THE ALARM BELL.
NEXT morning Barbara entered the hall after having seen about the
duties of the house, ordered dinner, weighed out spices and groats,
made the under-servant do the work of Jane, who was absent; she moved
about her usual duties with her usual precision and order, but without
her usual composure.
When she came into the hall on her way to her father’s room, she found
Eve there engaged and hard at work on some engrossing occupation.
‘Oh, Bab! do come and see how bright and beautiful I am making this,’
said the girl in overflowing spirits and pride. ‘I found it in the
chest in the garret, and I am furbishing it up.’ She held out a sort
of necklace or oriental carcanet, composed of chains of gold beads and
bezants. ‘It was so dull when I found it, and now it shines like pure
gold!’ Her innocent, childish face was illumined with delight. ‘I am
become really industrious.’
‘Yes, dear; hard at work doing nothing.’
‘I should like to wear this,’ she sighed.
That she had deceived her sister, that she had given her occasion to be
anxious about her, had quite passed from her mind, occupied only with
glittering toys.
Barbara hesitated at her father’s door. She knew that a painful
scene awaited her. He was certain to be angry and reproach her for
having disobeyed him. But her heart was relieved. She believed in
the innocence of Jasper. Strengthened by this faith, she was bold to
confront her father.
She tapped at the door and entered.
She saw at once that he had heard her voice without, and was expecting
her. There was anger in his strange eyes, and a hectic colour in his
hollow cheeks. He was partly dressed, and sat on the side of the bed.
In his hand he held the stick with which he was wont to rap when he
needed assistance.
‘Where are the clothes that lay on the floor last night?’ was his
salutation, pointing with the stick to the spot whence Barbara had
gathered them up.
‘They are gone, papa; I have taken them away.’
She looked him firmly in the face with her honest eyes, unwincing. He,
however, was unable to meet her steadfast gaze. His eyes flickered and
fell. His mouth was drawn and set with a hard, cruel expression, such
as his face rarely wore; a look which sometimes formed, but was as
quickly effaced by a wave of weakness. Now, however, the expression was
fixed.
‘I forbade you to touch them. Did you hear me?’
‘Yes, dear papa, I have disobeyed you, and I am sorry to have offended
you; but I cannot say that I repent having taken the clothes away. I
found them, and I had a right to remove them.’
‘Bring them here immediately.’
‘I cannot do so. I have destroyed them.’
‘You have dared to do that!’ His eyes began to kindle and the colour
left his cheeks, which became white as chalk. Barbara saw that he had
lost command over himself. His feeble reason was overwhelmed by passion.
‘Papa,’ she said, in her calmest tones, ‘I have never disobeyed you
before. Only on this one occasion my conscience——’
‘Conscience!’ he cried. ‘I have a conscience in a thornbush, and yours
is asleep in feathers. You have dared to creep in here like a thief in
the night and steal from me what I ordered you to leave.’
He was playing with his stick, clutching it in the middle and turning
it. With his other hand he clutched and twisted and almost tore the
sheets. Barbara believed that he would strike her, but when he said
‘Come here,’ she approached him, looking him full in the face without
shrinking.
She knew that he was not responsible for what he did, yet she did not
hesitate about obeying his command to approach. She had disobeyed him
in the night in a matter concerning another, to save that other; she
would not disobey now to save herself.
His face was ugly with unreasoning fury, and his eyes wilder than she
had seen them before. He held up the stick.
‘Papa,’ she said, ‘not your right arm, or you will reopen the wound.’
Her calmness impressed him. He changed the stick into his left hand,
and, gathering up the sheet into a knot, thrust it into his mouth and
bit into it.
Was the moment come that Barbara had long dreaded? And was she to be
the one on whom his madness first displayed itself?
‘Papa,’ she said, ‘I will take any punishment you think fit, but, pray,
do not strike me, I cannot bear that—not for my own sake, but for
yours.’
He paid no attention to her remonstrance, but raised the stick, holding
it by the ferule.
Steadily looking into his sparkling eyes, Barbara repeated the words
he had muttered and cried in his sleep, ‘_De profundis clamavi ad te,
Domine. Si iniquitates observaveris, quis sustinebit?_’
Then, as in a dissolving view on a sheet one scene changes into
another, so in his wild eyes the expression of rage shifted to one of
fear; he dropped the stick, and Jasper, who at that moment entered,
took it and laid it beyond his reach.
Mr. Jordan fell back on his pillow and moaned, and put his hands over
his brow, and beat his temples with his palms. He would not look at his
daughter again, but peevishly turned his face away.
Now Barbara’s strength deserted her; she felt as if the floor under her
feet were rolling and as if the walls of the room were contracting upon
her.
‘I must have air,’ she said. Jasper caught her arm and led her through
the hall into the garden.
Eve, alarmed to see her sister so colourless, ran to support her on the
other side, and overwhelmed her with inconsiderate attentions.
