CHAPTER XXXV
THROUGH THE WOOD
Behind the closed door the two haggard-faced women looked at oneanother. Mrs. Tyson had not left her bed for many days. But she hadheard the knocking at the outer door and the answering growl of thedog chained under her window; and hoping, yet scarcely daring toexpect, that the nightmare was over and her husband or her friendswere at hand, she had dragged herself from the bed and opened the dooras soon as the knocking sounded in turn at that.
For days, indeed, one strand, and one only, had held the feeble,frightened woman to life; and that strand was the babe that lay besideher. The sheep will fight for its lamb, the wren for its fledglings.And Mrs. Tyson, if she had not fought, had for the babe's sake borneand endured; and surrounded by the ruffians who had the house at theirmercy, she had survived terrors that in other circumstances would havedriven her mad.
True, Bess had not ill-treated her. On the contrary, she had beenalmost kind to her. And lonely and ill, dependent on her foreverything, the woman had lost much of her dread of the girl; thoughnow and again, in sheer wantonness, Bess would play with her fears.Certain that the weak-willed creature would not dare to tell what sheknew, Bess had boasted to her of Henrietta's presence and her dangerand her plight. When Henrietta, therefore, the moment the door wasunfastened, flung herself into the room, and with frantic fingershelped to secure the door behind her, Mrs. Tyson was astonishedindeed; but less astonished than alarmed. She was alarmed in truth,almost to swooning, and showed a face as white as paper.
Luckily, Henrietta had resumed the wit and courage of which stupor haddeprived her for a time. She had no longer Bess at her elbow to bidher do this or that. But she had Bess's example and her own spirit.There was an instant of stricken silence, during which she and thewoman looked fearfully into one another's faces by the light of thepoor dip that burned beside the gloomy tester. Then Henrietta took herpart. She laid down the child, to which she had clung instinctively;and with a strength which surprised herself, she dragged a chest, thatstood but a foot on one side of the opening, across the door. It wouldnot withstand the men long, but it would check them. She lookeddoubtfully at the bed, but mistrusted her power to move it. And beforeshe could do more, a sound reached them from an unexpected quarter,and struck at the root of her plans. For it came from the window; andso unexpectedly, that it flung them into one another's arms.
Mrs. Tyson screamed loudly. They clung to one another.
"What is it? What is it?" Henrietta cried.
Then she saw a spectral face pressed against the dark casement. A handtapped repeatedly on a pane.
Henrietta put Mrs. Tyson from her and approached the window. Shediscovered that the face was a woman's face, and with fumbling fingersshe slid aside the catch that secured the window.
"Tell the missus not to be scared," whispered an anxious voice. "Tellher it's me! I got up the pear tree to see her, and I saw you. I knewthat Bess was lying, and I thought I'd--I thought I'd just get up andsee for myself!"
"Thank God!" Henrietta cried, clinging to the sill in a passion ofrelief as she recognised the stolid-faced servant. "You know me?"
"You're the young lady that's missing?" the woman answered, taking asecurer hold of the window-frame, and bringing her head into the room."I know you. I was thinking if I dared scare the missus, when I seeyou tumble in--I nigh tumbled down with surprise! I'll go hot-foot andtake the news, miss!"
"No, no, I shall come!"
"You let me go and fetch 'em! I'll bet, miss, I'll be welcome. And doyou bide quiet and safe. Now we know where you are, they'll not harmyou."
But Henrietta had heard a footstep on the stairs, and she was notgoing to bide quiet. She had no belief in her safety.
"No," she said resolutely. "I am coming. Can you take the child?"
"Well, if you must, but----"
"I must! I must!"
"Lord, you are frightened!" the woman muttered, looking at her face.And then, catching the infection, "Is't as bad as that?" she said."Ay, give me the child, then. And for the Lord's sake, be quick, miss.This pear is as good as a ladder, and the dog knows me as well as itsown folk!"
"The child! The child!" Henrietta repeated. Again her ear had caughtthe sound of shuffling feet, and of whispering on the stairs. Shecarried the child, which seemed paralysed by fear, to the sill, anddelivered it into the other's arm.
