CAPTAIN ANTHONY CLYNE
Mr. Bishop of Bow Street alone watched the clerk’s pen with a look of
doubt. He had his own views about the girl. But he did not interfere,
and his discontent with the posture of affairs was only made clear when
a knock came at the door. Then he was at the door, and had raised the
latch before those who were nearest could open.
“Have you got him?” he asked eagerly. And he thrust his head into the
passage.
Even Henrietta turned to catch the answer, her lips parting. Her breath
seemed to stop. The clerk held his pen. The magistrate by a gesture
exacted silence.
“No, but——”
“No?” the runner cried in chagrin.
“No!” The voice sounded something peremptory. “Certainly not. But I
want to see—ahem!—yes, Mr. Hornyold. At once!”
Henrietta, at the first word of the answer, had turned again. She had
turned so far that she now had her back full to the door, and her face
to the farthest corner. But it was not the same Henrietta, nor the same
face. She sat rigid, stiff, turned to stone; she was scarlet from hair
to neck-ribbon. Her very eyes burned, her shoulders burned. And her
eyes were wild with insupportable shame. To be found thus! To be found
thus, and by him! Better, far better the gaol, and all it meant!
Meanwhile the magistrate, after a brief demur and a little whispering
and the appearance of a paper with a name on it, rose. He went out. A
moment later his clerk was summoned, and he went out. Bishop had gone
out first of all. Those who were left and who had nothing better to do
than to stare at the girl’s back, whispered together, or bade one
another listen and hear what was afoot outside. Presently these were
joined by one or two of the boldest in the passage, who muttered
hurriedly what they knew, or sought information, or stared with double
power at the girl’s back. But Henrietta sat motionless, with the same
hot blush on her cheeks and the same misery in her eyes.
Presently Mrs. Gilson was summoned, and she went out. The others, freed
from the constraint of her presence, talked a little louder and a
little more freely. And wonder grew. The two village constables, who
remained and who felt themselves responsible, looked important, and one
cried “Silence” a time or two, as if the court were sitting. The other
explained the law, of which he knew as much as a Swedish turnip, on the
subject of treason felony. But mixing it up with the _Habeas Corpus_
which was then suspended, he was tripped up by a neighbour before he
could reach the minutiæ of the punishment. Which otherwise must have
had much interest for the prisoner.
At length the door opened, the other constable cried, “Silence! Silence
in the court!” And there entered—the landlady.
The surprise of the little knot of people at the back of the room was
great but short-lived.
Mrs. Gilson turned about and surveyed them with her arms akimbo and her
lower lip thrust out. “You can all just go!” she said. “And the sooner
the better! And if ever I catch you”—to the more successful of the
constables, on whose feet her eye had that moment alighted—“up my
stairs with those dirty clogs, Peter Harrison, I’ll clout you! Now, off
you go! Do you think I keep carpets for loons like you?”
“But—the prisoner?” gasped Peter, clutching at his fast-departing
glory. “The prisoner, missus?”
“The goose!” the landlady retorted with indescribable scorn. “Go you
down and see what the other ganders think of it. And leave me to mind
my business! I’ll see to the prisoner.” And she saw them all out and
closed the door.
When the room was clear she tapped Henrietta on the shoulder. “There’s
no gaol for you,” she said bluntly. “Though it is not yourself you’ve
got to thank for it. They’ve put you in my charge and you’re to stay
here, and I’m to answer for you. So you’ll just say straight out if
you’ll stay, or if you’ll run.”
Had the girl burst into tears the landlady had found it reasonable.
Instead, “Where is he?” Henrietta whispered. She did not even turn her
head.
“Didn’t you hear,” Mrs. Gilson retorted, “that he had not been taken?”
“I mean—I mean——”
“Ah!” Mrs. Gilson exclaimed, a little enlightened. “You mean the
gentleman that was here, and spoke for you? Yes, you are right, it’s
him you’ve to thank. Well, he’s gone to Whitehaven, but he’ll see you
tomorrow.”
