Freda was so easily led by kindness that when, not heeding her
passionate outburst, Crispin pushed her gently out of the room, she
made no protest either by word or action. He left her alone on the
landing while he went back to get a light, and when he rejoined her,
it was with a smile of good-humoured tolerance on his rugged face.
“So you think I murdered your father, do you, eh?” he said, as he
turned the key in the lock and then put it in his pocket.
“Why don’t you let me see him?” asked she, pleadingly.
“I have a good reason, you may be sure. I am not a woman, to act out
of mere caprice. That’s enough for you. Go downstairs.”
Freda obeyed, carrying her crutch and helping herself down by the
banisters.
“Why don’t you use your crutch?” called out Crispin, who was holding
the lamp over the staircase head, and watching her closely. “If you
can do without it now, I should think you could do without it always?”
He spoke in rather a jeering tone. At least Freda thought so, and she
was up in arms in a moment. Turning, and leaning on the banisters, she
looked up at him with a gleam of daring spirit in her red-brown eyes.
“It’s a caprice, you may be sure,” she answered slowly. “I am not a
man, to act upon mere reason.”
Crispin gave a great roar of derisive laughter, shocking the girl, who
hopped down the rest of the stairs as fast as possible and ran, almost
breathless, into the room she had been in before. Mrs. Bean was
bringing in some cold meat and eggs, and she turned, with an alarmed
exclamation at sight of her.
“Bless the girl!” she cried. “Why didn’t you wait till I came to you?
I have a bundle of dry clothes waiting outside, and now you’ll catch
your death of cold, sitting in those wet things!”
“Oh, no, I sha’n’t,” said Freda, “we were not brought up to be
delicate at the convent, and it was only the edge of my dress that was
wet.”
Mrs. Bean was going to insist on sending her upstairs again, when
Crispin, who had followed them into the room, put an end to the
discussion by drawing a chair to the table and making the girl sit
down in it.
“Have you had your tea?” asked Freda.
“I don’t want any tea,” said he gruffly. “I’ve got to pack up my
things; I’m going away to-night.”
“Going away!” echoed Freda rather regretfully.
“Well, why shouldn’t I? I’m sure you’ll be very happy here without
me.” And, without further ceremony, he left the room.
Mrs. Bean made a dart at the table, swooped upon a plate and a knife
which were not being used, and with the air of one labouring under a
sudden rush of business, bustled out after him.
There was a clock in the room, but it was not going. It seemed to
Freda that she was left a very long time by herself. Being so tired
that she was restless, she wandered round and round the room, and
thought at last that she would go in search of Crispin. So she opened
the door softly, stepped out into the wide hall, and by the dim light
of a small oil lamp on a bracket, managed to find her way across the
wide hall to the back-door leading into the court-yard. This door,
however, was locked. To the left was another door leading, as Freda
knew, into Mrs. Bean’s quarters. This also was locked. She went back
therefore to the room she had left, the door of which she had closed
behind her. To her astonishment, she found this also locked. This
circumstance seemed so strange that she was filled with alarm; and not
knowing what to do, whether to call aloud in the hope that Mrs. Bean
or Crispin would hear her, or to go round the hall, trying all the
doors once more, she sat down on the lowest steps of the staircase
listening and considering the situation.
A slight noise above her head made her turn suddenly, and looking up
she saw peering at her through the banisters of the landing, an ugly,
withered face. Utterly horrorstruck, and convinced that the apparition
was superhuman, Freda, without a word or a cry, sank into a frightened
heap at the bottom of the stairs, and hid her eyes. She heard no
further sound; and when she looked up again, the face was gone. But
the shock she had received was so great that it made her desperate;
getting up from her crouching position, she sped across the hall,
frightened by the echoes of her crutch and her own feet, and threw
herself with all her force against the great door, making the chain
swing and rattle.
“What’s that?” cried Mrs. Bean’s cheery voice in the distance.
And in a few moments the door leading to the kitchen was opened, and
the buxom housekeeper appeared.