The sill of the window was barely ten feet from the ground, and an oldpear tree, spread-eagled against the wall, formed a natural ladder.The dog, which had been chained under the window to guard againstegress, knew the woman and did no more than stand below and wag itstail. In two minutes Henrietta was safe on the ground, had taken thechild from the other's arms, and was ready for flight.
But the servant would not leave until she had made sure that hermistress had strength to close the window. That done, she turned toHenrietta.
"Now come!" she said. "And don't spare yourself, miss, for if theycatch us after this they'll for certain cut our throats!"
Henrietta had no need of the spur, and at their best pace the two fleddown the paddock, the servant-wench holding Henrietta by the elbow andimpelling her. The moon had risen, and Mrs. Tyson, poor, terrified,trembling woman, watching them from the window, could follow them downthe pale meadow, and even discern the dark line of the rivulet, alongthe bank of which they passed, and here and there a patch of higherherbage, or a solitary boulder left in the middle of the turf for ascratching-post. Perhaps she made, in leaning forward, some noisewhich irritated the dog; or perhaps the moonlight annoyed it. At anyrate, it began to bay.
By that time, however, Henrietta and her companion had gained theshadow of the trees at the upper end of the wooded gorge through whichthe stream escaped. They stood there a brief while to take breath, andthe woman offered to carry the child. But Henrietta, though she feltthat her strength was uncertain, though she experienced an oddgiddiness, was unwilling to resign her charge. And after a pause theystarted to descend the winding path which followed the stream, andoften crossed and re-crossed it.
They stumbled along as fast as they could. But this was not very fast.For not only was it dark in the covert, but the track was beset withprojecting roots, and overhead branches hung low and scraped theirfaces. More than once startled by a rabbit, or the gurgle of thefalling water, they stopped to listen, fancying that they werepursued. Still they went fast enough to feel ultimate safety certain;and Henrietta, as she held an end of the other's petticoat between herfingers and followed patiently, bade herself bear up a little longerand it would be over. It would soon be over, and she--she would puthis child in his arms. It would soon be over, and she would be able tosink down upon her bed and rest. For she was very weary--and odd.Very, unaccountably weary. When she stumbled or her foot found thedescent longer than she expected, she staggered and swayed on herfeet.
But, "We shall soon be safe! We shall soon be safe!" she told herself."And the child!"
Meanwhile they had passed the darkest part of the little ravine. Theyhad passed the place where the waterfalls made the descent mostarduous. They could even see below them a piece of the road lyingwhite in the moonlight.
On a sudden Henrietta stopped.
"You must take the child," she faltered, in a tone that startled hercompanion. "I can't carry--it any farther."
"I'll take it. You should have given it me before!" the woman scolded."That's better. Quiet, my lad. I'll not hurt you!" For the child,silent hitherto, had begun to whimper. "Now, miss," she continuedsharply, "bear up! It's but a little way farther."
"I don't think--I can," Henrietta said. The crisis over, she felt herstrength ebbing away in the strangest fashion. She swayed, and had tocling to a tree for support. "You must go on--without me," shestammered.
"I'll not go on without you," the woman answered. She was loath toleave the girl helpless in the wood, where it was possible that shemight still come to harm. "You come down to the road, miss. Plu
ck up!Pluck up! It's but a step!"
And partly by words, partly by means of a vigorous arm, the goodcreature got the girl to the bottom of the wood, and by a last effort,half lifted, half dragged her over the stile which closed the gap inthe wall. But once in the road, Henrietta seemed scarcely consciouswhere she was. She tottered, and the moment the woman took her handsfrom her, she sank down against the wall.
"Leave me! Leave me!" she muttered, with a last exertion of sense."And take the child! I'm--giddy. Only giddy! I shall be better in aminute." Then, "I think--I think I am fainting."
"I think you are," the woman answered drily. She stooped over her."Poor thing!" she said. "There's no knowing what has happened to her!But she'll freeze as she is!"
And whipping off her thick drugget shawl--they made such shawls inKendal--she wrapped it about the girl, snatched up the child, and setoff running and walking along the road. The Low Wood Inn lay not morethan four furlongs away, and she counted on returning in twentyminutes.
