Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  And Mr. Sutton let himself be bidden. But he was right. Every minute which passed made the task before him more difficult. When at last Captain Clyne awoke, a few minutes after eight o’clock, and startled, brought his scattered senses to a focus, he saw sitting opposite him a man who hid his face in his hands, and shivered.

  Clyne rose.

  “Man, man!” he said. “What is it? Have you bad news?”

  But the chaplain could not speak. He could only shake his head.

  “They have not — not found — —”

  Clyne could not finish the sentence. He turned away, and with a trembling hand snuffed a candle — that his face might be hidden.

  The chaplain shook his head.

  “No, no!” he said. “No!”

  “But it is — it’s bad news?”

  “Yes. She’s — she’s gone! She’s disappeared!”

  Clyne dropped the snuffers on the table.

  “Gone?” he muttered. “Who? Miss Damer?”

  “Yes. She left the house this afternoon, and has not returned. It was my fault! My fault!” poor Mr. Sutton continued, in a tone of the deepest abasement. And with his face hidden he bowed himself to and fro like a man in pain. “They asked me to follow her, and I would not! I would not — out of pride!”

  “And she has not returned?” Clyne asked, in an odd tone.

  “She has not returned — God forgive me!”

  Clyne stared at the flame of the nearest candle. But he saw, not the flame, but Henrietta; as he had seen her the morning he turned his back on her, and left her standing alone on the road above the lake. Her slender figure under the falling autumn leaves rose before him; and he knew that he would never forgive himself. By some twist of the mind her fate seemed the direct outcome of that moment, of that desertion, of that cruel, that heartless abandonment. The after-events, save so far as they proved her more sinned against than sinning, vanished. He had been her sole dependence, her one protector, the only being to whom she could turn. And he had abandoned her heartlessly; and this — this unknown and dreadful fate — was the result. Her face rose before him, now smiling and defiant, now pale and drawn; and the piled-up glory of her hair. And he remembered — too late, alas, too late — that she had been of his blood and his kin; and that he had first neglected her, and later when his mistake bred its natural result in her act of folly, he had deserted and punished her.

  Remorse is the very shirt of Nessus. It is of all mental pains the worst. It seizes upon the whole mind; it shuts out every prospect. It cries into the ear with every slow tick of the clock, the truth that that which had once been so easy can never be done now! That reparation, that kind word, that act of care, of thoughtfulness, of pardon — never, never now! And once so easy! So easy!

  For he knew now that he had loved the girl; and that he had thrown away that which might have been the happiness of his life. He knew now that only pride had blinded him, giving the name of pity to that which was love — or so near to love that it was impossible to say where one ended and the other began. He thought of her courage and her pride; and then of the womanliness that, responding to the first touch of gentleness on his side, had wept for his child. And how he had wronged her from the first days of slighting courtship! how he had misunderstood her, and then mistrusted and maligned her — he, the only one to whom she could turn for help, or whom she could trust in a land of strangers — until it had come to this! It had come to this.

  Oh, his poor girl! His poor girl!

  A groan, bitter and irrepressible, broke from him. The man stood stripped of the trappings of prejudice; he saw himself as he was, and the girl as she was, a creature of youth and spirit and impulse. And he was ashamed to the depths of his soul.

  At last, “What time did she go out?” he muttered.

  The chaplain roused himself with a shiver and told him.

  “Then she has been missing five hours?” There was a sudden hardening in his tone. “You have done something, I suppose? Tell me, man, that you have done something!”

  The chaplain told him what was being done. And the mere statement gave comfort. Hearing that Mrs. Gilson had been the last to speak to her, Clyne said he would see the landlady. And the two went out of the room.

  In the passage a figure rose before them and fled with a kind of bleating cry. It was Modest Ann, who had been sitting in the dark with her apron over her head. She was gone before they were sure who it was. And they thought nothing of the incident, if they noticed it.

