CHAPTER XXX
BESS'S TRIUMPH
Bess knocked twice, and, stooping to the keyhole, repeated the owl'shoot. Presently a bar was drawn back, and after a brief interval,which those within appeared to devote to listening, the key wasturned, and the door was opened far enough to admit one person at atime. The two slid in, Bess pushing Henrietta before her.
The moment she had passed the threshold Henrietta stood, dazzled bythe light and bewildered by what she saw. Nor was it her eyes onlythat were unpleasantly affected. A voice, loud and blustering, hailedher appearance with a curse, fired from the heart of a cloud oftobacco smoke. And the air was heavy with the reek of spirits.
"By G--d!" the voice which had affrighted her repeated. "Who's this?Are you mad, girl?" And the speaker sprang to his feet. He was one oftwo thickset, unshaven men who were engaged in playing cards on acorner of the table. His comrade kept his place, but stared, a jughalf lifted to his lips; while a third man, the only other present, aloose-limbed, good-looking gipsy lad, who had opened the door, grinnedat the unexpected vision--as if his stake in the matter was less, andhis interest in feminine charms greater. But nowhere, though thekitchen was wastefully lighted, and her frightened eyes flew to everypart of it, was the man to be seen whom she came to meet.
She turned quickly upon Bess, as if she thought she might stillescape. But the door was already closed behind them, the key turned.And before she could speak:
"Have done a minute!" Bess muttered, pushing her aside. "And let medeal with them." Then, advancing into the room--but not before she hadseen the great bar drawn across the locked door--"Shut your trap!" shecried to the man who had spoken. "And listen!"
"Who's this?"
"What's that to you?"
"Who is it, I say?" the man cried, even more violently. "And what theblazes have you brought her here for?" And he poured out a string ofoaths that drove the blood from Henrietta's cheeks. "Who is it? Who isit?" he continued. "D'you think, you vixen, that because my neck is ina noose, I want some one to pull the rope tight?"
"What a fool you are to talk before her!" Bess answered, with quietscorn. "If any one pulls the hemp it's you."
"Lord help you, I'll do more than talk!" the man rejoined. And hesnatched up a heavy pistol that lay on the table beside the cards."Quick, will you? Speak! Who is it, and why do you bring her?"
"I'll speak quick enough, but not here!" Bess answered,contemptuously. "If you must jaw, come into the dairy! Come, don'tthink that I'm afraid of you!" And she turned to Henrietta, who,stricken dumb by the scene, recognised too late the trap into whichshe had fallen. "Do you stay here," she said, "unless you want hishand on you. Sit there!" pointing abruptly to the settle, "and keepmum until I come back."
But Henrietta's terror at the prospect of being abandoned by the girl,though that girl had betrayed her, was such that she seized Bess bythe sleeve and held her back.
"Don't leave me!" she said. And again, with a shadow of the oldimperiousness, "You are not to leave me! Do you hear? I will come withyou. I----"
"You'll do what you're bid!" Bess answered. "Go and sit down!" And thesavage glint in her eyes put a new fear into Henrietta.
She went to the settle, her limbs unsteady under her, her eyesglancing round for a chance of escape. Where was the woman of thehouse? Where was Tyson? Chiefest of all, where was Walterson? She sawno sign of any of them. And terrified to the heart, she sat shiveringwhere the other had ordered her to sit.
Bess opened a side door which led to the dairy, a cold, flagged room,lower by a couple of steps than the kitchen. She took up a candle, oneof five or six which were flaring on the table, and she beckoned tothe two men to follow her. When they had done so, the one who hadtaken up the pistol still muttering and casting suspicious glancesover his shoulder, she slammed to the door. But, either by accident,or with a view to intimidate her prisoner, she let it leap ajar again;so that much of the talk which followed reached Henrietta's ears. Itsoon banished from the unhappy girl's cheeks the blood which the gipsylad's stare of admiration had brought to them.
Lunt's first word was an oath. "You know well enough," he cried, "thatwe want no praters here! Why have you brought this fool here to peachon us?"
"Why?"
"Ay, why?" Lunt repeated. "In two days more we had all got clear, andnothing better managed!"