Henrietta sighed.
“In the meantime,” Mrs. Gilson continued, “you’ll give me your word
you’ll not run. Gilson is bound for you in fifty pounds to show you
when you’re wanted. And as fifty pounds is fifty pounds, and a mint of
money, I’d as soon turn the key on you as not. Girls that run once, run
easy,” the landlady added severely.
“I will not run away,” Henrietta said meekly—more meekly perhaps than
she had ever spoken in her life. “And—and I am much obliged to you, and
thankful to you,” in a very small voice. “Will you please to let me go
to my room, and you can lock me in?”
She had risen from her seat, and though she did not turn to the
landlady, she stole, shamed and askance, a look at her. Her lip
trembled, her head hung. And Mrs. Gilson, on her side, seemed for a
moment on the verge of some unwonted demonstration; she stood awkward
and large, and perhaps from sheer clumsiness avoided even while she
appeared to invite the other’s look. But nothing happened until the two
passed out, Henrietta first, like a prisoner, and Mrs. Gilson stiffly
following.
Then there were half a dozen persons waiting to stare in the passage,
and the way Mrs. Gilson’s tongue fell loose was a warning. In two
seconds, only one held her ground: the same dark girl with the
gipsy-like features whose mocking smile had annoyed Henrietta as she
dressed that morning. Ah, me! what ages ago that morning seemed!
To judge from Mrs. Gilson’s indignation, this girl was the last who
should have stood.
“Don’t you black-look me!” the landlady cried. “But pack! D’you hear,
impudence, pack! Or not one drop of milk do I take from your old
skinflint of a father! And he’ll drub you finely, if he’s not too old
and silly—till you smile on the other side of your face! I’d like to
know what’s taken you to-day to push yourself among your betters!”
“No harm,” the girl muttered. She had retreated, scowling, half-way
down the stairs.
“And no good, either!” the landlady retorted. “Get you gone, or I’ll
make your ears ring after another fashion!”
Henrietta heard no more. She had shrunk from the uproar and fled
quickly to her room. With a bursting heart and a new humility she drew
the key from the wards of the lock and set it on the outside,
hoping—though the hope was slender—to avoid further words with the
landlady. The hope came nearer fulfilment, however, than she expected;
for Mrs. Gilson, after panting upstairs, only cried through the door
that she would send her up supper, and then went down again—perhaps
with a view to catching Bess Hinkson in a fresh trespass.
Bess was gone, however. But adventures are for the brave, and not ten
minutes passed before the landlady was at issue with a fresh adversary.
She found the coach-office full, so full that it overflowed into the
hall. Modest Ann, called this way and that, had need of four hands to
meet the demands made upon her; so furious were the calls for the
lemons and rum and Old Geneva, the grateful perfume of which greeted
Mrs. Gilson as she descended. Alas, something else greeted her: and
that was a voice, never a favourite with her, but now raised in accents
particularly distasteful. Tyson, the Troutbeck apothecary—a flashy,
hard-faced young man in pepper-and-salt, and Bedford cords—had seized
the command and the ear of the company in the coach-office, and was
roasting Long Tom Gilson upon his own hearth.
“Not know who she is?” he was saying in the bullying tone which made
him hated of the pauper class. “You don’t ask me to believe that, Tom?
Come! Come!”
“It’s what I say,” Gilson answered.
He sat opposite the other, his hands on his knees, his face red and
sulky. He did not like to be baited.
“And you go bail for her?” Tyson cried. “You have gone bail for her?”
“Well?”
“And don’t know her name?”
“Well—no.”
The doctor sat back in his chair, his glass in his hand, and looked
round for approbation.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “what do you think of that for a dalesman?”
“Well, it wasn’t long-headed, Tom,” said one unwillingly. “Not to call
long-headed, so to speak,” with north-country caution. “I’d not go bail
myself, not for nobody I’d not know.”
“No,” several agreed. “No, no!”