  Downstairs they found no news and no comfort; but much coming and going. For presently the first party returned from its quest, and finding that nothing had been discovered, set forth again in a new direction. And by-and-by another returned, and standing ate something, and went out again, reinforced by Clyne himself. And so began a night of which the memory endured in the inn for a generation. Few slept, and those in chairs, ready to start up at the first alarm. The tap ran free for all; and in the coffee-room the table was set and set again. The Sunday’s joints — for the next day was Sunday — were cooked and cold, and half-eaten before the morning broke; and before breakfast the larder of the Salutation at Ambleside was laid under contribution. At intervals, those who dozed were aware of Nadin’s tall, bulky presence as he entered shaking the rime from his long horseman’s coat and calling for brandy; or of Bishop, who went and came all night, but in a frame of mind so humble and downcast that men scarcely knew him. And now and again a fresh band of searchers tramped in one behind the other, passed the news by a single shake of the head, and crowding to the table ate and drank before they turned to again — to visit a more distant, and yet a more distant part.

  Even from the mind of the father, the boy’s loss seemed partly effaced by this later calamity. The mystery was so much the deeper: the riddle the more perplexing. The girl had gone out on foot in the full light of a clear afternoon; and within a few hundred yards of the place to which they had traced the boy, she had vanished as if she had never been. Clyne knew from her own lips that Walterson was somewhere within reach. But this did not help much, since no one could hit on the place. And various were the suggestions, and many and strange the solutions proposed. Every poacher and every ne’er-do-well was visited and examined, every house was canvassed, every man who had ever said aught that could be held to savour of radical doctrine, was considered. As the search spread to a wider and yet wider area, the alarm went with it, and new helpers arrived, men on horseback and men on foot. And all through the long winter’s night the house hummed; and the lights of the inn shone on the water as brightly and persistently as the stars that in the solemn firmament wheeled and marched.

  But lamps and stars were alike extinguished, and the late dawn was filtering through the casements on jaded faces and pale looks, when the first gleam of encouragement showed itself. Clyne had been out for some hours, and on his return had paused at the door of the snuggery to swallow the cup of hot coffee, which the landlady pressed upon him. Nadin was still out, but Bishop was there and the chaplain, and two or three yeomen and peasants. In all hearts hope had by this time given way to dejection; and dejection was fast yielding to despair. The party stood, here and there, for the most part silent, or dropped now and again a despondent word.

  Suddenly Modest Ann appeared among them, with her head shrouded in her apron. And, “I can’t bear it! I can’t bear it!” the woman cried hysterically. “I must speak!”

  A thrill of amazement ran through the group. They straightened themselves.

  “If you know anything, speak by all means!” Clyne said, for surprise tied Mrs. Gilson’s tongue. “Do you know where the lady is?”

  “No! no!”

  “Did she tell you anything?”

  “Nothing! nothing!” the woman answered, sobbing wildly, and still holding the apron drawn tightly over her face. “Missus, don’t kill me! She told me naught! Naught! But — —”

  “Well — what? What?”

  “There was a letter I gave her so
me time ago — before — oh, dear! — before the rumpus was, and she was sent to Kendall! And I’m thinking,” sob, sob, “you’d maybe know something from the person who gave it me.”

  “That’s it,” said Bishop coolly. “You’re a sensible woman. Who was it?”

  “That girl — of Hinkson’s,” she sobbed.

  “Bess Hinkson!” Mrs. Gilson ejaculated.

  “Ay, sure! Oh, dear! oh, dear! Bess said that she had it from a man on the road.”

  “And that may be so, or it may not,” Bishop answered, with quiet dryness. He was in his element again. And then in a lower tone, “We’re on it now,” he muttered, “or I am mistaken. I’ve seen the young lady near Hinkson’s once or twice. And it was near there I lost her. The house has been visited, of course; it was one of the first visited. But we’d no suspicion then, and now we have. Which makes a difference.”

  “You’re going there?”

  “Straight, sir, without the loss of a minute!”

