But the blackness was such that lake and hill were all one, and she had to go warily, now feeling for the bank on her left, now for the ditch on her right. Not a star showed, and only in one place a patch of lighter sky broke the darkness and enabled her to discern the shapes of the trees as she passed under them. It was a night when any deed might be done, any mischief executed beside that lonely water; and no eye see it. But she tried not to think of this. She tried not to think of the tracts of lonely hill that stretched their long arms on her left, or of the deep, black water that lurked on her right. And she had compassed more than a hundred yards when a faint sound, as of following feet, caught her ear.
She halted, and shook the hood back from her ears. She listened. She fancied that she heard the pattering cease, and she peered into the darkness, striving to embody the thing that followed. But she could see nothing, she could now hear nothing. She had her handkerchief in her hand, and as she stood, peering and listening, she wiped the wind-borne moisture from her face.
Still she heard nothing, and she turned and set off again. But her thoughts were with her follower, and she had not taken three steps before she ran against the bank, and hardly saved herself from a fall.
She felt that with a little more she would lose her head, and, astray in the boundless night, not know which direction to take. She must pull herself together. She must go on. And she went on. But twice she had the sickening assurance that something was moving at her heels. Nor, but for the thought which by-and-by occurred to her, that her follower might be the person she came to meet, could she have kept to her purpose.
She came at length, trembling and clutching her hood about her, to the foot of the lane. She knew the place by the colder, moister air that swept her face, as well as by the lapping of the water on the strand. For the road ran very near the lake at this point. It was a mooring-place for two or three boats, belonging for the most part to Troutbeck; and she could hear a loose oar in one of the unseen craft roll over with a hollow sound. But no one moved in the darkness, or spoke, or came to her; and with parted lips, striving to control herself, she halted, leaning with one hand against the angle of the bank. Then — she could not be mistaken — she heard her follower halt.
Thirty seconds — it seemed an age — she was silent, and forced herself to listen, straining her ears. Then she could control herself no longer.
“Is it you?” she whispered, her voice strained and uncertain, “I am here.”
No one answered. And when she had waited awhile glaring into the night where she had last heard the footsteps she shuddered violently. For a space she could not speak, she leant against the bank.
Then, “Is it you?” she whispered desperately, turning her face this way and that. “Speak if it is! Speak! For God’s sake, speak to me!”
No one answered, but out of the gloom came the low creep of the wind among the reeds, and the melancholy lapping of the water on the stones. Once more the oar in the boat rolled over with a hollow coffin-like echo. And from a distance another sound, the flap and beat of a sail as the rudder was put over, came off the surface of the lake. But she did not heed this. It was with the darkness about her, it was with the skulking thing a pace or two from her, it was with the arms stretched out to clutch her, it was with the fear that was beginning to stifle her as the thick night stifled her, that she was concerned.
Once more, striving fiercely to combat her fear, to steady her voice, she spoke.
“If you do not answer,” she cried unsteadily, “I shall go back! You hear? I shall go back!”
Still no answer. And on that, because a frightened woman is capable of anything, and especially of the thing which is the least to be expected, she flung herself forward with her hands outstretched and tried to grapple with the thing that terrified her. She caught nothing: all that she felt was a warm breath on her cheek. She recoiled then as quickly as she had advanced. Unfortunately her skirt brushed something as she fell back and the contact, slight as it was, drew a low shriek from her. She leant panting against the bank, crouching like a thing at bay. The beating of her heart seemed to choke her, the gloom to stretch out arms about her. The touch of a moth on her cheek would have drawn a shriek. And on the lake — but near the shore now, a bowshot from where she crouched, the sail of the unseen boat flapped against the mast and began to descend. The light of a shaded lanthorn beamed for an instant on the dark surface of the water, then vanished.
She did not see the lanthorn, she did not see the boat, for she was glaring in the other direction, the direction in which she had heard the footsteps. All her senses were concentrated on the thing close to her. But some reflection of the light, glancing off the water, did reveal a thing — a dim uncertain something — man or woman, dead or alive, standing close to her, beside her: and with a shriek she sprang from the thing, whatever it was, gave way to blind panic, and fled. For some thirty yards she kept the road. Then she struck the bank and fell, violently bruising herself. But she felt nothing. In a moment she was on her feet again and running on, running on blindly, madly. She fancied feet behind her, and a hand stretched out to seize her hair; and in terror, that terror which she had kept at bay so long and so bravely, she ran on at random, until she found herself, she knew not how, clinging with both hands to the wicket-gate of the garden. A faint light in one of the windows of the inn had directed her to it.
She stood then, still trembling in every limb, but drawing courage from the neighbourhood of living things. And as well as her laboured breathing would let her, she listened. But presently she caught the stealthy trip-trip of feet along the road, and in a quick return of terror she opened the gate and slipped into the garden. She had the presence of mind to close the gate after and without noise. But that done, woman’s nerves could bear no more. Her knees were shaking under her, as she groped her way to her window, and felt for the chair which she had left beneath it.
