“My darling little Woman,—“You must make Dulcibella pack up your things. Tom will have a chaise here at eleven o’clock. Drive to Wykeford and change horses there, and go on to Lonsdale, where I will meet youat last. Then and there your own, poor, loving Ry will tell you all his plans and reasons for this sudden move. We must get away by easy stages, and baffle possible pursuit, and then a quiet and comparatively happy interval for my poor little fluttered bird. I live upon the hope of our meeting. Out of reach of all trouble we shall soon be, and your poor Ry happy, where only he can be happy, in your dear presence. I enclose ten pounds. Paynothing and nobodyat the Grange. Say I told you so. You will reach Lonsdale, if you leave Carwell not later than eleven, before five. Don’t delay to pack up any more than you actually want. Leave all in charge of old Mildred, and we can easily write in a day or two for anything we may want.“Ever, my own idolized little woman,“Your own poor adoring“Ry.”
“My darling little Woman,—
“You must make Dulcibella pack up your things. Tom will have a chaise here at eleven o’clock. Drive to Wykeford and change horses there, and go on to Lonsdale, where I will meet youat last. Then and there your own, poor, loving Ry will tell you all his plans and reasons for this sudden move. We must get away by easy stages, and baffle possible pursuit, and then a quiet and comparatively happy interval for my poor little fluttered bird. I live upon the hope of our meeting. Out of reach of all trouble we shall soon be, and your poor Ry happy, where only he can be happy, in your dear presence. I enclose ten pounds. Paynothing and nobodyat the Grange. Say I told you so. You will reach Lonsdale, if you leave Carwell not later than eleven, before five. Don’t delay to pack up any more than you actually want. Leave all in charge of old Mildred, and we can easily write in a day or two for anything we may want.
“Ever, my own idolized little woman,“Your own poor adoring“Ry.”
So this was finished, and now for Harry:
“My dear Harry,—“How you must hate the sight of my hand. I never write but to trouble you. But, as you will perceive, I am myself in trouble more than enough to warrant my asking you again to aid me if it should lie in your way. You will best judge if you can, and how you can. The fact is that what you apprehended turns out to be too true. That person who, however I may have been at one time to blame, has certainly no right to charge me with want of generosity or consideration, seems to have made up her mind to give me all the annoyance in her power. She is at this momenthereat Carwell Grange. I was absent when she arrived, and received timely notice, and perhaps ought to have turned about, but I could not do that without ascertaining first exactly how matters stood at Carwell. So I am here, without any one’s being aware of it except old Mildred, who tells me that the person in question is under the impression that it isyou—and notI—who are married, and that it is your wife who is residing in the house. As you have been no party to this deception, pray let her continue to think so. I shall leave this before daybreak, my visit not having exceeded four hours. I leave a note for poor little Alice, telling her to follow me to-morrow—I should saythismorning—to Lonsdale, where I shall meet her; and thence we get on to London, and from London, my present idea is, to make our way to some quiet little place on the Continent, where I mean to stay quite concealed until circumstances alter for the better. What I want you, andbegof you to do for me at present, is just this—to selleverythingat Carwell that is saleable—the horse, the mule, the two donkeys, the carts, plough, &c., &c., in fact everything out of doors; and let the farm to Mildred’s nephew, who wanted to take it last year. It is, including the garden, nineteen acres. I wish him to have it, provided he pays a fair rent, because I think he would be kind to his aunt, old Mildred. He must stipulate to give her her usual allowances of vegetables, milk, and all the rest from the farm; and she shall have her room, and the kitchen, and her £8 a year as usual. Do like a good old fellow see to this, and try to turn all you can into money for me. I shall have miserably little to begin with, and anything you can get together will be a lift to me. If you write under cover to J. Dylke at the old place in Westminster, it will be sure to reach me. I don’t know whether all this is intelligible. You may guess how distracted I am and miserable. But there is no use in describing. I ought to beg your pardon a thousand times for asking you to take all the trouble involved in this request. But, dear Harry, you will ask yourself who else on earth has the poor devil to look to in an emergency but his brother? I know my good Harry will remember how urgent the case is. Any advice you can spare me in my solitary trouble will be most welcome. I think I have said everything—at least all I can think of in this miserable hurry—I feel so helpless. But you are a clever fellow, and always were—so much cleverer than I, and know how to manage things. God bless you, dear Harry, I know you won’t forget how pressed I am. You were always prompt in my behalf, and I never so needed a friend like you—for delay here might lead to the worst annoyances.“Ever, dear Harry, your affectionate brother,“Charles Fairfield.“Carwell Grange.”
“My dear Harry,—
“How you must hate the sight of my hand. I never write but to trouble you. But, as you will perceive, I am myself in trouble more than enough to warrant my asking you again to aid me if it should lie in your way. You will best judge if you can, and how you can. The fact is that what you apprehended turns out to be too true. That person who, however I may have been at one time to blame, has certainly no right to charge me with want of generosity or consideration, seems to have made up her mind to give me all the annoyance in her power. She is at this momenthereat Carwell Grange. I was absent when she arrived, and received timely notice, and perhaps ought to have turned about, but I could not do that without ascertaining first exactly how matters stood at Carwell. So I am here, without any one’s being aware of it except old Mildred, who tells me that the person in question is under the impression that it isyou—and notI—who are married, and that it is your wife who is residing in the house. As you have been no party to this deception, pray let her continue to think so. I shall leave this before daybreak, my visit not having exceeded four hours. I leave a note for poor little Alice, telling her to follow me to-morrow—I should saythismorning—to Lonsdale, where I shall meet her; and thence we get on to London, and from London, my present idea is, to make our way to some quiet little place on the Continent, where I mean to stay quite concealed until circumstances alter for the better. What I want you, andbegof you to do for me at present, is just this—to selleverythingat Carwell that is saleable—the horse, the mule, the two donkeys, the carts, plough, &c., &c., in fact everything out of doors; and let the farm to Mildred’s nephew, who wanted to take it last year. It is, including the garden, nineteen acres. I wish him to have it, provided he pays a fair rent, because I think he would be kind to his aunt, old Mildred. He must stipulate to give her her usual allowances of vegetables, milk, and all the rest from the farm; and she shall have her room, and the kitchen, and her £8 a year as usual. Do like a good old fellow see to this, and try to turn all you can into money for me. I shall have miserably little to begin with, and anything you can get together will be a lift to me. If you write under cover to J. Dylke at the old place in Westminster, it will be sure to reach me. I don’t know whether all this is intelligible. You may guess how distracted I am and miserable. But there is no use in describing. I ought to beg your pardon a thousand times for asking you to take all the trouble involved in this request. But, dear Harry, you will ask yourself who else on earth has the poor devil to look to in an emergency but his brother? I know my good Harry will remember how urgent the case is. Any advice you can spare me in my solitary trouble will be most welcome. I think I have said everything—at least all I can think of in this miserable hurry—I feel so helpless. But you are a clever fellow, and always were—so much cleverer than I, and know how to manage things. God bless you, dear Harry, I know you won’t forget how pressed I am. You were always prompt in my behalf, and I never so needed a friend like you—for delay here might lead to the worst annoyances.
“Ever, dear Harry, your affectionate brother,
“Charles Fairfield.
“Carwell Grange.”
It was a relief to his mind when these letters were off it, and something like the rude outline of a plan formed.
