THE OLD LOVE
Mr. Sutton was a vain man and sensitive, and though he clung to hope,
Henrietta’s words hurt him to the quick. The name of Chaplain was
growing obsolete at this time; it was beginning to import unpleasant
things. With this chaplain in particular his dependence on a patron was
a sore point; for with some capacity, he lacked, and knew that he
lacked, that strength of mind which enables a man to hold his own, be
his position what it may. For an hour, writhing under the reflection
that even the yokels about him were aware of his discomfiture, he was
cast down to the very ground. He was inclined to withdraw his hand and
let the dazzling vision pass.
Then he rallied his forces. He bethought him how abnormal was the
chance, how celestial the dream, how sweet the rapture of possessing
the charms that now flouted him. And he took heart of grace. He raised
his head, he enlisted in the cause all the doggedness of his nature. He
recalled stories, inaccurately remembered, of Swift and Voltaire and
Rousseau, all dependants who had loved, and all men of no greater
capacity, it was possible, than himself. What slights had they not
encountered, what scornful looks, and biting gibes! But they had
persisted, having less in their favour than he had; and he would
persist. And he would triumph as they had triumphed. What matter a
trifling loss of countenance as he passed by the coach-office, or a
burning sensation down the spine when those whom he had left tittered
behind him? He laughed best who laughed last.
For such a chance would never, could never fall to him again. The
Caliph of Bagdad was dead, and princesses wedded no longer with
calendars. Was he to toss away the one ticket which the lottery of life
had dropped in his lap? Surely not. And for scruples—he felt them no
longer. The girl’s stinging words, her scornful taunt, had silenced the
small voice that on his way hither had pleaded for her; urging him to
spare her loneliness, to take no advantage of her defenceless position.
Bah! If that were all, she could defend herself well.
So Henrietta, when she came downstairs, a little paler and a little
prouder, and with the devil, that is in all proud women, a little
nearer to urging her on something, no matter what, that might close a
humiliating scene, was not long in discovering a humble black presence
that by turns followed and evaded her. Mr. Sutton did not venture to
address her directly. To put himself forward was not his _rôle_. But he
sought to commend himself by self-effacement; or at the most by such
meek services as opening the door for her without lifting his eyes
above the hem of her skirt, or placing a thing within reach before she
learned her need of it. Nevertheless, whenever she left her room she
caught sight of him; and the consciousness that he was watching her,
that his eyes were on her back, that if her gown caught in a nail of
the floor he would be at hand to release it, wore on her nerves. She
tried to disregard him, she tried to be indifferent to him. But there
he always was, pale, obstinate, cringing, and waiting. And so great is
the power of persistence, that she began to fear him.
Between his insidious court and the dread of Mr. Hornyold’s gallantries
she was uncomfortable as well as wretchedly unhappy. The position
shamed her. She felt that it was her own conduct which she had to thank
for their pursuit; and for Anthony Clyne’s more cruel insult, which she
swore she would never forgive. She knew that in the old life, within
the fence where she had been reared, no one had ever dared to take a
liberty with her or dreamed of venturing on a freedom. Now it was so
different. So different! And she was so lonely! She stood fair game for
all. Presently even the village louts would nudge one another when she
passed, or follow her in the hope of they knew not what.
Already, indeed, if she passed the threshold she had a third follower;
whose motives were scarcely less offensive than the motives of the
other two. Mr. Bishop had been away for nearly a week scouring the
roads between Cockermouth and Whitehaven, and Maryport and Carlisle. He
had drawn, as he hoped, a net round the quarry—if it had not already
escaped. In particular, he had made sure that trusty men—and by trusty
men Mr. Bishop meant men who would not refuse to share the reward with
their superiors—watched the most likely places. These arrangements had
taken his brown tops and sturdy figure far afield: so that scarce a
pot-house in all that country was now ignorant of the face of John
Bishop of Bow Street, scarce a saddle-horse was unversed in his weight.
Finally he had returned to the centre of his spider’s web, and rather
than be idle he was giving himself up to stealthy observation of
Henrietta.
For he had one point in common with Mr. Sutton. While the Low Wood folk
exhausted themselves in surmises and believed in a day a dozen stories
of the girl who had dropped so strangely among them, the runner knew
who she was. Perforce he had been taken into confidence. But thereupon
his experience of the criminal kind led him astray. He remembered how
stubbornly she had refused to give her name, to give information, to
give anything; and he suspected that she knew where Walterson lay hid.
He thought it more than likely that she was still in relations with
him. A girl of her breeding, the runner argued, does not give up all
for a romantic stranger unless she loves him: and once in love, such an
one sticks at nothing. So he too haunted her footsteps, vanished when
she came, and appeared when she retreated; and all with an air of
respect which maddened the victim and puzzled the onlookers.
But for this she had been able to spend these days of loneliness and
incertitude in wandering among the hills. She was young enough to feel
confinement irksome, and she yearned for the open and the unexplored.
