The Great House

"After all," she said at last, "it is for Etruria to decide."

"No, it is for us both to decide," he replied. And then, as if he thought that he had sufficiently stated his case, "I ask your pardon, Miss Audley, for intruding," he continued. "I am keeping you, and as I am going your way that is needless. I have had a message from a sick woman, and I am on my way to see her."

He took permission for granted, and though Etruria's very shoulders forbade him, he moved on beside them. "Conditions are better here than in many places," he said, "but in this village you would see much to sadden you."

"I have seen enough," Mary answered, "to know that."

"Ten years ago there was not a house here. Now there is a population of two thousand, no church, no school, no gentry, no one of the better class. There is a kind of club, a centre of wild talk; better that, perhaps, than apathy."

"Is it in Riddsley parish?" Mary asked. They were nearly clear of the houses, and the slopes of the hill, pale green in the peaceful evening light, began to rise on either side. It was growing dusk, and from the moorland above came the shrill cries of plovers.

"Yes, it is in Riddsley parish," he answered, "but many miles from the town, and as aloof from it-Riddsley is purely agricultural-as black from white. In such places as this-and there are many of them in Staffordshire, as raw, as rough, and as new-there is work for plain men and plain women. In these swarming hives there is no room for any refinement but true refinement. And the Church must learn to do her work with plain tools, or the work will pass into other hands."

"You may cut cheese with an onion knife," Etruria said coldly. "I don't know that people like it."

"I know nothing better than onions in the right place," he replied.

"That's not in cheese," she rejoined, to Mary's amusement.

"The poor get little cheese," he said, "and the main thing is to cut their bread for them. But here I must leave you. My errand is to that cottage."

He pointed to a solitary house, standing a few score paces above the road on the hillside. Mary shook hands with him, but Etruria turned her shoulder resolutely.

"Good-bye, Etruria," he said. And then to Mary, "I hope that I have made a friend?"

"I think you have," she answered. "I am sure that you deserve one."

He colored, raised his hat, and turned away, and the two went on, without looking back; darkness was coming apace, and they were still two miles from home. Mary kept silence, prudently considering how she should deal with the matter, and what she should say to her companion. As it fell out, events removed her difficulty. They had not gone more than two hundred yards, and were still some way below the level of the Chase, when a cry reached them. It came out of the dusk behind them, and might have been the call of a curlew on the moor. But first one, and then the other stood. They turned, and listened, and suddenly Etruria, more anxious or sharper of eye than her mistress, uttered a cry and broke away at a run across the sloping turf towards the solitary cottage. Alarmed, Mary looked intently in that direction, and made out three or four figures struggling before the door of the house. She guessed then that the clergyman was one of them, and that the cry had come from him, and without a thought for herself she set off, running after Etruria as fast as she could.

Twice Etruria screamed as she ran, and Mary echoed the cry. She saw that the man was defending himself against the onset of three or four-she could hear the clatter of sticks on one another. Then she trod on her skirt and fell. When she had got, breathless, to her feet again, the clergyman was down and the men appeared to be raining blows on him. Etruria shrieked once more and the next moment was lost amid the moving figures, the brandished sticks, the struggle.

Mary ran on desperately. She caught sight of the girl on her knees over the fallen man, she saw her fend off more than one blow, she heard more than one blow fall with a sickening thud. She came up to them. With passion that drove out fear, she seized the arm of the nearest and dragged him back.

"You coward!" she cried. "You coward! I am Miss Audley! Do you hear! Leave him! Leave him, I say!"

Her appearance, the surprise, checked the man; her fearlessness, perhaps her name, gave the others pause. They retreated a step. The man she had grasped shook himself free, but did not attempt to strike her. "Oh, d-n the screech-owls!" he cried. "The place is alive with them! Hold your noise, you fools! We'll have the parish on us!"

"I am Miss Audley!" Mary repeated, and in her indignation she advanced on him. "How dare you?" Etruria, still on her knees, continued to shriek.

"You're like to get a wipe over the head, dang you!" the man growled, "whoever you be! Go to- and mind your own brats! He'll know better now than to preach against them as he gets his living by! You be gone!"

But Mary stood her ground. She declared afterwards that, brutally as the man spoke, the fight had gone out of him. Etruria, on the contrary, maintained that, finding only women before them, the ruffians would have murdered them. Fortunately, while the event hung in the balance, "What is it?" some one shouted from the road below. "What's the matter there?"

