been very ill. It is safer our hands should not meet."
He sprang back as far as the walls would allow. He had the most intense horror of contagious diseases. He was now in the most fervent haste to bring the interview to an end. He would freely have given another fifty to be out of that room.
"I merely wished to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the noble manner in which you snatched my life from death, to offer you this fifty pounds as a small token of the esteem in which I hold the services you have rendered me;" he shook the notes, but did not advance his hand any nearer to the centre of contagion; "and to say that my everlasting gratitude must be yours." He could always make a little speech.
"There was a time," she said in her peculiar hoarse, dull voice, "when I should have been very glad to take those fifty pounds--ay, as many shillings--from you, but I cannot take them now."
"There was a time!" said he, surprised, and interested notwithstanding his fear of disease; "surely I could not have had the privilege of offering them to you longer ago than an hour."
"You could," she said, "and you ought."
"May I ask," said he, fairly carried away by curiosity, "if the disease of which you speak was of a nervous character?"
"You mean, was my mind affected?"
"Yes, if you choose to put it that way?"
"It was, but unfortunately I have not been in an asylum; even the grave that they told me was gaping for me closed of its own accord. It was the last door open to me, and it is shut now."
"But if your disease was mental, I cannot understand why we might not shake hands; why I might not shake the hand of my rescuer."
"Because she could not touch yours. It is inyourhand the contamination lies."
"Poor creature!" he thought, "mad!--quite mad! To say such a thing of me, who am never ill--of the soundest man in London! I, who take such care not to be ill!" He laughed one of his short sharp laughs, and said aloud, "Contagion in my hand! And who am I?"
"I do not know who you arenow." At the emphasised word he sprang into the air off the ground as though he had been shot, and then took a pace towards her, and paused and looked furtively at the door.
Was she, too, armed?
She also took a pace forward. They were not now two yards apart. With a scornful gesture she tore the veil from before her face and, looking into his, cried, "And who amI?"
The face was haggard and blotched.
He sprang back against the wall, crying:
"Good heavens, Kate, this is not you!"
"Yes, this is Kate. I saved your life to-day, and you offer me fifty pounds. How glad I should have been to get as many shillings when you left me and my child to starve in America! I saved your life to-day, and you offer me a reward. I will take it----"
He held out the notes to her.
She pushed his hand aside with a laugh.
"The reward I want you to give me cannot be bought for money--not even for your splendid fifty pounds. I saved your life to-day; give me for reward my husband and my child, and my innocence. It is a fair demand. You cannot give me less, John Ainsworth."
She thrust her hand suddenly into her pocket.
"She is armed!" he cried, and, bursting from the room, he leaped aboard a steamer then a foot from the pier on its way up to London.
When Red Jim saw Crawford hauled out of the water and aided up the side of the hulk his interest in maritime affairs was over. He had gone down to the end of the Pine Grove in the hope that Crawford would change his mind, and adopt the land route when he saw how uninviting the means of getting to the steamboat looked. In case Crawford came back he might fairly count on getting sixpence, surly as the other had been to him. But now there was no chance of anything good, not even of Crawford being drowned. Red Jim looked up at the sky as though reproaching heaven with doing him ill-turns, faced right about and began retracing his fruitless steps.
As he walked he reflected that it was not every day one saw a gentleman fall into the river and rescued. He had seen this sight to-day, and, moreover, as far as the shore was concerned, he had had the monopoly of the spectacle. Then after a long pause he asked himself was it not possible to convert his unique position into a little money?
Once more he turned those vacant blue eyes of his up to the sky, not this time, however, in reproach, but in appeal for light.
Suddenly he shook his head with the quick short jerk of determination, and quickened his pace. "Why, of course," he said out loud, "I'll go to Crawford's House, and tell them about it, and they'll give me a tanner for my kindness." So he hastened along until he arrived at the shabby green door, and then he knocked.
Hetty opened the door, and seeing a strange man, who looked as though he had a right to come there, concluded he had called about the ice-house. "O!" said she, "you've called about those gates, have you?"
"Hallo!" thought Jim, "there may be another tanner in this. Let's see." All Jim's thoughts ran on tanners. A shilling was two tanners, half-a-crown five, a sovereign ever so many. In the case between him and the young lady at the door caution was the great thing. He must take care not to commit himself. So he said nothing, but looked round as though in search of the gates.
"Come this way," said Hetty, observing the glance of search, "and I will show you the place."
"Yes, ma'am," said Red Jim, entering the house and following Hetty through it to the little quay beyond.