She fancied that she would find relief in plunging into the depths of
woods where, on a still day, the leaves floated singly down to mingle
with the dying ferns. She thought that in long roaming, with loosened
hair and wind-swept cheeks, over Wansfell Pike, or to the upper world
of the Kirkstone or the Hog-back beyond Troutbeck, she might forget, in
the wilds of nature, her own small woes and private griefs. At least on
the sheep-trodden heights there would be no one to reproach her, no one
to fling scorn at her.
And two mornings later she felt that she must go; she must escape from
the eyes that everywhere beset her. She marked down Mr. Bishop in the
road before the house, and, safe from him, she slipped out at the back,
and, almost running, climbed the path that led to the hills. She passed
through the wood and emerged on the shoulder; and drew a deep breath,
rejoicing in her freedom. One glance at the lake spread out below
her—and something still and sullen under a grey sky—and she passed on.
She had a crust in her pocket, and she would remain abroad all day—for
it was mild. With the evening she would return footsore and utterly
weary. And she would sleep.
She was within a few yards of the gate of Hinkson’s farm when she saw
coming towards her the last man whom she wished to meet—Mr. Hornyold.
He was walking beside his nag, with the rein on his arm and his eyes on
the road. His hands were plunged far into the fobs of his breeches, and
he was studying something so deeply that he did not perceive her.
The memory of their last meeting—on that very spot—was unpleasantly
fresh in Henrietta’s mind, and the impulse to escape was strong.
Hinkson’s gate was within reach of her arm, the dog was asleep in the
kennel; in a twinkling she was within and making for the house. Any
pretence would do, she thought. She might ask for a cup of water, drink
it, and return to the road. By that time he would have gone on his way.
She knew that the moment she had passed the corner of the house she was
safe from observation. And seeing the front so grim, so slatternly, so
uninviting, she paused. Why go on? Why knock? After giving Hornyold
time to pass she might slip back to the road without challenging
notice.
She would have done this, if her eyes, as she hesitated, had not met
those of a grimy, frowsy scarecrow who seemed to be playing
hide-and-seek with her from the shelter of the decaying bushes that
stood for a garden. She saw herself discovered, and not liking the
creature’s looks, she returned to her first plan. She knocked on the
half-open door, and receiving no answer, pushed it open and stepped
in—as she had stepped into cottages in her own village scores of times.
For an instant the aspect of the interior gave her pause; so bare, with
the northern bareness, so squalid with the wretchedness of poverty, was
the great dark kitchen. Then, telling herself that it was only the
sudden transition from the open air and the wide view that gave a
sinister look to the place, she rapped on the table.
Some one moved overhead, crossed the floor slowly, and began to descend
the stairs. The door at the foot of the staircase was ajar, and
Henrietta waited with her eyes fixed on it. She wondered if the step
belonged to the girl whose bold look had so displeased her; or to a
man—the tread seemed too heavy for a woman. Then the door was pushed
open a few inches only, a foot at most. And out of the grey gloom of
the stairway a face looked at her, and eyes met her eyes.
The face was Stewart’s! Walterson’s!
She did not cry out. She stood petrified, silent, staring. And after a
whispered oath wrung from him by astonishment, he was mute. He stood,
peering at her through the half-open door; the dangerous instinct which
bade him spring upon her and secure her curbed for the moment by his
ignorance of the conditions. She might have others with her. There
might be men within hearing. How came she there? And above all, what
cursed folly had led him to show himself? What madness had drawn him
forth before he knew who it was, before he had made certain that it was
Bess’s summons?
[Illustration: ] The face was Stewart’s
It was she who broke the spell. She turned, and with no uncertainty or
backward glance she went out slowly and softly, like a blind person,
passed round the house, and gained the road. Hornyold had gone by and
was out of sight; but she did not give a thought to him.
The shock was great. She was white to the lips. By instinct she turned
homewards—wandering abroad on open hills was far from her thoughts now.
But even so, when she had gone a little way she had to stand and steady
herself by a gate-post—her knees trembled so violently under her. For
by intuition she knew that she had escaped a great danger. The wretched
creature cowering in the gloom of the stairway had not moved hand or
foot after his eyes met hers; but something in those eyes, a gleam wild
and murderous, recurred to her memory. And she shuddered.
Presently the first effects of the shock abated and left her free to
think. She knew then that a grievous thing had happened, and a thing
which must add much to the weight of unhappiness she had thought
intolerable an hour before. To begin, the near presence of the man
revolted her. The last shred of the romance in which she had garbed
him, the last hue of glamour, were gone; and in the creature whom she
had espied cowering on the stairs, with the danger-signal lurking in
his eyes, she saw her old lover as others would see him. How she could
have been so blind as to invest such a man with virtue, how she could
have been so foolish as to fancy she loved _that_, passed her
understanding now! Ay, and filled her with a trembling disgust of
herself.
