“Thank goodness, there aren’t any stairs! They sound as if they were drunk. Drunken men won’t try and climb ladders. At least”—Mally gasped—“At least I—I shouldn’t think they would. Oh, don’t let them—don’t let them—don’t let them!”
She heard their footsteps go into the room where she had been. She tried to remember whether she had left anything there. The papers had gone back into her pocket. She had left her bundle just by the foot of the ladder. They’d find it in a minute if they looked.
“Don’t let them look. Please, please don’t let them look. It’s dark—it’s getting darker every minute. They needn’t see it—they really, really needn’t see it. Oh, please don’t let them!”
Mally did not say these things out loud, but she said them very fervently in her own mind. She stood with her hands clenched under her chin, and her lips moved stiffly without making any sound. She could hear a match struck. She could hear the sacks being dragged about. She could hear the men’s voices, but not what they were saying. The smell of coarse tobacco floated up to her.
After a while the tension relaxed. Mally was a very resilient creature. She passed quickly from an extremity of terror lest the men should come upstairs to a cheerful conviction that they would not come upstairs. She gave herself a little shake and tiptoed back to the window from which she could see that one friendly spark of light. Presently the men would go to sleep, and she would crawl down the ladder and get away. Meanwhile, lunch-time and tea-time both being past, she ate all the rest of her chocolate and felt better.
It was a long, long, weary wait. The last faint gleams of daylight followed the sun, and a very black darkness came down upon the dusk and blotted it out. It got colder and colder and colder. The men downstairs talked intermittently. As a matter of fact, they were playing cards by the light of a filched candle-end, though Mally was not to know that. Presently they quarrelled, and Mally felt terror come leaping back at the sound of their raucous shouts.
At long, long last there was silence.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Whilst Mally was sleeping the dark morning hours away on a pile of sacks in the back room of an empty house, Ethan Messenger was having breakfast with the younger of his two aunts.
Some fifty-five years before, Ethan’s grandmother, enraptured with her twin daughters, had cast about her for names which should express her emotions. She considered her ultimate choice of Serena and Angela “very sweet indeed.” Angel Messenger; Serene Messenger—what could be more beautiful and inspiring? Most of her friends and relatives made appropriate response with, “What, indeed?” Only her mother-in-law, a tough old lady who would have liked one at least of the children to be named Martha after herself, had something unpleasant to say:
“Angela—Serena. H’m, my dear Annie, the Messenger women are apt to be plain, and I’d advise you to give the girls good plain names that won’t shame them. If Martha’s good enough for me, and Annie for you, I should have thought it might be good enough for the next generation.”
Ethan’s grandmother was a gentle creature and an obstinate. She said nothing, but she pressed her lips together; and at the font the babies received the names which she had meant them to receive.
Angela and Serena were plain babies, plain children, plain young girls. Now, at fifty-five, they were no plainer than a great many other people, and every one they knew had got used to their names.
On this snowy morning Miss Serena had gone to town, and Miss Angela was giving Ethan his breakfast and hearing in full detail all about last night’s ball at Curston.
“It must have been quite a sight. Of course, dear boy, Lady Mooring asked us both; though I suppose she knew that we should not come. At least she would have known that Serena would not come. No one could possibly expect your Aunt Serena to have time for balls—I’m sure the number of committee meetings she attends is quite bewildering. But I sometimes think that perhaps it was rather a mistake—for me, I mean, to give up society in the way I did.”
Ethan looked kindly at his little aunt. She was small, and peaked of feature, with a good deal of wispy hair that had once been monotonously flaxen and was now a yellowish gray. The tip of her nose was always a little pink, and she had a habit of shutting first one eye and then the other, in order to look sideways at it, so that she might see just how pink it was. If it was very pink, she felt depressed; if the light flattered it, her spirits rose and she was capable of mild coquetry. Her small gray eyes were kind, and her smile, when not worried, very sweet indeed.
“Why did you give up society?” asked Ethan.