Very tired was Charles Fairfield when he had folded and addressed his letters. No physical exertion exhausts like the monotonous pain of anxiety. For many nights he had had no sleep, but those wearying snatches of half-consciousness in which the same troublous current is still running through the brain, and the wasted nerves of endurance are still tasked. He sat now in his chair, the dim red light of the candle at his elbow, the window shutter open before him, and the cold serene light of the moon over the outer earth and sky.
Gazing on this, a weary sleep stole over his senses, and for a full hour the worn-out man slept profoundly.
Into this slumber slowly wound a dream, of which he could afterwards remember only that it was somehow horrible.
Dark and direful grew his slumber thus visited; and in a way that accorded well with its terrors, he was awakened.
Inhis dream, a pale frightened face approached him slowly, and recoiling uttered a cry. The scream was horribly prolonged as the figure receded. He thought he recognised some one—dead or living he could not say—in the strange, Grecian face, fixed as marble, that with enormous eyes, had looked into his.
With this sound ringing in his ears he awoke. As is the case with other over-fatigued men, on whom, at length, slumber has seized, he was for a time in the attitude of wakefulness before his senses and his recollection were thoroughly aroused, and his dream quite dissipated. Another long shriek, and another, and another, he heard. Charles recognised, he fancied, his wife’s voice. Scared, and wide awake, he ran from the room—to the foot of the stairs—up the stairs. A tread of feet he heard in the room, and the door violently shaken, and another long, agonized scream.
Over this roof and around it is the serenest and happiest night. The brilliant moon, the dark azure and wide field of stars make it a night for holy thoughts, and lovers’ vigils, so tender and beautiful. There is no moaning night-wind, not even a rustle in the thick ivy. The window gives no sound, except when the gray moth floating in its shadow taps softly on the pane. You can hear the leaf that drops of itself from the tree-top, and flits its way from bough to spray to the ground.
Even in that gentle night there move, however, symbols of guilt and danger. While the small birds, with head under wing, nestle in their leafy nooks, the white owl glides with noiseless wing, a murderous phantom, cutting the air. The demure cat creeps on and on softly as a gray shadow till its green eyes glare close on its prey. Nature, with her gentleness and cruelty, her sublimity and meanness, resembles that microcosm, the human heart, in which lodge so many contrarieties, and the shabby contends with the heroic, the diabolic with the angelic.
In this still night Alice’s heart was heavy. Who can account for those sudden, silent, but terrible changes in the spiritual vision which interpose as it were a thin coloured medium between ourselves and the realities that surround us—how all objects, retaining their outlines, lose their rosy glow and golden lights, and on a sudden fade into dismallest gray and green?
“Dulcibella, do you think he’s coming? Oh! Dulcibella, do you think he’ll come to-night?”
“He may, dear. Why shouldn’t he? Lie down, my child, and don’t be sitting up in your bed so. You’ll never go asleep while you’re listening and watching. Nothing but fidgets, and only the wider awake the longer you watch.WellI know it, and many a long hour I laid awake myself expectin’ and listenin’ for poor Crane a comin’ home with the cart from market, long ago. He had his failin’s—as who has not? poor Crane—but an honest man, and good-natured, and would not hurt a fly, and never a wry word out of his mouth, exceptin’, maybe, one or two, which he never meant them, when he was in liquor, as who is there, Miss Ally, will not be sometimes? But he was a kind, handsome fellow, and sore was my heart when he was taken,” and Dulcibella wiped her eyes. “Seven-and-twenty years agone last Stephen’s Day I buried him in Wyvern Churchyard, and I tried to keep the little business agoin’, but I couldn’t make it pay nohow, and when it pleased God to take my little girl six years after, I gave all up and went to live at the vicarage. But as I was sayin’, miss, many a long hour I sat up a watchin’ for my poor Crane on his way home. He would sometimes stop a bit on the way, wi’ a friend or two, at the Cat and Fiddle—’twas the only thing I could ever say wasn’t quite as I could a’ liked in my poor Crane. And that’s how I came to serve your good mother, miss, and your poor father, the good vicar o’ Wyvern—there’s not been none like him since, not one—no, indeed.”
“You remember mamma very well?”
“Like yesterday, miss,” said old Dulcibella, who often answered that question. “Like yesterday, the pretty lady. She always looked so pleasant, too—a smiling face, like the light of the sun coming into a room.”
“I wonder, Dulcibella, there was no picture.”
“No picture. No, miss. Well, ye see, Miss Ally, dear, them pictures, I’m told, costs a deal o’ money, and they were only beginnin’ you know, and many a little expense—and Wyvern Vicarage is a small livelihood at best, and ye must be managin’ if ye’d keep it—and good to the poor they was with all that, and gave what many a richer one wouldn’t, and never spared trouble for them; they counted nothin’ trouble for no one. They loved all, and lived to one another, not a wry word ever; what one liked t’other loved, and all in the light o’ God’s blessin’. I never seen such a couple, never; they doted on one another, and loved all, and they two was like one angel.”
“Lady Wyndale has a picture of poor mamma—very small—what they call a miniature. I think it quite beautiful. It was taken when she was not more than seventeen. Lady Wyndale, you know, was ever so much older than mamma.”
“Ay, so she was, ten year and more, I dare say,” answered Dulcibella.
“She is very fond of it—too fond to give it to me now; but she says, kind aunt, she has left it to me in her will. And oh! Dulcibella, I feel so lonely.”
“Lonely! why should you, darling, wi’ a fine handsome gentleman to your husband, that will be squire o’ Wyvern—think o’ that—squire o’ Wyvern, and that’s a greater man than many a lord in Parliament; and he’s good-natured, never a hard word or a skew look, always the same quiet way wi’ him. Hoot, miss! ye mustn’t be talkin’ that way. Think o’ the little baby that’s a comin’. Ye won’t know yourself for joy when ye see his face, please God, and I’m a longin’ to show him to ye.”
“You good old Dulcibella,” said the young lady, and her eyes filled with tears as she smiled. “But poor mamma died when I was born, and oh, Dulcibella, do you think I shall ever see the face of the poor little thing? Oh! wouldn’t it be sad! wouldn’t it be sad!”
“Ye’re not to be talkin’ that nonsense, darling; ’tis sinful, wi’ all that God has given you, a comfortable house over your head, and enough to eat, and good friends, and a fine, handsome husband that’s kind to you, and a blessed little child a comin’ to make every minute pleasant to all that’s in the house. Why, ’tis a sin to be frettin’ like that, and as for this thing or that thing, or being afeard, why, everyone’s afeard, if they’d let themselves, and not one in a thousand comes by any harm; and ’tis sinful, I tell ye, for ye know well ye’re in the hands o’ the good God that’s took care o’ ye till now, and took ye out o’ the little nursery o’ Wyvern Vicarage, when ye weren’t the length o’ my arm, and not a friend near but poor, foolish, old Dulcibella, that did not know where to turn. And your aunt, that only went out as poor as your darling mamma, brought home well again from t’other end o’ the world, and well to do, your own loving kith and kin, and good friends raised up on every side, and the old squire, Harry o’ Wyvern, although he be a bit angered for a while he’s another good friend, that will be sure to make it up, whatever it is came between him and Master Charles. Hot blood’s not the worst blood; better a blow in haste and a shake hands after than a smile at the lips and no goodwill wi’ it. I tell you, they’re not the worst, they hot-headed, hard-fisted, out-spoken folk; and I’ll never forget that day to him, when he brought you home that had no home, and me that was thinkin’ o’ nout but the workhouse. So do or say what he will, God bless him for that day, say I, for ’twas an angel’s part he did,” said old Dulcibella.