“Oh, Mrs. Bean,” cried Freda, throwing herself into her arms and
speaking in a voice hoarse with fear, “this house is haunted!”
“Bless the poor child! you’re overtired, and you fancy things, my
dear,” she said soothingly. “All these old places are full of strange
noises, but you’ll soon get used to them.”
“But _faces_! I saw a face, a dreadful face, with long sharp teeth
like a death’s head; it was looking at me through the banisters, up
there!”
And poor Freda, with her head still buried in Mrs. Bean’s plump
shoulder, pointed upwards with her finger.
“Oh, no, my dear, you didn’t. It was only your fancy. What you want is
to go to bed, and after a good night’s rest you’ll see no more death’s
heads.”
Mrs. Bean’s manner was so very quiet and matter-of-fact, and she took
the account of the appearance so unemotionally, that it occurred to
Freda to ask:
“Haven’t you heard of that face being seen before?”
“Well,” said the housekeeper, rather taken aback, “I believe I have
heard something about it.”
“And the doors, why do they lock of themselves?”
“Oh, that’s very simple,” answered the housekeeper quickly. “That’s a
patent invented by the Captain for the greater security of the house
when he didn’t live here himself. I will show you how to open them.”
She crossed to the door of the dining-room, followed by Freda. But it
seemed to the girl that she listened a few moments, before attempting
to open it. Then she turned what looked like a little ornamental
button above the keyhole, and the door opened.
“That’s how it’s done; you see it’s perfectly simple.”
“Ye-es,” said Freda, “but it all seems to me very strange.”
Mrs. Bean laughed, and wanted the girl to amuse herself with a book
while she cleared away the tea-things.
But no sooner was the housekeeper’s broad back turned than Freda was
off her chair in a moment, and out of the kitchen to a door which
opened into the court-yard. As this door had no secret bolt, she was
speedily outside, under the gallery.
Fancying, that she heard voices to the left, Freda turned in that
direction, and presently saw Crispin standing ankle-deep in the snow,
looking up at the gallery above.
“Were you talking to some one, Crispin?” she cried.
He started at the sound of her voice, and came towards her with
impatient steps.
“What the d----l are you doing out here?” he asked angrily, with a
stamp of his foot on the ground.
“I came out to talk to you,” she answered. “I sha’n’t catch cold.”
“You’ll catch something worse than cold if you come wandering out here
at all hours of the night,” muttered Crispin roughly. “Nell must keep
you indoors.”
He came through the sheltered colonnade, stamping the snow off his
feet.
“You’re a very disagreeable man, Crispin,” said Freda, watching him
gravely. “You must have been very good to my father for him to have
kept you about him so long. It shows,” she went on triumphantly, “that
he must have been much more amiable than they say. Do you know I think
you only talk against him to tease me. But it is horrible, now that
he’s dead.”
Her voice sank on the last word, and the tears started again.
When Crispin answered, which was not at once, his voice was scarcely
so harsh as before, though he spoke rather scoffingly.
“Women are always full of fancies. I don’t wonder your father couldn’t
stand them!”
It was Freda’s turn to laugh now.
“Oh,” she cried, “then I knew him better than you after all. For he
loved one woman so well that he could never bear to look at another
after she died. And he left his own daughter among women, nothing but
women. And I believe that all those years he wouldn’t see me because
he thought I could never be good enough for her daughter. I was lame,
you see,” she added softly.
There was a long, long pause. Freda had managed to get on the right
side of rough Crispin. For he suddenly startled her by taking her in
his right arm with a sweeping embrace which nearly took her off her
feet, while he said huskily:
“Come in, there’s a dear child; you’re cold. You’re quite right, I’ll
be good to you for the sake of---- Well, for your own sake!”
He half led, half carried her along under the gallery and into the
house. Mrs. Bean, who was standing at the back door with rather an
anxious look upon her face, seemed relieved to see that they returned
in amity. Crispin took the girl into a long, low-ceilinged room, where
the furniture, in holland bags, was stacked up against the walls. He
led her before a large oil-painting of a lady, the charm of whose
gracious beauty, even the old-fashioned fourth-rate portrait-painter
had not been able wholly to destroy.
