Starvecrow Farm

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 what 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."

"Then they'll come up," the landlady retorted. "And 'twon't be more pleasant. You'd best think twice about that."

Henrietta was thinking. Behind the sullen, pretty face she was thinking that if she made a clean breast of it, she must betray the man. She must say where she had seen him, and why she had gone to meet him. And that was the thing which she had resolved not to do-the thing which she was still determined not to do. There is a spice of obstinacy in all women: an inclination to abide by a line once taken, or an opinion once formed. And Henrietta, who was naturally head-strong, and who had run some risk the previous night and gone to some trouble that the man might escape, was not going to give him up to-day. They had found her out, they had driven her to bay. But nothing which they could do would wound her half as much as that public ordeal, that confrontation with the man, that exhibition of his unworthiness and her folly, which must follow his capture. For the man himself, she was so far from loving him, that she loathed him, she was ashamed of him. But she was not going to betray him. She was not going to turn informer-a name more hateful then, when blood-money was common, than now! She who had been kissed by him was not going to have his blood on her hands!

Such were her thoughts; to which Mrs. Gilson had no clue. But the landlady read recalcitrancy in the girl's face, and knowing some things which Henrietta did not know, and being at no time one to brook opposition, she took the girl the wrong way. If she had appealed to her better feelings, if she had used that influence with her which rough but real kindness had won, it is possible that she might have brought Henrietta to reason. But the sight of that sullen, pretty face provoked the landlady. She had proof of gross indiscretion, she suspected worse things, she thought the girl unworthy. And she spoke more harshly to her than she had ever spoken before.

"If you were my girl," she said grimly, "I'd know what to do with you! I'd shake the humours out of you, if I had to shake you from now till next week! Ay, I would! And you'd pretty soon come to your senses and find your tongue, I warrant! Didn't you pretend to me and maintain to me a week ago and more that you'd done with the scamp?"

"I have done with him!" Henrietta cried, red and angry.

"Ay, as the foot has done with the shoe-till next time!" Mrs. Gilson retorted, drawing her simile from the articles in her hand. "For shame. For shame, young woman!" severely. "When it was trusting to that I kept you here and kept you out of gaol!"

Henrietta had not thought of that side of the case; and the reminder, finding a joint in her armour, stung her.

"You don't know to whom you are talking!" she cried.

"I know that I am talking to a fool!" the landlady retorted. "But there," she continued irefully, "you may talk to a fool till you are dead and 'twill still be a fool! So it's only one bit of advice I'll give you. You dress and come down or you'll be dragged down! And I suppose, though you are not too proud to trapse the roads to meet your Joe-ay," raising her voice as Henrietta turned in a rage, and fled, "you may slam the door, you little vixen, for a vixen you are! But you've heard some of my opinion of you, and you'll hear more! I'm not sure that you're not a thorough bad 'un!" Mrs. Gilson continued, lowering her voice again and speaking to herself-though her words were still audible. "That I'm not! But any way there'll be one here by-and-by you'll have to listen to! And he'll make your ears burn, my lady, or I'm mistaken!"

It was bad enough to hear through the ill-fitting door such words as these. It was worse to know that plainer words might be used downstairs in the hearing of man and maid. But Henrietta had the sense to know that her position would be made worse by avoiding the issue, and pride enough to urge her to face it. She hastened to dress herself, though her fingers shook with indignation as well as with cold.

It was only when she was nearly ready to descend that she noticed how large was the crowd collected before the inn. She could hardly believe that her escapade-much as it might interest the police officer-was the cause of this. And a chill of apprehension, a thrill of anticipation of she knew not what, kept her for a moment standing before the window. She had done, she told herself, no harm. She had no real reason to fear. And yet she was beginning to fear. Anger was beginning to give place to dismay. For it was clear that something out of the common had happened; besides the group in the road, three or four persons were inspecting the boats drawn up on the foreshore. And on the lake was a stir unusual at this season. Half a mile from the shore a boat under sail was approaching the landing-place from the direction of Wray Woods. It was running fast before the bitter lash of the November wind that here and there flecked the grey and melancholy expanse with breakers. And round the point from the direction of Ambleside a second boat was reaching, with the wind on her quarter. She fancied that the men in these boats made signs to those on the shore; and that the excitement grew with their report. While she gazed two or three of the people in the road walked down to the water. And with a puckered brow, and a face a shade paler than usual, she hesitated; wishing that she knew what had happened and was sure that the stir had not to do with her.

