We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung.
RUDYARD KIPLING.
The sudden splendour of the afternoon made me lay down my pen, and
tempted me afield. It had been a day of storm and great racing
cloud-wracks, after a night of hurricane and lashing rain. But in the
afternoon the sun had broken through, and I struggled across the
water-meadows, the hurrying, turbid water nearly up to the single planks
across the ditches, and climbed to the heathery uplands, battling my way
inch by inch against a tearing wind.
My art had driven me forth from my warm fireside, as it is her wont to
drive her votaries, and the call of my art I have never disobeyed.
For no artist must look at one side of life only. We must study it as a
whole, gleaning rich and varied sheaves as we go. My forthcoming book
of deep religious experiences, intertwined with descriptions of scenery,
needed a little contrast. I had had abundance of summer mornings and
dewy evenings, almost too many dewy evenings. And I thought a
description of a storm would be in keeping with the chapter on which I
was at that moment engaged, in which I dealt with the stress of my own
illness of the previous spring, and the mystery of pain, which had
necessitated a significant change in my life--a visit to Cromer. The
chapter dealing with Cromer, and the insurgent doubts of convalescence,
wandering on its poppy-strewn cliffs, as to the beneficence of the
Deity, was already done, and one of the finest I had ever written.
But I was dissatisfied with the preceding chapter, and, as usual, went
for inspiration to Nature.
It was late by the time I reached the upland, but I was rewarded for my
climb.
Far away under the flaring sunset the long lines of tidal river and sea
stretched tawny and sinister, like drawn swords in firelight, between
the distant woods and cornfields. The death-like stillness and
smallness of the low-lying rigid landscape made the contrast with the
rushing enormity and turmoil of the heavens almost terrific.
Great clouds shouldered up out of the sea, blotting out the low sun,
darkening the already darkened earth, and then towered up the sky,
releasing the struggling sun only to extinguish it once more, in a new
flying cohort.
I do not know how long I stood there, spellbound, the woman lost in the
artist, scribbling frantically in my notebook, when an onslaught of rain
brought me to my senses and I looked round for shelter.
Then I became aware that I had not been watching alone. A
desolate-looking figure, crouching at a little distance, half hidden by
a gorse-bush, was watching too, watching intently. She got up as I
turned and came towards me, her uncouth garments whipped against her by
the wind.
The rain plunged down upon us, enveloping us both as in a whirlwind.
"There is an empty cottage under the down," I shouted to her, and I
began to run towards it. It was a tumbledown place, but "any port in
such a storm."
"It is not safe," she shouted back; "the roof is falling in."
The squall of rain whirled past as suddenly as it had come, leaving me
gasping. She seemed to take no notice of it.
"I spent last night there," she said. "The ceiling came down in the next
room. Besides," she added, "though possibly that may not deter you,
there are two policemen there."
I saw now that it had been the cottage which she had been watching. And
sure enough, in a broken shaft of sunshine which straggled out for a
moment, I saw two dark figures steal towards the cottage under cover of
the wall.
"Why are they there?" I said, gaping at such a strange sight. For I had
been many months at Rufford, and I had never seen a policeman.
"They are lying in wait for some one," she said.
It flashed back across my mind how at luncheon that day the vicar had
said that a female convict had escaped from Ipswich gaol, and had been
traced to Bealings, and, it was conjectured, was lurking in the
neighbourhood of Woodbridge.
I took sudden note of my companion's peculiar dark bluish clothes and
shawl, and the blood rushed to my head. I knew what those garments
meant. She pushed back her grizzled hair from her lined, walnut-coloured
face, and we looked hard at each other.
There was no fear in her eyes, but a certain curiosity as to what I was
going to do.
"If I told you they were not looking for me," she said, "I could not,
under the circumstances, expect you to believe it."
I am too highly strung for this workaday world. I know it to my cost.
The artistic temperament has its penalties. My doctor at Cromer often
told me that I vibrated like a harp at the slightest touch. I vibrated
now. Indeed, I almost sat down in the sodden track.