"Ay, in twenty minutes!" she muttered, and then, saving her breath,she kept on steadily along the moonlit road, soothing the child with aword when it was necessary. In a very brief time she was out of sight.
For a while all was still as death. Then favoured by the recumbentposition, Henrietta began to recover; and presently, but not untilsome minutes had elapsed, she came to herself.
She sighed deeply, and gazing upward at the dark sky, with itstwinkling stars, she wondered how she came to be in such a strangeplace; but without any desire to rise, or any wish to solve theriddle. A second sigh as deep as the first lifted the oppression fromher breast; and with returning strength she wondered what was the longdark line that bounded her vision. Was it, could it be, the head-boardof her bed? Or the tester?
It was, in fact, the wall that bounded the wood, but she was not ableto take that in. And though the nipping air, blowing freely on herface, was doing its best to refresh her, and she was beginning togrope in her memory for the past, it needed a sound, a voice, torestore to her, not her powers, but her consciousness. The event soonhappened. Two men drew near, talking in low fierce tones. At first,lying there as in a dream, she heard without understanding; and then,still powerless under the spell, she heard and understood.
"Why didn't you," Lunt's voice growled hoarsely, "loose the dog, as Itold you? We'd have had her by now."
"Ay, and have had the country about our ears, too," Giles answeredangrily.
"And shan't we have it about our ears when that vixen has told hertale?" the other cried. "I swear my neck aches now!"
"She couldn't carry the brat far, nor fast."
"No, but--what's that?" There was alarm in Lunt's tone.
"Only the lad following us," Giles answered. "He's brought thelanthorn."
Perhaps the three separated then: perhaps not. She could not rise tosee. She was paralysed. She lay as in a nightmare, and was consciousonly of the yellow gleam of the lanthorn as it quartered the groundthis way and that, and came nearer and nearer. At last the man whocarried it was close to her; on the other side of the wall. He raisedthe lanthorn above his head, and looked over the wall. By evil chance,the light focussed itself upon her.
She knew that she was discovered. And her terror was the greaterbecause she knew that the man who held the lanthorn was thegipsy--whom she feared the most of all. But she was not capable ofmotion or of resistance; and though he held the light steadily on her,and for a few seconds she saw in the side-glow his dark featuresgleaming down at her, she lay fascinated. She waited for him toproclaim his discovery.
He shut off the light abruptly.
"So--ho! back!" he cried. "She's not this way! Maybe she's in thebushes above!"
"This way?"
"Ay!"
"Then, burn you, why don't you bring the light, instead of talking?"Lunt retorted. And from the sound he appeared to be kicking the nearerbushes, and probing them with a stick.
The gipsy answered impudently, and the three, blaming one another,moved off up the wood.
"You should have brought the dog," one cried.
"Oh, curse the dog!" was the answer. "I tell you she can't be faroff! She can't have come as low as this." The light was thrown hitherand thither. "She's somewhere among the bushes. We'll hap on herby-and-by."
"And s'help me when we do," Lunt answered, "I'll----"
And then, mercifully, the voices grew indistinct. The flicker of thelanthorn was lost among the trees. With wonder and stupefactionHenrietta found herself alone, found herself faint, gasping, scarcelysensible--but safe! Safe!
She could not understand the why or the wherefore of her escape, andshe had not energy to try to fathom it. She lay a few seconds to restand clear her head, and then she thought that she would try to rise.She was on her knees, and was supporting herself with one hand againstthe cold, rough surface of the wall, when every fibre in her criedsuddenly, Alarm! Alarm! He was coming back. Yes, he was coming back,leaping and running, bursting his way through the undergrowth. And sheunderstood. He had led the others away and he was coming back--alone!
She fell back feeling deadly faint. Then she tried to rise, but shecould not, and she screamed. She screamed hoarsely once and again,and, oh, joy! even as the gipsy clambered over the stile, sprang intothe road and came to seize her, and all her being arose in revoltagainst him, a voice answered her, feet came racing up the road, a manappeared, she was no longer alone.