She would have preferred to wait upstairs until the boats arrived. But she remembered Mrs. Gilson's warning. Moreover, she was beginning to comprehend-as men do, and women seldom do-that there is a force which it is futile to resist-that of the law. Sooner or later she must go down. So taking her courage in both hands she opened her door, and striving to maintain a dignified air she descended the stairs, and made her way past the passage window to Mr. Rogers's room.

It was empty, and first appearances were reassuring. Her breakfast was laid and waiting, the fire was cheerful, the room tended to encouragement. But the murmur of excited voices still rose from the highway below, and kept her uneasy: and when she went to the side-window to view the scene of last night's evasion, she stamped her foot with vexation. For where the tracks of feet were clearest they had been covered with old boxes to protect them from the frosty sunshine which the day promised; and the precaution smacked so strongly of the law and its methods that it had an ill look. Not Robinson Crusoe on his desert island had made a more ridiculous fuss about a foot-print or two!

She was still knitting her brows over the device when there came a knock at the door. She turned and confronted Bishop. The man's manner as he entered was respectful enough, but he had not waited for leave to come in. And she had a sickening feeling that he was taking possession of her, that he would not leave her again, that from this time she was not her own. The gravity of the bluff red face did not lessen this feeling. And though she would fain have asked him his business and challenged his intrusion she could not find a word.

"I take it, you'd as soon see me alone, miss," he said. And he closed the door behind him, and stood with his hat in his hand. "You'd best go on with your breakfast, for you look a bit peaky-you're a bit shaken, I expect, by what has happened. But don't you be afraid," with something like a wink, "there's no harm will happen to you if you are sensible. Meanwhile I'll talk to you, by your leave, while you eat. It will save time, and time's much. I suppose," he continued, as she forced herself to take her seat and pour out her tea, "there's no need to tell you, miss, what has happened?"

She would have given much to prevent her hand shaking, and something to be able to look him in the face. She did succeed in maintaining outward composure; for agitation is more clearly felt than perceived. But she could not force the colour to her cheeks, nor compel her tongue to utterance. And he let her swallow some tea before he repeated his question.

"I suppose there is no need, miss, to tell you what has happened?"

"I do not know" – she murmured-"to what you refer. You must speak more plainly."

"It's a serious matter," he said. He appeared to be looking into his hat, but he was really watching her over its edge, "A serious matter, miss, and I hope you'll take it as it should be taken. For if it goes beyond a point the Lord only can stop it. So if you know, miss, and have no need to be told, it's best for you to be frank. We know a good deal."

The warm tea had given her command of herself.

"If you mean," she said, "that I was out last night, I was."

"We know that, of course."

"You have my shoes," with a little shrug of contempt.

"Yes, miss, and your footprints!" he answered. "The point on which we want information-and the sooner we have it the better-is, where did you leave him?"

"Where did I leave-whom?" sharply.

"The person you met."

"I met no one."

The runner shook his head gently. And his face grew longer.

"For God's sake, miss," he said earnestly, "don't fence with me. Don't take that line! Believe me, if you do you'll be sorry. Time's the thing. Tell us now and it may avail. Tell us to-morrow and it may be of no use. The harm may be done."

She stared at him. "But I met no one," she said.

"There are the footprints, coming and going," he answered with severity. "It is no use to deny them."

"A man's-with mine?"

"For certain."

She looked at him with a startled expression. But gradually her face cleared, she smiled.

"Ah," she said. "Just so. You have the man's tracks coming and going? And mine?"

He nodded.

"But are not his tracks as well as mine more faint as they go from the house? More clear as they come back to the house? Because snow was falling while I was out as well as before I started. So that he as well as I went from the house and returned to the house!"

He frowned. "I noticed that," he said.

"Then," with a faint ring of amusement in her tone, "you had better search the house for him."

