IN WHICH NANCY PLAYS THE PART OF DETECTIVE
A MILE away from the village the traveller on the Girston Road may
pass a solitary and substantial farm and never know that he is within a
field-length of the most alluring and perhaps the greatest of Mawm’s
natural wonders.
There is nothing in the configuration of the landscape that suggests the
extraordinary. Low-lying hills on the right slope gently down to
grey-green pastures which have been wrested from the moors. The road
itself, hemmed in by loosely-built limestone walls, is little better
than a cart-track, and runs out upon the moor when it reaches the last
gaunt farm, a mile or two farther on. The hills on the left are loftier,
but no less kindly in their sober green homespun, and the brook that
tumbles over its rocky bed and roars beneath the bridge is not more
boisterous than many another moorland stream.
If, however, curiosity should cause you to leave the road at the stile,
or if ignoring that provision for shortening your journey you pass
through the yard at the back of the farm, and with the stream for your
guide make your way up the narrowing valley, you will by and by acquaint
yourself with the stupendous spectacle of Gordale Scar, a chasm
“——terrific as the lair,
Where the young lions couch.”
It is at a sudden bend in the hills that you come unawares upon the
astonishing vision, but before you reach that point the landscape
clothes itself in sack-cloth and throws ashes on its head as if it
realised that the green pastures were to end in the Valley of the Shadow
of Death, and it must drape itself seemly. In winter especially there is
a look of Sodom and Gomorrah about the place—a charred, lifeless look
that is weird and depressing. On the one hand the slender stems of ash
and hazel, rising grey from the grey hill-slope, seem as though some
storm of fire had swept them. Here and there a dead tree, stripped of
its bark, still mocks the power of the wild winds that are forcing it
earthwards. On the left the cragged hill sweeps round in a quick
semi-circle to shut in the valley. Like ragged ramparts its serrated,
rocky outline shows crisp against the sky; screes of loose stone, from
which here and there a huge boulder uprears its bulk, cover the sides;
and other boulders, hurled down by successive avalanches, line the bank
of the stream.
This, however, is only the cheerless bodement of what is beyond. When
the sweep of the semi-circle forces you round the curve of the hill the
vision of stern grandeur and majesty may well rob you of speech.
The hills have drawn together until they almost meet, but they are no
longer hills—they are stupendous, unscaleable precipices of rock, three
hundred feet high. Grim and forbidding—black rather than grey—they
offer no hospitality to the foot of man; but jackdaws and ravens make
their home there, and birds of prey may sometimes be seen perching on
the crags.
Into this roofless cavern—for there is evidence that the beetling rocks
that project overhead once met in a great arch—the stream projects
itself by a series of waterfalls which roar in time of flood like the
“young lions” of Wordsworth’s fancy, and rushes along its stony channel
scattering white foam upon the piled-up boulders that almost fill the
floor of the chasm and make progress difficult. Steps have been cut in
the rock beside the lower waterfall so that even the inexpert may climb
to the “upper air,” and on their way to the higher reaches of the stream
may trace out for themselves the course of the great convulsions that
gave to Mawm its wonderland. Level with the summit of the cliffs is the
moor with its far-stretching fissured platforms of grey limestone.
Awe-inspiring even in brilliant sunshine the chasm is really “terrific”
at night. Then the frowning cliffs roof themselves in with blackness and
the roar of the Stygian stream is direful. Man shuns it, and the birds
that shriek and chatter there are birds of ill-omen.
Between the hours of twelve and one on a dark night in the last week of
March when yet the faint crescent of a new moon gave a glimmer of light,
a man made his way stealthily across the field, and in the shadow of the
high walls, towards the Scar. When he reached the entrance he sat down
on a rock with his back to the cliff, and for the space of ten minutes
remained absolutely motionless. But though his body was still, his
intelligence was alert, and his senses were scouting for him. He was
accustoming himself to the sounds that become easily distinguishable
when one listens intently; and training his eyes to penetrate the
darkness. Directly opposite to where he sat the ravine touched hands
with the valley; the frowning western cliff ran out upon the moor and
became dismembered; the upper part falling back from the lower. On the
intervening space a portion of the steep slope was carpeted with green;
but the greater part was covered with a thick deposit of loose shingle,
the plunder snatched by wild free-booting storms from the rocks
overhead. Below there was another wall of rock of no great height above
the stream that raged at its base.