The chair was gone. Impossible! She could not have found the right window; that was it. She felt with her hands along the wall, felt farther. But there was no chair — anywhere. She had made no mistake. Some one had removed the chair.
Strange to say, the moment she was sure of that, the fear which had driven her in headlong panic from the water-side left her. She thought no more of her stealthy attendant. Her one care now was to get in — to get in and still to keep secret the fact that she had been out! She had trembled like a leaf a few moments before, in fear of the shapeless thing that crouched beside her in the night. Now, with no more than the garden-fence between her and it, she feared it no more than a feather. She regained her ordinary plane, and foresaw all the suspicion, all the inconvenience, to which her position, if she could not re-enter, must subject her. And the smaller, the immediate fear expelled the greater and more remote.
She leant against the wall and tried to think. Who had, who could have removed the chair? She could not guess. And thinking only increased her eagerness, her anxiety to enter and be safe. She must get in somehow, even at a little risk.
She tried to take hold of the sill above her, and so to raise herself to the window by sheer strength. But she could not grasp the sill, though she could touch it. Still, if she had something in place of the chair, if she had something a foot high on which to raise herself she could succeed. But what? And how was she to find anything in the dark? She peered round, compelling herself to think. Surely she might find something. With a single foot of height she was saved. Without that foot of height she must rouse the house; and that meant disgrace and contumely, and degrading suspicion. Her cheeks burned at the prospect. For no story, no explanation would account satisfactorily for her absence from the house at such an hour.
She was about to grope her way round the house to the yard at the back — where with luck she might find a chicken coop or a stable bucket — when five paces from her the latch of the wicket clicked sharply. By instinct she flattened herself against the wall; but she had scarcely time to feel the sudden leap of her heart before a
mild voice spoke out of the gloom.
“I’m afraid I have taken your chair,” it murmured, “pray forgive me. I am Mr. Sutton, and I — I am very sorry!”
“You followed me!”
“I — —”
“You followed me!” Her voice rang imperative with anger. “You followed me! You have been spying on me! You!”
“No! No!” he muttered. “I meant only — —”
“How dare you! How dare you!” she cried in low fierce tones. “You have been spying on me, sir! And you removed the chair that — that I might not enter without your help.”
He was silent a moment, standing, though she could not see him, with his chin on his breast. Then:
“I confess,” he said in a low tone. “I confess it was so. I spied on you.”
“And followed me!”
“Yes,” he admitted it, his hands extended in unseen deprecation, “I did.”
“Why?” she cried. “Why, sir?”
“Because — —”
“But I do not want to know,” she retorted, cutting him short as she remembered the time, and place, “I want to know nothing, to hear nothing from you! The chair, sir! The chair, if you do not wish to add further outrage to your unmanly conduct. Set me the chair and go!”
“But hear at least,” he pleaded, “why I followed you, Miss Damer. Why — —”
She stamped her foot on the ground.
“The chair!” she repeated.
He was most anxious to tell her that though other motives had led him to spy on her and watch her window, he had followed her out of a pure desire to protect her. But her insistence overrode him, silenced him. He set the chair under the passage window and murmured submissively that it was there.
That was enough for her. She felt for it, found it, and without thought of him or word to him, she climbed nimbly in. That done she stooped and drew the chair up, and closed the window down upon him and secured it. Next, feeling for the door of Mr. Rogers’s room she got rid of the chair, and seized her hidden candle and crept out and up the stairs. Apparently all the house, save the man who had detected her, slept. But she did not dare to pause or prove the fact. She had had her lesson and a severe one; and she did not breathe freely until the door of her chamber was locked behind her, and she knew herself once more within the bounds of the usual and the proper.
Then for a brief while, as she tore off her damp clothes, her thoughts ran stormily on Mr. Sutton: nor did she dream, or he, from what things he had saved her. The man was a wretch, a spy, a sneak trying to worm himself into her confidence. She would box his ears if he threatened her or referred to the matter again. And if he told others — she did not know what she would not do! For the rest, she had let herself be scared by a nothing, by a step, by a sound; and she despised herself for her cowardice. But — she had that consolation — she had played her part, she had gone to the rendezvous, she had not failed. The fault lay with him who should have met her there, and who had not met her.
And so, shivering and chilled — for bedroom fires were not yet, and she was worn out with fright and exposure — she hid herself under the heavy patchwork quilt and sought comfort in the sleep of exhaustion. It was not long in coming, for she suspected no more than she knew. Like the purblind insect that creeps upon the crowded pavement and is missed by a hundred feet, she discerned neither the dangers which she had so narrowly escaped, nor those into which her late action was fated to hurry her.
CHAPTER XVII
THE EDGE OF THE STORM
It was daylight when she awoke; but it had not been daylight long. Yet some one was knocking; and knocking loudly at the door of her bedroom. She rose on her elbow, and looking at the half-curtained window decided that it was eight o’clock, perhaps a little later. But not so much later that they need raise the house in waking her.