“Oh, I don’t know. Serena didn’t care for it. But then, of course, she has all those committees. I can’t think how she remembers which is which—but she’s so strong-minded. I did like going out. Only there was the war, and of course we’re not as well off as we used to be.”
“What committee is it to-day?”
“My dear boy, I’m not sure. I think it’s the N.Z.U.K., or else the P.S.T.W.—or perhaps both. Yes, I think she’s going to two at least, because it’s the second one that may make her miss the last train, in which case Margaret Gooding will put her up. It’s so tiresome all our trains being so early. But if she isn’t in by half-past ten, I always know she isn’t coming. It used to worry me, but I’ve got accustomed to it. Your Aunt Serena is so strong-minded.”
“Oh, but Aunt Angel, I didn’t know you were going to be all by yourself to-night, or I wouldn’t have said I’d dine with the Holmeses. Look here, let me ring Mrs. Holmes up. She’d be delighted to have you too—I’m sure she would.”
Miss Angela flushed.
“Dear boy! Oh, no—I couldn’t. Why, I haven’t got a dress I can dine out in.”
Ethan grinned.
“Mrs. Holmes wouldn’t know what you had on. They all rag her about her own clothes, and she only laughs.”
Miss Angela looked at the tip of her nose, and brightened.
“I was at her wedding,” she said in a pleased, reminiscent voice. “She was a fine, fresh-colored girl, but no beauty. And if you’ll believe me, she came up the aisle with her wreath crooked and her veil all over one shoulder. Well, it’s turned out very happily in spite of Mr. Holmes being twenty years older and never going anywhere—like me.”
“Come to the Holmeses.”
“No, no, I’d rather not. I feel it’s rather dreadful of me, but in a way—if you understand what I mean—I quite enjoy an evening to myself. Serena’s so political, you know, and she likes me to try and keep up with her. And of course I can’t play the piano when she’s busy with her reports. And she doesn’t really approve of novels. So to-night I thought I’d go through all my old songs. And I’ve got a novel—it’s—it’s rather modern, I’m afraid, and——” Miss Angela hesitated and lowered her voice. “My dear boy, now I wonder—I mean there’s something I should like to ask you.”
Ethan had visions of being asked to explain the “modern” novel. He blenched. But Miss Angela went on hurriedly:
“You go about so much, I thought I could ask you. It—it’s rather delicate of course.”
He wondered what on earth was coming.
“You see, I can’t ask Serena, and I don’t like to ask any one else; but I thought that you——” She dropped her voice still lower. “It’s about my hair.”
“Your hair?”
“S’sh! Grace doesn’t listen at doors, but she might be passing.”
“But—your hair?”
“S’sh. Yes, whether I should shingle it.” This in the very smallest possible whisper. “Oh, dear boy, what d’you think? Could I?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Ethan looked at the wispy ends of hair, the jutting hairpins, and tried to picture Aunt Angel with a smooth, neat head, and some little curls over her ears. (Miss Mally Lee wore her hair that way.)
“I don’t see why not,” he repeated, and was rewarded with a rapturous smile.
“Don’t you let Aunt Serena bully you. You have it
off if you want to. Look here, I’ll tell you what, you go and pin it up in what’s-his-names at the sides, and we’ll see what it looks like. And if you like it, I’ll run you into Guildford to-morrow, and you shall have it off.”
“Oh, dear boy! Oh, I couldn’t!” Miss Angela was very much flushed. She stole a look at her nose, and felt discouraged. “Oh, no, I couldn’t really.”
Ethan supplied suitable encouragement. He spent the entire day in being nice to his Aunt Angel, of whom he was really very fond. They walked in the snow, and Miss Angela found occasion to visit most of the shops. There was a time-honored formula to which Ethan was so used that it no longer made him smile: “My dear boy, I think I really must go in here—if you wouldn’t mind too much.” And once in, a pleasant interchange of compliments would follow: “I see you’ve got your nephew with you again, miss—and I hope in good health,” whereupon Miss Angela would become pleasantly fluttered and turn to Ethan with a “Mrs. Jones, whom you will remember,” or “Miss Wright, whom I’m sure you haven’t forgotten.”