“So I feel, God knows; so I feel,” said Alice, “and I hope it may all be made up; I’m sure it will; and, oh! Dulcibella, I have been the cause of so much sorrow and bitterness!”
She stopped suddenly, her eyes full of tears; but she restrained them.
“That’s the way ye’ll always be talking. I’d like to know where they’d be without you. Every man that marries will have care, more or less; ’tis the will o’ God; and if he hadn’t he’d never think o’ Him; and ’tis a short life at the longest, and a sore pilgrimage at the best. So what He pleases to lay on us we must even bear wi’ a patient heart, if we can’t wi’ a cheerful; for wi’ his blessin’ ’twill all end well.”
“Amen,” said Alice, with a cheerier smile but a load still at her heart; “I hope so, my good old Dulcibella. What should I do without you?Wait!hush! Is that a noise outside? No; I thought I heard a horse’s tread, but there’s nothing. It’s too late now; there’s no chance of him to-night. Do you think, Dulcibella, there is any chance?”
“Well, no, my dear; it’s gettin’ on too late—a deal too late; no, no, we must even put that clean out of our heads. Ye’ll not get a wink o’ sleep if you be listening for him. Well I know them fidgets, and many a time I lay on my hot ear—now this side, now that, listening, till I could count the veins o’ my head beating like a watch, and myself only wider and wider awake every hour, and more fool I; and well and hearty home wi’ him, time enough, and not a minute sooner for all my watching. And mind ye, what I often told ye when ye were a wee thing, and ye’ll find it true to the end o’ your days—a watch-pot never boils.”
Alice laughed gently.
“I believe you are right, Dulcibella. No, he won’t come to-night. It was only a chance, and I might have known. But, perhaps, to-morrow? Don’t you think to-morrow?”
“Very like, like enough, to-morrow—daylight, mayhap to breakfast—why not?” she answered.
“Well, I do think he may; he said, perhaps to-night, and I know, I’m sure he’ll think how his poor wife is watching and longing to see him; and, as you advise, I’ll put that quite out of my head; he has so many things to look after, and he only saidperhaps; and you think in the morning. Well, I won’t let myself think so, it would be too delightful; I won’t think it. But it can’t be many days, I’m sure—and—I won’t keep you up any longer, dear old Dulcibella. I’ve been very selfish. So, good-night.”
And they kissed, as from little Allie’s infancy they had always done, before settling for the night.
“Good-night, and God love it; it mustn’t be frettin’, and God bless you, my darling Miss Allie; and you must get to sleep, or you’ll be looking so pale and poor in the morning, he won’t know you when he comes.”
So, with another hug and a kiss they parted, and old Dulcibella leaving her young mistress’s candle burning on the table, as was her wont, being nervous when she was alone, and screened from her eyes by the curtain, with a final good-night and another blessing she closed the door.
Is there ever an unreserved and complete confidence after marriage? Even to kind old Dulcibella she could not tell all. As she smiled a little farewell on the faithful old soul her heart was ready to burst. She was longing for a good cry all to herself, and now, poor little thing, she had it.
She cried herself, as children do, to sleep.
An hour later the old grange was silent as the neighbouring churchyard of Carwell. But there was not a household in the parish, or in the county, I suppose, many of whose tenants, at that late hour, were so oddly placed.
In his chair in the oak-panelled room, downstairs, sat Charles Fairfield, in that slumber of a tormented and exhausted brain, which in its first profound submersion, resembles the torpor of apoplexy.
In his forsaken room lay on the pillow the pale face of his young wife, her eyelashes not yet dry, fallen asleep in the sad illusion of his absence—better, perhaps, than his presence would have been, if she had known but all.
In her crib downstairs, at last asleep, lay the frightened Lilly Dogger, her head still under the coverlet, under which she had popped it in panic, as she thought on the possible return of the tall unknown, and the lobe of her ear still flaming from the discipline of her vice-like pinch.
Under his slanting roof, in the recess of the staircase, with only his coat off, stretched on the broad of his back, with one great horny hand half shut under his bullet head, and the other by his side, snored honest Tom, nothing the less soundly for his big mug of beer and his excursion to Cressley Common.
For a moment now we visit the bedside of good old Dulcibella. An easy conscience, a good digestion, and an easy place in this troublesome world, are favourable to sound slumbers, and very tranquilly she slept, with a large handkerchief pinned closely about her innocent bald head, and a night-cap of many borders outside it. Her thick, well-thumbed Bible, in which she read some half-dozen verses every night, lay, with her spectacles upon its cover, on the table by the brass candlestick.
Mildred Tarnley, a thin figure with many corners, lay her length in her clothes, her old brown stuff gown her cap and broad faded ribbons binding her busy head, and her darned black worsted stockings still on her weary feet, ready at call to jump up, pop her feet again into her misshapen shoes, and resume her duties.
In her own solitary chamber, at the deserted side of the house, the tall stranger, arrayed in a white woollen night-dress, lay her length, not stirring.
After Mildred Tarnley had got herself stiffly under her quilt, she was visited with certain qualms about this person, recollections of her abhorred activity and energy in old times, and fears that the “grim white woman” was not resting in her bed. This apprehension grew so intense that, tired as she was, she could not sleep. The suspicion that, bare-footed, listening, that dreadful woman was possibly groping her way through the house made her heart beat faster and faster.
At last she could bear it no longer, and up she got, lighted her candle with a match, and in her stockings glided softly through the passage, and by the room where Charles Fairfield was at that time at his letters.
He recognised the step to which his ear was accustomed, and did not trouble himself to inquire what she was about.
So, softly, softly, softly—Mildred Tarnley found herself at the door of the unwelcome guest and listened. You would not have supposed old Mildred capable of a nervous tremble, but she was profoundly afraid of this awful woman, before whose superior malignity and unearthly energy her own temper and activity quailed. She listened, but could hear no evidence of her presence. Was the woman there at all? Lightly, lightly, with her nail, she tapped at the door. No answer. Then very softly she tried the door. It was secured.
But was the old soldier in the room still, or wandering about the house with who could fathom what evil purpose in her head?
The figure in white woollen was there still; she had been lying on her side, with her pale features turned toward the door as Mildred approached. Her blind eyes were moving in their sockets—there was a listening smile on her lips—and she had turned her neck awry to get her ear in the direction of the door. She was just as wide awake as Mildred herself.
Mildred watched for a time at the door, irresolute. Excuse enough, she bethought her, in the feeble state in which she had left her, had she for making her a visit. Why should she not open the door boldly and enter? But Mildred, in something worse than solitude, was growing more and more nervous. What if that tall, insane miscreant were waiting at the door, in a fit of revenge for her suspected perfidy, ready to clutch her by the throat as she opened it, and to strangle her on the bed? And when there came from the interior of the room a weary bleating “heigh-ho!” she absolutely bounced backward, and for a moment froze with terror.
She took a precaution as she softly withdrew. The passage, which is terminated by the “old soldier’s” room, passes a dressing-room on the left, and then opens, on the other side, upon a lobby. This door is furnished with a key, and having secured it, Mrs. Tarnley, with that key in her pocket, felt that she had pretty well imprisoned that evil spirit, and returned to her own bed more serenely, and was soon lost in slumber.
Somelean, nervous temperaments, once fairly excited, and in presence of a substantial cause of uneasiness, are very hard to reduce to composure. After she had got back again, Mildred Tarnley fidgeted and turned in her bed, and lay in the dark, with her tired eyes wide open, and imagining, one after another, all sorts of horrors.