“No, but——”
“But what, Tom, what?” the doctor asked, waiting in his positive
fashion for the other to plunge deeper into the mire.
“Captain Clyne, that I do know,” Gilson continued, “it was he said ‘Do
it!’ And he said something to the Rector, I don’t doubt, for he was
agreeable.”
“But he did not go bail for her?” the apothecary suggested maliciously.
“No,” Tom answered, breathing hard. “But for reason she was not there,
but here. Anyway,” he continued, somewhat anxious to shift the subject,
“he said it and I done it, and I’d do it again for Captain Clyne. I
tell you he’s not a man as it’s easy to say ‘No’ to, Mr. Tyson. As
these Radicals i’ Lancashire ha’ found out, ’od rot ’em! He’s that
active among ’em, he’s never a letter, I’m told, but has a coffin drawn
on it, and yeomanry in his house down beyond both day and night, I
hear!”
“I heard,” said one, “in Cartmel market, he was to be married next
week.”
“Ay,” said the doctor jocosely, “but not to the young lady as Tom is
bail for! I tell you, Tom, he’s been making a fool of you just to keep
this bit of evidence against the Radicals in his hands.”
“Why not send her to Appleby gaol, then?” Tom retorted, with a fair
show of sense.
“Because he knows you’ll cosset her here, and he thinks to loose her
tongue that way! They can gaol her after, if this don’t answer.”
“Oh, indeed!”
“Ay, while you run the risk! If it’s not that, what’s he doing here?”
“Why should he not be here?” Gilson asked slowly. “Hasn’t he the old
house in Furness, not two miles from Newby Bridge! And his mother a
Furness woman. I do hear that the boy’s to be brought there for safety
till the shires are quieter. And maybe it’s that brings Captain Anthony
here.”
“But what has that to do with the young woman you’re going bail for?”
the doctor retorted. “Go bail, Tom, for a wench you don’t know, and
that’ll jump the moon one of these fine nights! I tell you, man, I
never heard the like! Never! Go bail for a girl you don’t know!”
“And I tell you,” cried a voice that made the glasses ring, “I have
heard the like! And I’ll give you the man, my lad!” And Mrs. Gilson,
putting aside the two who blocked the doorway, confronted the offending
Tyson with a look comparable only to that of Dr. Keats of Eaton when he
rolled up his sleeves. “I’ll give you the name, my lad!” she repeated.
“Well,” the doctor answered, though he was manifestly taken aback, “you
must confess, Mrs. Gilson——”
“Nay, I’ll confess nothing!” the landlady retorted. “What need, when
you’re the man? Not give bail for a woman you don’t know? Much you knew
of Madge Peters when you made her your wife! And wasn’t that going bail
for her? Ay, and bail that you’ll find it hard to get out of, my man,
though you may wish to! For the matter of that, it’s small blame to
her, whatever comes of it!” Mrs. Gilson continued, setting her arms
akimbo. “If all I hear of your goings-on is true! What do you think
she’s doing, ill and sick at home, while you’re hanging about old
Hinkson’s? Ay, you may look black, but tell me what Bess Hinkson’s
doing about my place all this day? I never saw her here twice in a day
in all my life before, and——”
“What do you mean?” Tyson cried violently. To hear a thing which he
thought no one suspected brought up thus before a roomful of men! He
looked black as thunder at his accuser.
“I mean no harm of your wife,” the terrible landlady answered;
something—perhaps this roasting of her husband on his own hearth—had
roused her beyond the ordinary. “None, my gentleman, and I know none.
But if you want no harm said of her, show yourself a bit less at
Hinkson’s. And a bit less in my house. And a bit more in your own! And
the harm will be less likely to happen!”
“I’ll never cross your doorstep again!” Tyson roared.
[Illustration: ] He neither cared nor saw who it was whom he had
jostled
And stumbling to his feet he cast off one or two who in their well
meaning would have stayed him. He made for the door. But he was not to
escape without further collision. On the threshold he ran plump against
a person who was entering, cursed the newcomer heartily, and without a
look pushed violently by him and was gone.
