She put up her hand to his wet cheek and said, “I’m all right,” and then, “I’m sorry I made such a fool of myself.”
Anthony choked a little.
“You didn’t.”
“Oh, I did!”
She sat up and looked at him, and almost at once she knew that he was wondering whether it wouldn’t have been better to have left her in her swoon. His face was set in lines she had not seen before. He controlled his voice with an effort and said,
“Susan—”
“What is it?”
“I think—we ought to put the lamp out.”
A horror of the dark brought a little panting cry to her lips.
“Oh—no!”
“I think we ought to. You see it’s—using too much air.”
Susan hid her face against his shoulder. What was it Garry had said? Something about the long way out or the short. She pressed her mouth against Anthony’s sleeve, because she wanted to scream and it was no good screaming, because nobody would hear. She felt him hold her close and, holding her, lean sideways. There was a clicking sound, and when she opened her eyes the light in the lamp was shooting up, shooting up and falling again, whilst the black walls seemed to rock and the shadows rushed in upon the failing light. With a last shooting flame it was gone. A smooth, even darkness, as impenetrable as the coal itself, filled all the little space from end to end.
Out of the dark Anthony’s voice came quite cheerfully:
“Don’t be frightened, darling—I’ll hold on to you. It’s only I think we ought to save the air a bit, because there’s not much ventilation in this beastly hole. We can always light it again presently. You don’t mind sitting in the dark for a bit, do you? I don’t suppose it’ll be for very long.” It was astonishing how much easier it was now that the light was gone and he couldn’t see Susan’s eyes.
Susan shook her head. And then she remembered that he couldn’t see her, and said “No” with a sigh that put a leaden weight on to the word.
The little chamber was very hot. The air in it felt still and dead. She wondered just what Anthony had meant when he said that perhaps it wouldn’t be for very long. She shivered and said,
“Can’t we do anything? Can’t we call out?”
“I don’t think it would be much use. I don’t see how anyone could possibly hear us unless they were in the cellar just overhead—and if they were, we should hear them.”
Susan pressed closer to him.
“Anthony—do you think we’ve got a chance?”
“Of course we have.”
She moved impatiently.
“I don’t want fairy stories—I want what you really think.”
A tingling anguish ran over her in the moment that she waited for his answer. If he thought they had a chance, he would say so quickly, he wouldn’t hesitate or keep her waiting. It was really only a moment before he said,
“I think O’Connell’s mad. But there was another man before—there were two of them the night they knocked me out.”
“Yes—yes.”
“Well, I think the odds are that the second man’s somewhere about. He won’t want to do us in—he’ll want the swag—he isn’t in this for his health, or to score us off like O’Connell.”
“You think—”
“I think we might be able to do a deal with him. He can’t get away with the stuff while we’re here.”
Susan’s breast heaved. Words came that she hadn’t meant to say.
“He might—wait—” And there her breath failed her. She had a horrible picture of what he might find if he waited.
With a violent shudder she wrenched away from Anthony and wept. Only a few hours ago life had been so sweet, so dear. There had only been one single cloud in all her sunny sky, and now that cloud had blotted out the sun and covered the sky with a blacker darkness than night. She felt Anthony take her in his arms, and she wept there without comfort. Yet presently her weeping spent itself and she was still. She did not know that at the very height of her anguish the first spark of hope took hold upon his thought.
The chamber was small and contracted, the air was hot and dead, and time was passing. Minutes had passed—ten—fifteen—and for half that time the lamp had wasted their precious air. Yet now the dead, close atmosphere seemed no closer and no deader than before. To be able to go on breathing seemed a wonderful and a hopeful thing. It meant a respite, and it meant time. The spark of hope flickered into a pale flame.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Old Mrs. Bowyer opened her eyes. She was lying on her back with her head low and her hands folded. Her coverlet and the sheet that was turned over it were as smooth and unwrinkled as when she had herself smoothed them down before falling asleep. Out of that light sleep she wakened lightly. It was as if she had been in the next room with the door open. She had been dreaming a pleasant dream in which she walked in a field by the river and saw her children at play, threading buttercups and daisies to make garlands. The sun shone on Susie’s hair.