But unlike many of my brothers and sisters of the pen, I am capable of
impulsive, even quixotic action, and I ought, in justice to myself, to
mention here that I had not then read that noble book "The Treasure of
Heaven," in which it will be remembered that a generous-souled woman
takes in from the storm, and nurses back to health in her lowly
cottage, an aged tramp who turns out to be a millionaire, and leaves her
his vast fortune. I did not get the idea of acting as I am about to
relate from Marie Corelli, the head of our profession, or indeed from
any other writer. But I have so often been accused of taking other
people's plots and ideas and sentiments, that I owe it to myself to make
this clear before I go on.
"You poor soul," I said, "whatever you are, and whatever you've done, I
will shelter you and help you to escape."
I felt I really could not take her into the house, so I added, "I have a
little stable in the garden, quite private, with nice dry hay in it.
Follow me."
I suppose she saw at a glance that she could trust me, for she nodded,
and I sped down the hill, she following at a little distance, with the
shrieking, denouncing wind behind us. I walked as quickly as I could,
but when I got as far as the water-meadows my strength and breath gave
way. I was never robust, and always foolishly prone to overtax my small
store of strength. I was obliged to stop and lean my head on my arms
against a stile.
"There is no need for such hurry," she said tranquilly. She had come up
noiselessly behind me. "There is not a soul in sight. Besides, look what
you are missing."
She pointed to the familiar fields before me which we had yet to cross,
with the Dieben winding through them under his low, red-brick bridges,
and beyond the little clustered village with its grey church spire
standing shoulder high above the poplars.
The sun had just set and there was no colour in the west, but over all
the homely, wind-swept landscape a solemn and unearthly light shone and
slowly passed, shone and slowly passed.
"Look up," said my companion, turning a face of flame towards me.
I looked up into the sky, as into an enormous furnace. Gigantic rolling
clouds of flame were sweeping before the roaring wind like some vast
prairie fire across the firmament. As they passed overhead, the
reflection of the lurid light on them was smitten earthwards, and passed
with them, making everything it traversed clear as noon--the lion on the
swinging sign of the public-house just across the water, the delicate
tracery of the church windows, the virginia creeper on my cottage porch.
"I have only seen an afterglow like that once in my life," my companion
said, "and that was in Teneriffe."
A few moments more, and the sky paled to grey. The darkness came down
with tropical suddenness. I made a movement forwards.
"Shall I not be seen if I follow you through the village in these weird
clothes?" she said civilly, as one who hesitates to make a suggestion.
"Where is your house?"
"My cot--it is not a house--is just at the end of those trees," I said.
"It is the only one close to the park gates. It has virginia creeper
over the porch, and a white gate."
"It sounds charming."
"But how on earth are we to get there?" I groaned. "And some one may
come along this path at any moment."
The dusk was falling rapidly. Candles were beginning to twinkle in
latticed windows. A yellow light from the public-house made an
impassable streak across the road. Cheerful voices were coming along the
meadow path behind us. What was to be done?
"Go home," she said steadily. "I will find my own way."
"But my servant?"
"Make your mind easy. She will not see me. I shall not ring the bell.
Have you a dog?"
"No. My dear little Lindo----"
"It's going to be a black night. I shall be in the porch half an hour
after dark."
She went swiftly from me, and as the voices drew near I saw her pick her
way noiselessly into one of the great ditches, and stand motionless in
the water, obliterated against a pollard willow.
I hurried home. My feet were quite wet, and even my stockings--a thing
that had not happened to me for years. I changed at once, and took five
drops of camphor on a lump of sugar. It would be extraordinarily
inconvenient if I were to take cold, with my tendency to bronchial
catarrh. I have no time to be ill in my busy life. Was not "Broodings
beside the Dieben" being finished in hot haste for an eager publisher?
And had I not promised to give away the Sunday-school prizes at
Forlinghorn a fortnight hence?
It was half-past six. My garden boy was pumping in the scullery. He kept
his tools in the stable, and it was his duty to lock it up and hang the
key on the nail inside the scullery door.
Supposing he forgot to hang it up to-night of all nights! Supposing he
took it away with him by mistake! I went into the scullery directly he
had gone. I made a pretext of throwing away some flowers, though I had
never thought of needing a pretext for going there before. The stable
key was on its nail all right. I looked into the kitchen, where my
little maid-servant was preparing my evening meal. When her back was
turned, I snatched the key from the nail, dropped it noisily on the
brick floor, caught it up, withdrew to the parlour, and sank down in my
armchair shaking from head to foot. My doctor was right indeed when he
said I vibrated like a harp.
