Starvecrow Farm

And still, prudence whispered her, asking why he fixed so late an hour. Why had he not fixed five or six, if it were only out of respect for her? At five it was already dark, yet the world was awake and astir, respectable folk were abroad, and help was within call. She would have met him without hesitation at five or at six. But there, how stupid she was! It was the very fact that the world was astir and awake that made an early hour impossible. If she went at five or at six she would be followed, her movements would be watched, her companion would be noted. The very air would be full of eavesdroppers. She knew that, for the fact irritated her hourly and daily. And doubtless he too, hedged about by fears and suspicions, knew it.

The lateness of the hour was natural, therefore. Still, it rendered her task more difficult. She dared not interfere with the heavy bars that secured the two doors which looked on the lake. She would be heard, even if the task were not beyond her strength. And to gain the back entrance she must thread a labyrinth of passages guarded by wakeful dogs and sleeping servants; for servants in those days slept on the stairs or in any odd place. She would be detected before she had undone a single bolt.

Then what was she to do? Her bedroom was on the second floor, and exit by the window was not possible. On which, some, surveying the situation, would have sat still, and thought themselves justified. But Henrietta was of firmer stuff; and for such where there is a will there is a way. Mr. Rogers's room, of which she had still the use, was on the first floor of the south wing and somewhat remote from the main part of the house. Outside the door was a sash window which gave light to the passage; and owing to the rise of the hill on every side of the house save the front, the sill of this window was not more than six feet above the garden. She could drop from it with safety. Return was less easy, but with the help of a chair, which she could lower before she descended, she might manage to climb in again. The feat seemed easy and she did not feel afraid. Whether she would feel afraid when the time came was another matter.

In the meantime she had to wait, and sleeping ill that night, she had many uneasy dreams, and waking before daybreak thought herself into a fever. All the dreadful things that might befall her rose before her in the liveliest shapes; and long before the house awoke-there is no fear like five-o'clock-in-the-morning fear-she had given up the notion. But when the dull November day peered in at the bedroom window, and she had risen, she was herself again. She chid herself for the childish terrors in which she had indulged, and lest she should give way to them again she determined to take a decisive step. Long before noon she slipped out of the house and turned towards Ambleside.

Unfortunately it was a wet morning, and she feared that her promenade in such weather must excite suspicion. Eyes, she was sure, were on her before she had gone a dozen paces. To throw watchers off the scent and to prove herself careless of espial she would not look back; but when she reached the first corner she picked up a stone, and threw it at an imaginary object on the edge of the lake. She stood an instant with her wet-weather hood drawn about her face as if to mark the effect of her shot. Then she picked up another stone and poised it, but did not throw it. Instead, she walked on with the stone in her hand. All without looking back.

She came to the second gate on the Ambleside road. It was out of sight of the inn, and it seemed an easy and an innocent thing to lay the stone on the head of the pillar-gate-posts in that country are of stone-and to go on her way. But she heard a footstep behind her and panic seized her. She felt that nothing in the world would be so suspicious, so damning as such an act. She hesitated, and was lost. She walked on slowly with the stone in her hand, and the fine rain beating in her face.

Her follower, a country clown, passed her. She loitered until he was out of sight; then she turned and retraced her steps. A half-minute's walking brought her again to the gate. There was no one in sight and in a fever lest at the last some one should take her in the act she set the stone on the top of the post, and passed on.

Half-way back to the inn she stopped. What if the stone had not kept its place? She had merely thrust out her hand as she passed, and deposited the stone without looking. Now she was sure that her ear had caught the faint sound which the stone made in striking the sodden turf. She turned and walked back.

When she reached the gate she was thankful that she had had that thought. The stone had fallen. Fortunately there was no one in sight, and it was easy to pick up the first stone that came to hand and replace the signal. Then she walked back to the inn, inclined to laugh at the proportions to which her simple task had attained in her mind.