She was still in her clothes; so she got up again, and lighted a candle, and stole away, angry with herself and all the world on account of her fussy and feverish condition, and crept up the great stairs, and stealthily reached again the door of the “old soldier’s” room.
Not a sound, not a breath, could she hear from within. Gently she opened the door which no longer resisted. The fire was low in the grate; and, half afraid to look at the bed, she raised the candle and did look.
There lay the “Dutchwoman,” so still that Mrs. Tarnley felt a sickening doubt as she stared at her.
“Lord bless us! she’s never quite well. I wish she was somewhere else,” said Mrs. Tarnley, frowning sharply at her from the door.
Then, with a little effort of resolution, she walked to the bedside, and fancied, doubtfully, that she saw a faint motion as of breathing in the great resting figure, and she placed her fingers upon her arm, and then passed them down to her big hand, which to her relief was warm.
At the touch the woman moaned and turned a little.
“Faugh! what makes her sleep so like dead? She’d a frightened me a’most, if I did not know better. Some folks can’t do nout like no one else.” And Mildred would have liked to shake her up and bid her “snore like other people, and give over her unnatural ways.”
But she did look so pale and fixed, and altogether so unnatural, that Mrs. Tarnley’s wrath was overawed, and, rather uneasily, she retired, and sat for a while at the kitchen fire, ruminating and grumbling.
“If she’s a-goin’ to die, what for should she come all the way to Carwell? Wasn’t Lonnon good enough to die in?”
Mrs. Tarnley only meant to warm her feet on the fender for a few minutes. But she fell asleep, and wakened, it might be, a quarter of an hour later, and got up and listened.
What was it that overcame old Mildred on this night with so unusual a sense of danger and panic at the presence of this woman? She could not exactly define the cause. But she was miserably afraid of her, and full of unexplainable surmises.
“I can’t go to bed till I try again; I can’t. I don’t know what’s come over me. It seems to me, Lor’ be wi’ us! as if the Evil One was in the house, and I don’t know what I should do—and there’s nout o’ any avail I can do; but quiet I can’t bide, and sleep won’t stay wi’ me while she’s here, and I’ll just go up again to her room, and if all’s right then, I will lie down, and take it easy for the rest o’ the night, come what, come may: for my old bones is fairly wore out, and I can’t hold my head up no longer.”
Thus resolved, and sorely troubled, the old woman took the candle again and sallied forth once more upon her grizzly expedition.
From the panelled sitting-room, where by this time Charles Fairfield sat in his chair locked in dismal sleep, came the faint red mist of his candle’s light, and here she paused to listen for a moment. Well, all was quiet there, and so on and into the passage, and so into the great hall, as it was called, which seemed to her to have grown chill and cheerless since she was last there, and so again cautiously up the great stair, with its clumsy banister of oak, relieved at every turn by a square oak block terminating in a ball, like the head of a gigantic ninepin. Black looked the passage through this archway, at the summit of this ascent; and for the first time Mildred was stayed by the sinking of a superstitious horror.
It was by putting a kind of force upon herself that she entered this dark and silent gallery, so far away from every living being in the house, except that one of whom secretly she stood in awe, as of something not altogether of this earth.
This gallery is pretty large, and about midway is placed another arch, with a door-case, and a door that is held open by a hook, and, as often happens in old houses, a descent of a couple of steps here brings you to a different level of the floor.
There may have been a reason of some other sort for the uncomfortable introduction of so many gratuitous steps in doorways and passages, but certainly it must have exercised the wits of the comparatively slow persons who flourished at the period of this sort of architecture, and prevented the drowsiest from falling asleep on the way to their bedrooms.
It happened that as she reached this doorway her eye was caught by a cobweb hanging from the ceiling. For a sharp old servant like Mrs. Tarnley, such festoonery has an attraction of antipathy that is irresistible; she tried to knock it with her hand, but it did not reach high enough, so she applied her fingers to loosen her apron, and sweep it down with a swoop of that weapon.
She was still looking up at the dusty cord that waved in the air, and as she did so she received a long pull by the dress, from an unseen hand below—a determined tweak—tightening and relaxing as she drew a step back, and held the candle backward to enable her to see.
It was not her kitten, which might have playfully followed her upstairs—it was not a prowling rat making a hungry attack. A low titter accompanied this pluck at her dress, and she saw the wide pale face of the Dutchwoman turned up towards her with an odious smile. She was seated on the step, with her shoulder leaning upon the frame of the door.
“You thought I was asleep under the coverlet,” she drawled: “or awake, perhaps, in the other world—dead. I never sleep long, and I don’t die easily—see!”
“And what for are ye out o’ your bed at all, ma’am? Ye’ll break your neck in this house, if ye go walking about, wi’ its cranky steps, and stairs, and you blind.”
“When you go blind, old Mildred, you’ll find your memory sharper than you think, and steps, and corners, and doors, and chimney-pieces will come to mind like a picture. What was I about?”
“Well, whatwasye about? Sure I am I don’t know, ma’am.”
“No, I’m sure you don’t,” said she.
“But you should be in your bed—that I know, ma’am.”
Still holding her dress, and with a lazy laugh, the lady made answer—
“So should you, old lass—a pair of us gadders; but I had a reason—I wanted you, old Mildred.”
“Well, ma’am, I don’t know how you’d ’a found me, for I sleep in the five-cornered room, two doors away from the spicery—you’d never ’a found me.”
“I’d have tried—hit or miss—I would not have stayed where I was,” answered the “old soldier.”
“What, not in the state-room, ma’am—the finest room in the house, so ’twas always supposed!”
“So be it; I don’t like it,” she answered.
“Ye didn’t hear no noises in’t, sure?” demanded Mildred.
“Not I,” said the Dutchwoman. “Another reason quite, girl.”
“And what the de’il is it? It must be summat grand, I take it, that makes ye better here, sittin’ on a hard stair, than lying your length on a good bed.”
“Right well said, clever Mildred. What is the state-room without a quiet mind?” replied the old soldier, with an oracular smile.
“What’s the matter wi’ your mind, ma’am?” said Mildred testily.
“I’m not safe there from intrusion,” answered the lady, with little pauses between her words to lend an emphasis to them.
“I don’t know what you’re afeard on, ma’am,” repeated Mrs. Tarnley, whose acquaintance with fine words was limited, and who was too proud to risk a mistake.
“Well, it’s just this—I won’t be pried upon by that young lady.”
“What young lady, ma’am?” asked Mrs. Tarnley, who fancied she might ironically mean Miss Lilly Dogger.
“Harry Fairfield’s wife, of course, what other? I choose to be private here,” said the Dutch dame imperiously.
“She’ll not pry—she don’t pry on no one, and if she wished it, she couldn’t.”
“Why, there’s nothing between us, woman, but the long closet where you used to keep the linen, and the broken furniture and rattle-traps” (raddle-drabs she pronounced the word), “and she’ll come and peep—every woman peeps and pries” (beebs and bries she called the words)—“Ipeep and pry. She’ll just pretend she never knew any one was there, and she’ll walk in through the closet door, and start, and beg my pardon, and say how sorry she is, and then go off, and tell you next morning how many buttons are on my pelisse, and how many pins in my pincushion, and let all the world know everything about me.”
“But she can’t come in.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because, ma’am, the door is papered over.”
“Fine protection—paper!” sneered the lady.
“I saw her door locked myself before ’twas papered over,” said Mildred.
“Did you, though?” said the lady.
