An hour passed, dragging its linked minutes like a snake crawling lazily
in the long grass under the summer sun.
Bess, bound fast to the chair, sat like one weak after a long illness,
the sunlight falling on the floor, to be reflected upon the brown beams
of the old room. The girl’s face looked white and apathetic against the
dark background of an old linen-press. Her eyes stared out steadily
through the window at the green woods bathed in sunshine, and the white
clouds sailing slowly north across the infinite azure of the June sky.
The life fire had burned low in her since Dan had struck her down in the
woods. The shock of the night had not yet lifted from her heart. Old
Isaac’s pitiless gray eyes still haunted her, and she remembered the
gleam of the barrel of the gun.
This same evening she was to have met Jeffray at Holy Cross, and the
thought stirred the blood in her a little. She lay back in the chair,
resting her head upon the rail, and taking her breath in deeply with
slow, sighing inspirations. The memories of her last meeting with
Jeffray began to work in her with quickening force. All the sweet
complicity of the plot set the cords of her heart vibrating. If he but
knew, if he had but guessed how Dan had treated her! If he were only
wise as to her present peril!
With the increasing sense of her own powerlessness the spirit of revolt
in her waxed but the more importunate. Why should she be made the
creature of this man’s passions? She seemed to feel again the great
fist, swinging with all the brutality of the man’s nature, and crashing
into her face. All the ignominies of the past weeks rose up to taunt and
madden her. All her hate and loathing waxed fiercer as she thought of
her helpless yearning towards Jeffray. She began to struggle and twist
in the chair, striving to get her teeth to the knots about her wrist.
Dan had fastened them down to the front stretcher of the chair, and
wrestle and strain as she would she could not reach them.
What could she do to free herself from the shame and the dread that
encompassed her? Scream! Yes, but who would hear her, and who would help
her if they heard? Ursula? Poor doddering Ursula! Doubtless she had been
locked safely in her cottage, and Bess mistrusted the old woman’s
courage when Isaac’s will had been declared law. Incensed the more by
her own thoughts, she struggled again and again with the cords, twisting
and straining till the oak chair rocked and creaked. The muscles stood
out under the brown skin of her forearms. Her bruised lips began to
bleed again as she held her breath, struggling and working her body from
side to side.
Another hour passed. The bees droned on, the smell of the garden came in
upon the breeze. Not a voice reached her from the hamlet. Silence
prevailed save for the murmur of the insects, the vague rustling of the
leaves, the steady, mocking tick of the old clock against the wall. The
woods rolled up before her, their green splendor heightened by the blaze
of the June sunlight. The very calm of the place seemed to intensify the
passionate despair in her own heart.
Suddenly some new sound drifted to Bess’s ears. She twisted forward in
the chair, straining at the cords. Some one was moving towards the
cottage; Bess heard the rustle of feet in the long grass. Was it Dan
returning, or old Isaac with those pistols in his belt? The footsteps
stopped at the garden-gate. Bess could see neither the gate nor the path
from where she sat. The latch lifted; some one was coming up the
brick-paved path. She heard the sound of breathing, the sound of a hand
trying the locked door. For a moment silence held. Then with the
rustling of clothes against the wall of the cottage a round-backed
figure showed blurred by the sunlight at the window, a hook-nosed face
looked in at Bess through the open lattice.
It was Ursula.
Bess, leaning forward in the chair, stared at the old woman with a swift
flooding of blood into her face.
“Is that you, mother?”
Instinctively she had chosen the word that she had used to Ursula when
she was a child. There was a husky and vibrating wistfulness in the
voice that seemed to carry strange and simple pathos.
Ursula was standing at the window, wringing her hands together. For two
hours past she had been the creature of indecision, halting between fear
of Isaac and great dread of the hints that the old man had cast into her
ears.
“Mother!”
Ursula began to whimper as she looked in at the girl, the impotence of
her dotage showing in her face.
“What!—they have bound ye to the chair?”
“I can’t stir, mother.”
“Oh, dear Lord! what shall I do?”
“Are we alone?”
“They be all away save Solomon,” she answered.
Bess’s face strained painfully towards the window.
“Where is Solomon?” she asked.
Ursula still twisted her hands together and peered round her
suspiciously.
“Chopping firewood in his shed. I slipped round through the trees. Lord
o’ mercy, what’s to be done—what’s to be done!”
Bess’s strength of purpose increased with Ursula’s indecision.
“Mother,” she said, in a whisper.
“Ay, child.”
“Ye’ve always been kind to me. Will ye let them bury me in the forest
with a bullet in my heart?”
Ursula began to sway to and fro, pressing her hands to her bosom,
whimpering and muttering like one demented.
“Why did ye meddle, Bess—why did ye meddle?”
“Isaac wanted to shoot me by the Monk’s Grave.”
“He be a fierce man, be Isaac.”
“Dan stood for me then; he’ll not stand for me again. Isaac will shoot
me; I’ve seen death in his eyes.”
Ursula stretched herself across the window-sill with her head between
her hands. Her distress was pitiable in its impotence. Bess watched her,
realizing that her one hope rested on the feeble and faltering courage
of this crooked and half-witless creature.
“Mother,” she said, hoarsely.
Ursula darted up her head and looked at Bess.
“Climb in through the window.”
“Lord have mercy on me, how can a poor old cripple climb in to ye?”