She opened her eyes, and felt a little bewildered. She had waked to the sound of a closing door. She lay in the dark and considered. The sound was certainly not one that had come with her out of her dream, because no orderly person would dream about hearing a door shut in an open green meadow. She lay and listened.
If the sound had been made by her own door, there would be other sounds. If Susan had come home, she would hear her moving in the next room. She lay quite still and listened, but no one moved at all. Then it came to her that the sound had come from below and not from the kitchen door, for that was towards her feet, nor from the front door, for that was away to the right of her. No, the sound had come from right underneath where the head of her bed stood hard against the wall, and that was why it had waked her. She folded back the coverlet, sat up, and struck a light. It was just half-past eleven—a most ungodly hour for anyone to be astir in Ford St. Mary.
Mrs. Bowyer got out of bed and put on the black stuff dress which she had taken off when she undressed. It did not quite cover her nightgown, so she fetched two safety pins from the patchwork cushion on her chest of drawers and pinned up the long white folds. Then she covered her unruffled hair with a cap, slid her feet into slippers of crimson wool, and put Susan’s large white shawl about her shoulders. It took her some time to dress. Her face all this while was set in the lines of a deep displeasure. She was quite sure now that she had heard the click of the door in the kitchen chimney—“the old chimley door” she called it to herself—and that meant nothing in the world but that Susan had come home “unbeknownst” and was away through the passage to Stonegate.
Mrs. Bowyer was very highly displeased. Promised, or not promised, it was no way to go on, nor no way to make a man think the more of you. Susan should ha’ known better, and if she didn’t know no better along of having been brought up by that crazy Moll of a stepmother, why then she’d got to be learned, and Susan Bowyer was the woman to learn her. She’d a piece on her tongue for Anthony too. If he didn’t know when he was risking the good name of the girl he was going to make his wife—well, he’d know a deal more about it before she’d finished what she’d got to say to him.
She took up her candle and came down the stair with a high spirit and a muffled tread. She went first into the empty living-room, and then to the kitchen, where she lighted the wall lamp. Then she opened the “chimley door” and stood looking down the dark steps and listening.
Susan Bowyer had still the keen hearing on which all the Bowyers prided themselves; she could have heard a mouse run across the far end of the passage. She heard something now, and what she heard brought a deep puzzled line to her forehead. It was the click of the panel at the Stonegate end. It puzzled her a good deal. If Susan had gone into the passage when she had heard the sound that waked her, she must have reached the other end some time ago. There would be nothing to keep her in the dark underground place. The click must mean that she was returning. The lines about her mouth relaxed. If she had not s
tayed, Susan Bowyer would not be so very angry—“though I’ll not pass it over light even so,” she said to herself.
She waited eagerly for the footsteps that ought to be coming towards her now. But there were no footsteps; a dull, unbroken silence filled the passage like stagnant air. Mrs. Bowyer felt the weight of it on her mood; her quick anger sank to a close-packed dread. She was afraid, though she would not, either now or at any time, acknowledge fear. She was afraid, but she did not herself know why. She had a sense of something that threatened Susan.
She went back into the kitchen, set her candle down on the table, and stood with her back to the open door in the chimney. She stood there for a quarter of an hour. She was still listening. A cold breath and an earthy smell came up from under the ground and through the open door. “A right-down churchyard smell,” was Mrs. Bowyer’s thought. It seemed to sweep between her and Susan. She took up her candle with a steady hand, turned and went through the door, and closed it behind her, all but an inch-wide chink. It was somehow pleasant to look back and see the lamplight.
When she reached the fork, she looked sharply to the left, but did not stop. She held up her skirts with one hand and her candle with the other, and when she came to the panel which carried Patience Pleydell’s portrait she opened it with a firm touch and stepped out into the library.