Once, Miss Serena, loud-voiced and aggressive, had taken it upon herself to tell her sister roundly that no young man could be expected to put up with being dragged round all the shops in a one-horse place, tied to an old maid’s apron-strings. Miss Angela looked struck to the heart, and Ethan had a really satisfying row with his Aunt Serena.
After tea all the old songs were produced, and he listened to Miss Angela enjoying herself very much in a faint, small voice over such classics as “Whisper and I shall hear,” “Pray, Sweet, for me,” and “The Lost Chord.” He even joined in the refrains, deriving a special pleasure from “Whisper, and I shall hear,” delivered in a stentorian roar which the lady of the ballad could certainly not have avoided hearing.
When he had departed for dinner at Menden, Miss Angela felt that she had the most delightful day to look back upon and a pleasant evening still in store. Her conscience pricked her a little as she reflected that the house did seem more peaceful when Serena wasn’t there, and she reminded herself instantly of how clever, how energetic, and how admirable in every way Serena really was.
She had her supper on a tray by the drawing-room fire, a thing which always made her feel rather dissipated, and then she read the “modern” novel until close on ten o’clock, when she turned the lamp down and went up to her room. Grace had retired half an hour ago, and somehow Miss Angela never cared to stay alone on the ground floor for very long.
She went up to her room, put on a dressing-gown, and began to try experiments with her hair, pinning it so as to get the effect of its being cut short. Presently she looked at her watch. Serena could not be coming back, or she would have been here by now.
With trembling fingers Miss Angela took from the very back of her drawer an aged pair of curling tongs and held them over the lamp. They got very black, and they did not get very hot; but in the end she succeeded in curling the side bits of her hair and peered timidly at the result. As she stood there, her eyes bright and rather alarmed, she bore an extraordinary resemblance to a mouse just peeping from a hole, its whiskers all a-tremble lest the cat should be about.
Miss Angela touched the little gray curls with a nervous finger. Did they make her nose look pinker, or did they not? Was it really so very pink? She shut her left eye and looked sideways at it with her right. It did seem pink—yes, it really did. And perhaps the curls were too juvenile. She opened the left eye and shut the right one. They might be juvenile, but she did think that they were becoming. She touched the curls again, a little more hopefully this time; and as she did so, she heard the click of the gate, and footsteps coming slowly up to the front door. Her heart gave a terrified jump.
“Serena! Oh, dear—and my hair like this! Oh dear!”
She ran to the door and locked it, then to the window and raised the sash with trembling hands.
Serena was knocking. Miss Angela leaned from the window and called to her in a soft, breathless voice:
“The key is under the mat. And there’s coffee on the stove, and plenty of hot water if you want a bath. The dear boy’s not in yet. I—I won’t come down. Good-night, dear.”
She shut the window.
CHAPTER XXIX
Mally had lost count of time; she had no idea how long it was since she had slipped down the ladder and fled, clasping her bundle, from the dark, closed-in place which was no longer a shelter. The sound of horrible heavy breathing seemed to follow her, and she ran from it until she pulled up gasping and could run no more.
It was after that she lost count of time. There was a cottage where a woman talked to her from the window, but wouldn’t open the door. It was the woman who told her that there were two Miss Messengers living in Weyford, and that Weyford was “just a piece along the road.”
It was a long piece, or else she had missed her way. She began to have the feeling that she was being blown along by the wind like a leaf, and that presently, like a leaf, she would be all dry and withered and brown. Once she slipped into something like a dream, and woke from it to find herself leaning up against a thorny hedge.
It was the pricking of the thorns that waked her, and it was soon after that she met a vaguely strolling couple with arms entwined. They told her that the Miss Messengers’ house was right in Weyford High Street—“third house after you pass the church, and you can’t miss it, because it stands back from the road like.”