“With my own eyes,” insisted Mildred.
“I’d rather see it with mine,” joked the blind lady. “Well, see, we’ll make a long story short. If I consent to stay in that room, I’ll lock the door that opens into it. I’ll have a room, and not a passage, if you please. I won’t be peeped on, or listened to. If I can’t choose my company I’ll be alone, please.”
“And what do you want, ma’am?” asked Mildred, whose troubles were multiplying.
“Another room,” said the lady, doggedly.
Mildred paused.
“Well, did I ever!” pondered Mrs. Tarnley, reading the lady’s features sharply as she spoke; but they were sullen, and, for aught she could make out, meaningless. “Well, it will do if ye can have the key, I take it, and lock your door yourself?”
“Not so well as another room, if you’ll give me one, but better than nothing.”
“Come along then, ma’am, for another room’s not to be had at no price, and I’ll gi’ ye the key.”
“And then, when you lock it fast, I may sleep easy. What’s that your parson used to say—‘the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.’ Plenty of wicked people going, Mrs. Tarnley, and weary enough am I,” sighed the great pale Dutchwoman.
“There’s two on us so, ma’am,” said Mildred, as she led the lady back to her room, and having placed her in her arm-chair by the fire, Mildred Tarnley took the key from a brass-headed tack, on which it hung behind the bedpost.
“Here it is, ma’am,” she said, placing the key in her groping fingers.
“What key is it?” asked the old soldier.
“The key of the long linen closet that was.”
“And how do I know that?” she inquired, twirling it round in her large fingers, and smiling in such a way as to nettle Mrs. Tarnley, who began—
“Ye may know, I take it, because Mildred Tarnley says so, and I never yet played a trick. I never tells lies,” she concluded, pulling up on a sudden.
“Well, I know that. I know you’re truth itself, so far as human nature goes; but that has its limits, and can’t fly very high off the ground. Come, get me up—we’ll try the key. I’ll lock it myself—I’ll lock it with my own fingers. Seeing is believing, and I can’t see; but feeling has no fellow, and, not doubting you, Mrs. Tarnley, I’ll feel for myself.”
She placed her hand on Mrs. Tarnley’s shoulder, and when she had reached the corner at the further side of the bed, where the covered door, as she knew, was situated, with her scissors’ point, where the crevice of the door was covered over with the paper, she ripped it asunder (notwithstanding the remonstrances of Mildred, who told her she was “leavin’ it not worth a rag off the road”) all round the door, which thus freed, and discovering by her finger tips the point at which the keyhole was placed, she broke the paper through, introduced the key, turned it, and with very little resistance pulled the door partly open, with an ugly grimace and a chuckle at Mildred. Then, locking it fast, she said—
“And now I defy madam, do all she can—and you’ll clap the table against it, to make more sure; and so I think I may sleep—don’t you?”
Mildred scratched above her eyebrow with one finger for a moment, and she said—
“Yes, ye might a’ slept, I’m thinkin’, as sound before if ye had a mind, ma’am.”
“What the dickens does the lass mean?” said the blind woman, with a sleepy laugh. “As if people could sleep when they like. Why, woman, if that was so there would be no such thing as fidgets.”
“Well, I suppose, no more there wouldn’t—no more there wouldn’t. I may take away the tray, ma’am?”
“Let it be till morning—I want rest. Good-night. Are you going?—good-night.”
“Good-night, ma’am,” said Mildred, making her stiff little curtsy, although it was lost upon the lady, and a little thoughtfully she left the room.
The “old soldier” listened, sitting up, for she had lain down on her bed, and as she heard the click-clack of Mildred’s shoes grow fainter—
“Yes, good-night really, Mildred; I think you need visit no more to-night.”
And she got up, and secured the door that opened on the gallery.
“Good-night, old Tarnley,” she said, with a nod and an unpleasant smirk, and then a deep and dismal sigh. Then she threw herself again upon her bed and lay still.
Old Mildred seemed also to have come to a like conclusion as to the matter of further visiting for the night, for at the door, on the step of which the Dutchwoman sitting a few minutes before had startled her, she looked back suspiciously over her shoulder, and then shutting the door noiselessly, she locked it—leaving that restless spirit a prisoner till morning.
Alicehad slept quietly for some time. The old clock at the foot of the stairs had purred and struck twice since she had ceased listening and thinking. It was for all that time an unbroken sleep, and then she wakened. She had been half conscious for some time of a noise in the room, a fidgeting little noise, that teased her sleep for a time, and finally awoke her completely. She sat up in her bed, and heard, she thought, a sigh in the room. Exactly from what point she could not be certain, nor whether it was near or far.
She drew back the curtain and looked. The familiar furniture only met her view. In like manner all round the room. Encouraged by which evidence she took heart of grace, and got up, and quite to satisfy herself, made a search—as timid people will, because already morally certain that there is no need of a search.
Happily she was spared the terror of any discovery to account for the sound that had excited her uneasiness.
She turned again the key in her door, and thus secured, listened there. Everything was perfectly still. Then into bed she got, and listened to silence, and in low tones talking to herself, for the sound of her own voice was reassuring, she reasoned with her tremors, she trimmed her light and made some little clatter on the table, and bethought her that this sigh that had so much affrighted her might be no more than the slipping of one fold of her bed-curtain over another—an occurrence which she remembered to have startled her once before.
So after a time she persuaded herself that her alarm was fanciful, and she composed herself again to sleep. Soon, however, her evil genius began to worry her in another shape, and something like the gnawing and nibbling of a mouse grated on her half-sleeping ear from the woodwork of the room. So she sat up again, and said—
“Hish!”
Now toward the window, now toward the fire-place, now toward the door, and all again was quite still.
Alice got up, and throwing her dressing-gown about her shoulders, opened the window-shutter and looked out upon the serene and melancholy landscape, which this old-fashioned window with its clumsy sashes and small panes commanded. Sweet and sad these moonlit views that so well accord with certain moods. But the cares at Alice’s heart were real, and returned as she quite awoke with a renewed pang—and the cold and mournful glory of the sky and silvered woodlands neither cheered nor soothed her. With a deep sigh she closed the shutter again, and by the dusky candle-light returned to her bed. There at last she did fall into a quiet sleep.
From this she awoke suddenly and quite. Her heart was throbbing fast, but she could not tell whether she awoke of herself or had been aroused by some external cause.
“Who’s there?” she cried, in a fright, as she started up and looked about the room.
Exactly as she called she thought she heard something fall—a heavy and muffled sound. It might have been a room or two away, it might have been nearer, but her own voice made the sound uncertain. She waited in alarm and listened, but for the present all was again quiet.
Poor little Alice knew very well that she was not herself, and her reason took comfort from her consciousness of the excited state of her nerves.
“What a fool I am!” she whispered, with a sigh. “What a fool! Everything frightens me now, I’ve grown such a coward. Oh! Charlie, Charlie—oh, Ry darling!—when will you come back to your poor wife—when shall this dreadful suspense be over and quiet come again?”
Then poor little Alice cried, after the manner of women, bitterly for a time, and then, as she used in all trouble, she prayed, and essayed to settle again to sleep. But hardly had she begun the attempt when it was terminated strangely.