He neither cared nor saw who it was whom he had jostled. But the
company saw, and some rose to their feet in consternation, while
others, carried their hands to their heads. There was an involuntary
movement of respect which the new comer acknowledged by touching his
hat. He had the air of one who knew how to behave to his inferiors; but
the air, also, of one who never forgot that they were his inferiors.
“Your friend seems in a hurry,” he said. His face was not a face that
easily betrayed emotion, but he looked tired.
“Beg your honour’s pardon, I am sure,” Gilson answered. “Something’s
put him out, and he did not see you, sir.”
Mrs. Gilson muttered that a pig could have seen. But her words were
lost in the respectful murmur which made the company sharers in the
landlord’s apology.
Not that for the most part they knew the strange gentleman. But there
is a habit of authority which once gained becomes a part of the man.
And Anthony Clyne had this. He retained wherever he went some shadow of
the quarter-deck manner. He had served under Nelson, and under Exmouth;
but he had resisted, as a glance at his neat, trim figure proved, that
coarsening influence which spoiled for Pall Mall too many of the
sea-dogs of the great war. Like his famous leader, he had left an arm
in the cockpit; and the empty sleeve which he wore pinned to the lappel
of his coat added, if possible, to the dignity of the upright carriage
and the lean, shaven face. The death of his elder brother had given him
the family place, a seat in the House, a chair at White’s, and an
income handsome for his day. And he looked all this and more; so that
such a company as now eyed him with respect judged him a very perfect
gentleman, if a little distant.
But from Clyne Old Hall, where he lived, he could see on the horizon
the smoke of toiling cities; and in those cities there were hundreds
who hated his cold proud face, and thousands who cursed his name. Not
that he was a bad man or a tyrant, or himself ground the faces of the
poor. But discipline was his watchword, and reform his bugbear. To
palter with reform, to listen to a word about the rights of the masses,
was to his mind to parley with anarchy. That governors and governed
could be the same appeared to his mind as absurd as that His Majesty’s
ships could be commanded from the forecastle. All for the people and
nothing by the people was his political maxim, and one amply meeting,
as he believed, all eventualities. Lately he had had it carved on a
mantel-piece, and the prattle of his only child, as the club-footed boy
spelled it out syllable by syllable, was music to his ears.
Whoever wavered, therefore, whoever gave to the violence of those
times, he stood firm. And he made others stand. It was his honest
belief that a little timely severity—in other words, a whiff of
grape-shot—would have nipped the French Revolution in the bud; and
while he owned that the lower orders were suffering and times were bad,
that bread was dear and work wanting, he was for quelling the least
disorder with the utmost rigour of the law.
Such was the man who accepted with a curt nod Tom Gilson’s apology.
Then “Have you a room ready?” he asked.
“The fire is still burning in Mr. Rogers’s room,” Mrs. Gilson answered,
smoothing at once her apron and her brow. “And it’ll not be used again
to-night. But I thought that you had gone on, sir, to Whitehaven.”
“I shall go on to-morrow,” he answered, frowning slightly.
“I’ll show your honour the way,” Tom Gilson said.
“Very good,” he answered. “And dinner, ma’am, as soon as possible.”
“To be sure, sir.” And “This way, your honour.” And taking two candles
Gilson went out before Captain Clyne, and with greater ceremony than
would be used in these days, lighted him along the passage and up the
stairs to Mr. Rogers’s room in the south wing.
The fire had sunk somewhat low, but the room which had witnessed so
many emotions in the last twenty-four hours made no sign. The table had
been cleared. The glass fronts of the cupboards shone dully; only a
chair or two stood here or there out of place. That was all. But had
Henrietta, when she descended to breakfast that morning, foreseen who
would fill her chair before night, who would dine at her table and
brood with stern unseeing eyes on the black-framed prints, for whom the
pale-faced clock would tick off depressing seconds, what—what would she
have thought? And how would she have faced her future?