It was the chaplain, panting and horrified. He had been the first tobe alarmed by the woman's tale, and running out of the house unarmedand hatless he had come in time, in the nick of time! Across herlifeless body, for at last she had swooned quite away, the gipsy andhe looked at one another by the light of the moon. And withoutwarning, without a word said, the gipsy came at him like a wildcat, aknife in his hand. Sutton saw the gleam of the weapon, and the gleamof the man's savage eyes, but he held his ground gallantly. With ayell for help he let the man close with him, and, more by luck thanskill, he parried the blow which the other had dealt him with theknife. But the gipsy, finding his arm clutched and held, struck hisenemy with his left fist a heavy blow between the eyes. The poorchaplain fell stunned and breathless.
The gipsy stood over him an instant to see if he would rise. But hedid not move; and the man turned to the girl, who lay insensiblebeside the wall. He stooped to raise her, with the intention ofputting her over the wall. But in the act he heard a shout, and helifted his head to listen, supposing that his comrades had got wind ofthe skirmish.
It was not his comrades; for despairing of retaking the girl, they hadhurried back to the house to attend to their own safety. He stoopedagain; but this time he heard the patter of footsteps coming up theroad, and a man came in sight in the moonlight. With every passionroused, and determined, since he had risked so much, that he would notbe balked, the gipsy lifted the girl none the less, and had raised heralmost to the level of the top of the wall, when the man shouted anew.Perforce the ruffian let the girl down again, and with a snarl of rageturned and faced the newcomer with his knife.
But Clyne--for it was he--had not come unarmed. For many days he hadnot gone so much as a step unarmed. And the stranger's attitude as helet the girl fall, and the gleam of his knife, were enough. The manrushed at him, as he had rushed at the chaplain, with the ferocity ofa wild beast. But Clyne met him with a burst of flame and shot, andthen with a second shot; and the gipsy whirled round with a muffledcry and fell--at first it seemed backwards. But when he reached theground he lay limp and doubled up with his face to his knees, and onearm under him.
Clyne, with the smoking pistol in his hand, bent over him, ready, ifhe moved, to beat out his brains. But there was no need of that thirdblow, which he would have given with hearty good-will. And he turnedto the girl. Something, perhaps the pistol-shot, had brought her toherself. She had raised herself against the wall, and holding it, waslooking wildly about her; not at the dead man, nor at the chaplain,who stirred and groaned. But at Clyne. And when he approached her shethrew
herself on his breast and clung to him.
"Oh, don't let me go! Oh, don't let me go!" she cried.
He tried to soothe her, he tried to pacify her; keeping himselfbetween her and the prostrate man.
"I won't," he said. "I won't. You are quite safe. You are quite safe."
He had fired with a hand as steady as a rock, but his voice shook now.
"Oh, don't let me go!" she repeated hysterically. "Oh, don't let mego!"
"You are safe! you are safe!" he assured her, holding her moreclosely, and yet more closely to him.
And when Bishop and Long Tom Gilson, and three or four others, came upat a run, breathing fire and slaughter, he was still supporting her;and she was crying to him, in a voice that went to the men's hearts,"Not to let her go! Not to let her go!"
Alas, too, that was the sight which met the poor chaplain's swimminggaze when he came to himself, and, groaning, felt the bump between hiseyes--the bump which he had got in her defence.
CHAPTER XXXVI
TWO OF A RACE
It was Thursday, and three days had passed since the Sunday, the dayof many happenings, which had cleared up the mystery and restoredHenrietta to Mrs. Gilson's care. The frost still held, the air wasbrisk and clear. The Langdale Pikes lifted themselves sharp andglittering from the line of grey screes that run southward toWetherlamb and the Coniston Mountain. A light air blew down the lake,ruffling the open water, and bedecking the leafless woods on WrayPoint with a fringe of white breakers. The morning was a perfectwinter morning, the sky of that cloudless, but not over-deep blue,which portends a long and steady frost. Horses' hoofs rang loud on theroad; and rooks gathered where they had passed. Men who stopped totalk hit their palms together or swung their arms. The larger andwiser birds had started betimes for salt water and the musselpreserves on the Cartmel Sands.
The inquest on the gipsy had been held, but something perfunctorily,after the fashion of the day. Captain Clyne and the chaplain had toldtheir stories, and after a few words from the coroner, a verdict ofjustifiable homicide had been heartily given, and the jury hadresolved itself into a "free and easy" in the tap-room; while thecoroner had delivered himself of much wisdom, and laid down much lawin Mrs. Gilson's snuggery.