Again she heard the same stealthy sound, as of something cutting or ripping. Again she cried, “Hish, hish!” but with no effect. She fancied at the far corner of the room, about as high as she could easily reach, that she saw some glittering object. It might be a little bit of looking-glass pass slowly and tremulously along the wall, horizontally, and then with the same motion, in a straight line down the wall, glimmering faintly in the candle light. At the same time was a slight trembling of that part of the wall, a slight, wavy motion, and—could she believe her eyes?—a portion of the wall seemed to yield silently, an unsuspected door slowly opened, and a tall figure wrapt in a flannel dress came in.
This figure crouched a little with its hand to its ear, and moved its head slowly round as if listening in all directions in turn. Then softly, with a large hand, it pushed back the door, which shut with a little snap, as if with a spring-lock.
Alice all this time was gazing upon the visitor, actually freezing with terror, and not knowing whether the apparition was that of a living person or not. The woollen-clothed figure, with large feet in stockings, and no shoes on, advanced, the fingers of one hand sliding gently along the wall. With an aspect fixed on the opposite end of the room, and the other hand a little raised in advance, it was such a fixed, listening look, and groping caution of motion as one might fancy in a person getting along a familiar room in the dark.
The feeling that she was not seen made Alice instinctively silent. She was almost breathless. The intruder passed on thus until she had reached the corner of the room, when she felt about for the door-case, and having got her hand upon it she quickly transferred it to the handle, which she turned, and tried the door two or three times. Oh! what Alice would have given at this moment that she had not locked it, believing, as she now did, that the stranger would have passed out quietly from the room if this obstruction had not presented itself.
As if her life was concentrated in her eyes, Alice gazed still at this person, who paused for a few seconds, and lowering her head listened fixedly. Then very cautiously she, with the tips of her fingers, tried—was it to turn the key in the lock or to extricate it? At all events, she failed. She removed her hand, turned a little, stood still, and listened.
To Alice’s horror her business in the room was plainly not over yet. The woman stood erect, drawing a long breath, holding her underlip slightly in her teeth, with just a little nip. She turned her face toward the bed, and for the first time Alice now quite distinctly saw it—pale, seamed with small-pox, blind. This large face was now turned toward her, and the light of the candle, screened by the curtain from Alice’s eyes, fell full upon its exaggerated and evil features. The woman had drawn in a long, full breath, as if coming to a resolution that needed some nerve.
Whatever this woman had come into the room for, Alice thought, with hope, that she, at all events, as she stood pallid and lowering before her, with eyes white with cataract, and brows contracted in malignant calculation, knew nothing, as she undoubtedly saw nothing, of her.
Still as death sat Alice in her terror gazing into the sightless face of this woman, little more than two yards removed from her.
Nighttime invader“Still as death sat Alice in her terror gazing into the sightless face of this woman.”
“Still as death sat Alice in her terror gazing into the sightless face of this woman.”
Suddenly this short space disappeared, and with two swift steps and an outstretched hand she stood at the bedside and caught Alice’s night-dress, and drew her forcibly towards her. Alice as violently resisted. With a loud scream she drew back, and the night-dress tore. But the tall woman instantly grasped her nearer the shoulder, and scrambling on the bed on her knees she dragged her down upon it, and almost instantly struck at her throat with a knife.
To make this blow she was compelled to withdraw one hand, and with a desperate spring, Alice evaded the stroke.
The whole thing was like a dream. The room seemed all a cloud. She could see nothing but the white figure that was still close, climbing swiftly over the bed, with one hand extended now and the knife in the other.
Not knowing how she got there, she was now standing with her back to the wall, in the further corner of the room, staring at the dreadful figure in a catalepsy of terror.
There was hardly a momentary pause. She was afraid to stir lest the slightest motion should betray her to the search of this woman. Had she, as she stood and listened sharply, heard her breathing?
With sudden decision, long light steps, and her hand laid to the wall, she glided swiftly toward her. With a gasp Alice awoke, as it were, from her nightmare, and, almost wild with terror, fled round the bed to the door. Hastening, jostling by the furniture, gliding, on the whole, very adroitly after her, her face strained with a horrible eagerness and fear, came the blind woman.
Alice tried to pull open the door. She had locked it herself, but in her agitation forgot.
Now she seized the key and tried to turn it, but the strong hand of the stranger, in forcing it round a second time, had twisted it so that it was caught in the lock and would not turn.
Alice felt as people feel in dreams, when pursuit is urgent and some little obstruction entangles flight and threatens to deliver the fugitive into the hands of an implacable pursuer. A frantic pull, and a twist or two of the key in vain, and the hand of the pursuer was all but upon her. Again she sprang and scrambled across the bed, and it seemed enraged by the delay, and with a face sharpening and darkening with insanity, the murderess, guided by the sound, flung herself after her; and now, through the room and lobbies pealed shrieks of murder, as Alice flew before the outstretched hand of the beldame, who, balked of her prey, followed with reckless fury, careless now against what she struck or rushed, and clawing the air, as it seemed, within an inch of Alice’s shoulder.
Unequal as it appeared, in this small pen, the struggle to escape could not have lasted very long. The old closet door, thinly covered with paper, through which the sharp knife had glided almost without noise, was locked, and escape through it as hopeless as through the other door. Through the window she would have thrown herself, but it was fastened, and one moment’s delay would have been death. Had a weapon been in her hand, had she thought of it in this extremity of terror, her softer instincts might have been reversed, and she might have turned on her pursuer and fought, as timid creatures have done, with the ferocity of despair, for her life. But the chance that might have so transformed her did not come. Flight was her one thought, and that ended suddenly, for tripping in the upturned carpet she fell helplessly to the floor. In a moment, with a gasp, her pursuer was kneeling by her side, with her hand in her dishevelled hair, and drawing herself close for those sure strokes of the knife with which she meant to mangle her.
As the eyes of the white owl glare through the leaves on the awaking bird, and its brain swims, and its little heart bounces into a gallop, seeing its most dreadful dream accomplished, escape impossible, its last hour come—then the talons of the spectre clutch its throat, and its short harmless life is out, so might it have been with pretty Alice.
In that dreadful second of time all things that her eyes beheld looked strange, in a new reality—the room contracted, and familiar things were unlike themselves, and the certainty and nearness of that which she now knew—all her life before was but a dream to her—what an infidel, what a fool she had been—hereit was, andnow—death.
The helpless yell that burst from her lips, as this dreadful woman shuffled nearer on her knees, was answered by a crash from the door burst in, and a cry from a manly voice—the door flew wide, and Alice saw her husband pale as death; with a single savage blow he stretched her assailant on the floor,—in another moment Alice, wild with terror, half-fainting, was in his arms.
And—did hestrikeher? Good God!—had he struck her! How did she lie there bleeding? For a moment a dreadful remorse was bursting at his heart—he would have kneeled—he could have killed himself. Oh, manhood! Gratitude! Charity! Could he, even in a moment of frenzy, have struck down any creature so—that had ever stood to him in the relation of that love? What a rush of remembrances, and hell of compunction was there!—and for a rival! She the reckless, forlorn, guilty old love cast off, blasted with deformity and privation, and now this last fell atrocity! Alice was clinging to him, the words “darling, darling, my Ry, my saviour, my Ry,” were in his ears, and he felt as if he hated Alice—hated her worse even than himself. He froze with horror and agony as he beheld the ineffaceable image of that white, blood-stained twitching face, with sightless eyes, and on the floor those straggling locks of changed, grizzled hair, that once were as black as a raven’s wing to which he used to compare them. Oh maddening picture of degradation and cruelty! To what had they both come at last?
But an iron necessity was upon him, and with an energy of hypocrisy, he said—“Alice, my treasure, my darling, you’re safe, aren’t you?”