Meantime, that was the beginning. Beyond that she foresaw trouble and
embarrassment without end. If he were taken, he would be tried, and she
would be called to the witness box, and the story of her infatuation
would be told. Nay, she would have to tell it herself in face of a
smiling crowd; and her folly would be in all the journals. True, she
had had this in prospect from the beginning, and, thinking of it, had
suffered in the dark hours. But his capture had then been vague and
doubtful and the full misery of her exposure had not struck her as it
struck her now, with the picture of that man on the stairs fresh in her
mind. To have disgraced herself for that!—for that!
She was thinking of this and was still much agitated when she came to
the spot where the path through the wood diverged from the road. There
with his hand on the wicket-gate, unseen until she was close upon him,
stood Mr. Bishop.
He raised his hat and stepped aside, as if the meeting took him by
surprise, as if he had not been watching her face through a screen of
briars for the last thirty seconds. But that due paid to politeness,
the runner’s sharp eyes remained glued to her face.
“Dear me, miss,” he said, in apparent innocence, “nothing has happened,
I hope! You don’t look yourself! I hope,” respectfully, “that nobody
has been rude to you.”
“It is nothing,” she made shift to murmur. She turned her face aside.
And she tried to go by him.
He let her go through the gate, but he kept at her side and scrutinised
her face with side-long glances. He coughed.
“I am afraid you have heard bad news, miss?” he said.
“No!”
“Oh, perhaps—seen some one who has startled you?”
“I have told you it is nothing,” she answered curtly. “Be good enough
to leave me.”
But he merely paused an instant in obedience to the gesture of her
hand, then he resumed his place beside her. In the tone of one who had
made up his mind to be frank—
“Look here, miss,” he said, “it is better to come to an understanding
here, where there is nobody to listen. If it is not that somebody has
been rude to you, I’m clear that you have heard news, or you have seen
somebody. And it is my business to know the one or the other.”
She stopped.
“I have nothing to do with your business!” she cried.
He made a wry face, and spread out his hands in appeal.
“Won’t you be frank?” he replied. “Come, miss? What is the use of
fencing with me? Be frank! I want to make things easy for all. Lord,
miss, you are not the sort, and we two know it, that suffers in these
things. You’ll come out all right if you’ll be frank. It’s that I’m
working towards; to put an end to it, and the sooner the better. You
can’t—a wife and four children, miss, and a radical to boot—you can’t
think much of him! So why not help instead of hindering?”
“You are impudent!” Henrietta said, with a fine colour in her cheeks.
“Be good enough to let me pass.”
“If I knew where he was”—with his eyes on her face—“I could make all
easy. All done, and nothing said, my lady; just ‘from communications
received,’ no names given, not a word of what has happened up here!
Lord bless you, what do they care in London—and it is in London he’ll
be tried—what happens here!”
“Let me pass!” she answered breathlessly.
He was so warm upon the scent he terrified her.
But he did not give way.
“Think, miss,” he said more gravely. “Think! A wife and six children!
Or was it four? Much he cared for any but himself! I’m sure I’m shocked
when I think of it!”
“Be silent!” she cried.
“Much he cared what became of you! While Captain Clyne, if you were to
consult his wishes, miss, I’m sure he’d say——”
“I do not care what he would say!” she retorted passionately, stung at
last beyond reticence or endurance. “I never wish to hear Captain
Clyne’s name again: I hate him; do you hear? I hate him! Let me pass!”
Then, whether he would or no, she broke from him. She hurried, panting,
and with burning cheeks, down the steep path; the briars clutching
unheeded at her skirts, and stones rolling under her feet. He followed
at her heels, admiring her spirit; he even tried to engage her again,
begging her to stop and hear him. But she only pushed on the faster,
and presently he thought it better to desist, and he let her go.
He stood and wiped his brow, looking after her.
“Lord, what a spirit she has!” he muttered. “A fine swelling figure,
too, and a sway with her head that makes you feel small! And feet that
nimble! But all the same, I’m glad she’s not Mrs. Bishop! Take my word
for it, she’ll be another Mother Gilson—some day.”
While Henrietta hurried on at her best pace, resentment giving way to
fear and doubt and a hundred perplexities. Betray the man she could
not, though he deserved nothing at her hands. She was no informer, nor
would become one. The very idea was repulsive to her. And she had woven
about this man the fine tissue of a girl’s first fancy; she had looked
to be his, she had let him kiss her. After that, vile as he was, vilely
as he had meant by her, it did not lie with her to betray him to death.
But his presence near her was hateful to her, was frightful, was almost
intolerable. Not a day, not an hour, but she must expect to hear of his
capture, and know it for the first of a series of ordeals, painful and
humiliating. She would be confronted with him, she would be asked if
she knew him, she would be asked this and that; and she would have to
speak, would have to confess—to those clandestine meetings, to that
kiss—while he listened, while all listened. The tale that was known as
yet to few would be published abroad. Her folly would be in every
mouth, in every journal. The wife and the four children, and she, the
silly, silly fool whom this mean thing had captivated, taking her as
easily as any doe in her brother’s park—the world would ring with them!