Henrietta had not been made to appear; for carried upstairs, in astate as like death as life, on Sunday evening, she had kept her roomuntil this morning. She would fain have kept it longer, but there werereasons against that. And now, with the timidity which a retreat fromevery-day life breeds--and perhaps with some flutterings of the hearton another account--she was pausing before her looking-glass, andtrying to gather courage to descend and face the world.
She was still pale; and when she met her own eyes in the mirror, aquivering smile, a something verging on the piteous in her face, toldof nerves which time had not yet steadied. Possibly, her reluctance togo down, though the hour was late, and Mrs. Gilson would scold, had alike origin. None the less, she presently conquered it, opened herdoor and descended; as she had done on that morning of her arrival, afew weeks back, and yet--oh, such a long time back!
Now, as then, when she had threaded the dark passages and come to thedoor of Mr. Rogers's room, she paused faint-hearted, and, with herhand raised to the latch, listened. She heard no sound, and she openedthe door and went in. The table was laid for one.
She heaved a sigh of relief, and--cut it short midway. For CaptainClyne came forward from one of the windows at which he had beenstanding.
"I am glad that you are better," he said stiffly, and in a constrainedtone, "and able to come down."
"Oh yes, thank you," she answered, striving to speak heartily, andrepressing with difficulty that proneness of the lip to quiver. "Ithink I am quite well now. Quite well! I am sure, after this longtime, I should be."
And she turned away and affected to warm her hands at the fire.
He did not look directly at her--he avoided doing so. But he could seethe reflection of her face in the oval-framed mirror, as she stoodupright again. He saw that she had lost for the time the creamy warmthof complexion that was one of her chief beauties. She was pale andthin, and looked ill.
"You have been very severely shaken," he said. "No doubt you feel itstill!"
"Yes," she answered, "a little. I think I do."
"Perhaps you had better be alone?"
She did not know what to say to that. Perhaps she did not know whatshe wished. Her lip quivered. This was very unlike what she hadexpected and what she had dreaded. But it was worse. He seemed to bewaiting for her answer--that he might go. What could she say?
"Just as you like," she murmured at last.
"Oh, but I wish to do what you like!" he replied, with a little morewarmth; but still awkwardly and with constraint.
"So do I," she replied.
"I shall stay then," he answered. And he lifted a small dish from thehearth and carried it to the table. "I had Mrs. Gilson's orders tokeep this hot for you," he said.
"It was very kind of you."
"I am afraid," more lightly, "that it was fear of Mrs. Gilson weighedon me as much as anything."
He returned to the hearth when he had seen her seated. And she beganher breakfast with her eyes on the table. With the first draught ofcoffee a feeling of warmth and courage ran through her; and he,standing with his elbow on the mantel-piece and his eyes on themirror, saw the change in her.
"The boy is better," he said suddenly. "I think he will do now."
"Yes?"
"I think so. But he will need great care. He will not be able to leavehis bed for a day or two. We found your brooch pinned inside hisclothes."
"Yes?"
He turned sharply and for the first time looked directly at her.
"Of course, we knew why you put it there. It was good of you. Butwhy--don't you ask after him, Henrietta?" in a different tone.
She felt the colour rise to her cheeks--and she wished it anywhereelse.
"I saw him this morning," she murmured.
"Oh!" he replied in surprise. And he turned to the mirror again. "Isee."
She began to wish that he would leave her, for his silence made herhorribly nervous. And she dared not start a subject herself, becauseshe could not trust her voice. The hands of the white-faced clockjerked slowly on, marking the seconds, and accentuating the silence.She grew so nervous at last that she could not lift her eyes from herplate, and she ate though she was scarcely able to swallow, becauseshe dared not leave off.
It did not occur to her that Anthony Clyne was as ill at ease as shewas; and oppressed, moreover, to a much greater degree by the memoryof certain scenes which had taken place in that room. Her nervousnesswas in part the reflection of his constraint. And his constraint arosefrom two feelings widely different.