“I suppose you can guess who that is,” said Crispin.
“My mother,” said Freda softly.
“I believe the Captain thought a lot of this picture once. But for the
last few years his memory had grown a bit dim, and he remembered
bitter things better than sweet ones.”
Freda drew a little nearer to Crispin. She perceived by his tone how
strong the sympathy had been between him and her father. She gave a
little sigh, and they instinctively turned to each other and exchanged
glances of growing liking and confidence as they went down the long
room and crossed the hall to the dining-room. Crispin turned up the
lamp, and was about to refill his pipe when it occurred to him to turn
to the girl and say:
“You won’t be able to stand this indoors, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes, I shall. They smoked all the time in the kitchen, at the
‘Barley Mow.’”
“The ‘Barley Mow,’ eh? How did you get there?”
Freda told him the whole story of her journey, her sojourn at the inn,
the mysterious character they gave her father.
When she mentioned her friend who was connected with the government,
Crispin grew very attentive, and asked for a minute description of
him, at the end of which he said: “The scoundrel! That’s the fellow
who was sneaking about here this afternoon. If I’d guessed----”
He did not finish his sentence, but he looked so black that Freda
hastened to get off the unpleasant subject, and rushed into a
description of her adventures at Oldcastle Farm. This, however, proved
even less pleasing. Crispin listened with a frown on his face to her
account of the kindness of the Heritages, and at last broke out into
open impatience.
“Mind,” said he sharply, “if those two young cubs come carnying about
here while I’m away--as they will do, my word on it--you are not to
let them inside the door on any pretence, remember that.”
“I wouldn’t let Robert in,” said Freda decidedly.
“No, nor Dick, either.”
“I should let Dick in,” said Freda softly.
Crispin sat back in his chair to look at her face, and perceived upon
it a rosy red flush.
“Now look here,” he said, like one trembling on the borders of a great
outburst of passion, “if you let Dick Heritage come fooling about you
here, I’ll shoot him through the head. Now you understand.”
Freda looked up with a sudden flash of haughtiness.
“I am going back to the convent, Crispin, and these gentlemen are
nothing to me. But if I were going to stay in this house, I should see
whom I liked, for I should be the mistress here.”
If she had stabbed him he would not have been more surprised. He held
his pipe in his hand, and stared at her, unable at first to find
words. She, on her side, felt very uncomfortable as soon as the
outburst had escaped her. She felt that a confession had slipped out
against her will, and she hung her head, and looked into the fire,
hoping that the glow would hide her flaming cheeks.
“So you would be mistress here, would you?” he said. “And you intend
to go back to the convent? And I suppose you think your father’s
wishes nothing.”
“I don’t know what they were; and I shall never know now!”
“Well, I’ll tell you. His wishes were that you should remain here, and
call yourself mistress if you like, while I go away to manage his
property abroad for him.”
“But, Crispin, what could I do here? I should be miserable. I should
like a nun’s life, but not a hermit’s!”
“Oh, well, you’ll get used to it. Your father had a troop of
pensioners in the town here: you will have them to look after.”
“Crispin,” she said suddenly after a pause, in a whisper, “who do you
think it was that killed Blewitt?”
Crispin was rather startled by the question.
“Well,” he asked in his turn, looking stolidly at the fire, “who did
Barnabas Ugthorpe think it was?”
“Oh,” said Freda quickly, “he was wrong, altogether wrong. I told him
so.”
“And supposing he had been right, altogether right, your father would
be a murderer.”
Freda bent her head, but said nothing.
“What do you say to that?”
The girl burst out fierily:
“Why, that he was not a murderer! he was not, he was not! And I
wouldn’t believe it if--if everybody in England had been there!”
She kept her head up, and looked at him steadily, her eyes flashing
defiance. After a few moments he got up.
“You’re tired, and you’re very silly,” he said, huskily.
And, with a nod, but without again looking at her he left the room, as
Mrs. Bean came in with a candle.