The difficulty had occurred to Mr. Bishop before he entered. But it did not fall in with his theory, and like many modern discoverers he had set it on one side as a detail which events would explain. Put to him crudely it vexed him.

"See here, miss, you're playing with us," he said. "And it won't do. Tell us frankly-"

"I will tell you frankly," she answered, cutting him short with spirit, "whose tracks they are. They are Mr. Sutton's. Now you know. And Mr. Sutton is the only person I saw last night. Now you know that too. And perhaps you will leave me." She rose as she finished.

"Mr. Sutton was with you?"

"I have said so. You have my shoes. Get his. What I say is easily tested and easily proved."

She had the pleasure of a little triumph. The runner looked taken aback and ashamed of himself. But after the first flush of astonishment he did not waste a minute. He turned, opened the door, and disappeared.

Henrietta listened to his departing steps, then with a sigh of relief she returned to her breakfast. Her spirits rose. She felt that she had exaggerated her troubles; that she had allowed herself to be alarmed without cause. The landlady's rudeness, rather than any real perplexity or peril, had imposed on her. Another time she would not be so lightly frightened. For, after all, she had done nothing of which even Mr. Sutton, if he told the truth, could make much. They might suspect that she had stolen out to meet Walterson; but as she had not met him, they could prove nothing. They might conclude from it, that he was in the neighbourhood; but as Bishop already held that belief, things were left where they were before. Except, to be sure, that for some reason she had lost the landlady's favour.

The girl had arrived at this comfortable stage in her reasoning when the shuffling of feet along the passage informed her that Bishop was returning. Nor Bishop only. He brought with him others, it was clear, and among them one heavy man in boots-she caught the harsh ring of a spur. Who were they? Why were they coming? Involuntarily she rose to her feet, and waited with a quickened heart for their appearance.

The sounds that reached her were not encouraging. One of the men stumbled, and growled an oath; and one laughed a vulgar common laugh as at some jest in doubtful taste. Then the door opened wide, and with little ceremony they followed one another into the room, one, two, three.

Bishop first, with his bluff, square face. Then a stranger, a tall bulky man, heavy-visaged and bull-dog jawed, with harsh, over-bearing eyes. He wore an open horseman's coat, and under it a broad leather belt with pistols; and he touched his brow with his whip-handle in a half familiar, half insolent way. After him came the pale, peaky face of Mr. Sutton, who looked chap-fallen and ashamed of himself.

The moment all had entered,

"Mr. Chaplain, close the door," said the stranger in a broad Lancashire accent, and with an air of authority. "Now, Bishop, suppose you tell the young lady-damme, what's that?" turning sharply, "Who is it?"

CHAPTER XVIII

MR. JOSEPH NADIN

The words were addressed to Mr. Sutton, who did not seem able to shut the door. But the answer came from the other side of the door.

"By your leave," – the voice, a little breathless, was Mrs. Gilson's-"I'm coming in too." And she came in at that, and brusquely. "I think you are over many men for one woman," she continued, setting her cap straight, and otherwise not a whit discomposed by the men's attitude. "You'll want me before you are done, you'll see."

"Want you?" the strange man answered with sarcasm. "Then when we want you we'll send for you."

"No you'll not, Joe Nadin," she retorted, coolly, as she closed the door behind her. "For I'll be here. What you will be wanting," with a toss of her double chin, "will be wit. But that's not to be had for the sending."

Nadin-he was the deputy-constable of Manchester, and the most famous police officer of that day, a man as warmly commended by the Tory party as he was fiercely hated by the Radicals-would have given an angry answer. But Bishop was before him.

"Let her be," he said-with friendly deference. "We may want her, as she says. And the young lady is waiting. Now, miss," he continued, addressing Henrietta, who stood at the table trying to hide the perturbation which these preliminaries caused her, "I've brought Mr. Sutton to tell us in your presence what he knows. I doubt it won't go far. So that when we have heard him we shall want a good deal from you."

"Ay, from you, young lady," the Manchester man struck in, taking the word out of the other's mouth. "It will be your turn then. And what we want we must have, or-"