The long silence was becoming painful to both, when he forced himselfto break it.
"I am so very, very deeply beholden to you," he said, in a constrainedtone, "that--that I must ask you, Henrietta, to listen to me for a fewminutes--even if it be unpleasant to you."
She laughed awkwardly.
"If it is only," she answered, "because you are beholden tome--that--that you feel it necessary to thank me at length, pleasedon't. You will only overwhelm me."
"It is not for that reason only," he said. And he knew that he spoke,much against his will, with dreadful solemnity. "No. Naturally we musthave much to say to one another. I, in particular, who owe to you----"
"Please let that be," she protested.
"But I cannot. I cannot!" he repeated. "You have done me so great aservice, at a risk so great, and under circumstances so--so----"
"So remarkable," she cried, with something of her old girlish manner,"that you cannot find words in which to describe them! Then pleasedon't." And then, more seriously: "I did not do what I did to bethanked."
"Then why?" he asked quickly. "Why did you do it?"
"Did you think," she protested, "that I did it to be thanked?"
> "No, but--why did you do it, Henrietta?" he asked persistently. "Sucha risk, such men, such circumstances, might have deterred any woman.Nay, almost any man."
She toyed with her teaspoon; there had come a faint flush of colourinto her cheeks.
"I think it was--I think it was just to reinstate myself," shemurmured.
"You mean?"
"You gave me to understand," she explained, "that you thought ill ofme. And I wished you to think well of me; or better of me, I shouldsay, for I did not expect you to think quite well of me after--youknow!" in some confusion.
"You wished to be reinstated?"
"Yes."
"I wonder," he said slowly, "how much you mean by that."
"I mean what I say," she answered, looking at him.
"Yes, but do you mean that you--wish to be reinstated altogether?"
She did not remove her eyes from his face, but she blushed to theroots of her hair.
"I am not sure that I understand," she said with a slight air ofoffence.
"No?" he said. "And perhaps I did not quite mean that. What I didmean, and do mean, what I am hoping, what I am looking forward to,Henrietta----" and there he broke off.
He seemed to find it necessary to begin again:
"Perhaps I had better explain," he said more soberly. "You told methat morning by the lake some home-truths, you remember? You showed methat what had happened was not all your fault; was perhaps not at allyour fault. And you showed me this with so much energy and power, thatI went away with the first clear impression of you I had had in mylife. Yes, with the feeling that I had never known you until then." Hedropped his eyes, and looked thoughtfully at something on the table."And one of the things I remember best, and which I shall alwaysremember, was your saying that I had never paid any court to you."
"It was true," she said, in a low voice.
And she too did not look at him, but kept her eyes bent on the spoonwith which she toyed.
"Yes. Well, if you will let the old state of things be so farreinstated as to--let me begin to pay my court to you now, I am notconfident, I am very far from confident, that I can please you. I amrather old, for one thing"--with a rueful laugh--"to make lovegracefully, and rather stiff and--political. But owing to the troubleI have brought upon you in the past----"
"I never said but that we both brought it!" Henrietta objectedsuddenly.
"Well, whoever brought it----"
"We both brought it!" she repeated obstinately.
"Very well. I mean only that the trouble----"
"Makes it unlikely that I shall find another husband?" she said. "Praybe frank with me! That," rising and going to the window, and thenturning to confront him, "is what you mean, is it not? That is exactlywhat you mean, I am sure?"
"Something of that kind, perhaps," he admitted.
"But you forget Mr. Sutton!" she said--and paused. She took one stepforward, and her eyes shone. "You forget Mr. Sutton, Captain Clyne.The gentleman to whom you handed me over! To whom you gave so clear acertainty that I was for the first comer who was willing. He iswilling, quite willing!"
"But----"
"And it cannot be said that he did not behave gallantly on Sundaynight! I am told----"
"He behaved admirably."
"And he is willing!" she flung the word at him--"quite willing tomarry me--disgraced as I am! As you have always, always hinted I am!And not out of pity, Captain Clyne. Let us be frank with one another.You were very frank with me once--more than frank." She held out herwrist, which was still faintly discoloured. "When a man does that to awoman," she said, "she either loves him, sir, or hates him."