"Murder!" cried Etruria shrilly. "Help! Help!"

"Help!" cried Mary. She still kept her face to the men, but for the first time she began to know fear.

Footsteps thudded softly on the turf, figures came into view, climbing the slope. It needed no more. With a volley of oaths the assailants turned tail and made off. In a trice they were round the corner of the house and lost in the dusk.

A moment later two men, equally out of breath and each carrying a gun, reached the spot. "Well!" said the bigger of the two, "What is it?"

He spoke as if he had not come very willingly, but Mary did not notice this. The crisis over, her knees shook, she could barely stand, she could not speak. She pointed to the fallen man, over whom Etruria still crouched, her hair dragged down about her shoulders, her neckband torn, a ghastly blotch on her white cheek.

"Is he dead?" the new-comer asked in a different tone.

"Ay, dead!" Etruria echoed. "Dead!"

Fortunately the curate gave the lie to the word. He groaned, moved, with an effort he raised himself on his elbow. "I'm-all right!" he gasped. "All right!"

Etruria sprang to her feet. She stepped back as if the ground had opened before her.

"I'm not-hurt," Colet added weakly.

But it was evident that he was hurt, even if no bones were broken. When they came to lift him he could not stand, and he seemed to be uncertain where he was. After watching him a moment, "He should see a doctor," said the man who had come up so opportunely. "Petch," he continued, addressing his companion, who wore a gamekeeper's dress, "we must carry him to the trap and get him down to Brown Heath. Who is he, do you know? He looks like a parson."

"He's Mr. Colet of Riddsley," Mary said.

The man turned and looked at her. "Hallo!" he exclaimed. And then in the same tone of surprise, "Miss Audley!" he said. "At this time of night?"

Mary collected herself with an effort. "Yes," she said, "and very fortunately, for if we had not been here the men would have murdered him. As it is, you share the credit of saving him, Lord Audley."

"The credit of saving you is a good deal more to me," he answered gallantly. "I did not think that we should meet after this fashion."

CHAPTER XI

TACT AND TEMPER

He looked at Etruria, and Mary explained who she was.

"I am afraid that she is hurt."

The girl's temple was bruised and there was blood on her cheek; more than one of the blows aimed at her lover had fallen on her. But she said eagerly that it was "Nothing! Nothing!"

"Are you sure, Etruria?" Mary asked with concern.

"It is nothing, indeed, Miss," the girl repeated. She was trying with shaking fingers to put up her hair.

"Then the sooner," Audley rejoined, "we get this-this gentleman to my dogcart, the better. Take his other arm, Petch. Miss Audley, can you carry my gun? – it is not loaded. And you," he continued to Etruria, "if you are able, take Petch's."

They took the guns, and the little procession wound down the path to the road, where they found a dogcart awaiting them, and, peering from the cart, two setters, whining and fretting. The dogs were driven under the seat, and the clergyman, still muttering that he was all right, was lifted in. "Steady him, Petch," Audley said; "and do you drive slowly," he added, to the other man. "You will be at the surgeon's at Brown Heath in twenty minutes. Stay with him, Petch, and send the cart back for me."

"But are you not going?" Mary cried.

"I am not going to leave you in the dark with only your maid," he answered with severity. "One adventure a night is enough, Miss Audley."

She murmured a word or two, but submitted. The struggle had shaken her; she could still see the men's savage faces, still hear the thud of their blows. And she and Etruria had nearly a mile to go before they reached the park.

When they were fairly started, "How did it happen?" he asked.

Mary told the story, but said no word of Etruria's romance.

"Then you were not with him when they set on him?"

"No, we had parted."

"And you went back?"

"Of course we did!"

"It was imprudent," he said, "very imprudent. If we had not come up at that moment you might have been murdered."

"And if we had not gone back, Mr. Colet might have been murdered!" she answered. "What he had done to offend them-"

"I think I can tell you that. He's the curate at Riddsley, isn't he? Who's been preaching up cheap bread and preaching down the farmers?"

"Perhaps so," Mary answered. "He may be. But is he to be murdered for that? From your tone one might think so."