“Mother, you must.”
“I can’t, I can’t, wench; how can I?”
“Try, now try for Bess’s sake. My blood will be upon you if Isaac has
his way.”
The words seemed to strike Ursula full in the face. She stood shaking,
blinking her eyes, and working her loose, inturned lips together. Then
she thrust her arms over the sill, gripped the wooden ledge within, and
tried to drag herself to the level of the window. Bess watched the
wrinkled and trembling head straining forward upon its yellow neck. The
sinews stood out in the sticks of forearms, the feet scraped and worked
against the wall. Slowly Ursula dragged herself up and through so that
she could get one knee upon the ledge. She lay there panting a moment,
looking at Bess.
“Quick, mother, quick!”
Ursula drew her left knee up on to the window-ledge, knelt, and, getting
on her feet, crouched half within the opening of the lattice. There was
a wooden stool under the window. Ursula caught one foot in her petticoat
in the descent, lurched forward, and came tumbling on the floor. Her
forehead struck the brick-work heavily. For a moment she lay groaning
and twitching, Bess gazing at her in an agony of helpless dread.
Ursula was shaken but not stunned. She struggled up on her hands and
knees, looking round her with a vacant pathos that might have appeared
ludicrous at any other time. Bess was bending forward in the chair.
“Quick, mother, a knife!”
Ursula picked herself up, and went tottering round the room, holding her
head between her hands. She moved to the dresser, dragged out one drawer
after another, and came back at last with a horn-handled knife in her
hand. Bess never shifted her eyes from the old woman’s face.
“My wrist, here, the cord—cut it.”
Ursula tumbled on her knees, sawed at the rope shakily, and stabbed
Bess’s wrist in her clumsy fright. The sight of blood startled her. She
dropped the knife, and sat on her heels, gaping at Bess.
“Cut the rope, mother; ye haven’t hurt me.”
Ursula picked up the knife and sawed at the cord again, Bess straining
at it to keep it taut. Blood was trickling slowly down her fingers; that
was nothing. Strand by strand the thin rope gave under the edge of the
knife. A last twist of the girl’s strong arm and her hand was free.
She took the knife from Ursula instantly, cut the cords about her other
wrist and ankles, careless of how she hurt herself in her haste. A
stifled cry came from Ursula as Bess rose free of the oak chair. The old
woman had tottered forward and fallen in a faint upon the floor.
Bess stood staring at her in mute vexation, then went on her knees
beside her, turning Ursula upon her back, and chafing her hands. The old
woman gave no single sign of consciousness, but lay there with her mouth
open and her eyes shut, the pallor of her face contrasting with the red
bricks in the floor. Bess gazed at her, hesitating. What should she do?
Leave Ursula to Isaac’s anger, and take time and its precious fortune to
herself? Solomon Grimshaw might be hanging about the cottage; every
moment Bess thought to see a face looking at her through the open
lattice.
Desperate, she ran to the window and looked out. The garden seemed
asleep in the sunshine; no one was to be seen. In the distance she
fancied she could catch the sharp play of Solomon’s bill as he split the
pine-boughs in his woodshed. With necessity for her inspiration, she
turned back to Ursula, lifted her easily in her strong arms, carried her
to the window, and lowered her unceremoniously by her skirts into the
garden. Then she climbed out after her, picked Ursula up again, for she
was nothing but a sack of skin and bone, and, passing round to the back
of the garden, broke away into the woods that rose close about the
cottage. Casting a half circle through the trees, breathing hard through
her set teeth, and stopping often to listen, she drew towards Ursula’s
cottage with the woman still unconscious in her arms. Interminable
minutes seemed to pass before she came through the pine-thickets to the
cottage, raised the latch of the door, and carried Ursula within.
Bess laid her down on the settle before the fire, and, kneeling, saw
that Ursula showed signs of a return to consciousness. The eyes opened,
the hands groped out towards the girl’s face. Bess bent and kissed the
old woman upon the mouth.
“Mother, mother—”
Ursula stared at her vacantly as though trying to remember what had
happened. Bess gave her no moment to delay. She was fearful, and grew
more fearful each instant of Dan’s return.
“See, I have brought you back to your own cottage,” she said; “now—I
must go. Remember, when Isaac comes back—you know nothing, you have not
been near Dan’s house. They may think I broke free by myself.”
Ursula nodded, sighed, and put her hands to her head.
“I’ve saved ye, child,” she said.
“God bless you for it, mother! I must go.”
Bess kissed Ursula again, smoothed her gray hair for her, and, starting
up, turned towards the door. She closed it softly after her, and,
looking round warily, darted across the open stretch of grass-land for
the farther woods. She would take the path for the Beacon Rock, strike
across the heath, and reach the road for Rodenham. Her one hope of
safety was with Jeffray. He would defend her against Isaac and against
Dan.
Bess had barely reached the trees when Solomon Grimshaw sauntered out
from the woodshed, wiping his forehead with his bare forearm. He caught
sight of Bess as she slipped into the woods, gave a shout, and started
after her. Bess heard the shout, stopped, and glanced back over her
shoulder. She saw Solomon running towards her, shaking his fist. One
look was sufficient. Bess gathered up her skirts and ran, her gray cloak
melting away amid the trees, her ankles in their red stockings flashing
under her green petticoat. Solomon was but a lame old horse; she could
out-distance him easily in the woods.