Mally felt curiously comforted by the confident way in which the young man asserted that she could not miss the house. It was the third house after the church, on the left. It had a white gate. She couldn’t miss it. She went on saying these things over and over to herself as she struggled along that last half-mile into Weyford. She went on because she had to go on—and for other reasons.
Presently the darkness was pricked with little points of light. If Mally had still been capable of emotion, the first lamp-post in Weyford would have brought tears to her eyes. She found herself leaning against it, touching it almost incredulously. And standing there, she could see, just ahead, the square, black tower of Weyford Church. Three doors beyond the church a white gate. She couldn’t miss it. She went on, and came very slowly past the church, holding to the low stone wall which shut it in.
Where the wall ended there was a lane, and then a square house, black with ivy, and next to it a little dumpy, low cottage with shuttered windows flush with the pavement. Mally went past blind shutters, and saw a white gate and a flagged path that ran back to a little white house. “It stands back from the road—you can’t miss it.” She hadn’t missed it.
She lifted the latch and went up the flagged path to the front door. It was all like the end of a dream. The house was to be found, and she had found it. Nothing felt real except the cold—and it was very cold.
She put up her hand and knocked on the door, and immediately there was a sound overhead. A window opened above her on the left, and a fluttered, anxious voice called down to her in a whisper:
“The key is under the mat. And there’s coffee on the stove, and plenty of hot water if you want a bath. The dear boy’s not in yet. I—I won’t come down. Good-night, dear.”
The window was shut.
Mally stood leaning against the door. Her hand had slipped from the ice-cold knocker to the smooth painted panel below it. It rested there, open, all her weight upon it. She felt very odd, very detached, as if this were happening to somebody else, some one in a fairy tale. It wasn’t Cinderella now, but Red Riding-hood. “Lift up the latch and the bobbin will fall”—yes, that was how it went—“Lift up the latch and the bobbin will fall”—“The key is under the mat.”
She stooped down, turned up the mat, and picked up the key. It moved in the lock without a sound. The door swung in, and Mally came into a little square hall lighted by an oil-lamp hung from the ceiling by a brass chain. She shut the door, and felt a blessed warmth and stillness. On the left a half-open door showed a dimly lighted room. On the right there was an oak chest on which were set t
wo bedroom candlesticks. The passage ran right through the house, with the stairs going up on the left beyond the half-lit room.
Mally put down her bundle and lighted one of the candles. The voice had said “coffee on the stove.” She went down the passage and found the kitchen at the end of it, neat as a new pin and warm with a warmth which she had almost forgotten. The fire was not quite out, and the coffee was in a double saucepan on the hot-plate. At one end of the kitchen table there was a tray with a home-made cake, two cups, an egg on a plate, and a spirit-lamp on which stood a saucepan half full of water. It was exactly like the best fairy tales.
She boiled the egg, and discovered brown bread and butter between two plates. She boiled the coffee, and drank two large, steaming cups of it. When she had finished the egg and bread and butter, she ate about half of the home-made cake. It was one of the nice damp sort, with little bits of ginger in it, and very fat sultanas.
All this time the house was as still as any house could be—still, not with the dead, uncanny stillness that makes you wish for any sound, however dreadful, but peacefully, gently, sleepily still, as a virtuous house should be at such an hour. Grace in her atticroom slept as she was accustomed to sleep, the immovable, dreamless sleep that no sound would penetrate until her alarm went off at half-past six. Miss Angela had made haste to put out the light and cover the incriminating curls with the bedclothes. She had not unlocked her door. She hoped that she would be asleep when Serena came upstairs. She hoped that it would not be very wicked if she pretended to be asleep. She began to think about her curls and her nose, and slipped insensibly into a dream.
Mally found the bathroom half-way up the stairs. “Plenty of hot water if you want a bath”—how delicious that sounded! She took a long, long time over that bath, and in the end only left it because she was afraid of going to sleep. She put on the clean clothes she had brought from Curston, and then looked with repugnance at her dark jumper and skirt. Not for any one in this world would she go out again that night. She put on her rose-red domino and went on round the turn of the stairs, walking very softly in her gold and silver slippers.
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