“Oh, darling, yes,” she gasped.
“Not here—you mustn’t stay here—run down—she’s mad—she’s a mad woman—not here a moment.”
Half stunned and dreamy with horror, Alice glided down the stairs, passing honest Tom who was stumbling up, half awake, but quite dressed excepting his coat.
“Run, Tom, help your master, for God’s sake,—there’s something dreadful,” she said as she passed him with her trembling hands raised.
“Where, ma’am, may’t be?” said Tom, pausing with a coolness that was dreadful, she thought.
“There, there, in his room, my room; go, for heaven’s sake!”
Up ran Tom, making a glorious clatter with his hob-nails, and down ran Alice, and just at the foot of the stair she met Mildred Tarnley’s tall slim figure. The old woman drew to the banister, and stood still, looking darkly and shrewdly at her.
“Oh! good Mildred—oh, Mrs. Tarnley, for God’s sake don’t leave me.”
“And what’s the row, ma’am, what is it?” asked Mrs. Tarnley, with her lean arm supporting the poor trembling young lady who clung to her.
“Oh, Mrs. Tarnley, take me with you—take me out—I can’t stay in the house; take me away—into the woods—anywhere out of the house.”
“Well, well, come down, come along,” she said, more tenderly than was her wont, and watching her face hard from the corners of her eyes. She was convinced that the “old soldier” was the cause of these horrors.
“Put your arm over my shouther, ma’am; there—that’s it—an’ I’ll put mine round you, if you don’t think I’m making too bold. There now, you’re more easy, I think.”
And as they got on through the passage she asked—
“’Twas you that skritched, hey?”
“I? I dare say—did I?”
“Ay did ye, with a will, whoever skritched. Ye seen summat. What may ye have seen that frightened ye like that?”
“We’ll talk by-and-by. I’m ill—I’m horribly ill. Come away.”
“Come, then, if ye like best, ma’am,” said Mildred Tarnley, leading her through the kitchen, and by the outer door into the open air, but she had hardly got a step into the yard when the young lady, holding her fast, stopped short in renewed terrors.
“Oh, Mildred, if she follows us, if she overtook us out here?”
“Hoot, ma’am, who are ye afeard on? Is it that crazy blind woman, or who?”
“Oh, Mildred, yes, it is she. Oh, Mildred, where shall we go, where can I hide myself? there’s nowhere safe.”
“Now you’re just drivin’ yourself distracted, you be. What for need ye fear her? She’s crazy, I’ll not deny, but she’s blind too, and she can’t follow ye here, if she was so minded. Why she couldn’t cross the stile, nor follow ye through a spinnie. But see, ye’ve nout but yer dressin’ gown over yer night clothes, and yer bare feet. Odd’s I’ll not go wi’ ye—ye’ll come back, and if ye must come abroad, ye’ll get yer cloaks and your shoon.”
“No, no, no, Mildred, I’ll go as I am,” cried the terrified lady, at the same time hurrying onward to the yard door.
“Well,” said the old woman following, “wilful lass will ha’ her way, but ye’ll clap this ower your shouthers.”
And she placed her own shawl on them, and together they passed into the lonely woodlands that, spreading upward from the glen of Carwell, embower the deep ravine that flanks the side of the Grange, and widening and deepening, enter the kindred shadows of the glen.
Alicehad not gone far when she was seized with a great shivering—the mediate process by which from high hysterical tension, nature brings down the nerves again to their accustomed tone.
The air was soft and still, and the faint gray of morning was already changing the darkness into its peculiar twilight.
“Ye’ll be better presently, dear,” said the old woman, with unaccustomed kindness. “There, there, ye’ll be nothing the worse when a’s done, and ye’ll have a cup o’ tea when ye come back.”
Under the great old trees near the ivied wall which screens the court is a stone bench, and on this old Mildred was constrained to place her.
“There, there, there, rest a bit—rest a little bit. Hih! cryin’—well, cry if ye will; but ye’ll ha’ more to thank God than to cry for, if all be as I guess.”
Alice cried on with convulsive sobs, starting every now and then, with a wild glance towards the yard gate, and grasping the old woman’s arm. In a very few minutes this paroxysm subsided, and she wept quietly.
“’Twas you, ma’am, that cried out, I take it—hey? Frightened mayhap?”
“I was—yes—I—I’ll wait a little, and tell you by-and-by—horribly—horribly.”
“Ye needn’t be afeered here, and me beside ye, ma’am, and daylight a-comin’, and I think I could gi’e a sharp guess at the matter. Ye saw her ladyship, I do suppose? The old soger, ma’am—ay, that’s a sight might frighten a body—like a spirit a’most—a great white-faced, blind devil.”
“Who is she? how did she come? She tried to kill me. Oh! Mrs. Tarnley, I’m so terrified!”
And with these words Alice began to cry and tremble afresh.
“Hey! try to kill ye, did she? I’m glad o’ that—right glad o’t; ’twill rid us o’ trouble, ma’am. But la! think o’ that! And did she actually raise her hand to you!”
“Oh yes, Mrs. Tarnley—frightful. I’m saved by a miracle—I don’t know how—the mercy of God only.”
She was clinging to Mrs. Tarnley with a fast and trembling grasp.
“Zooks! the lassisfrightened. Ye ha’ seen sights to-night, young lady, ye’ll remember. Young folk loves pleasure, and the world, and themselves ower well to trouble their heads about death or judgment, if the Lord in His mercy didn’t shake ’em up from their dreams and their sins. ‘Awake thou that sleepest,’ says the Word, callin’ loud in a drunken ear, at dead o’ night, wi’ the house all round a-fire, as the parson says. He’s a good man, though I may ha’ seen better, in old days in Carwell pulpit. So, ’tis all for good, and in place o’ crying ye should be praisin’ God for startlin’ ye out o’ your carnal sleep, and makin’ ye think o’ Him, and see yourself as ye are, and not according to the flatteries o’ your husband and your own vanity. Ye’ll pardon me, but truth is truth, and God’s truth first of all; and who’ll tell it ye if them as is within hearin’ won’t open their lips, and I don’t see that Mr. Charles troubles his head much about the matter.”
“He is so noble, and always my guardian angel. Oh, Mrs. Tarnley, to-night I must have perished if it had not been for him; he is always my best friend, and so unselfish and noble.”
“Well that’s good,” said Mildred Tarnley, coldly. “But I’m thinkin’ something ought to be done wi’ that catamountain in there, and strike while the iron’s hot, and they’ll never drive home that nail ye’ll find—more like to go off when all’s done wi’ her pocket full o’ money. ’Tis a sin, while so many an honest soul wants, and I’ll take that just into my own old hands, I’m thinkin’, and sarve her out as she would better women.”
“Isn’t she mad, Mrs. Tarnley?” asked Alice.
“And if she’s mad, to the madhouse wi’ her, an’ if she’s not, where’s the gallows high enough for her, the dangerous harridan? For, one way or t’other, the fiend’s in her, and the sooner judgment overtakes her, and she’s in her coffin, the sooner the devil’s laid, and the better for honest folk.”
“If she is mad, it accounts for everything; but I feel as if I never could enter that house again; and oh! Mrs. Tarnley, youmustn’tleave me. Oh, heavens! what’s that?”
It was no great matter—Mrs. Tarnley had got up, for the yard-door had opened and some one passed out and looked round.
It was the girl, Lilly Dogger, who stood there looking about her under the canopy of tall trees.