  Clyne’s eyes sparkled. And tired as they were, the men answered to the call. Ten minutes before, they had crawled in, the picture of fatigue. Now, as they crossed the pastures above the inn, and plunged into the little wood in which Henrietta had baffled Bishop, they clutched their cudgels with as much energy as if the chase were but opening. It mattered not that some wore the high-collared coats of the day, and two waistcoats under them, and had watches in their fobs; and that others tramped in smock frocks drawn over their fustian shorts. The same indignation armed all, great and small, rich and poor; and in a wonderfully short space of time they were at the gate of Starvecrow Farm.

  The house that, viewed at its best, had a bald and melancholy aspect, wore a villainous look now — perched up there in bare, lowering ugliness, with its blind gable squinting through the ragged fir-trees.

  Bishop left a man in the road, and sent two to the rear of the crazy, ruinous outbuildings which clung to the slope. With Clyne and the other three he passed round the corner of the house, stepped to the door and knocked. The sun’s first rays were striking the higher hills, westward of the lake, as the party, with stern faces, awaited the answer. But the lake, with its holms, and the valley and all the lower spurs, lay grey and still and dreary in the grip of cold. The note of melancholy went to the heart of one as he looked, and filled it with remorse.

  “Too late,” it seemed to say, “too late!”

  For a time no one came. And Bishop knocked again, and more imperiously; first sending a man to the lower end of the ragged garden to be on the look-out. He knocked a third time. At last a shuffling of feet was heard approaching the door, and a moment later old Hinkson opened it. He looked, as he stood blinking in the daylight, more frowsy and unkempt and to be avoided than usual. But — they noted with disappointment that the door was neither locked nor bolted; so that had they thought of it they might have entered at will!

  “What is’t?” he drawled, peering at them. “Why did you na’ come in?”

  Bishop pushed in without a word. The others followed. A glance sufficed to discover all that the kitchen contained; and Bishop, deaf to the old man’s remonstrances, led the way straight up the dark, close staircase. But though they explored without ceremony all the rooms above, and knocked, and called, and sounded, and listened, they stumbled down again, baffled.

  “Where’s your daughter?” Bishop asked sternly.

  “She was here ten minutes agone,” the old man answered. Perhaps because the day was young he showed rather more sense than usual. But his eyes were full of spite.

  “Here, was she?”

  “Ay.”

  “And where’s she now?”

  “She’s gone to t’ doctor’s. She be nursing there. They’ve no lass.”

  “Nursing! Who’s she nursing?” incredulously.

  The old man grinned at the ignorance of the question.

  “The wumman and the babby,” he said.

  “At Tyson’s?”

  “Ay, ay.”

  “The house in the hollow?”

  “That be it.”

  While they were talking thus, others had searched the crazy outhouses, but to no better purpose. And presently they all assembled in the road outside the gate.

  “Where’s your dog, old lad?” asked one of the dalesmen.

  The miser had shuffled after them, holding out his hand and begging of them.

  “At the doctor’s,” he answered. “Her be fearsome and begged it. Ye’ll give an old man something?” he added, whining. “Ye’ll give something?”

  “Off! Off you go, my lad!” Bishop cried. “We’ve done with you. If you’re not a rascal ’tis hard on you, for you look one!” And when the old skinflint had crawled back under the fir-trees, “Worst is, sir,” he continued, with a grave face, “it’s all true. Tyson’s away in the north — with a brother or something of that kind — so I hear. And his missus had a baby this ten days gone or more. He’s a rough tyke, but he’s above this sort of thing, I take it. Still, we’ll go and question the girl. We may get something from her.”

  And they trooped off along the road in twos and threes, and turning the corner saw Tyson’s house, below them — so far below them that it had, as always, the look of a toy house on a toy meadow at the bottom of a green bowl. Below the house the little rivulet that rose beside it bisected the meadow, until at the end of the open it lost itself in the narrow wooded gorge, through which it sprang in unseen waterfalls to join the lake below.

  They descended the slope to the house; sharp-eyed but saying little. A trifle to one side of the door, under a window, a dog was kenneled. It leapt out barking; but seeing so many persons it slunk in again and lay growling.. A moment and the door was opened and Bess showed herself. She looked astonished, but not in any way frightened.

  “Eh, masters!” she said. “What is it? Are you come after the young lady again?”