She would have laughed after another fashion had she known that her movements from beginning to end had been watched by Mr. Sutton. The chaplain, ashamed yet pursuing, had sneaked after her when she left the inn, hoping that if she went far he might find in some lonely place, where she could not escape, an opportunity of pleading his cause. He fancied that the lapse of three days, and his patient, mournful conduct, might have softened her; to say nothing of the probable effect on a young girl of such a life as she was leading-of its solitude, its dullness, its weariness.

On seeing her turn, however, he had had no mind to be detected, and he had slipped into the wood. From his retreat he had seen her deposit the stone: he had seen also her guilty face-it was he, indeed, who had removed the stone. He had done so, expecting to find a note under it, and he was all but surprised in the act. When she placed the second, he was within three paces of her, crouching with a burning face behind the wall. The thought of her contempt if she discovered him so appalled him that, cold as it was, he sweated with shame; nor was it until she had gone some distance that he dared to lift his eyes above the wall. Then he saw that she had put another stone on the gate-post.

He took it in his hand and compared it with the one which he still held. They were as common stones as any that lay in the road. And there was no letter. The conclusion was clear. The stone was a signal. Nor could he doubt for whom it was intended. The London officer was right. Walterson was in the neighbourhood and she was in communication with him. The girl's infatuation still ruled her.

That hardened him a little in his course of action. But he was not at ease, and when some one coughed-slightly but with meaning-while he gazed at the stone, he jumped a yard. He stood, with all the blood in his body flown to his face. The cough had come from the wood behind him; and ten paces from him, peeping over the bush, was Mr. Bishop.

The runner chuckled. "Very well done, reverend sir," he said. "Very well done. You've the makings of a very tidy officer about you. I could not have done it much neater myself. But now, suppose you leave the coast clear, or maybe you'll be scaring the other party."

Mr. Sutton, with his face the colour of beetroot-for he was heartily ashamed of the part he had been playing-began to stammer an explanation.

"I saw the young lady, and didn't-I couldn't understand-"

"What the lay was," Mr. Bishop answered, grinning at the other's discomfiture. "Just so. Same with me. But suppose in the meantime, reverend sir," with unction, "you leave the ground clear for the other party? We can talk as well elsewhere as here, and without queering the pitch."

The chaplain swallowed his vexation as well as he could and complied-but stiffly. The two made their way back in silence to the gap in the wall by which the chaplain had entered. There, having first ascertained that the road was clear, they stepped out. By that time Mr. Sutton was feeling better. After all, he had been right to follow the girl. Left to herself, and a slave to the villain who had fascinated her, she might suffer worse things than a friendly espionage. He determined to take the bull by the horns. "What do you make of it?" he asked, still blushing.

"Queer lay," Bishop answered drily.

"You understand it, then?"

"Middling well. Gipsy patter that." He pointed to the stone.

"You think the young lady is communicating-"

"With another party? I do. Leastways I know it. And the party-"

"Is Walterson?"

"Just so," the runner answered. "Why not? Young ladies are but women, after all, reverend sir, and much like other women, only sometimes more so. I began, I confess, by being of your way of thinking. The lady is so precious snowy and so precious stiff you would not believe ice would melt in her mouth. But when I came to think it all over, and remembered how she stood by it at first, and would not give her name, nor any clue by which we could trace where she came from-so that till Captain Clyne turned up I was altogether at a loss-and how she made light of what Walterson had done, when it was first told her, and a lot of little things like that, I began to see how the land lay, innocent as she looks. And after all, come to think of it, if she liked the man well enough to go off with him-why should she cut him adrift? When she had, so to speak, paid the price for him, your reverence? How does that strike you?"

"But Captain Clyne," Sutton answered slowly, "who knew her well, and knows her well-"

"I know."

"He does not share your opinion. He is under the belief," the chaplain continued, "that her eyes are open. And that she hates the very thought of the man, and of the mistake she made. His view is that she is only anxious to behave herself."

