There was not a moment to be lost. When the servant came downstairs
again from her room in the attics, she would be sure to call for the
tea-tray, in order to save herself another journey; how long she would
be up-stairs was quite uncertain. If she was gone to "clean" herself, as
she called it, the process might be a very long one, and a good hour
might be at my disposal; but I could not count upon that. In the
drawing-room below sat my jailer and enemy, who might take a whim into
her head, and come up to see her prisoner at any instant. It was
necessary to be very quick, very decisive, and very silent.
I had been on the alert for such a chance ever since my imprisonment
began. My seal-skin hat and jacket lay ready to my hand in a drawer; but
I could find no gloves; I could not wait for gloves. Already there were
ominous sounds overhead, as if the servant had dispatched her brief
business there, and was about to come down. I had not time to put on
thicker boots; and it was perhaps essential to the success of my flight
to steal down the stairs in the soft, velvet slippers I was wearing. I
stepped as lightly as I could--lightly but very swiftly, for the servant
was at the top of the upper flight, while I had two to descend. I crept
past the drawing-room door. The heavy house-door opened with a grating
of the hinges; but I stood outside it, in the shelter of the portico;
free, but with the rain and wind of a stormy night in October beating
against me, and with no light save the glimmer of the feeble
street-lamps flickering across the wet pavement.
I knew very well that my escape was almost hopeless, for the success of
it depended very much upon which road of the three lying before me I
should happen to take. I had no idea of the direction of any one of
them, for I had never been out of the house since the night I was
brought to it. The strong, quick running of the servant, and the
passionate fury of the woman, would overtake me if we were to have a
long race; and if they overtook me they would force me back. I had no
right to seek freedom in this wild way, yet it was the only way. Even
while I hesitated in the portico of the house that ought to have been my
home, I heard the shrill scream of the girl within when she found my
door open, and my room empty. If I did not decide instantaneously, and
decide aright, it would have been better for me never to have tried this
chance of escape.
But I did not linger another moment. I could almost believe an angel
took me by the hand, and led me. I darted straight across the muddy
road, getting my thin slippers wet through at once, ran for a few yards,
and then turned sharply round a corner into a street at the end of which
I saw the cheery light of shop-windows, all in a glow in spite of the
rain. On I fled breathlessly, unhindered by any passer-by, for the rain
was still falling, though more lightly. As I drew nearer to the
shop-windows, an omnibus-driver, seeing me run toward him, pulled up his
horses in expectation of a passenger. The conductor shouted some name
which I did not hear, but I sprang in, caring very little where it might
carry me, so that I could get quickly enough and far enough out of the
reach of my pursuers. There had been no time to lose, and none was lost.
The omnibus drove on again quickly, and no trace was left of me.
I sat quite still in the farthest corner of the omnibus, hardly able to
recover my breath after my rapid running. I was a little frightened at
the notice the two or three other passengers appeared to take of me, and
I did my best to seem calm and collected. My ungloved hands gave me some
trouble, and I hid them as well as I could in the folds of my dress; for
there was something remarkable about the want of gloves in any one as
well dressed as I was. But nobody spoke to me, and one after another
they left the omnibus, and fresh persons took their places, who did not
know where I had got in. I did not stir, for I determined to go as far
as I could in this conveyance. But all the while I was wondering what I
should do with myself, and where I could go, when it readied its
destination.
There was one trifling difficulty immediately ahead of me. When the
omnibus stopped I should have no small change for paying my fare. There
was an Australian sovereign fastened to my watch-chain which I could
take off, but it would be difficult to detach it while we were jolting
on. Besides, I dreaded to attract attention to myself. Yet what else
could I do?
Before I had settled this question, which occupied me so fully that I
forgot other and more serious difficulties, the omnibus drove into a
station-yard, and every passenger, inside and out, prepared to alight. I
lingered till the last, and sat still till I had unfastened my
gold-piece. The wind drove across the open space in a strong gust as I
stepped down upon the pavement. A man had just descended from the roof,
and was paying the conductor: a tall, burly man, wearing a thick
water-proof coat, and a seaman's hat of oil-skin, with a long flap lying
over the back of his neck. His face was brown and weather-beaten, but he
had kindly-looking eyes, which glanced at me as I stood waiting to pay
my fare.
"Going down to Southampton?" said the conductor to him.
"Ay, and beyond Southampton," he answered.
"You'll have a rough night of it," said the conductor.--"Sixpence, if
you please, miss."
