Starvecrow Farm

"But afterwards?" Giles persisted. "Afterwards, my lass? What then?"

"Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies," Bess answered. "For the matter of that, if my old dad once gets his fingers round her throat she'll not squeak! You may swear to that."

They dropped their voices then, or they moved farther from the door. So that the remainder of the debate escaped Henrietta, though she strained her ears to the utmost.

She had heard enough, however; enough to know where she stood, and to feel the cold grip of despair close upon her. Fortunately she had had such preparation as the scene and the change in Bess's demeanor afforded; and while her heart thumped to choke her, and she could not restrain the glances that like a hunted hare she cast about her, she neither fainted nor raised an outcry. The gipsy lad, who lolled beside the door and never took his bold eyes from her, detected the sudden stillness of her pose and her changed aspect. But, though his gaze dwelt as freely as he pleased on her, on the turn of her pale cheek, and the curve of her figure, he was deceived into thinking that she did not catch the drift that was so clear to him.

"She's frightened!" he thought, smacking his lips. "She's frightened! But she'd be more frightened if she heard what they are saying. A devil, Bess is, a devil if there ever was one!" And he wondered whether, if he told the girl, she would cling to him, and pray to him, and kneel to him-to save her! He would like that, for she was a pretty prey; and the prettier in his eyes, because she was not dark-skinned and black-eyed, like his own women, but a thing of creamy fairness.

Henrietta heard all, however, and understood. And for a few moments she was near to swooning. Then the very peril in which she found herself steadied her, and gave her power to think. Was there any quarter to which she could look for help-outside or in? Outside the house, alas, none; for she had taken care, fatal care, to blind her trail, and to leave no trace by which her friends could find her! And inside, the hope was as slight. Walterson, to whose pity she might have appealed-with success, if all chivalry were not dead in him-was gone, it seemed. There remained only-a feeble straw indeed to which to cling-the woman of the house; the white-faced woman who had gone in fear, and thought this very girl Bess had designs on her life!

But was the woman here? She had been very near her time, yet no cry, no whimper bore witness to the presence of child life in the house. And the room in its wild and wasteful disorder gave the lie to the presence of any housewife, however careless. The flagged floor, long uncleaned and unwhitened, was strewn with broken pipe-stems, half-burned pipe-lights, gnawed bones and dirty platters. The bright oaken table, the pride of generations of thrifty wives, was a litter of dog's-eared cards and over-set bottles, broken loaves, and pewter dishes. One of the oat-cake springs hung loose, tearing the ceiling; in one corner a bacon chest gaped open and empty. In another corner a pile of dubious bedding lay as its occupant had left it. The chimney corner was cumbered with logs of wood. Greasy frying-pans and half-cleaned pots lay everywhere; and on the whole, and on a medley of tattered things too repulsive to mention, a show of candles, that would have scared the least frugal dame, cast a useless glare.

In a word, everything within sight proved that the house was at the mercy of the gang who surrounded her. And if that were so? If no help were possible? For an instant panic gripped her. The room swam round, and she had to grasp the settle with her hands to maintain her composure. What was she to do? What could she do, thus trapped? What? What?

She must think-for her own sake, for the child's sake, who, it was clear, was also in their power. But it was hard, very hard, to think with that man's eyes gloating on her; and when with every second the door of the dairy, where they were conferring, might open, and-she knew not what horror might befall her. And-and then again there was the child!

For she spared it a thought of pity, grudgingly taken from her own need. And then the door opened. And Bess, carrying the light above her head, came up the steps, followed by the two men.

"We'll let her down soft!" she said, as she appeared. "We'll make her drudge first and smart afterwards! And she'll come to it the quicker."

"Nay, Bess," one of the men answered with a grin, "but you'll not spoil her pretty fingers."

"Oh, won't we?" Bess answered. And turning to Henrietta, and throwing off the mask, "Now, peacock!" she said, "I've got you here and you can't escape. I am going to put your nose to the grindstone. I'm going to see if you are of the same stuff as other people! Can you cook?"

Henrietta did not know what to answer; nor whether she dared assert herself. She tried to frame the words, "Where is Walterson? Where is Walterson? If he is not here, let me go!" But she knew that they would not let her go. And, unable to speak, she stood dumb before them.