“Hoot, ma’am, ’tis only the child Lilly Dogger—and well pleased I am, for I was thinkin’ this minute how I could get her to me quietly. Here, Lilly—come here, ye goose-cap—d’ye see me?”
So, closing the door behind her, the girl approached with eyes very wide, and a wonderfully solemn countenance. She had been roused and scared by the sounds which had alarmed the house, huddled on her clothes, and seeing Mrs. Tarnley’s figure cross the window, had followed in a tremor.
Mrs. Tarnley walked a few steps towards her, and beckoning with her lean finger, the girl drew near.
“Ye’ll have to go over Cressley Common, girl, to Wykeford. Ye know Wykeford?”
“Yes, please ’m.”
“Well, ye must go through the village, and call up Mark Topham. Ye know Mark Topham’s house with the green door, by the bridge-end?”
“Yes please, Mrs. Tarnley, ma’am.”
“And say he’ll be wanted down here at the Grange—formurdermind—and go ye on to Mr. Rodney at t’other side o’ the river. Squire Rodney of Wrydell. Ye know that house, too?”
“Yes, ’m,” said the girl, with eyes momentarily distending, and face of blanker consternation.
“And ye’ll tell Mr. Rodney there’s been bad work down here, and murder all but done, and say ye’ve told Mark Topham, the constable, and that it is hoped he’ll come over himself to make out the writin’s and send away the prisoner as should go. We being chiefly women here, and having to keep Tom Clinton at home to mind the prisoner—ye understand—and keep all safe, having little other protection. Now run in, lass, and clap your bonnet on, and away wi’ ye; and get ye there as fast as your legs will carry ye, and take your time comin’ back; and ye may get a lift, for they’ll not be walkin’, and you’re like to get your bit o’ breakfast down at Wrydell; but if ye shouln’t, here’s tuppence, and buy yourself a good bit o’ bread in the town. Now, ye understand?”
“Yes, ’m, please.”
“And ye’ll not be makin’ mistakes, mind?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then do as I bid ye, and off ye go,” said Mrs. Tarnley, despatching her with a peremptory gesture.
So with a quaking heart, not knowing what dangers might still be lurking there, Lilly Dogger ran into the yard on her way to her bonnet, and peeped through the kitchen window, but saw nothing there in the pale gray light but “still life.”
With a timid finger she lifted the latch, and stole into the familiar passage as if she were exploring a haunted house. She had quaked in her bed as thin and far away the shrill sounds of terror had penetrated through walls and passages to her bedroom. She had murmured “Lord bless us!” at intervals, and listened, chilled with a sense of danger—associated in her imagination with the stranger who had visited her room and frighted away her slumbers. And she had jumped out of bed, and thrown on her clothes in panic, blessed herself, and pinned and tied strings, and listened, and blessed herself again; and seeing Mrs. Tarnley cross the window accompanied by some one else whom she did not then recognise, and fearing to remain thus deserted in the house more than the risk of being blown up by Mrs. Tarnley, she had followed that grim protectress.
Now, as on tiptoe she recrossed the kitchen with her straw bonnet in her hand she heard on a sudden cries of fury, and words, as doors opened and shut, reached her that excited her horror and piqued her curiosity.
She hastened, however, to leave the house, and again approached and passed by the lady and Mildred Tarnley, having tied her bonnet under her chin, and obeying Mildred’s impatient beckon, and—
“Run, lass, run. Stir your stumps, will ye?”
She started at a pace that promised soon to see her across Cressley Common.
Old Mildred saw this with comfort. She knew that broad-shouldered, brown-eyed lass for a shrewd and accurate messenger, and seeing how dangerous and complicated things were growing, she was glad that fortune had opened so short and sharp a way of getting rid of the troubler of their peace.
“Come in, ma’am, ye’ll catch your death o’ cold here. All’s quiet by this time, and I’ll make the kitchen safe against the world; and Mr. Charles is in the house, and Tom Clinton up, and all safe—and who cares a rush for that blind old cat? Not I for one. She’ll come no nonsense over Mildred Tarnley in her own kitchen, while there’s a poker to rap her ower the pate. Hoot! one old blind limmer; I’d tackle six o’ her sort, old as I am, and tumble ’em one after t’other into the Brawl. Never ye trouble your head about that, ma’am, and I’ll bolt the door on the passage, and the scullery door likewise, and lock ’em if ye like; and we’ll get down old Dulcibella to sit wi’ ye, and ye’ll be a deal less like to see that beast in the kitchen than here. There’s Miss Crane,” by which title she indicated old Dulcibella, “a lookin’ out o’ her window. Ho! Miss Crane—will ye please, Miss Crane, come down and stay a bit wi’ your mistress?”
“Thank God!—is she down there?” exclaimed she.
“Come down, ma’am, please; she’s quite well, and she’ll be glad to see ye.”
Old Dulcibella’s head disappeared from the window promptly.
“Now, ma’am, she’ll be down, and when she comes—for ye’d like to ha’ some one by ye—I’ll go in and make the kitchen door fast.”
“And won’t you search it well, Mrs. Tarnley, and the inner room, that we may be certain no one is hid there? Pray do—may I rely on you—won’t you promise?”
“There’s nothin’ there, that I promise ye.”
“But, oh! pray do,” urged Alice.
“I will, ma’am, just to quiet ye. Ye need not fear, I’ll leave her no chance, and she’ll soon be safe enough, she shall—safe enough when she gets on her doublet of stone; and don’t ye be frightenin’ yourself for nothin’—just keep yourself quiet, for there is nothing to fear, and if ye will keep yourself in a fever for nothin’ ye’ll be just making food for worms, mark my words.”
As she spoke old Dulcibella appeared, and with a face of deep concern waddled as fast as she could toward her young mistress, raising her hands and eyes from time to time as she approached.
As she drew nearer she made a solemn thanksgiving, and—
“Oh! my child, my child, thank God you’re well. I was a’most ready to drop in a swound when I came into your room, just now, everything knocked topsy-turvey, and a door cut in the wall, and all in a litter, I couldn’t know where I was, and some one a bleedin’ all across the floor, and one of the big, green-handled knives on the floor—Lord a’ mercy on us—with the blade bent and blood about it. I never was so frightened. I thought my senses was a leavin’ me, and I couldn’t tell what I might see next, and I ready to drop down on the floor wi’ fright. My darling child—my precious—Lord love it, and here it was, barefooted, and but half clad, and—come in ye must, dear, ’tis enough to kill ye.”
“I can scarcely remember anything, Dulcibella, only one thing—oh! I’m so terrified.”
“Come in, darling, you’ll lose your life if you stay here as you are, and what was it, dear, and who did you see?”
“A woman—that dreadful blind woman, who came in at the new door; I never saw her before.”
“Well,dear! Oh, Miss Alice, darling, I couldn’t a’ believed, and thank God you’re safe after all; that’s she I heard a screechin’ as strong as a dozen—and frightful words, as well as I could hear, to come from any woman’s lips. Lord help us.”
“Where is she now?”
“Somewhere in the front of the house, darlin’, screechin’ and laughin’ I thought, but heaven only knows.”
“She’s mad, Mrs. Tarnley says, and Mr. Fairfield said so too. Master Charles is come—my darling Ry. Oh! Dulcibella, how grateful I should be. What could I have done if he hadn’t?”
So Dulcibella persuaded her to come into the yard, and so, through the scullery door, at which Mildred stood, having secured all other access to the kitchen. So in she came, awfully frightened to find herself again in the house, but was not her husband there, and help at hand, and the doors secured?