"These are the doorways that Mr. Crawford wishes to have boarded up," said Hetty, pronouncing the name with an effort, for she was still in tumult and perplexity about his visit and words.
"Yes, ma'am," said Red Jim with extreme deference, and looking full at her with his wide, open expressionless blue eyes, but moving no muscle, showing no sign of taking action.
The girl was highly strung, and his impassive stolidity irritated her.
"Well, what are you going to do?" she asked briskly.
"Whatever you like, ma'am," he answered with gallantry and impartiality.
"WhateverIlike!" she cried impatiently. "I have nothing to do with it. What did Mr. Crawford say to you about this place. There can be no mistake, I suppose--you saw him to-day?"
"I did."
"And what did he say to you about this?" pointing to the gaping gateway.
"Nothing."
The girl stared at him in angry surprise. "Then why did you come here?"
"To tell you, ma'am, that Mr. Crawford fell in the river. I thought you'd like to know that."
"Mr. Crawford fell into the river! You thoughtIwould like to knowthat!What do you mean?" Hetty was beginning to get confused and a little frightened. There was first of all Crawford's visit, then his account of his horrible dream of her drowning, then his strange, impudent words to her; now came this dreadful-looking man to say thatCrawfordhad fallen into the river, and, last of all, she would be glad to hear he had fallen into the river? "Why do you think I would be glad to hear that Mr. Crawford fell into the river?"
"Well, he lives here, and when people fall into the river the folk they live with are mostly glad to hear of it."
"O," thought the girl, with a feeling of relief at finding that no mysterious net was closing round her, "so you only came to tell me the news?"
"And to tell you more news."
"What is it?"
"That he was got out again."
"Of course."
"But you didn't know until I told you."
"Certainly I did. If he hadn't been taken out you would have said he was drowned."
This was a sore blow to Red Jim. It had occurred to him as a brilliant idea to split up his news into two parts. First, that Crawford had fallen in; second, that Crawford had been dragged out. He had a vague hope that, treated in this way, the news might be worth two tanners, as it consisted of two items. It now occurred to him that in future he ought to say a man was drowned, get his reward, and then, as a second item, say that it had been for a long time believed he was drowned, but that it was at last found out he wasn't. In the present case, however, he thought he had better make the best of things as they were. He told her then exactly what had happened as far as he had been able to see, and assured her he had run every step of the way and was mortal dry, and he hoped she'd consider his trouble and good intentions.
She gave him sixpence.
"And how much this job, ma'am? he asked, pointing to the gateways.
"I have nothing to do with that. When you knocked I thought Mr. Crawford had sent you."
"Well, he as good as sent me. Only he fell in, I'd never have come here."
"But you have done nothing, and you are to do nothing, and I have nothing to do with it," said the girl, a little apprehensively. They were alone on the quay at the back of the house, and there was not a soul in the house but herself and this ragged, rugged, red-bearded, rusty-necked man, who was asking her for money he had no claim to, and asking her for it on, no doubt, the knowledge of their isolation.
"There's my time, though, ma'am," said Red Jim firmly. "You call me in, and you say there's the gate, and I do all I can for you."
"But you have done nothing at all. Why should I pay you for doing nothing? I thought you were Mr. Crawford's man."
The girl was now becoming fairly alarmed. Suppose this horrible man should become violent?
"Some one must pay me for my time, ma'am. I'm only a poor labouring man trying to earn his bread, and if people go and take up my time, how am I to earn my bread by the sweat of my brow, or any other way? That's what I want to know."
He stood in front of her: between her and the door of the house.
The girl now became fairly frightened. She was by no means timid by nature. But here was she hidden from the view of any one, alone with this rugged, threatening, desperate man. No one on the tow-path could see them, because Boland's Ait intervened. Worst of all, she had not any money. The sixpence she had given him was the last coin in her possession; still, she tried to look brave.
"If you want any money for this job as you call it, go to Mr. Crawford for it."
"How do I know where to find Mr. Crawford?"
"He lives at Richmond."
"He lives here, and my principle is cash--no tick. A nice thing, indeed, to expect a poor labouring man to give his time and anxiety of mind to jobs, and then tell him to go to Richmond for his money! Is that justice or fair-play?"
"Well, I tell you that you must go to him. I have no money." She was beginning to feel faint and giddy.
"No money, and live in a house like that!" he cried, pointing up to the old dilapidated habitation to which the late owner of the place had given his name. "Why, how could any one keep up a house like that without lots of money?"
Red Jim's notion of the probable financial result of this interview had enlarged considerably since it had begun. He had talked himself into the conviction that he had an honest claim for compensation for loss of time, and he saw that they were in a lonely place, that this girl was frightened, and that there was no succour for her near at hand. He now put down the result of his inspection of the ice-house at four tanners.
