HESTER.
Jacob witnessed the parting between his master and mistress in the great
hall of the old house. Without apparently noticing anything, he yet
saw with vivid distinctness the queer grey pallor on Adrian Rowton’s
face; he noticed how Nance bit her lips, how tightly her hands were
locked together; he saw a look in her eyes which touched him in spite of
himself. The look was one of agony. As Nance bade a voiceless good-bye to
her husband, her soul seemed to look straight into his. Jacob saw it all
without appearing to see.
“Poor young lady,” he muttered under his breath; “it ain’t in me to be
very sorry for anyone, but if I could have a spice of feeling it would be
for Mrs. Adrian Rowton. She is so pretty and so kind. Whatever possessed
her to give herself up, heart and soul, to that devil-may-care chap?—and
yet, and yet, if he were not what he is, I could find it in my heart not
to be greatly surprised. Ah, my fine fellow, you’ll know what Jacob Short
has found out about you. You’ll lay low enough before long.”
As these thoughts flitted through his mind, the footman turned slowly
in the direction of the servants’ premises. He was met just outside the
servants’ hall by the housekeeper.
“Well, now,” she said, “here’s a new trouble.”
“And what is that, ma’am?” asked Jacob.
“Why, as if we had not worries enough, there’s that tiresome girl, Hester
Winsome, has gone and been taken real bad.”
“Bad?” echoed Jacob; “how so?”
“You may well ask how so.”
“Now I come to think of it,” answered Jacob, “she did look a bit queer at
dinner-time.”
“Well, she is queerer now; she is up in her room sobbing and moaning and
clasping her hands, and crying that she wishes to heaven she had never
set foot in this place, and that her pain is more than she can bear. Pain
of mind, it seems to me, for I can’t make out that there’s anything wrong
with her body.”
“I wonder, now,” said Jacob, after a somewhat long pause, during which he
was thinking deeply—“I wonder, now, if she would see me. Perhaps you have
noticed, ma’am, that I have a soothing sort of way with me.”
“Of course I’ve noticed it,” said the housekeeper. “I remarked it from
the very first. It was only half-an-hour ago I was saying to Vickers,
‘if it was not for Jacob Short I really don’t know how we’d have lived
through the day.’ He is the only one amongst us who has kept a cool head
on his shoulders.”
“Then perhaps I might soothe Hester,” answered Jacob, in his soft and
melodious voice, his face exhibiting the utmost kindness and sympathy.
“Perhaps you would not mind telling her, Mrs. Ferguson, that if she would
like to come downstairs I should be glad to have a chat with her.”
“I will,” said Mrs. Ferguson; “it is a good thought. You may do something
to make the girl unburden herself, for mind trouble I am convinced it is.”
Mrs. Ferguson trotted upstairs, and went straight to Hester’s room.
Hester was laying on the bed, face downwards; she was moaning now and
then very heavily, but otherwise lay perfectly still.
“Now, you silly girl, have you not recovered your nerve yet?” said the
housekeeper.
“It is the ache in my head, ma’am,” replied the girl; “there’s a pain
running through me at the back of my head enough to make me screech out.”
“I hope, then, you won’t screech out, for there is confusion and worry
enough without that. For my part, I have no patience with people who have
not got self-control. You get up, Hester, and come downstairs.”
“It is easy for you to speak, ma’am,” answered Hester; “your conscience
lies light enough. It was not you who sent Master Murray to the Queen
Anne wing.”
“Well, and if you did it, child,” answered the housekeeper, her voice
slightly softening, “you did it, I know, with a good motive; you ain’t to
blame for that. Now, cheer up, and come downstairs; it will do you good
to eat a bit of supper with the rest of us.”
As Mrs. Ferguson said these last words, she laid her hand on Hester’s
shoulder.
“There’s Jacob, too,” she continued. “Now, if there’s a man I do admire,
it’s Jacob. He has self-control if you like; he has a head on his
shoulders; he don’t think anything of himself. What has not he done
this day? Why, everything for everybody. Helping the police to take an
inventory of the missing plate, remembering all about it—wonderful,
too—better even than Vickers, who has been here for years, and going off
on his own accord for the police, and then seeing my master off to town.
I never had a better servant in the house, and that I will say. When I
told him about you, no one could speak nicer; he said to me at once,
looking as concerned as you please:
“‘Mrs. Ferguson, maybe I could soothe her a bit. I have a soothing way,
you might remark,’ says he.
“‘That you have,’ says I.
“‘Well, then, send her down to me and I’ll have a bit of a talk,’ says he.
“I answered that I would; so down you go now, Hester, and pour out your
mind to him. You tell him how you feel about sending the poor little chap
off to the Queen Anne wing. He’ll bring you to your senses if anyone
will.”
“I cannot go,” answered Hester, who had thrown herself back again on her
bed; “it’s useless to expect it of me—my head is so giddy that I could
not rise to save my life; you can tell Mr. Jacob so with my compliments,
Mrs. Ferguson. Perhaps I’ll be better in the morning after I have had a
bit of sleep.”
“Well, if you are as bad as all that,” answered Mrs. Ferguson, “you had
best take off your clothes and get right into bed. I’ll tell Jacob you
ain’t well enough to see him, and have gone to bed.”
“Yes, please do,” answered Hester.
Mrs. Ferguson left the room.
As soon as her footsteps died away in the distance, Hester raised her
head from the pillow and began to listen intently. Not hearing a sound,
she rose, crossed her room, and turned the key in the lock. It turned
smoothly, as if the lock had been recently oiled.
Hester then went and stood by the window. Her little room was high up
in a certain wing of the old house; it looked out across the garden.
Night had fallen over the place, and the moon, clearer and brighter than
on the previous night, lit up the landscape with a fantastic and weird
distinctness. Hester clasped her two hands above her head and gazed
steadily out. Her dark eyes were full of a curious mixture of feeling.
Emotion, despair, chased away the almost cruel expression which, on most
occasions, characterised them.
“I have gone a step too far,” she muttered. “I thought I was taking in
others, and I was took in myself. I am fit to kill myself. There, was
that nine that struck?”
A little clock on the mantelpiece had signalled the hour.
Hester went across the room to a wardrobe, which she opened. She took out
a cloak and flung it over her shoulders, and then with stealthy and swift
movements approached the door. She unlocked it and went into the passage
outside. The house was quiet as the grave; the servants were at supper
far away; the mad lady was quiet in the Queen Anne wing; Mrs. Rowton and
Lady Georgina Strong were at some distance in one of the drawing rooms.
Hester’s opportunity had come.
Quick as lightning she flew down the stairs, and a moment later found
herself under the shade of a large yew tree. The moonlight fell broadly
on the grass, but under the yew there was a shadow nearly black. As she
stood there someone touched her on the arm.
“So you’ve come,” said a man’s voice in a muffled tone.
“Yes, I am here, Jim Scrivener,” panted the girl.
“We can’t talk so near the house,” answered Scrivener.
“I know a place where we’ll be safe; follow me and keep in the shade.”
He turned abruptly. Hester, trembling in every limb, followed in his
wake.