Bishop winked. "Ay, but Captain Clyne," he said, "is in love with her, you see."

Mr. Sutton stared. The colour rose slowly to his cheeks.

"I don't think so," he said. "In fact, I may say I know that it is not so. He has long given up the remotest idea of the-of the match that was projected."

"May be, may be," the runner answered lightly. "I don't say that that is not so. But it is just when a man has given up all thought of a thing that he thinks of it the most, Mr. Sutton. Anyway, there is the stone, and there is the post, and I'll ask you plain for whom it is meant, if it is not meant for Walterson?"

Mr. Sutton nodded. But his thoughts were still engaged with Captain Clyne's feelings. The more he considered the point the more inclined he was to think that the runner was right. Clyne's insistence on the girl's innocence, the extreme bitterness that had once or twice broken through his reticence, and an unusual restlessness of manner when he had made the remarkable proposal that Mr. Sutton should take his place, all pointed that way. And this being so, it was strange how the suspicion sharpened the chaplain's keenness to win the prize. If she had still so great a value in the eyes of his patron, how enviable would he be if by hook or crook he could gain her! How very enviable! And was it not for her own good that he should gain her; even if he compassed his end by a little manœuvring, by stooping a little, by spying a little? Ay, even, it might be, by frightening her a little. In love, as in war, all was fair, and if he did not love her he desired her. She was so desirable, so very desirable, he might be forgiven somewhat if he stooped to conquer: seeing that if he failed this dangerous man held her in his power.

So when Bishop asked for the second time, "Will you help me to keep an eye on her? You can do it more easily than I can," he was ready with his answer, though he blushed a little.

"I will stay here and note who passes," he replied. "Yes, I will do that."

"You can do it with less risk of notice than I can," the officer answered. "And I must get back and keep her in view. It is just possible that this is a ruse, and that the man we want is the other way."

"I will remain," said Mr. Sutton curtly. And he stayed. But he was so taken up with this new view of his patron's feelings that though Bess Hinkson rowed along the shore before his eyes, and looked hard at him, he never saw her.

CHAPTER XVI

A NIGHT ADVENTURE

Henrietta sat and listened to the various sounds which told of a household on its way to bed; and she held her courage with both hands. Slip-shod feet moved along the passages, sleepy voices bade good-night, distant doors closed sharply. And still, when she thought all had retired, the clatter of pot or pan in the far-off offices proclaimed a belated worker. And she had to wait and listen and count the pulsations of her heart.

The two wax candles, snuff them as she might, cast but a dull and melancholy light. The clock ticked in the silence of the room with appalling clearness. Her own movements, when she crept to the door to listen, scared her by their stealthiness. It seemed to her that the least of the sounds she made must proclaim her vigil. One moment she trembled lest the late burning of her light arouse suspicion; the next lest the cloak which she had brought in and cast across a chair should have put some one on the alert. Or she tormented herself with the fancy that the snow with which the evening sky had been heavy would fall before she started and betray her footsteps.

Of one thing she tried not to think. She would not dwell on what might happen at the meeting-place. She felt that if she let her thoughts run on that, she would turn coward, she would not go. And one thing at a time, she told herself. There lay her cloak, the window was not three paces from her, the chair which she meant to use stood by the door. In three minutes she could be outside, in half an hour she might be back. But in the meantime, the room was lonesome and creepy, the creak of a board made her start, the fall of the wood-ash stopped her breath. Like many engaged in secret deeds she made her own mystery and trembled at it.

At length all seemed abed.

She extinguished one of the candles and took up her cloak. As she put it on before the pale mirror she saw that her white face and high-piled hair showed by the light of the remaining candle like the face of a ghost; and she shivered. But that was the last tribute to weakness. Her nature, bold to recklessness, asserted itself now the moment for action was come. She set the candle on the floor and shaded it so that its light might not be seen. Then, taking the chair in her hands she stepped into the dark passage, and closed the door behind her. The close, heavy smell of the house assailed her as she listened; but all was still, and she raised the sash of the window. She passed the chair through the aperture and leaning far out that it might not strike the wall lowered it gently. She felt it touch the ground and settle on its legs. Then she climbed over the sill and let herself down until her feet rested on the chair. She made certain that she could draw herself in again, then she sprang lightly to the ground.