"I tell you I have no money," she repeated, feeling sick, "and you must go away at once."
"Look here, ma'am; what am I going to do with the rest of my day if I get nothing for this?" He hadn't done a day's work for months. "The rest of my day is no sort of use to me. I own I haven't been here half a day, but half a day is gone, all the same, and I couldn't think of taking less than two shillings; it's against the rules of my Society to take less that two shillings for half a day, anyhow."
"I tell you once for all, I have no money."
She began to tremble. She had never before been in such an alarming situation as this. She was afraid to threaten lest he should at once seize her and fling her headlong into the ice-house, where there would be no William Crawford or anybody else to rescue her. She could have borne the thought of death with comparative fortitude, but the girl's dainty senses revolted from the notion of contact with this foul and hideous being. She felt that if he touched her she should die.
"Nice thing for you to say!" cried the man angrily. "Take a poor man in here and steal--yes, steal--half a day from him, and then say you have no money!"
Up to this he had been importunate, then angry, but he had not threatened. Now he advanced a step, and shaking his fist at her, said:
"Look here, if you don't just pay me what you owe me I'll----"
The girl screamed, and at the same time, as if by magic, Red Jim disappeared from her sight.
She looked down.
Red Jim was rolling and writhing on the ground, felled by a blow from behind.
She looked up. Francis Bramwell stood before her, pallid with indignation.
"This blackguard has been annoying you, Miss Layard," said he, spurning the prostrate man with his foot.
"O, thank you, Mr. Bramwell! I thought he was going to kill me."
"I came out to fetch Freddie back, but found it wasn't quite time, and then I heard your voice and this wretch's angry words, and came round and crossed. He hasn'ttouchedyou?" asked Bramwell fiercely. The whole man was roused now, and he looked large in stature and irresistible in force.
"O, no! He has not touched me, but he threatened me, and I felt as though I should die."
"What shall I do with him. Give him to the police?"
"Don't do that, guv'nor," said the prostrate man. He had made no attempt to rise. He did not want to have his other ear deaf and the inside of his head at the other side ringing like a sledge-bell. "Don't do that, guv'nor, for they have something against me about a trifle of canvas and a few copper bolts I never had anything to do with."
"Very well. Now, Miss Layard, if you will go into the house, I'll attend to this gentleman. I shall take him across my place to the tow-path, and then come back to see how you are."
"But you won't harm him, Mr. Bramwell?" asked Hetty in a tremulous voice as she moved away.
"You hear what the lady says?" whined Jim. "Good, kind lady, don't go away and leave me to him. He has half killed me already, and if you leave me to him he'll murder me. Do let me go through your house. I was only joking. Indeed, it was only a little joke, and I only went on as I did to make your beautiful face smile. That's all, indeed."
"I promise you, Miss Layard, not to hurt him in the least. He shall be much better off when he leaves me than he is now."
Hetty went into the house.
"He's going to pay me the half day's wages," thought Jim, as at Bramwell's bidding he rose from the ground and crossed over to Boland's Ait. Bramwell led the way to the canal side of the islet.
"How much did you claim from that lady?" asked Bramwell, who knew nothing of the justness of the demand.
"Two shillings, fairly earned and fairly due," answered Jim, his heart expanding under the hope of tanners. "You will not keep a poor working man out of his own?"
"I'll pay you. But first you must answer me one question: Can you swim?" He took a two-shilling piece out of his pocket.
"I can, sir," said Jim eagerly. "I can do almost anything."
Bramwell flung the coin across the canal to the tow-path, crying, "Then swim for that."
"But, sir----"
"In you go, clothes and all, and if ever I find you here again I'll hand you over to your friends the police. Don't keep standing there, or I'll heave you in. Do as you are told, sir. The washing and cooling will do you good."
And seeing there was no chance of escape, and fearing some one might come by and steal the coin, Red Jim dived into the dark turbid waters and crossed to the opposite shore.
When Bramwell saw the man safely out of the canal he turned away, and, having crossed by the stage, entered for the first time Crawford's House--the house of the man who had wrecked his home and his happiness and his life three years before.
When Bramwell entered Crawford's House the first sight that met his eyes was the form of Hetty Layard lying prone on the floor of the passage.
With a cry of dismay he sprang to her and raised her. He looked round for help and called out, but there was no succour in sight; no response came to his cry. He took her up and carried her into the sitting-room, and laid her on the couch.
"I might have guessed she would faint," he moaned; "and now what am I to do?"