"And thanks to whom?" the girl retorted with energy. "Who has hiddenyou? Who has kept you? Who has done all for you? But there it is! Nowmy lad's gone, and Thistlewood's gone, you think all's yours! And asmuch of yourselves as masterless dogs!"
"Stow it!"
"But I'll not!" she retorted. "Whose house is this?"
"Well, my lass, not yours!" Giles, the less violent of the two,answered.
"Nor yours either! And, any way, it's due to me that you are in it,and not outside, with irons on you."
"But cannot you see, lass," Giles answered, in a more moderate tone,"that you've upset all by bringing the wench here? You'll hear themorrow, or the morrow of that, that your lad's got clear to Leith, andThistlewood with him! And then we go our way, and yon gipsy will carryoff the brat in his long pack, and drop him the devil cares where--andnobody'll be the wiser, and his father'll have a lesson that will dohim good! But, now you've let the girl in, what'll you do with herwhen we get clear? You cannot stow her in the long pack, and themoment you let her go her tongue will clack!"
"How do you know it will clack?" Bess asked, in a tone that froze thelistening girl's blood. "How do you know it will clack?" she repeated."The lake's deep enough to hold both."
"But what's the game, lass?" Giles asked. "Show a glim. Let's see it.If you are so fond of us," in a tone of unpleasant meaning, "thatyou've brought her--just to amuse us in our leisure, say it out!Though even then I'm not for saying that the game is worth the candle,my lass! Since coves in our very particular case has to be careful,and the prettiest bit of red and white may hang a man as quick as hermother! But I don't think you had that in your mind, Bess."
"Well?"
"And that being so, and hemp so cheap, out with it! Show a glim, andyou'll not find us nasty."
"The thing's pretty plain, isn't it?" Bess answered, coolly. "You'vehad your fun. Why shouldn't I have mine? You'd a grudge, and you'vepaid it. Why am I not to pay mine?"
"What has the wench done to you?"
"What's that to you?" viciously. "Stolen my lad, if you like. AnyAway, it's my business. If I choose to treat her as you have treatedthe brat, what is it to you? If I've a mind to give her a taste of thesmugglers' oven, what's that to you? Or if I choose to spoil herlooks, or break her pride--she's one of those that teach us to behaveourselves lowly and reverently to all our betters--and if I choose togive her a lesson, is it any business but mine? She's crossed me!She's a peacock! And if I choose to have some fun with her and holdher nose to the grindstone, what's that to you?"
"But afterwards?" Giles persisted. "Afterwards, my lass? What then?"
"Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies," Bess answered. "Forthe matter of that, if my old dad once gets his fingers round herthroat 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 shestrained her ears to the utmost.
She had heard enough, however; enough to know where she stood, and tofeel the cold grip of despair close upon her. Fortunately she had hadsuch preparation as the scene and the change in Bess's demeanorafforded; and while her heart thumped to choke her, and she could notrestrain the glances that like a hunted hare she cast about her, sheneither fainted nor raised an outcry. The gipsy lad, who lolled besidethe door and never took his bold eyes from her, detected the suddenstillness of her pose and her changed aspect. But, though his gazedwelt 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 shedid not catch the drift that w
as 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. Adevil, Bess is, a devil if there ever was one!" And he wonderedwhether, 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 apretty prey; and the prettier in his eyes, because she was notdark-skinned and black-eyed, like his own women, but a thing of creamyfairness.
Henrietta heard all, however, and understood. And for a few momentsshe was near to swooning. Then the very peril in which she foundherself steadied her, and gave her power to think. Was there anyquarter to which she could look for help--outside or in? Outside thehouse, alas, none; for she had taken care, fatal care, to blind hertrail, and to leave no trace by which her friends could find her! Andinside, the hope was as slight. Walterson, to whose pity she mighthave appealed--with success, if all chivalry were not dead in him--wasgone, it seemed. There remained only--a feeble straw indeed to whichto cling--the woman of the house; the white-faced woman who had gonein 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 thepresence 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 brightoaken table, the pride of generations of thrifty wives, was a litterof dog's-eared cards and over-set bottles, broken loaves, and pewterdishes. One of the oat-cake springs hung loose, tearing the ceiling;in one corner a bacon chest gaped open and empty. In another corner apile of dubious bedding lay as its occupant had left it. The chimneycorner was cumbered with logs of wood. Greasy frying-pans andhalf-cleaned pots lay everywhere; and on the whole, and on a medley oftattered things too repulsive to mention, a show of candles, thatwould have scared the least frugal dame, cast a useless glare.