Inman—for the nocturnal visitor was he—rose at last, and as if
satisfied that no further precautions of an elaborate nature were
necessary, crossed the stream and set himself to scale the rock.
Apparently he was familiar with his task, for he climbed confidently and
before long had his feet upon the shingle. It was here that the more
serious part of the adventure began, and from the hesitating way in
which he set out upon the second part of his journey it was evident that
he regarded it with some distaste.
Every movement of his feet sent a mass of loose stones hurtling down the
slope, and he made slow progress. To his sensitive ears the noise was
appalling, for the air was still and sound travelled far. In the
distance a dog began to bark, and kept on barking loudly and uneasily,
but although Inman cursed it in his heart he did not allow it to affect
his movements. Helping himself forward with his hands, he had almost
reached the stretch of green at which he was aiming when a too eager
step set the unstable track in motion; and in spite of his efforts—it
may be even because of them—he was carried with ever-accelerating speed
down the precipitous incline and only saved himself at the very edge of
the low cliff.
For some minutes he lay prone, thinking deeply, whilst the shingle
continued to roll past him. After a while it ceased to fall, and he had
just determined to rise and make a second attempt when he became
convinced that the dog was loose and coming in his direction, whereupon
panic seized him, and having groped with his toes until he found a
crevice in the rock, he lowered himself to the ground.
Arrived there, he listened again and was satisfied the barking was
nearer, so instead of returning by the fields which would almost
certainly have meant an encounter with the dog, he made his way to the
foot of the waterfall, and by means of the steps cut in the face of the
rock reached the hazardous path that led to the moors.
He was now safe from pursuit by any dog; but imagination was by this
time active, and a movement that he thought he heard in the ravine below
checked the impulse to stay, and he hurried on. Angry disappointment at
the failure of his enterprise filled his thoughts with bitterness, and
his brow was black as Gordale itself as he strode over the moor. To
severe mental disturbance there was also added physical discomfort, for
rain began to fall heavily, and he was soon very wet. By the time he
reached the road he was in a disagreeable mood; but his spirits revived
somewhat when he found himself on his own doorstep and reflected that he
had reached home unobserved.
“The usual Inman luck!” he said to himself with gloomy satisfaction.
He was of a different mind the next moment, for the new Chubb lock he
had fixed failed to respond to the demand of the key and he found
himself locked out. Very stealthily he raised the latch and put his knee
to the door. It was secured by the heavy lock, and the latch of the
Chubb was evidently pegged back. Someone had tampered with it in his
absence!
The frown deepened on his face, but he did not lose his self-command,
and having looked cautiously round he struck a match, and shading it
with his hands stooped down and examined the flagstone in front of the
door. Satisfied with what he saw, he turned and entered his workshop,
where he made his way to the office, but sleep was far from his eyes and
thoughts, and he was conscious of no lack. When day came stealing down
the moors, he went out and tried the latchlock on the house-door again.
This time it responded at once, and he nodded his head slowly as if a
hypothesis had received support, and went upstairs to his room.
When he heard Keturah bustling about in the kitchen he went across the
landing into his wife’s room. Nancy, in bed and awake, looked up in
surprise when Inman came and stood beside her.
“What ails you?” she asked.
For a moment he allowed his stern eyes to be his sole weapon of attack,
but when her face remained fearless he began to speak.
“Innocent child!” he sneered; “innocent lamb! What a pity your husband
isn’t simple and innocent too! Then you could play with his hair, and
coo him to sleep with nice little songs, and sell him to his enemies,
like the painted woman in the Bible!”
“Have you lost your reason, James, or are you drunk?”
Though a savage gleam was replacing the sneer in the cold eyes she
thrust back fear and spoke quite calmly.