“Thank you,” she cried petulantly. “That will do! That will do! I am awake.” And she laid her head on the pillow again, and closing her eyes, sighed deeply. The events of the night were coming back to her — and with them her troubles.
But, “Please to open the door, miss!” came the answer in gruff accents. “I want to speak to you, by your leave.”
Henrietta sat up, her hair straggling from under the nightcap that framed her pretty features. The voice that demanded entrance was Mrs. Gilson’s: and even over Henrietta that voice had power. She parleyed no longer. She threw a wrap about her, and hastily opened the door.
“What is it?” she asked. “Mrs. Gilson, is it you?”
“Be good enough,” the landlady answered, “to let me come in a minute, miss.”
Her peremptory tone astonished Henrietta, who said neither Yes nor No, but stood staring. The landlady with little ceremony took leave for granted. She entered, went by the girl to the window, and dragging the curtains aside, let in the full light. The adventures of the night had left Henrietta pale. But at this her colour rose.
“What is it?” she repeated.
“You know best,” Mrs. Gilson answered with more than her usual curtness. “Deal of dirt and little profit, I’m afraid, like Brough March fair! It’s not enough to be a fool once, it seems! Though I’d have thought you’d paid pretty smartly for it. Smart enough to know better now, my lass!”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Henrietta faltered.
“You don’t?” Mrs. Gilson rejoined, and with her arms set akimbo she stared severely at the girl, who, in her night-clothes with her cloak thrown about her and her colour coming and going, looked both guilty and frightened. “I fancy your face knows, if you don’t. Where were you last night? Ay, after dark last night, madam? Where were you, I say?”
“After dark?” Henrietta stammered.
“Ay, after dark!” the landlady retorted. “That’s English, isn’t it? But never mind. Least said is soonest mended. Where are your shoes?”
“My shoes?”
Mrs. Gilson lost patience, or appeared to lose it.
“That is what I said,” she replied. “You give them to me, and then I’ll tell you why I want them. Ah!” catching sight of them and bending her stout form to lift them from the floor. “Now, if you want to know what is the matter, though I think you know as well as the miller knows who beats the meal sack — you come with me! There is no one on this landing. Come you, as you are, to the window at the other end. ‘And you’ll know fast enough, and why they want your shoes.”
“They?” Henrietta murmured, hanging back and growing more alarmed. It was a pity that there was no man there to see how pretty she looked in her disorder.
“Ay, they!” the landlady answered. And a keen ear might have detected sorrow as well as displeasure in her tone. “There’s many will be poking their noses into your affairs now you’ll find — when it’s too late to prevent them. But do you come, young woman!” She led the way along the landing to a window which looked down on the side-garden. After a brief hesitation Henrietta followed, her face grown sullen. Alas! when she reached the window it needed but a look to enlighten her.
One of the things, which she had feared the previous day, had come to pass! A little snow had fallen while she was absent from the house; so very little that she had not noticed it. But it had lain, and on its white surface was published this morning in damning characters the story of her flittings to and fro. And worse, early as it was, the story had readers! Leaning on the garden wicket were two or three men discussing the appearances, and pointing and arguing; and forty or fifty yards along the road towards Bowness, a man, bent double, was tracing the prints of her feet, as if he followed a scent.
It was for that, then, that they wanted her shoes. She understood, and her first impulse was to indignation. It was an outrage! An insult!
“What is it to them?” she cried. “How dare they!”
Mrs. Gilson looked keenly at her under her vast bushy eyebrows.
“I’m afraid,” she said, “that you’ll find they’ll dare a mort more than that before they’ve done, my girl. And w
hat they want to know they’ll learn. These,” coolly lifting the shoes to sight, “are to help them.”
“But why should they — what is it to them if I — —” she stopped, unwilling to commit herself.
“You listen to me a minute,” the landlady said. “You’ve brought your pigs to a poor market, that’s plain: and there is but one thing can help you now, and that is a clean breast. Now you make up your mind to it! There’s nought else can help you, I say again, and that I tell you! It’s no child’s play, this! The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as they say at the assizes, is the only thing for you, if you don’t want to be sorry for it all the rest of your life.”
She spoke so seriously that Henrietta when she answered took a lower tone; though she still protested.
“What is it to any one,” she asked, “if I was out of the house last night?”
“It’s little to me,” Mrs. Gilson answered drily. “But it will be much to you if you don’t tell the truth. Your own conscience, my girl, should speak loud enough.”
“My conscience is clear!” Henrietta cried. But her tone, a little too heroic, fitted ill with her appearance.
At any rate Mrs. Gilson, who did not like heroics, thought so. “Then the best thing you can do,” she replied tartly, “is to go and dress yourself! A clear conscience! Umph! Give me clean hands! And if I were you I’d be quite sure about that conscience before I came down to answer questions.”
“I shall not come down.”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 484