In a word, everything within sight proved that the house was at themercy of the gang who surrounded her. And if that were so? If no helpwere possible? For an instant panic gripped her. The room swam round,and she had to grasp the settle with her hands to maintain hercomposure. 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 wasclear, was also in their power. But it was hard, very hard, to thinkwith that man's eyes gloating on her; and when with every second thedoor of the dairy, where they were conferring, might open, and--sheknew not what horror might befall her. And--and then again there wasthe child!
For she spared it a thought of pity, grudgingly taken from her ownneed. And then the door opened. And Bess, carrying the light above herhead, came up the steps, followed by the two men.
"We'll let her down soft!" she said, as she appeared. "We'll make herdrudge 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 notspoil her pretty fingers."
"Oh, won't we?" Bess answered. And turning to Henrietta, and throwingoff the mask, "Now, peacock!" she said, "I've got you here and youcan't escape. I am going to put your nose to the grindstone. I'm goingto 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 assertherself. She tried to frame the words, "Where is Walterson? Where isWalterson? If he is not here, let me go!" But she knew that they wouldnot 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 youknow what's what, and where you are. Come, slice that bacon! And fryit! There's the knife, and there's the flitch, and let's have none ofyour airs, or--you'll have the knife across your knuckles. Do youhear, cat? Do you understand? You'll do as you are bid here. We'll seehow you like to be undermost."
The men laughed.
"That's the way, Bess," one said. "Break her in, and she'll soon cometo 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 hersomething to do, and she'll sleep the sounder for it when she goes tobed."
"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 thatgrinds 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, wasuseless; to resist was to precipitate matters, while everypostponement of the crisis offered a chance of rescue. As long asinsult was confined to words she must put up with it--how foolish, howfoolish she had been to come! She must smile--though it were awry--andplay the sullen or the cheerful, as promised best. The door was lockedon her. She had no friends within reach. Help there was none. She waswholly at the mercy of these wretches, and her only hope was that, ifshe did their bidding, she might awaken a spark of pity in the breastof one or other of them.
Still, she did not quite lose her presence of mind. As she bent overher task, and with shaking fingers hacked at the tough rind of thebacon, the while Bess rained on her a shower of gibes and the mengrinned at the joke, her senses were on the alert. Once she fancied amovement and a smothered cry in the room above; and she had work tokeep her eyes lowered when Bess immediately went out. She might havethought more of the matter; but left alone with the three men she hadher terrors. She dared not let her mind or her eyes wander. To go onwith the task, and give the men not so much as a look, seemed the onlycourse.
For the present the three limited their coarse gallantries to words.Nay, when the gipsy lad would have crept nearer to her, the othersbade him have done; adding, that kissing the cook-maid never cleaned adish.
Then Bess came back and forced her to hold the pan on the fire, thoughthe heat scorched her cheeks.
"We've to do it! See how you like it!" the girl cried, standing overher vindictively. "And see you don't drop it, my lass, or I'll lay thepan to your cheek. You're proud of your pink and white"--thrusting heralmost into the fire--"see how it will stand a bit of cook-maid'swork!"
Pride helped Henrietta to restrain the rising sob, the complaint. Andluckily it needed but another minute to complete the cooking. Bess andthe three men sat down to the table, and Bess's first humour was tomake her wait on them. But a moment later she changed her mind, forcedthe girl to sit down, and, will she, nill she, Henrietta had toswallow, though every morsel seemed to choke her, the portion set forher.
"Down with it!" Bess cried, spitefully. "What's good enough for us isgood enough for you! And when supper's done I'll see you to yourbedroom. You're a mile too dainty, like all your sort! Ah, you'd liketo kill me this minute, wouldn't you? That's what I like! I've oftenthought I should like to have one of you peacocks--who look at me asif I were dirt--and put my foot upon her face! And now I've gotyou--who stole my lad! And you'll see what I'll do to you!"
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