A lamp burned on the table, but the room was empty. Mrs. Bowyer shut the panel behind her. It was midnight, and the lamp stood burning in an empty room. Where were those whom it should have lighted? She stood there with the dread heavy at her heart and the minutes ticking away on the old clock with the silver face. The dread became more than she could carry in silence. A sort of groan passed her lips. The candle-flame shook with her shaking hand. With an effort that took all her strength she forced herself to move and break the spell. “If I’d ha’ stood another moment, I’d ha’ dropped,” she said half aloud; and then, “Lord ha’ mercy, where’s my maid?” And with that she came to the library door and opened it.
The hall was dark. It was like her fear. Why was the hall dark if Susan was here? Why had Susan gone into the darkness? Where was she? Mrs. Bowyer thought the dark an evil sign. And now her sharpened fear drove her. She had to find Susan wherever she was. She opened three doors in succession, only to see black, empty rooms. Then she took her skirts in her hand again and began to climb the stair.
She climbed slowly, holding on to the oak rail. Every now and then she stopped and took her breath. The last time she had come up this stair it was to sit for an hour at Sir Jervis’ side before he passed. The first time—no, she couldn’t remember the first time; it lay so far back behind the barrier which separates the child who thinks and remembers from the infant whose days are just a pleasant coloured pattern that shapes itself and is gone. Between the first time and the last there lay nearly a century.
She passed the turn of the stair and stood for a while looking down into the black hall. There was a strange feeling about the house to-night. It was hushed and silent, but it was not asleep. It made her think of times when she had laid awake as a child and been afraid to move, or stir, or even breathe, for fear of something that was hidden in the darkness. She thought that was how the house was to-night—keeping terribly still, and holding its breath.
The sound at the door did not take her unawares. It was just as if she was expecting it—the faint sound of a door opening and closing again—and as she heard it old Susan Bowyer turned her head a little to the right and blew out the flame of her candle as composedly as if she had just said her prayers and made ready for bed. The end of the wick glowed, and she pinched it out with a dexterous thumb and forefinger. Then she stood listening. Someone had come into the glazed passage through the door that opened from the village street. Someone was coming into the hall through the second door, and there was no sound of a turning key. The doors had not been locked—had not been locked?—or had been unlocked?
Mrs. Bowyer could see the hall door moving; because outside darkness is never quite so dense as the darkness in a house, and the door looked blacker than the passage beyond it. She could see the black door move, but she could not see who came through it; only she knew that someone had come through it, because there was a sound of stealthy movement. She stood quite still. The person who was moving must know the house. The faint sound passed the library door and was cut short by another sound, the falling to of the baize door that led to the kitchen wing.
Mrs. Bowyer began to come down the stairs with surprising agility. She left her useless candlestick on one of the oak steps and held up her skirts with both hands. What did she want with a light, when all was said and done? There wasn’t anywhere in all the house that she couldn’t have walked blindfold either by night or day and never have to stop to think whether she might stumble.
She went through the swing door with just enough of a pause to make sure that there was no one in the dark on the other side of it. The passage had an empty feeling, but, as Susan had done before, she stopped just short of the housekeeper’s room, and heard voices coming from the other side of the door; only where Susan had found the door open, Mrs. Bowyer found it closed. She came up to it cautiously and listened. The door was closed, but not latched. The latch had a trick of slipping these fifty years.
Mrs. Bowyer pushed the door with the tip of one finger. It moved about half an inch, and she could see that there was some sort of light in the room beyond—dim lamp or lantern light, or perhaps a candle like her own. There were two voices in the lighted room, and one of them she knew. There was a man talking to a woman, and a woman answering a man.
Mrs. Bowyer let go of her skirts, dratted her trembling knees, and held on, with one hand at the handle of the door and the other at the jamb. The man was speaking now. Even in a whisper, there was something precise about the way in which he said,
“I entirely fail to see why he should think himself in a position to give me orders.”
“Oh, but you ought not to have come in!” The woman’s voice shook and was very much afraid.