“You devil!” he replied without opening his teeth. “I could find it in
my heart to admire your pluck and your cunning if it wasn’t too
dangerous. You’re playing your part well, but your acting’s thrown away
on me, my lass. Your lip trembles at the corners and your heart’s
sinking in spite of your bold face. You know you’re found out, and will
have to be punished; you hell-spawn, you!”
His coolness and the note of concentrated hate and power in his voice
chilled Nancy’s heart, and made her conscious that unless he was
conciliated her husband was in a mood to torture her; but she was never
less disposed to conciliate; on the contrary, she experienced a reckless
desire to laugh and risk the consequences; and when she spoke her voice
was charged with contemptuous and half-amused defiance.
“God knows what you’re getting at! If you’ve anything to say, get it
said like a man, and don’t think you can frighten me out o’ my wits by
glowering at me as if I’d turned street-walker——”
As she uttered the word she knew by the look that leaped to his eyes
that she had given him his opportunity, and she stopped involuntarily.
“That pulls you up, does it?” he asked. “As _if_ you’d turned
street-walker, you say! That reminds me, I’ve a little visit of
inspection to make to your wardrobe.”
He turned as he spoke and walked over to the recess where her clothes
were hanging and she raised herself on her elbow and watched him.
“If you’re seeking the coat and skirt I wore this morning,” she said,
“you might have seen that they’re hanging over the chair to dry on this
side of the bed. I don’t put my things away wet.”
“Then you admit you were out this morning?” He wheeled round as he asked
the question, and his eyes blazed.
“And why not?” she answered. “If you’d been awake you’d have heard me
go. There’s no law against a woman going out if she can’t sleep, is
there? What’s all the fuss about?”
Not a line of the man’s expression changed.
“Tell me truly why you went,” he demanded, striding up to the bed again,
and looking into her face with a threatening scowl.
“Tell me!” he repeated, and seizing her wrist in his strong palm he
twisted it roughly.
“I have told you already!” she replied, and set her teeth to hold back
an exclamation of pain.
“I’ll have the truth if I murder you!” he said, bending her arm until
the pain brought unwilling tears to her eyes.
Still she was silent, and her lips closed firmly, whereupon the tiger in
the man conquered his self-control, and in a sudden gust of rage he
seized her by the throat, and as he tightened his grip upon it, hissed:
“Then listen and I’ll tell _you_! You spied on me, you she-devil!
Whether you’d any other motive than curiosity I don’t know, but you’ve
got to tell me everything or I’ll choke the life out of you. Now speak!”
He widened his fingers, but still kept them on her throat, and she never
raised her hands in what must have been a vain effort to free herself,
but kept them tightly clasped on her breast.
“Do your worst!” she said hoarsely. “Brute and coward! Kill me, if you
like, and hang for me! Do you think it’s any catch to live tied to a man
like you? I wouldn’t say a word to save you from hell!”
Strangely, her boldness sobered him, and he threw her head back on the
pillow with a movement that was almost a blow, and walked over to the
window. In less than a minute he turned and spoke from that position.
“Is it me or yon rake-hell of a Jagger you’re after? Answer me that!”
Scorn flashed from the dark eyes at the inquiry, but there was no other
reply.
“Will you give me your word not to leave the house again at night?”
“I’m not your slave!” she answered. “You’ve called me devil and
threatened to kill me—I’ll promise you nothing!”
“Then you’re a prisoner in this room,” he said. “You can get up or not,
just as you please, but here you’ll remain until I release you”; and
with these words he left the room, locking the door behind him.
Nancy made no attempt to rise, but leaned back on her pillows and
considered the situation. She realised at once what must have happened;
that in the interval between her reaching her room and the moment,
nearly an hour later, when she remembered she had turned the lock in the
outer door and omitted to drop the latch, her husband had returned and
made his deductions.
“He would see my footmarks, too, if he sought for them,” she reflected.
“What a stupid mess I made of it!”