The life of contemplation and meditation is more suited to my highly
strung nature than that of adventure and intrigue.
My servant brought in the lamp, and I hurriedly sat on the key while she
did so. Then she drew the curtains in the little houseplace, locked the
outer door, and went back to the kitchen.
There are two doors to my cottage--the front door with the porch leading
to the lane, and the back door out of the scullery which opens into my
little slip of garden. At the bottom of the garden is a disused stable,
utilised by me to store wood in, and old boxes. The gate to the back way
to the stable from the lane had been permanently closed till the day
should come when I could afford a pony and cart. But in these days
novels of not too refined a type are the only form of literature (if
they can be called literature) for which the public is eager. It will
devour and extol anything, however coarse, which panders to its love of
excitement, while grave books dealing with the spiritual side of life,
books of thought and culture, are left unheeded on the shelf. Such had
been the fate of mine.
The rain had ceased at last, and the wind was falling. My mind kept on
making all sorts of uneasy suggestions to me as I sat in my armchair.
What was I to do with the--the individual when I had got her safely into
the stable, if I ever did get her safely there? How about food, how
about dry clothes, how about a light, how about everything? Supposing
she overslept herself, and Tommy found her there in the morning when he
went for his tools? Supposing my landlord, Mr. Ledbury, who was a
magistrate, found out I had harboured a criminal, and gave me notice
just when I had repapered the parlour and put in a new back to the
kitchen range? Such a calamity was unthinkable. What happened to people
who compounded felonies? Was I compounding one? Why was not I sitting
down? What was I doing standing in the middle of the parlour with the
stable key in my hand, and, as I caught sight of myself in the glass,
with my mouth wide open?
I sat down again resolutely, hiding the key under the cushion, and
calmer thoughts supervened. After all, it was most improbable, almost
impossible, that I should be found out. And once the adventure was
safely over, when I had successfully carried it through, what
interesting accounts I should be able to give of it at luncheon parties
in London in the winter. My brothers would really believe at last that I
could act with energy and presence of mind. There was a rooted
impression in the minds of my own family that I was a flurried sort of
person, easily thrown off my balance, making mountains out of molehills
(this was especially irritating to me, as I have always taken a broad,
sane view of life), who always twisted my ankle if it could be twisted,
or lost my luggage, or caught childish ailments for the second time.
Where there is but one gifted member in a large and commonplace family,
an absurd idea of this kind is apt to grow from a joke into an _idee
fixe_.
It had obtained credence originally because I certainly had once in a
dreamy moment got my gown shut into the door in an empty railway
compartment on the far side. And as the glass was up on the station side
I had been unable to attract any one's attention when I wanted to
alight, and had had to go on to Portsmouth (where the train stopped for
good) before I could make my presence and my predicament known. This
trivial incident had never been forgotten by my family--so much so, that
I had often regretted the hilarious spirit of pure comedy at my own
expense which had prompted me to relate it to them.
Now was the time to show what metal I was made of. My spirits rose as I
felt I could rely on myself to be cautious, resourceful, bold. I sat on,
outwardly composed, but inwardly excited, straining my ears for a sign
that the fugitive was in the porch. I supposed I should presently hear a
light tap on my parlour window, which was close to the outer door.
But none came. More than an hour passed. It had long been perfectly
dark. What could have happened? Had the poor creature been dogged and
waylaid by those two policemen after all? Was it possible that they had
seen us standing together at the stile, where she had so inconsiderately
joined me for a moment? At last I became so nervous that I went to the
outer door, opened it softly, and looked out. She was so near me that I
very nearly screamed.
"How long have you been here?" I whispered.
"Close on an hour."
"Why didn't you tap on the window or something? I was waiting to let you
in."
"I dared not do that. It might have been the kitchen window for all I
knew, and then your servant would have seen me."
"But the kitchen is the other side."
"Indeed! And where is the stable?"
"At the bottom of the garden, away from the road."
"How are we going to get to it?"
"We can only get to it through the garden, now the back way is closed. I
closed it because the village children----"
"Had not you better shut the door? If any one passed down the road, they
would see it was open."
"It's as dark as pitch."
"Yes, but there's a little light from within. I can see you from outside
quite plainly standing in the doorway."