"Ah, well, we'll see if you can," Bess said, scoffingly. "I see you know what's what, and where you are. Come, slice that bacon! And fry it! There's the knife, and there's the flitch, and let's have none of your airs, or-you'll have the knife across your knuckles. Do you hear, cat? Do you understand? You'll do as you are bid here. We'll see how you like to be undermost."

The men laughed.

"That's the way, Bess," one said. "Break her in, and she'll soon come to it!"

"Anyways, she'll not take my lad again!" Bess said, as Henrietta, bending her head, took the knife with a shaking hand. "We'll give her something to do, and she'll sleep the sounder for it when she goes to bed."

"Ay," said Giles, with a smile. "Hope she'll like her room!"

"She'll lump it' or like it!" said Bess. "She's one of them that grinds our faces. We'll see how she likes to be ground!"

Involuntarily Henrietta, stooping with a white face to her work, shuddered. But she had no choice. To beg for mercy, it was clear, was useless; to resist was to precipitate matters, while every postponement of the crisis offered a chance of rescue. As long as insult was confined to words she must put up with it-how foolish, how foolish she had been to come! She must smile-though it were awry-and play the sullen or the cheerful, as promised best. The door was locked on her. She had no friends within reach. Help there was none. She was wholly at the mercy of these wretches, and her only hope was that, if she did their bidding, she might awaken a spark of pity in the breast of one or other of them.

Still, she did not quite lose her presence of mind. As she bent over her task, and with shaking fingers hacked at the tough rind of the bacon, the while Bess rained on her a shower of gibes and the men grinned at the joke, her senses were on the alert. Once she fancied a movement and a smothered cry in the room above; and she had work to keep her eyes lowered when Bess immediately went out. She might have thought more of the matter; but left alone with the three men she had her terrors. She dared not let her mind or her eyes wander. To go on with the task, and give the men not so much as a look, seemed the only course.

For the present the three limited their coarse gallantries to words. Nay, when the gipsy lad would have crept nearer to her, the others bade him have done; adding, that kissing the cook-maid never cleaned a dish.

Then Bess came back and forced her to hold the pan on the fire, though the heat scorched her cheeks.

"We've to do it! See how you like it!" the girl cried, standing over her vindictively. "And see you don't drop it, my lass, or I'll lay the pan to your cheek. You're proud of your pink and white" – thrusting her almost into the fire-"see how it will stand a bit of cook-maid's work!"

Pride helped Henrietta to restrain the rising sob, the complaint. And luckily it needed but another minute to complete the cooking. Bess and the three men sat down to the table, and Bess's first humour was to make her wait on them. But a moment later she changed her mind, forced the girl to sit down, and, will she, nill she, Henrietta had to swallow, though every morsel seemed to choke her, the portion set for her.

"Down with it!" Bess cried, spitefully. "What's good enough for us is good enough for you! And when supper's done I'll see you to your bedroom. You're a mile too dainty, like all your sort! Ah, you'd like to kill me this minute, wouldn't you? That's what I like! I've often thought I should like to have one of you peacocks-who look at me as if I were dirt-and put my foot upon her face! And now I've got you-who stole my lad! And you'll see what I'll do to you!"

CHAPTER XXXI

A STRANGE BEDROOM

The men followed Bess's lead, and as they supped never ceased to make Henrietta the butt of odious jests and more odious gallantries; until, now pale, now red, the girl was eager to welcome any issue from a position so hateful. Once, stung beyond reason, she sprang up and would have fled from them, with burning ears. But Bess seized her by the shoulders and thrust her back violently into her seat; and, sobered by the force used to her, and terrified lest the men should lay hands on her, she resigned herself.

Strangely, the one of the four who said nothing, was the one whom she feared the most. The gipsy lad did not speak. But his eyes never left her, and something in their insolent freedom caused her more misery than the others' coarsest jests. He marked her blushes and pallor, and her one uncontrollable revolt; and like the bird that flutters under the spell of the serpent that hopes to devour it, she was conscious of this watching. She was conscious of it to such an extent, that when Bess cried, "Now it's time you had your bedroom candlestick, peacock!" she did not hear, but sat on as one deaf and blind; as the hare sits fascinated by the snake's eye.

The gipsy smiled. He understood. But Bess did not, and she tugged the girl's hair with sufficient roughness to break the spell.