"No," he replied slowly, "he is not to be murdered for it. But whether he is wise to preach cheap bread to starving men, whether he is wise to tell them that they would have it but for this man or that man, this class or that class-is another matter."

She was not convinced-the sermon had keyed her thoughts to a high pitch. But he spoke reasonably, and he had the knack of speaking with authority, and she said no more. And on his side he had no wish to quarrel. He had come down to Riddsley partly to shoot, partly to look into the political situation, but a little-there was no denying it-to learn how Mary Audley fared with her uncle.

For he had thought much of her since they had parted, and much of the fact that she was John Audley's heir. Her beauty, her spirit, her youth, had caught his fancy. He had looked forward to renewing his acquaintance with her, and he was in no mood, now he saw her, to spoil their meeting by a quarrel. He thought Colet, whose doings had been reported to him, a troublesome, pestilent fellow, and he was not sorry that he had got his head broken. But he need not tell her that. Circumstances had favored him in bringing them together and giving him the beau rôle, and he was not going to cross his luck.

So, "Fire is an excellent thing of course," he continued with an air of moderation, "but, believe me, it's not safe amid young trees in a wind. Whatever your views, to express them in all companies may be honest, but is not wise. I have no doubt that a parson is tried. He sees the trouble. He is not always the best judge of the remedy. However, enough of that. We shall agree at least in this, that our meetings are opportune?"

"Most opportune," Mary answered. "And from my point of view very fortunate!"

"There really is a sort of fate in it. What but fate could have brought about our meeting at the Hôtel Lambert? What but fate could have drawn us to the same spot on the Chase to-night?"

There was a tone in his voice that brought the blood to her cheek and warned her to keep to the surface of things. "The chance that men call fate," she answered lightly.

"Or the fate that fools call chance," he urged, half in jest, half in earnest. "We have met by chance once, and once again-with results! The third time-what will the third time bring? I wonder."

"Not a fright like this, I hope!" Mary answered, remaining cheerfully matter of fact. "Or if it does," with a flash of laughter, "I trust that the next time you will come up a few moments earlier!"

"Ungrateful!"

"I?" she replied. "But it was Etruria who was in danger!"

For the peril had left her with a sense of exhilaration, of lightness, of ease. She was pleased to feel that she could hold her own with him, relieved that she was not afraid of him. And she was glad-she was certainly glad-to see him again. If he were inclined to make the most of his advantage, well, a little gallantry was quite in the picture; she was not deceived, and she was not offended. While he on his side, as they walked over the moor, thought of her as a clever little witch who knew her value and could keep her head; and he liked her none the less for it.

When they came at last to the gap in the wall that divided the Chase from the park, a figure, dimly outlined, stood in the breach waiting for them. "Is that you?" a voice asked.

The voice was Basset's, and Mary's spirits sank. She felt that the meeting was ill-timed. "Yes," she answered.

Unluckily, Peter was one of those whose anxiety takes an irritable form. "What in the world has happened?" he asked. "I couldn't believe that you were still out. It's really not safe. Hallo!" breaking off and speaking in a different tone, "is some one with you?"

"Yes," Mary said. They were within touch now and could see one another. "We have had an adventure. Lord Audley was passing, he came to our rescue, and has very kindly seen us home."

"Lord Audley!" Basset was taken by surprise and his tone was much as if he had said, "The devil!"

"By good fortune, Basset," Audley replied. He may have smiled in the darkness-we cannot say. "I was returning from shooting, heard cries for help, and found Miss Audley playing the knight-errant, encircled by prostrate bodies!"

Basset could not frame a word, so great was his surprise, so overwhelming his chagrin. Was this man to spring up at every turn? To cross him on every occasion? To put him in the background perpetually? To intrude even on the peace and fellowship of the Gatehouse? It was intolerable!

When he did not answer, "It was not I who was the knight-errant," Mary said. "It was Etruria. She is a little the worse for it, I fear, and the sooner she is in bed the better. As Mr. Basset is here," she continued, turning to Audley, "we must not take you farther. Your cart is no doubt waiting for you. But you will allow us to thank you again. We are most grateful to you-both Etruria and I."

She spoke more warmly, perhaps she let her hand rest longer in his, to make up for Basset's silence. For that silence provoked her. She had gathered from many things that Basset did not love the other; but to stand mute and churlish on such an occasion, and find no word of acknowledgment-this was too bad.