“Where is he?” said the man contemptuously.
“He went down—oh, a long time ago. I don’t know what is happening. Oh, I wish he’d come back!”
“Then I’m going down too.”
Mrs. Bowyer’s knees stopped trembling.
There was a wailing cry of “Oh, don’t leave me!”
Mrs. Bowyer shut the door gently but firmly upon the man’s reply and slid home the stout bolt which was just above the lock. Thirty years before there had been a burglary scare in the neighbourhood, and Sir Jervis had had a bolt fixed on the outside of every door on the ground floor. The bolt creaked a little. She picked up her skirts and ran to the corner, round it, and up to the second door. She reached it and slipped the bolt just as the handle of the first door was turned and shaken.
Mrs. Bowyer stood back breathing rather quickly. “Won’t break down that door in a hurry, the rumbustious robber,” she said to herself. “No one won’t break down that door in a hurry, let alone not daring to make a noise.” She heard the second handle tried, and chuckled. The window opening into a small closed courtyard did not trouble her at all. The robber was caught, safe and sure, and there he could stay until she found her maid and Anthony Colstone. The robber was Anthony Colstone’s affair, and not hers. “Both of ’em’s his affair if it comes to that—sure and certain they are. And oh, Lord help us, where’s my maid?”
She was standing away from the bolted door, her mind so much taken up that it was only when she turned that she became aware of the door at the head of the cellar steps standing ajar and a faint glow of light coming through the opening. It should have been locked and bolted at this hour of the night. She turned from the vague sounds which came from the housekeeper’s room and opened the cellar door. The steps ran down into the light—not a bright light, but just enough to make a world of shadows. The dark lay on the steps like splashes of ink.
Mrs. Bowyer blinked once or twice as she descended,
treading softly. When she was still three or four steps from the bottom she stood still. The place was the central hall into which other cellars opened. A lantern stood on the floor a little to the right of where the steps came down. There was an old mowing machine beside it, and a broken ladder. The light fell on a packing-case or two and some sacks. The light fell on a man lying face downwards in the middle of the stone floor, his arms thrown wide. His face was hidden, but Susan Bowyer knew at once that this was a stranger whom she had never seen before. The black sleek hair, the curve of the ear, the long delicate hands were all quite strange to her and to Ford St. Mary. She gazed at him without emotion. It was plain that a judgment had overtaken him, and she considered it extremely proper that, as she herself would have put it, “such should be the case.”
She was about to turn and mount the steps again in order to rouse Lane, when the man groaned.
CHAPTER FORTY
Afterwards Mrs. Bowyer said that her flesh “creepst” all over. At the time she remained commendably calm. The man obviously wasn’t dead. If he wasn’t dead, how nearly dead was he, and could he do anyone a mischief, or couldn’t he?
The groan was a low one, but somehow or other it did not sound to Susan Bowyer like the groan of a dying man. “’Tis more like as if he was in mortal pain and not wanting nobody to know,” she said to herself. And as she said it, the man groaned again, and she saw the hand that was nearest her contract as if in some spasm of agony. The deep groan and the fingers that made as if they would dig themselves into the unyielding stone meant pain.
Mrs. Bowyer came down another step. A judgment was a judgment, but she had nursed too many sick people to be able to stand aloof when pain called to her. As she moved, the man moved too. His hands beat the stone. He raised his head with a choking sob. Mrs. Bowyer thought that he said “Susan,” but he didn’t say it to her. He got up on his knees and showed a white face streaming with sweat, and the eyes of a man in torment. He took his head in his hands and swayed, and groaned, and muttered. He certainly did not see the cellar or old Susan Bowyer standing at the bottom of the steps; he saw only the wolves that were tearing him, and would tear him for ever. He said, “What’s the use? Susan—what’s the use? Susan—Susan! What’s the use, I say? I can’t reach you—I can’t touch you, but you’re mine—you’ve always been mine—you don’t know it, but you’re mine—always.”
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