"Yes," he said slowly--very slowly. "I see. Your mind is made up,then----"
"That I will not accept your kind offer to--pay your court to me?" sheanswered, with derision. "Certainly. I have no mind to be wooed byyou!" Again she held out her wrist. "You know the stale proverb: 'Hethat will not when he may, when he will he shall have nay!'" And shemade him a little bow, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks bright.
He turned his back on her, and stood for a moment looking from thewindow which was the nearer to the fire--the one looking over thelake. The words of her proverb--stale enough in truth--ran verysorrowfully in his ears. "He that will not when he may! He that willnot when he may!" No, he might have known that she was not one toforget. He might have known that the words he had said, and the thingsthat he had done, would rankle. And that she who had not hesitated toelope--to punish him for his neglect of her--would not hesitate topunish him for worse than neglect. He stood a long minute watching thetiny waves burst into white lines at the foot of Hayes Woods. No, shecould not forget--nor forgive. But she could act, she had acted, as ifshe had done both. She had saved his child. She had risked her lifefor it. And if she had done that with this resentment, this feeling inher heart, if she had done it, moved only by the desire to show himthat he had misjudged her--in a sense it was the nobler act, and onelike--ay, he owned it sorrowfully--like herself! At any rate, it didnot become him to cast a word of reproach at her. She had saved hischild.
He turned at length, and looked at her. He saw that her figure hadlost its elation, and her cheeks their colour. She was leaning againstthe side of the window, and looked tired and ill, and almost as shehad looked when she came into the room. His heart melted.
"I would like you to know one thing," he said, "before I go. Yourtriumph is greater, Henrietta, than you think, and your revenge morecomplete. It is no question of pity with me, but of love." He paused,and laughed awry. "The worse for me, you will say, and the better foryou. _Vae victis!_ Still, even if you hate me----"
"I did not say that I hated you!"
"You said----"
"I did not! I did not!" she repeated, with a queer little laugh. Andshe sat down on the window seat, and turned quickly with a pettishmovement, so that he could only see the side of her face. "I saidnothing of the kind."
"But----"
"I said something very different!"
"You said----"
"I said that when a man pinches a girl's wrist black and blue, andswears at her--yes, Captain Clyne," firmly, "you swore at me, andcalled me----"
"Don't!" he said.
She was leaning against the side of the window ...]
"I only said," she continued breathlessly, "that when a man does that,the woman either loves him or hates him!"
"Henrietta!"
"Captain Clyne!"
After a long pause, "I think I understand you," he said slowly, "butif you--if there were any feeling, the least feeling of that kind onyour part, you would not have forbidden me to--to think of seeking youfor my wife."
"I didn't!" she answered. "I told you that you should not pay yourcourt to me. And you shall not! You cannot," half laughing and halfcrying, "woo what's won, can you? If you still think it is worth thewinning! Only," stopping him by a gesture as he came towards her, "youare not to give me over to Mr. Sutton again, whatever I do! You mustpromise me that."
"I won't!" he said.
"You are quite sure, sir? However I behave? And even if I run awayfrom you?"
"Quite sure!"
And a few minutes later, "Poor Sutton!" he said. "We must try to makeit up to him."
She laughed.
"It is a good thing you did not set out to woo me," she answered. "Foryou would not have shone at it. Make it up to him indeed! Make it upto him! What a thing, sir, to say to--me!"
* * * * *
It was not made up to Mr. Sutton; though the best living that could beprocured by an exchange with the Bishop of Durham--and there were fatlivings in Durham in those days, and small blame if a man held two ofthem--was found for the chaplain. He married, too, a lady of thedecayed house of Conyers of Sockburn, beside which the Damers and theClynes were upstairs. And so both in his fortune and his wife's familyhe did as well--almost--as he had hoped to do. But though he acceptedhis patron's gift, he came seldom to Clyne Old Hall; and some held himungratefu
l. Moreover, a little later, when to be a radical was notcounted quite so dreadful a thing, he turned radical in all but thewhite hat. And Clyne was disappointed, but not surprised. Henrietta,however, understood. Though children running about her knees had tamedher wildness and caged her pride, she was still a woman, and thememory of a past conquest was not ungrateful. She had no desire to seethe pale replica of Mr. Pitt, but she sometimes thought of him, andalways kindly and with gratitude.