‘You must allow her time to recover herself,’ said Jasper. ‘Miss Jordan
has been up a good part of the night. The horses on the down were
driven on the premises by the fire and alarmed her and made her rise.
She will be well directly.’
‘I am already recovered,’ said Barbara, with affected cheerfulness.
‘The room was close. I should like to be left a little bit in the sun
and air, by myself, and to myself.’
Eve readily ran back to her burnishing of the gold beads and bezants,
and Jasper heard Mr. Jordan calling him, so he went to his room. He
found the sick gentleman with clouded brow and closed lips, and eyes
that gave him furtive glances but could not look at him steadily.
‘Jasper Babb,’ said Mr. Jordan, ‘I do not wish you to leave the house
or its immediate precincts to-day. Jane has not returned, Eve is
unreliable, and Barbara overstrained.’
‘Yes, sir, I will do as you wish.’
‘On no account leave. Send Miss Jordan to me when she is better.’
When, about half-an-hour after, Barbara entered the room, she went
direct to her father to kiss him, but he repelled her.
‘What did you mean,’ he asked, without looking at her, ‘by those words
of the Psalm?’
‘Oh, papa! I thought to soothe you. You are fond of the _De
Profundis_—you murmur it in your sleep.’
‘You used the words significantly. What are the deeds I have done amiss
for which you reproach me?’
‘We all need pardon—some for one thing, some for another. And, dearest
papa, we all need to say ‘_Apud te propitiatio est: speravit anima mea
in Domino._’
‘_Propitiatio!_’ repeated Mr. Jordan, and resumed his customary trick
of brushing his forehead with his hand as though to sweep cobwebs from
it which fell over and clouded his eyes. ‘For what? Say out plainly
of what you accuse me. I am prepared for the worst. I cannot endure
these covert stabs. You are always watching me. You are ever casting
innuendos. You cut and pierce me worse than the scythe. That gashed my
body, but you drive your sharp words into my soul.’
‘My dear papa, you are mistaken.’
‘I am not mistaken. Your looks and words have meaning. Speak out.’
‘I accuse you of nothing, darling papa, but of being perhaps just a
little unjust to me.’
She soon saw that her presence was irritating him, her protestations
unavailing to disabuse his mind of the prejudice that had taken hold of
it, and so, with a sigh, she left him.
Jane Welsh did not return all day. This was strange. She had promised
Barbara to return the first thing in the morning. She was to sleep in
Tavistock, where she had a sister, married.
Barbara went about her work, but with abstracted mind, and without her
usual energy.
She was not quite satisfied. She tried to believe in Jasper’s
innocence, and yet doubts would rise in her mind in spite of her
efforts to keep them under.
Whom had Eve met on the Raven Rock? Jasper had denied that he was the
person: who, then, could it have been? The only other conceivable
person was Mr. Coyshe, and Barbara at once dismissed that idea. Eve
would never make a mystery of meeting Doctor Squash, as she called him.
At last, as evening drew on, Jane arrived. Barbara met her at the door
and remonstrated with her.
‘Please, miss, I could not help myself. I found Joseph Woodman last
night, and he said he must send for the warders to identify the
prisoner. Then, miss, he said I was to wait till he had got the warders
and some constables, and when they was ready to come on I might come
too, but not before. I slept at my sister’s last night.’
‘Where are the men now?’
‘They are about the house—some behind hedges, some in the wood, some on
the down.’
Barbara shuddered.
‘Please miss, they have guns. And, miss, I were to come on and tell the
master that all was ready, and if he would let them know where the man
was they’d trap him.’
‘There is no man here but Mr. Babb.’
Jane’s face fell.
‘Lawk, miss! If Joseph thought us had been making games of he, I
believe he’d never marry me—and after going to a Love Feast with him,
too! ‘Twould be serious that, surely.’
‘Joseph has taken a long time coming.’
‘Joseph takes things leisurely, miss—’tis his nature. Us have been
courting time out o’ mind; and, please, miss, if the man were here,
then the master was to give the signal by pulling the alarm-bell. Then
the police and warders would close in on the house and take him.’
Barbara was as pale now as when nearly fainting in the morning. This
was not the old Barbara with hale cheeks, hearty eyes, and ripe lips,
tall and firm, and decided in all her movements. No! This was not at
all the old Barbara.
‘Well, Miss Jordan, what is troubling you?’ asked Jasper. ‘The house
is surrounded. Men are stationed about it. No one can leave it without
being challenged.’
‘Yes,’ said Barbara quickly. ‘By the Abbot’s Well there runs a path
down between laurels, then over a stile into the wood. It is still
possible—will you go?’
‘You do not trust me?’
‘I wish to—but——’
‘Will you do one thing more for me?’
She looked timidly at him.
‘Peal the alarm-bell.’