The chair cracked as her weight left it, and for a moment she crouched motionless against the wall. But she had little to fear. Snow had not yet fallen, but it was in the air and the night was as dark as pitch. She could not see a yard and when she moved, she had not gone two steps from the wall before it vanished, and all that remained to her was some notion of its position. Above, below, around was a darkness that could be felt. Still, she found the garden-gate with a little difficulty, and she passed into the road, and turned to the left. She knew that if she walked in that direction she must come to the place-a furlong away-where the Troutbeck lane ran up from the lake-side.

But the blackness was such that lake and hill were all one, and she had to go warily, now feeling for the bank on her left, now for the ditch on her right. Not a star showed, and only in one place a patch of lighter sky broke the darkness and enabled her to discern the shapes of the trees as she passed under them. It was a night when any deed might be done, any mischief executed beside that lonely water; and no eye see it. But she tried not to think of this. She tried not to think of the tracts of lonely hill that stretched their long arms on her left, or of the deep, black water that lurked on her right. And she had compassed more than a hundred yards when a faint sound, as of following feet, caught her ear.

She halted, and shook the hood back from her ears. She listened. She fancied that she heard the pattering cease, and she peered into the darkness, striving to embody the thing that followed. But she could see nothing, she could now hear nothing. She had her handkerchief in her hand, and as she stood, peering and listening, she wiped the wind-borne moisture from her face.

Still she heard nothing, and she turned and set off again. But her thoughts were with her follower, and she had not taken three steps before she ran against the bank, and hardly saved herself from a fall.

She felt that with a little more she would lose her head, and, astray in the boundless night, not know which direction to take. She must pull herself together. She must go on. And she went on. But twice she had the sickening assurance that something was moving at her heels. Nor, but for the thought which by-and-by occurred to her, that her follower might be the person she came to meet, could she have kept to her purpose.

She came at length, trembling and clutching her hood about her, to the foot of the lane. She knew the place by the colder, moister air that swept her face, as well as by the lapping of the water on the strand. For the road ran very near the lake at this point. It was a mooring-place for two or three boats, belonging for the most part to Troutbeck; and she could hear a loose oar in one of the unseen craft roll over with a hollow sound. But no one moved in the darkness, or spoke, or came to her; and with parted lips, striving to control herself, she halted, leaning with one hand against the angle of the bank. Then-she could not be mistaken-she heard her follower halt.

Thirty seconds-it seemed an age-she was silent, and forced herself to listen, straining her ears. Then she could control herself no longer.

"Is it you?" she whispered, her voice strained and uncertain, "I am here."

No one answered. And when she had waited awhile glaring into the night where she had last heard the footsteps she shuddered violently. For a space she could not speak, she leant against the bank.

Then, "Is it you?" she whispered desperately, turning her face this way and that. "Speak if it is! Speak! For God's sake, speak to me!"

No one answered, but out of the gloom came the low creep of the wind among the reeds, and the melancholy lapping of the water on the stones. Once more the oar in the boat rolled over with a hollow coffin-like echo. And from a distance another sound, the flap and beat of a sail as the rudder was put over, came off the surface of the lake. But she did not heed this. It was with the darkness about her, it was with the skulking thing a pace or two from her, it was with the arms stretched out to clutch her, it was with the fear that was beginning to stifle her as the thick night stifled her, that she was concerned.

Once more, striving fiercely to combat her fear, to steady her voice, she spoke.

"If you do not answer," she cried unsteadily, "I shall go back! You hear? I shall go back!"