  “Ay,” Bishop answered. “We are. We want to know where you got the letter you gave Ann at the inn — to give to her?”

  Perhaps Bess looked for the question and was prepared. At any rate, she betrayed no sign of confusion.

  “Well,” she said, “I can tell you what he was like that gave it me.”

  “A man gave it you?”

  “Ay, and a shilling. And,” smiling broadly, “he’d have given me something else if I’d let him.”

  “A kiss, I bet!” said Bishop.

  “Ay, it was. But I said that’d be another shilling.”

  Clyne groaned.

  “For God’s sake,” he said, “come to the point. Time’s everything.”

  Bishop shrugged his shoulders.

  “Where did you see him, my girl?” he asked.

  “By the gate of the coppice as I was bringing the milk,” she answered frankly. “‘I’m her Joe,’ he said. ‘And if you’ll hand her this and keep mum, here’s a shilling for you.’ And — —”

  “Very good,” said Bishop. “And what was he like?”

  With much cunning she described Walterson, and Bishop acknowledged the likeness. “It’s our man!” he said, slapping his boot with his loaded whip. “And now, my dear, which way did he go?”

  But she explained that she had met him by the gate — he was a stranger — and she had left him in the same place.

  “And you can’t say which way he went?”

  “No,” she answered. “Nor yet which way he came. I looked back to see, to tell the truth,” frankly. “But he had not moved, and he did not move until I was out of sight. And I never saw him again. The boy had not been stolen then,” she continued, “and I thought little of it.”

  “You should have told,” Bishop answered, eyeing her severely. “Another time, my lass, you’ll get into trouble.” And then suddenly, “Here, can we come in?”

  She threw the door wide with a movement that disarmed suspicion.

  “To be sure,” she said. “And welcome, so as you don’t make a noise to waken the mistress.”

  But when they stood in the kitchen it
wore an aspect so neat and orderly that they were ashamed of their suspicions. The fire burned cheerfully on the wide hearth, and a wooden tray set roughly, but cleanly, stood on the corner of the long, polished table. The door of the shady dairy stood open, and afforded a glimpse of the great leaden milk-pans, and the row of shining pails.

  “The mistress is just overhead,” she said. “So you’ll not make much noise, if you please.”

  “We’ll make none,” said Bishop. “We’ve learned what we want.” And he turned to go out.

  All had not entered. Those who had, nodded, turned with gloomy faces, and followed him out. The dog, lurking at the back of its kennel, was still growling.

  “I’d be afeared to sleep here without him,” Bess volunteered.

  “Ay, ay.”

  “He’s better ‘n two men.”

  “Ay?”

  They looked at the dog, and some one bade her good-day. And one by one the little troop turned and trailed despondently from the house, Clyne with his chin sunk on his breast, Bishop in a brown study, the other men staring blankly before them. Half-way up the ascent to the road Clyne stopped and looked back. His face was troubled.

  “I thought — —” he began. And then he stopped and listened, frowning.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked up. “You didn’t hear anything?”

  Bishop and the men said that they had not heard anything. They listened. They all listened. And all said that they heard nothing.

  “It was fancy, I suppose,” Clyne muttered, passing his hand over his eyes. And he shook his head as if to shake off some painful impression.

  But before he reached the road he paused once again and listened. And his face was haggard and lined with trouble.

  It occurred to no one that Bess had been too civil. To no one. For shrewd Mrs. Gilson was not with them.

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  THE SMUGGLERS’ OVEN

  Henrietta crouched beside the lamp, lulling the child from time to time with a murmured word. She held the boy, whom she had come to save, tight in her arms; and the thought that she held him was bliss to her, though poisoned bliss. Whatever happened he would learn that she had reached the child. He would know — even if the worst came — what she had done for him. But the worst must not come. Were she once in the open under the stars, how quickly could she flee down the road with this light burden in her arms — down the road until she saw the star-sprinkled lake spread below her! In twenty minutes, were she outside, she might be safe. In twenty minutes, only twenty minutes, she might place the child in his arms, she might read the joy in his eyes, and hear words — ah, so unlike those which she had heard from him!