And Basset knew, he too knew that he ought to thank Audley. But the black dog was on his back, and while he hesitated, the other made his adieux. He said a pleasant word to Etruria, tossed a careless "Good-night" to the other man, turned away, and was gone.

For awhile the three who remained trudged homewards in silence. Then, "What happened to you?" Basset asked grudgingly.

Vexed and indignant, Mary told the story.

"I did not know that you knew Mr. Colet!"

"When a man is being murdered," she retorted, "one does not wait for an introduction."

He was a good fellow, but jealousy was hot within him, and he could not bridle his tongue. "Oh, but murdered?" he said. "Isn't that rather absurd? Who would murder Colet?"

Mary did not deign to reply.

Baffled, he sought for another opening. "I do not know what your uncle will say."

"Because we rescued Mr. Colet? And perhaps saved his life?"

"No, but-"

"Or because Lord Audley rescued us?"

"He will certainly not be pleased to hear that," he retorted maliciously. He knew that he was misbehaving, but he could not refrain. "If you take my advice you will not mention it."

"I shall tell him the moment I reach the house," she declared.

"You will be very unwise if you do."

"I shall be honest at least! For the rest I would rather not discuss the matter, Mr. Basset. I am a good deal shaken by what we have gone through, and I am very tired."

He muttered humbly that he was sorry-that he only meant-

"Please leave it there," she said. "Enough has been said."

Too late the anger and the spirit died out of the unlucky man, and he would have grovelled before her, he would have done anything to earn his pardon. But Etruria's presence tied his tongue, and gloomy and wretched-oh, why had he not gone farther to meet them, why had he not been the one to rescue her? – he walked on beside them, cursing his unhappy temper. It was dark, the tired girls lagged, Etruria hung heavily on her mistress's arm; he longed to help them. But he did not dare to offer. He knew too well that Mary would reject the offer.

Etruria had her own dreams, and in spite of an aching head was happy. But to Mary, fatigued by the walk, and vexed by Basset's conduct, the way seemed endless. At last the house loomed dark above them, their steps rang hard on the flagged court. The outer door stood ajar, and entering, they found a lamp burning in the hall; but the silence which prevailed, above and below, struck a chill. Silence and an open door go ill together.

Etruria at Mary's bidding went up at once to her room. Basset called angrily for Toft. But no Toft appeared, and Mary, resentment still hot in her, opened the door of the library and went in to see her uncle. She felt that the sooner her story was told the better.

But the library was empty. Lights burned on the several tables, the wood fire smouldered on the hearth, the tall clock ticked in the silence, the old hound flopped his tail. But John Audley was not there.

"Where is my uncle?" she asked, as she stood in the open doorway.

Basset looked over her shoulder. He saw that the room was empty. "He may have gone to look for us."

"And Toft?"

"And Toft, too, I suppose."

"But why should my uncle go to look for us?" she asked, aghast at the thought-he troubled himself so little for others, he lived so completely his own life!

"He might," Basset replied. He stood for a moment, thinking. Then-for the time they had forgotten their quarrel-"You had better get something to eat and go to bed," he said. "I will send Mrs. Toft to you."

She had not the strength to resist. "Very well," she said. "Are you going to look for them?"

"Perhaps Mrs. Toft will know where they are."

She took her candle and went slowly up the narrow winding staircase that led to her room and to Etruria's. As she passed, stair by stair, the curving wainscot of dull wood which so many generations had rubbed, she carried with her the picture of Basset standing in thought in the middle of the hall, his eyes on the doorway that gaped on the night. Then a big man with a genial face usurped his place; and she smiled and sighed.

A moment later she went into Etruria's room to learn how she was, and caught the girl rising from her knees. "Oh, Miss," she said, coloring as she met Mary's eyes, "if we had not been there!"

"And yet-you won't marry him, you foolish girl?"

"Oh no, no!"

"Although you love him!"

"Love him!" Etruria murmured, her face burning. "It is because I love him, Miss, that I will never, never marry him."

Mary wondered. "And yet you love him?" she said, raising the candle so that its light fell on the other's face.

Etruria looked this way and that way, but there was no escape. In a very small voice she said,

"Love seeketh not itself to please

Nor for itself hath any care!"

She covered her hot cheeks with her hands. But Mary took away the hands and kissed her.