"Up!" she cried. "Up when I speak! Don't dream you're a fine lady any longer! Wait till I get your bed candlestick-eh, lads? – and you'll be wiser to-morrow, and tamer, too. See, my lass, that's for you!" And she held up a small dark-lanthorn, and opening it, kindled the wick from one of the candles. "Now come! And do you-no, not you!" to the gipsy, who had stepped forward-"you!" to Giles, "come with me and see her safely into her bedroom!"

Lunt growled a word or two.

"Stow it!" Bess answered, as she darkened the lanthorn. "It's to be as I say. Here, give me your wrist, girl."

But at that, fear gripped Henrietta. She hung back with a white face.

"What are you going to do with me?" she cried. "What are you-"

"In two minutes you'll see!" Bess retorted. And with a quick movement she grasped the girl's arm. "And be as wise as I am. Lay hold of her other arm," she continued to Giles. "It's no use to struggle, my lady! – and if she cries out down her at once. You hear, do you?" she continued, addressing Henrietta, who with terror found herself as helpless as a doe in the hound's fangs. "Then mum, and it'll be the better for you. Here, do you take the lanthorn," she went on, handing it to Giles, "and I'll carry the victuals. You can hold her?"

"I'll break her wrist if she budges," the man replied. "But, after all, isn't she as well here?"

"No, she's not!" Bess answered, with decision. "Do you" – to Lunt-"open the yard door for us, and stand by till we come in again. No, not you," to the gipsy, who had again stepped forward. "You're too ready, my lad, and I don't trust you."

Fortunately for Henrietta, the sight of the plate of food relieved her of her worst fears. She was not to be done to death, but in all probability to be consigned to the hiding place which held the boy. And though the prospect was not cheerful, and Bess's manner was cruel and menacing, Henrietta felt that if this were the worst she could face it. She could bear even what the child bore, and by sharing its hardships she might do something to comfort it. Always, too, there was the chance of escape; and from the place, be it out-house or stable, in which they held the boy confined, escape must be more feasible than from the house, with its bolts and bars.

She had time to make these calculations between the kitchen and the yard door; through which they half-led, half-pushed her into the night. With all a woman's natural timidity on finding herself held and helpless in the dark, she had to put restraint upon herself not to try to break loose, not to scream. But she conquered herself and let them lead her, unresisting and as one blindfold, where they pleased.

It was clear that they knew the place well. For, though the darkness in the depths of this bowl in the hills was absolute, they did not unmask the lanthorn; but moved confidently for a distance of some fifty yards. The dog, kenneled near, had given tongue as they left the house. But once only. And when they paused, all was so still in the frosty mist that wrapped them about and clutched the throat, that Henrietta's ear caught the trickle of water near at hand.

"Where are we?" she muttered. "Where are we?" She hung back in sudden, uncontrollable alarm.

"Mum, fool!" Bess hissed in her ear. "Be still, or it will be the worse with you. Have you," she continued, in the same low tone, "undone the door, lad?"

For answer a wooden door groaned on its hinges.

"Right!" Bess murmured. "Bend your head, girl!"

Henrietta obeyed, and pushed forward by an unseen hand, she advanced three paces, and felt a warmer air salute her cheek. The door groaned again; she heard a wooden bolt thrust home. Bess let her hand go and unmasked the lanthorn.

Henrietta shivered. She was in a covered well-head, whence the water, after filling a sunken caldron, about which the moss hung in dark, snaky wreaths, escaped under the wooden door. Some yeoman of bygone days had come to the help of nature, and after enlarging a natural cavity had enclosed it, to protect the water from pollution. The place was so small that it no more than held the three who stood in it, nor all of them dry-shod. And Henrietta's heart sank indeed before the possibility of being left to pass the night in this dank cave.

Bess's next movement freed her from this fear. The girl turned the light on the rough wall, and seizing an innocent-looking wooden peg, which projected from it, pushed the implement upwards. A piece of the wall, of the shape and size of a large oven door, fell downwards and outwards, as the tail of a cart falls. It revealed a second cavity of which the floor stood a couple of feet higher than the ground on which they were. It was very like a spacious bread-oven, though something higher and longer; apparently it had been made in the likeness of one.