I offered him my Australian sovereign, which he turned over curiously,
asking me if I had no smaller change. He grumbled when I answered no,
and the stranger, who had not passed on, but was listening to what was
said, turned pleasantly to me.
"You have no change, mam'zelle?" he asked, speaking rather slowly, as if
English was not his ordinary speech. "Very well! are you going to
Southampton?"
"Yes, by the next train," I answered, deciding upon that course without
hesitation.
"So am I, mam'zelle," he said, raising his hand to his oil-skin cap; "I
will pay this sixpence, and you can give it me again, when you buy your
ticket in the office."
I smiled quickly, gladly; and he smiled back upon me, but gravely, as if
his face was not used to a smile. I passed on into the station, where a
train was standing, and people hurrying about the platform, choosing
their carriages. At the ticket-office they changed my Australian
gold-piece without a word; and I sought out my seaman friend to return
the sixpence he had paid to me. He had done me a greater kindness than
he could ever know, and I thanked him heartily. His honest, deep-set,
blue eyes glistened under their shaggy eyebrows as they looked down upon
me.
"Can I do nothing more for you, mam'zelle?" he asked. "Shall I see after
your luggage?"
"Oh! that will be all right, thank you," I replied, "but is this the
train for Southampton, and how soon will it start?"
I was watching anxiously the stream of people going to and fro, lest I
should see some person who knew me. Yet who was there in London who
could know me?
"It will be off in five minutes," answered the seaman. "Shall I look out
a carriage for you?"
He was somewhat careful in making his selection; finally he put me into
a compartment where there were only two ladies, and he stood in front of
the door, but with his back turned toward it, until the train was about
to start. Then he touched his hat again with a gesture of farewell, and
ran away to a second-class carriage.
I sighed with satisfaction as the train rushed swiftly through the
dimly-lighted suburbs of London, and entered upon the open country. A
wan, watery line of light lay under the brooding clouds in the west,
tinged with a lurid hue; and all the great field of sky stretching above
the level landscape was overcast with storm-wrack, fleeing swiftly
before the wind. At times the train seemed to shake with the Wast, when
it was passing oyer any embankment more than ordinarily exposed; but it
sped across the country almost as rapidly as the clouds across the sky.
No one in the carriage spoke. Then came over me that weird feeling
familiar to all travellers, that one has been doomed to travel thus
through many years, and has not half accomplished the time. I felt as if
I had been fleeing from my home, and those who should have been my
friends, for a long and weary while; yet it was scarcely an hour since I
had made my escape.
In about two hours or more--but exactly what time I did not know, for my
watch had stopped--my fellow-passengers, who had scarcely condescended
to glance at me, alighted at a large, half-deserted station, where only
a few lamps were burning. Through the window I could see that very few
other persons were leaving the train, and I concluded we had not yet
reached the terminus. A porter came up to me as I leaned my head through
the window.
"Going on, miss?" he asked.
"Oh, yes!" I answered, shrinking back into my corner-seat. He remained
upon the step, with his arm over the window-frame, while the train moved
on at a slackened pace for a few minutes, and then pulled up, but at no
station. Before me lay a dim, dark, indistinct scene, with little specks
of light twinkling here and there in the night, but whether on sea or
shore I could not tell. Immediately opposite the train stood the black
hulls and masts and funnels of two steamers, with a glimmer of lanterns
on their decks, and up and down their shrouds. The porter opened the
door for me.
"You've only to go on board, miss," he said, "your luggage will be seen
to all right." And he hurried away to open the doors of the other
carriages.
I stood still, utterly bewildered, for a minute or two, with the wind
tossing my hair about, and the rain beating in sharp, stinging drops
like hailstones upon my face and hands. It must have been close upon
midnight, and there was no light but the dim, glow-worm glimmer of the
lanterns on deck. Every one was hurrying past me. I began almost to
repent of the desperate step I had taken; but I had learned already that
there is no possibility of retracing one's steps. At the gangways of the
two vessels there were men shouting hoarsely. "This way for the Channel
Islands!" "This way for Havre and Paris!" To which boat should I trust
myself and my fate? There was nothing to guide me. Yet once more that
night the moment had come when I was compelled to make a prompt,
decisive, urgent choice. It was almost a question of life and death to
me: a leap in the dark that must be taken. My great terror was lest my
place of refuge should be discovered, and I be forced back again. Where
was I to go? To Paris, or to the Channel Islands?