There was a third lover, of whom she never thought withoutunhappiness.
"You will never tell the children? You will never tell the children?"was her prayer to her husband when Walterson was in question.
And though he answered with gravity, "Not unless you do it again, mydear," the sting of remembrance did not cease to rankle.
Walterson was traced to Leith--and thence to Holland. There the trailwas lost, and it is believed that he did not live to return toEngland. Whether he did return or not--and Bow Street, and Mr. Bishopin particular, kept watch for him long--he never re-enteredHenrietta's life. As the memory of the French Revolution faded frommen's minds, the struggle for reform fell into more reputable and lessviolent hands. Silly and turbulent men of the type of him who hadturned the girl's young head no longer counted; or, rising to the topat moments of public excitement, vanished as quickly, and no man knewwhither.
Giles and Lunt were not taken on that Sunday night. They escaped, itwas supposed, to Scotland, by way of Patterdale and the Moors. Lessfortunate, however, than Walterson, they returned to London and fellin again with Thistlewood. They yielded to the fascination of thatremarkable and unhappy man, took part in his schemes, and were takenwith him in the loft over the stable in Cato Street, when the attemptto murder the cabinet at Lord Harrowby's house in Grosvenor Squaremiscarried. He and they got a fair trial, but little pity. And it isnot to be supposed that upon the scaffold in the Old Bailey, theythought much of the lonely house in the hollow at Troutbeck, or of thehelpless woman whom they had terrorised. To their credit, be it said,they died more worthily than they had lived; and with them came to aclose the movement which sought to reach reform by the road ofviolence, and to that end held no instruments too cheap or vile.
Tyson came out of the adventure a wiser and perhaps a better man. Foron his return from the north he found it hard to free himself from thecharge of complicity in the acts of those who had used his house; nordid he succeed until he had lain some weeks in Appleby gaol. He wouldfain have avenged himself on Bess, but for reasons to be stated, hecould not enjoy this satisfaction. And his neighbours sent him toCoventry. Had he been a strong man he might have defied them andpublic opinion. But he was only a braggart, and that which must haveembittered many, tamed him. He turned to his wife for comfort, soughthis home more than before, and gradually settled down into a tolerablecitizen and a high Tory.
Bess saved herself by her own wit and courage. The Monday's light sawher dragged to Kendal prison, where they were not so gentle with heras they had been with Henrietta. Her story went with her, and, "Theysay you stole a child," the little girl murmured, standing at her kneeand staring at her, "and 'll be hanged at the March fair."
"Not I," said Bess. "It's almost a pity, too, ain't it? There'd be afine crowd to see!"
The child's eyes sparkled.
"Yes," she said. "There'd be a crowd, too."
But Bess played a fine stroke. She sent for her rival on the Friday,and Henrietta, twenty-four hours betrothed, and very far from unhappy,took that road once more, and went to her.
"I saved you," said Bess, with coolness. "Yes, I did. Don't deny it!Now do you save me."
And Henrietta moved heaven and earth and Anthony Clyne to save her.She succeeded. Bess went abroad--to join Walterson, it was rumoured.If so, she returned without him, for on the old miser's death sheappeared on Windermere, sold Starvecrow Farm and all its belongings,and removed to the south, but to what part is not known, nor are anyparticulars of her later fortunes within reach. Some said that sheplayed a part in the great riots at Bristol twelve years later, butthe evidence is inconclusive, and dark women possessing a strain ofgipsy blood are not uncommon.
Nor are women with a sharp tongue and a warm heart. Yet when Mrs.Gilson died in the year of those very riots, and at a good age, therewas a gathering to bury her in Troutbeck graveyard as great as if shehad been a Lowther. The procession, horse and foot, was a mile long.And when those who knew her least wondered whence all these moist eyesand this flocking to do honour to a woman who had been quick of temperand rough of tongue--ay, were it to Squire Bolton of Storrs, or therich Mr. Rogers himself--there was one who came a great distance tothe burying who could have solved the riddle.
It was Henrietta.
THE END
Starvecrow Farm Page 36