But Henrietta did not think of this, or of its shape or its purpose. For the same light, a dim, smoky lamp burning at the far end of the place, which revealed its general aspect, disclosed a bundle of straw and a forlorn little form.

She gasped. For that any human creature, much more a child, should be confined in such a place, buried in the bowels of the earth, seemed so monstrous, so shocking, that she could not believe it!

"Oh!" she cried, forgetting for the moment her own position and her own fate, forgetting everything in her horror and pity. "You have not left the child here! And alone! For shame! For shame!" she continued, turning on them in the heat of her indignation and fearing them no more than a hunter fears a harmless snake-which excites disgust, but not terror. "What do you think will happen to you?"

For a moment, strange to say, her indignation cowed them. For a moment they saw the thing as she saw it; they were daunted. Then Bess sneered:

"You don't like the place?"

"For that child?"

"For yourself?"

She was burning with indignation, and for answer she climbed into the place, and went on her hands and knees to the child's side. She bent over it, and listened to its breathing.

"Is't asleep?" Bess asked. There was a ring of anxiety in her tone. And when Henrietta did not answer, "It's not dead?" she muttered.

"Dead? No," Henrietta replied, with a shudder. "But it's-it's-"

"What?"

"It breathes, but-but-" She drew its head on to her shoulder and peered more closely into the small white face. "It breathes, but-but what is the matter with it? What have you done to it?" – glancing at them suspiciously. For the boy, after returning her look with lack-lustre eyes, had averted his face from the light and from hers.

"It's had a dose," Bess answered roughly-she had had her moment of alarm. "In an hour or two it will awake. Then you can feed it. Here's the porridge. And there's milk. It was fresh this morning and must be fresh enough now. Hang the brat, I'm sure it has been trouble enough. Now you can nurse it, my lass, and I wish you joy of it, and a gay good-night! And before morning you'll know what it costs to rob Bess Hinkson of her lad!"

"But the child will die!" Henrietta cried, rising to her feet-she could stand in the place, but not quite erect. "Stay! Stay! At least take-"

"What?"

"Take the child in! And warm and feed it! Oh, I beg you take it!" Henrietta pleaded. "It will die here! It is cold now! I believe it is dying now!"

"Dying, your grand-dam!" the girl retorted, scornfully. "But if we take it, will you stay?"

"I will!" Henrietta answered. "I will!"

"So you will! And the child, too!" Bess retorted. And she slammed-to the door. But again, while Henrietta, appalled by her position, still stared at the place, the shutter fell, and Bess thrust in her dark, handsome face. "See here!" she said. "If you begin to scream and shout, it will be the worse for you, and do you remember that! I shall not come, but I shall send Saul. He's took a fancy to you, and will find a way of silencing you, I'll bet!" with an unpleasant smile. "So now you know! And if you want his company you'll shout!"

She slammed the shutter to again with that, and Henrietta heard the bolt fall into its place.

The girl stood for a moment, staring and benumbed. But presently her eyes, which at first travelled wildly round, grew more sober. They fell on her tiny fellow-prisoner, and, resting on that white, unconscious cheek, on those baby hands clenched in some bygone paroxysm, they filled slowly with tears.

"I will think of the child! I will think of the child!" she murmured. And, crouching down, she hugged it to her with a sensation of relief, almost of happiness. "I thank God I came! I thank God I am here to protect it!"

And resolutely averting her eyes from the low roof and oven-like walls, that, when she dwelt too long on them, seemed, like the famous dungeon of Poe, to contract about her and choke her, she devoted herself to the child; and as she grew scared by its prolonged torpor, she strove to rouse it. At first her efforts were vain. But she persisted in them. For the vision which she had had in the cell at Kendal-of the child holding out pleading hands to her-rose to her memory. She was certain that at that moment the child had been crying for aid. And surely not for nothing, not without purpose, had the cry come to her ears who now by so strange a fate was brought to the boy's side.

At intervals she felt almost happy in this assurance; as she pressed the child to her, and watched by the dim, yellow light its slow recovery from the drug. Her present danger, her present straits, her position in this underground place, which would have sent some mad, were forgotten. And the past and the future filled her thoughts; and Anthony Clyne. Phrases of condemnation and contempt which he had used to her recurred, as she nursed his child; and she rejoiced to think that he must unsay them! The bruises which he had inflicted still discoloured her wrist, and moved strange feelings in her, when her eyes fell upon them. But he would repent of his violence soon! Very soon, very soon, and how completely! The thought was sweet to her!