Though he had treated her so roughly she was surprised to find herself
thinking of her husband without resentment. A bracelet of red on her
wrist showed with what merciless force he had gripped her, and her arm
and shoulder ached as with the gnawing pain of a bared nerve; but to a
woman of her hard race these things were trifles, and less than might
have been expected from a man of Inman’s breed. She even excused him,
realising the mortification he must feel at the suspicion that his own
wife was plotting against him. It was a game they were playing, and she
had made a wrong move—a pitiably careless move which well merited
punishment; but he had nothing more than inference to go upon when he
charged her with spying, and the game was not over.
She rose and dressed, made the bed and tidied the room, and finally
seated herself by the open window. The moors lay warm in the embrace of
the sunshine and unseen birds were chirping their grace for the bounties
of the moistened earth. Nancy wondered if she was to be left
breakfastless, but she was not hungry enough to be concerned. “They say
fasting sharpens the wits,” she reflected.
What was the meaning of the Gordale adventure? All the night through she
had puzzled her brains and found no answer. She had feared to follow
when she saw her husband pass over the stile that led to the Scar; but
curiosity had got the better of nervousness and she had gone round by
the farm, forgetting the watch-dog in the yard whose noisy greeting
drove her back to the roadway. Eventually she had climbed the wall some
distance away, and reached the chasm when the rumbling of the stones was
just beginning. Fascinated by what her senses told her was proceeding,
she had taken up her position behind a rock and awaited results.
The barking of the dog had given her no concern, though she was
surprised that it was continued so long; and when the catastrophe
occurred and Inman found himself on comparatively level ground again,
she had been unable to account for the speed with which he left the
gorge and for his choice of that inconvenient exit. It had, however, put
pursuit out of the question, and she had returned home by the much
shorter field-path, arriving a full half hour before Inman. She had
fastened back the latch before leaving and locked the door with the big
key, as she had felt certain that her husband’s project would enable her
to return first, and it was preoccupied thoughts and the force of habit
that had led her to secure the door in the old familiar way, by which
unfortunate blunder she was now finding herself thwarted.
She was thinking about it, but making no progress towards a solution of
the mystery when Inman entered with her breakfast.
“Close that window!” he commanded, as he set down the tray on the bed.
“I prefer it open,” she replied. “Even prisoners are allowed air.”
He made no reply but left the room, returning a minute later with screws
and screwdriver, by means of which he made the window secure. Neither of
the two spoke until the work was finished, and Nancy poured out her tea
with a steady hand.
“Hadn’t you better board it up?” she asked as he put the screwdriver in
his pocket. “What’s to hinder me from breaking the window?”
“The thought that I’ll break your neck!” he replied grimly.
She laughed mockingly, all the moorwoman in her roused to defy him.
“You dursn’t!” she said. “You’re all for yourself, James, and a man
who’s all for himself isn’t for doing the hangman a good turn! Your
mind’s willing enough, I daresay, but putting me out o’ my misery
wouldn’t help your game.”
“That’s true!” he replied, with a calmness equal to her own. “You’ve
beaten me so far, but I’ll find a way of hurting you, my lass. I’ll
squeeze the blood from your heart drop by drop before I’ve done! Aye,
and from that pet-rabbit of yours, too! He’ll scream when the weasel
gets his teeth in his neck! There’ll be no mercy then!”
“You can’t hurt him!” she said proudly. “He’s too big and good for you!”
She thought he would have struck her, but he restrained himself and left
the room without a word, locking the door behind him; and for a moment
Nancy’s heart sank. She was thinking not of herself but of Jagger.
“He can’t hurt him,” she repeated. “Maniwel’ll see to that!”
Subconsciously there was the feeling that Maniwel was in favour with the
high court of Heaven, and that his influence would shield his son.
“I must get word to Jagger somehow,” she said to herself. “What James is
up to I can’t think; but he’ll finish the job to-night if I’m out o’ the
way, and he ought to be watched.
“He’s locked me up, has he?” she went on a moment later, as a faint
smile overspread her face “Love laughs at locksmiths and so does hate.”