Still no answer. And on that, because a frightened woman is capable of anything, and especially of the thing which is the least to be expected, she flung herself forward with her hands outstretched and tried to grapple with the thing that terrified her. She caught nothing: all that she felt was a warm breath on her cheek. She recoiled then as quickly as she had advanced. Unfortunately her skirt brushed something as she fell back and the contact, slight as it was, drew a low shriek from her. She leant panting against the bank, crouching like a thing at bay. The beating of her heart seemed to choke her, the gloom to stretch out arms about her. The touch of a moth on her cheek would have drawn a shriek. And on the lake-but near the shore now, a bowshot from where she crouched, the sail of the unseen boat flapped against the mast and began to descend. The light of a shaded lanthorn beamed for an instant on the dark surface of the water, then vanished.

She did not see the lanthorn, she did not see the boat, for she was glaring in the other direction, the direction in which she had heard the footsteps. All her senses were concentrated on the thing close to her. But some reflection of the light, glancing off the water, did reveal a thing-a dim uncertain something-man or woman, dead or alive, standing close to her, beside her: and with a shriek she sprang from the thing, whatever it was, gave way to blind panic, and fled. For some thirty yards she kept the road. Then she struck the bank and fell, violently bruising herself. But she felt nothing. In a moment she was on her feet again and running on, running on blindly, madly. She fancied feet behind her, and a hand stretched out to seize her hair; and in terror, that terror which she had kept at bay so long and so bravely, she ran on at random, until she found herself, she knew not how, clinging with both hands to the wicket-gate of the garden. A faint light in one of the windows of the inn had directed her to it.

She stood then, still trembling in every limb, but drawing courage from the neighbourhood of living things. And as well as her laboured breathing would let her, she listened. But presently she caught the stealthy trip-trip of feet along the road, and in a quick return of terror she opened the gate and slipped into the garden. She had the presence of mind to close the gate after and without noise. But that done, woman's nerves could bear no more. Her knees were shaking under her, as she groped her way to her window, and felt for the chair which she had left beneath it.

The chair was gone. Impossible! She could not have found the right window; that was it. She felt with her hands along the wall, felt farther. But there was no chair-anywhere. She had made no mistake. Some one had removed the chair.

Strange to say, the moment she was sure of that, the fear which had driven her in headlong panic from the water-side left her. She thought no more of her stealthy attendant. Her one care now was to get in-to get in and still to keep secret the fact that she had been out! She had trembled like a leaf a few moments before, in fear of the shapeless thing that crouched beside her in the night. Now, with no more than the garden-fence between her and it, she feared it no more than a feather. She regained her ordinary plane, and foresaw all the suspicion, all the inconvenience, to which her position, if she could not re-enter, must subject her. And the smaller, the immediate fear expelled the greater and more remote.

She leant against the wall and tried to think. Who had, who could have removed the chair? She could not guess. And thinking only increased her eagerness, her anxiety to enter and be safe. She must get in somehow, even at a little risk.

She tried to take hold of the sill above her, and so to raise herself to the window by sheer strength. But she could not grasp the sill, though she could touch it. Still, if she had something in place of the chair, if she had something a foot high on which to raise herself she could succeed. But what? And how was she to find anything in the dark? She peered round, compelling herself to think. Surely she might find something. With a single foot of height she was saved. Without that foot of height she must rouse the house; and that meant disgrace and contumely, and degrading suspicion. Her cheeks burned at the prospect. For no story, no explanation would account satisfactorily for her absence from the house at such an hour.

She was about to grope her way round the house to the yard at the back-where with luck she might find a chicken coop or a stable bucket-when five paces from her the latch of the wicket clicked sharply. By instinct she flattened herself against the wall; but she had scarcely time to feel the sudden leap of her heart before a mild voice spoke out of the gloom.

"I'm afraid I have taken your chair," it murmured, "pray forgive me. I am Mr. Sutton, and I-I am very sorry!"

"You followed me!"

"I-"

"You followed me!" Her voice rang imperative with anger. "You followed me! You have been spying on me! You!"