"Oh, Miss!" Etruria exclaimed.

Mary went out then, but on the threshold of her own room she paused to snuff her candle. "So that is love," she thought. "It's very interesting, and-and rather beautiful!"

CHAPTER XII

THE YEW WALK

Basset had been absent the greater part of the day, and returning at sunset had learned that Miss Audley had not come back from Brown Heath. The servant had hinted alarm-the Chase was lonely, the hour late; and Basset had hurried off without more, not doubting that John Audley was in the house.

Now he was sure that John Audley had been abroad at the time, and he suspected that Toft had known it, and had kept it from him. He stood for a moment in thought, then he crossed the court to Toft's house. Mrs. Toft was cooking something savory in a bonnet before the fire, and the contrast between her warm cheerful kitchen and the stillness of the house from which he came struck him painfully. He told her that her daughter had received a blow on the head, and that Miss Audley needed supper-she had better attend to them.

Mrs. Toft was a stout woman, set by a placid and even temper above small surprises. She looked at the clock, a fork in her hand. "I can't hurry it, Mr. Basset," she said. "You may be Sir Robert Peel himself, but meat's your master and will have its time. A knock on the head?" she continued, with a faint stirring of anxiety. "You don't say so? Lor, Mr. Basset, who'd go to touch Etruria?"

"You'd better go and see."

"But where's Toft?"

Basset's temper gave way at that. "God knows!" he said. "He ought to be here-and he's not!" He went out.

Mrs. Toft stared after him, and by and by she let down her skirt and prepared to go into the house. "On the head?" she ruminated. "Well, 'Truria's a tidy lot of hair! And I will say this, if there's few points a man gives a woman, hair's one of them."

Meanwhile Basset had struck across the court and taken in the darkness the track which led in the direction of the Great House. The breeze, light but of an autumn coldness, swept the upland, whispering through the dying fern, and rustling in the clumps of trees by which he steered his course. He listened more than once, hoping that he might hear approaching footsteps, but he heard none, and presently he came to the yew-trees that masked the entrance to the gardens.

The trees formed a wall of blackness exceeding that of the darkest night, and Basset hesitated before he plunged into it. The growth of a century had long trespassed on the walk, a hundred and fifty yards long, which led through the yew-wood, and had been in its time a stately avenue trimmed to the neatness of a bowling green. Now it was little better than a tunnel, dark even at noon, and at night bristling with a hundred perils. Basset peered into the blackness, listened, hesitated. But he was honestly anxious on John Audley's account, and contenting himself with exclaiming that the man was mad, he began to grope his way along the path.

It was no pleasant task. If he swerved from his course he stumbled over roots, branches swept his cheek, jagged points threatened his eyes, and more than once he found himself in the hedge. Half-way through the wood he came to a circular clearing, some twenty yards across; and here a glimmer of light enabled him to avoid the crumbling stone Butterfly that crouched on its mouldering base in the centre of the clearing-much as a spider crouches in its web. It seemed in that dim light to be the demon of this underworld, a monster, a thing of evil.

The same gleam, however, disclosed the opposite opening, and for another seventy yards he groped his way onward, longing to be clear of the stifling air, and the brooding fancies that dwelt in it, longing to plant his feet on something more solid than this carpet of rotting yew. At last he came to the tall, strait gate, wrought of old iron, that admitted to the pleasance. It was ajar. He passed through it, and with relief he felt the hard walk under his feet, the fresh air on his face. He crossed the walk, and stepping on to the neglected lawn, he halted.

The Great House loomed before him, a hundred yards away. The moon had not risen, but the brightness which goes before its rising lightened the sky behind the monstrous building. It outlined the roof but left the bulk in gloom. No light showed in any part, and it was only the watcher's memory that pictured the quaint casements of the north wing, or filled in the bald rows of unglazed windows, which made of the new portion a death-mask. In that north wing just eighty years before, in a room hung with old Cordovan leather, the fatal house-warming had been held. The duel had been fought at sunrise within a pace or two of the moss-grown Butterfly that Basset had passed; and through the gate of ironwork, wood-smelted and wrought with the arms of Audley, which had opened at his touch, they had carried the dead heir back to his father. Tradition had it that the servant who bore in the old lord's morning draught of cool ale had borne also the tragic news to his bedside.