There was water on the table laid for dinner. He sprinkled some on her face. "What am I to do? Shall I run for help?" he cried, looking frantically round the room.
At that moment there was the sound of a latch-key in the door. Bramwell rushed out eagerly into the passage, saying to himself, "This must be either her brother or Mr. Crawford; Philip told me there are only two keys."
If instead of going up the river in the steamboat Crawford had come back to Welford, he would have arrived at about this time.
The front door opened, and a man with a remarkably long beard entered, and for an instant stood looking in speechless amazement at the other man.
"My name is Bramwell. Your sister has fainted. She is in the front room."
"Fainted!" cried Alfred Layard in alarm, as he dashed past the other.
At that moment Hetty opened her eyes and sighed.
"Hetty, Hetty, dear Hetty! what is this. What is the matter?"
Bramwell remained in the passage. He walked up and down in great agitation.
"I don't know what happened," said the girl, in a weak, tremulous voice.
Her brother got some wine, and made her drink a little.
"Try and remember, dear," said Layard with passionate tenderness. "Did any accident occur? Drink just a little more. Did you get a fright, dear? Has anything happened to the boy?"
"No, Alfred. O, I am better now. I remember it all. A dreadful man terrified me, and Mr. Bramwell came to my assistance, and I ran into the house; and I can remember no more."
Bramwell, hearing voices, knew that Hetty had recovered, and that he could be of no further use; so he stole quietly out of the house, and returned to his own island domain.
He did not seek the boys, who were playing in the timber-yard that the old barrow was a Punch-and-Judy show. He took the canal side of the wharf, and began pacing up and down hurriedly.
His condition was one of extreme exultation; he knew not, inquired not, at what. He trod the clouds, and surveyed below his feet a subjugated and golden world. The air was intoxication, and life a dream of jocund day. He did not pause to ask a reason for these feelings and sensations; they were his; that was enough.
Of late the hideous gloom in which he had lived for two years, a solitary upon that lonely and unlovely islet, had been leaving him as darkness leaves a hill at the approach of day. Now from the summit to the base, his nature seemed bathed in an extraordinary midday splendour. His soul was shining among the stars. He was a blessed spirit amid the angels. He was the theme to which all the rest of the world answered in harmonious parts.
It was not passion or love, but a spiritual effulgence. It was like the elation induced by a subtle perfume. He would have been satisfied to be, and only to be, if he might be thus. He was in clear air at a stupendous height of happiness, and yet did not feel giddy. He could think of no higher earthly joy than he experienced. It was a joy the very essence of which seemed of the rapture of heaven. It was a kind of ecstatic and boundless worship from a self-conscious and self-centred soul. It idealised the world, and restored Paradise to earth.
In his mind was no thought, no defined thought, of love for his beautiful neighbour, Hetty Layard. He was in the delicious spiritual experiences of that hour merely celebrating his emancipation from bondage. The note from Kate which had come with Frank and the subsequent announcement of Kate's death in the newspapers had left him no room to doubt that he was free. That day he had struck a man an angry blow for the first time in all his life. And he had struck that blow in defence of this beautiful girl, who was so good and so devoted to the little orphan boy, the son of her brother. He had an orphan boy too, and she was very gentle to his son. He had known for some time that he was a free man, free to look upon the face of woman with a view to choosing another wife; but until this day, until this hour, he had not realised what this freedom meant.
The notion that he might take another companion for life had not taken concrete form since Frank's coming, and now the only way in which it presented itself to him was that he might smile back to Hetty's smile, and glory in her beauty.
He was startled by hearing a voice saying behind him, "Mr. Bramwell, I have taken the liberty of coming over uninvited to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your timely and much-needed aid to my sister."
Bramwell coloured, and became confused. He was unaccustomed to new faces, unaccustomed to thanks, unaccustomed to pleasant thoughts of woman.
"I--I did nothing," he said. "It was merely by accident I knew about it."
To be thanked made him feel as though he had done something shameful.
"However it happened," said Layard, taking his hand in both his own and shaking it cordially, "you have placed me under a deep debt of gratitude to you."
"If you do not wish to make me very uncomfortable, you will not say another word about it. I hope Miss Layard is nothing the worse of the affair?"
"My sister is all right. Of course it gave her an ugly turn. It isn't a nice place to encounter a bullying rowdy alone. Since you ask me to say no more about your share in the business, I shall be dumb."
The two men were now walking up and down side by side along the tiny quay of the tiny islet.