She was in peril, and a week before she had been free as air. But then she had been without any prospect of reinstatement, any hope of regaining the world's respect, any chance of wiping out the consequences of her mad and foolish act. Now, if she lived, and escaped from this strait, he at least must thank her, he at least must respect her. And she was sure, yes, she dared to tell herself, blushing, that if he respected her, he would know how to make the world also respect her.

But then again she trembled. For there was a darker side. She was in the power of these wretches; and the worst-the thought paled her cheek-might happen! She held the child more closely to her, and rocked it to and fro in earnest prayer. The worst! Yes, the worst might happen. But then again she fell back on the reflection that he was searching for them, and if any could find them he would. He was searching for them, she was sure, as strenuously, and perhaps with more vengeful purpose than when he had sought the child alone! By this time, doubtless, she was missed, and he had raised the country, flung wide the alarm, set a score moving, fired the dalesmen from Bowness to Ambleside. Yes, for certain they were searching for her. And they must know, careful as she had been to hide her trail, that she could not have travelled far; and the scope of the search, therefore, would be narrow, and the scrutiny close. They could hardly fail, she thought, to visit the farm in the hollow; its sequestered and lonely position must invite inquiry. And if they entered, a single glance at the disordered kitchen would inform the searchers that something was amiss.

So far Henrietta's thoughts, as she clasped the boy to her and strove to warm him to life against her own body, ran in a current chequered but more or less hopeful. But again the supposition would force itself upon her-the men were desperate, and the woman was moved by a strange hatred of her. What if they fled, and left no sign? What if they escaped, and left no word of her? The thought was torture! She could not endure it. She put the child down, and rising to her knees, she covered her eyes with her hands. To be buried here underground! To die of hunger and thirst in this bricked vault, as far from hope and help, from the voices and eyes of men and the blessed light of the sun, as if they had laid her alive in her coffin!

Oh, it was horrible! She could not bear it; she could not bear to think of it. She sprang, forgetting herself, to her feet, and the blow which the roof dealt her, though her thick hair saved her from injury, intensified the feeling. She was buried! Yes, she was buried alive! The roof seemed to be sinking upon her. These brick walls so cunningly arched, and narrowing a t either end, as the ends of a coffin narrow, were the walls of her tomb! Those faint lines of mortar which seclusion from the elements had preserved in their freshness, presently she would attack them with her nails in the frenzy of her despair. She glared about her. The weight, the mass of the hill above, seemed to press upon her. The air seemed to fail her. Was there no way, no way of escape from this living tomb-this grave under the tons and tons and tons of rock and earth?

And then the child-perhaps she had put him from her roughly, and the movement had roused him-whimpered. And she shook herself free-thank God-free from the hideous dream that had obsessed her. She remembered that the men were not yet fled, nor was she abandoned. She was leaping, thank Heaven, far above the facts. In a passion of relief she knelt beside the child, and rained kisses on him, and swore to him, as he panted with terror in her arms, that he need not fear, that he was safe now, and she was beside him to take care of him! And that all would be well if he would not cry. All would be well. For she bethought herself that the child must not know how things stood. Fear and suffering he might know if the worst came; but not the fear, not the mental torture which she had known for a few moments, and which in so short a time had driven her almost beside herself.

The boy's faculties were still benumbed by the hardships which he had undergone; perhaps a little by the narcotic he had taken. And though he had seen Henrietta at least a dozen times in the old life, he could not remember her. Nevertheless she contrived to satisfy him that she was a friend, that she meant him well, that she would protect him. And little by little, in spite of the surroundings which drew the child's eyes again and again in terror to the dimly-lit vaulting, on which the shadow of the girl's figure bulked large, his alarm subsided. His heart beat less painfully, and his eyes lost in a degree the strained and pitiful look which had become habitual. But his little limbs still started if the light flickered, or the oil sputtered; and it was long before, partly by gentle suasion, partly by caresses, she succeeded in inducing the child-nauseated as he was by the drug-to take food. That done, though she still believed him to be in a critical state, and dreadfully weak, she was better satisfied. And soon, soothed by her firm embrace and confident words, her charge fell into a troubled sleep.