A thin film of cloud dulled the glare of the afternoon sun. The whole expanse of heaven was radiant with diaphanous white clouds; a barge laded with wood indolently glided by to the clank-clank of the horse's hoofs on the tow-path; the sounds from Welford Bridge, which in the mornings came sharp and clear, were now dulled by the muffled hum of larger noises from afar. There was an air of silence and solitude over Boland's Ait. Notwithstanding the griminess of the surroundings and the dilapidations of the buildings on the holm, there was an aspect of peace and retirement in the place.
Hetty had not told her brother anything of Crawford's visit save as much as was necessary to explain the admission of Red Jim to the house and quay.
After a few sentences, Layard said, "You must know, Mr. Bramwell, I don't think I shall stay in this house a minute longer that I can possibly help."
"Indeed!" said Bramwell, feeling as though the sunlight from the sky had been suddenly dulled, and the things upon which his eyes fell had grown more squalid.
"To be candid with you, I don't care about my landlord. He is, to say the least of it, eccentric; and after the affair of to-day I shall never be easy. You see, the house is quite isolated, and no one ever by any chance passes the door."
"It must be very lonely for Miss Layard," Bramwell said, forgetting in his sympathy for the girl his own two years of absolute seclusion.
"She says, and I believe her, that she does not feel the want of company; but after to-day she will, I am afraid, dread the place. Of course, I must get some person to stay with her all the time I am out of the house. Could any one have been more helpless than she was to-day?"
"What you say has a great deal of force in it; but," said he, trying to restore the full complement of sunlight to the sky, "don't you think with a second person in the house all would be safe?"
"Well, I should imagine so; but one does not like to be continually saying, 'all is safe.' One likes to take it for granted, as one takes the sufficiency of air or the coming of daylight with the sun."
They walked for a few seconds in silence, and then Bramwell said, "No barge ever comes through the Bay now, but, owing to my habit with the floating-stage on the canal, I moor the second stage to the Ait every afternoon when Freddie has gone home, and haul it across in the morning. For the future I shall leave it across permanently, so that Miss Layard may feel I am as near to her as some one living next door. I hope and trust, and believe, she will never have any need of my help, but it may give her a little confidence to know that I can be with her instantly in case of need."
"It is extremely kind of you to think of that. It seems you are determined to place me under obligations I can never discharge. The worst of it is that when I came over here I had it in my mind to ask you a favour, and now you have offered to do one unasked."
"If what you came to ask is anything in the world I can do, you may count on me, Mr. Layard. For, remember, that although this is the first time we have met, I am quite well acquainted with you through Philip Ray."
"And I with you, through him also, or I should not speak so freely."
"Isn't Ray a fine fellow?" asked Bramwell enthusiastically.
"The finest fellow I know," answered Layard cordially.
"He is a little enthusiastic, or hot-headed, or fierce, I know, but he will calm down in years. Indeed, I find that of late he is calming down a good deal. As I said before, I treat you as an old friend. I suppose I have been so long an eremite that once I come forth and open my mouth I shall never stop talking. What I have in my mind about Philip, who was the only friend of my solitude, is that if he got a good sensible wife it would be the making of him."
"I have no doubt it would."
"But the worst of it is that I don't think he ever once regarded one woman with more favour than another. In fact, I have always put him down as a man who will never marry."
"Indeed!" said Layard. "I wonder does Ray himself share that notion. If he does, he is treating Hetty badly," he thought.
"And the pity of it is, that if he would only marry he would make the best husband in England."
"It is indeed a pity," said Layard, but he did not say what constituted the pity. To himself, "I don't think anything has been said between them yet, but it seems to me Hetty or he will have some news for me very soon." He said aloud, "The little favour I told you I had to ask----"
"Of course; and I told you if it lay within my power I'd do it."
"Yes; and it does lie easily within your power, and I will take no excuse. Come over and spend an hour with us this evening."
"But I cannot!" cried Bramwell.
"But you must. We will take no excuse."
He wavered. His views of all things had greatly altered since he was first invited to Crawford's House. "Still the boy. I cannot leave him alone." He felt half inclined to go.
"The boy will not be alone. Why, now that you have decided to leave the stage across all night, your house and ours may be looked on as one."
What a pleasant fancy it was that Crawford's House, where she lived, and Boland's Ait, where he lived, might be looked on as one!
"If," went on Layard, "you are uneasy about your boy, at any moment you can run across and see him. You really have no excuse. Our sons have been friends some time, and now you have placed me under a great obligation to you, and you refuse to make the obligation greater. Is that generous of you?"
Bramwell smiled. "I am conquered, fairly conquered."
"Very well; and mind, not later than eight o'clock. Now, where's this young savage of mine? His aunt will imagine you have sold the two of us into slavery."