A NIGHT ADVENTURE
Henrietta sat and listened to the various sounds which told of a
household on its way to bed; and she held her courage with both hands.
Slip-shod feet moved along the passages, sleepy voices bade good-night,
distant doors closed sharply. And still, when she thought all had
retired, the clatter of pot or pan in the far-off offices proclaimed a
belated worker. And she had to wait and listen and count the pulsations
of her heart.
The two wax candles, snuff them as she might, cast but a dull and
melancholy light. The clock ticked in the silence of the room with
appalling clearness. Her own movements, when she crept to the door to
listen, scared her by their stealthiness. It seemed to her that the
least of the sounds she made must proclaim her vigil. One moment she
trembled lest the late burning of her light arouse suspicion; the next
lest the cloak which she had brought in and cast across a chair should
have put some one on the alert. Or she tormented herself with the fancy
that the snow with which the evening sky had been heavy would fall
before she started and betray her footsteps.
Of one thing she tried not to think. She would not dwell on what might
happen at the meeting-place. She felt that if she let her thoughts run
on that, she would turn coward, she would not go. And one thing at a
time, she told herself. There lay her cloak, the window was not three
paces from her, the chair which she meant to use stood by the door. In
three minutes she could be outside, in half an hour she might be back.
But in the meantime, the room was lonesome and creepy, the creak of a
board made her start, the fall of the wood-ash stopped her breath. Like
many engaged in secret deeds she made her own mystery and trembled at
it.
At length all seemed abed.
She extinguished one of the candles and took up her cloak. As she put
it on before the pale mirror she saw that her white face and high-piled
hair showed by the light of the remaining candle like the face of a
ghost; and she shivered. But that was the last tribute to weakness. Her
nature, bold to recklessness, asserted itself now the moment for action
was come. She set the candle on the floor and shaded it so that its
light might not be seen. Then, taking the chair in her hands she
stepped into the dark passage, and closed the door behind her. The
close, heavy smell of the house assailed her as she listened; but all
was still, and she raised the sash of the window. She passed the chair
through the aperture and leaning far out that it might not strike the
wall lowered it gently. She felt it touch the ground and settle on its
legs. Then she climbed over the sill and let herself down until her
feet rested on the chair. She made certain that she could draw herself
in again, then she sprang lightly to the ground.
The chair cracked as her weight left it, and for a moment she crouched
motionless against the wall. But she had little to fear. Snow had not
yet fallen, but it was in the air and the night was as dark as pitch.
She could not see a yard and when she moved, she had not gone two steps
from the wall before it vanished, and all that remained to her was some
notion of its position. Above, below, around was a darkness that could
be felt. Still, she found the garden-gate with a little difficulty, and
she passed into the road, and turned to the left. She knew that if she
walked in that direction she must come to the place—a furlong
away—where the Troutbeck lane ran up from the lake-side.
But the blackness was such that lake and hill were all one, and she had
to go warily, now feeling for the bank on her left, now for the ditch
on her right. Not a star showed, and only in one place a patch of
lighter sky broke the darkness and enabled her to discern the shapes of
the trees as she passed under them. It was a night when any deed might
be done, any mischief executed beside that lonely water; and no eye see
it. But she tried not to think of this. She tried not to think of the
tracts of lonely hill that stretched their long arms on her left, or of
the deep, black water that lurked on her right. And she had compassed
more than a hundred yards when a faint sound, as of following feet,
caught her ear.
She halted, and shook the hood back from her ears. She listened. She
fancied that she heard the pattering cease, and she peered into the
darkness, striving to embody the thing that followed. But she could see
nothing, she could now hear nothing. She had her handkerchief in her
hand, and as she stood, peering and listening, she wiped the wind-borne
moisture from her face.
Still she heard nothing, and she turned and set off again. But her
thoughts were with her follower, and she had not taken three steps
before she ran against the bank, and hardly saved herself from a fall.
She felt that with a little more she would lose her head, and, astray
in the boundless night, not know which direction to take. She must pull
herself together. She must go on. And she went on. But twice she had
the sickening assurance that something was moving at her heels. Nor,
but for the thought which by-and-by occurred to her, that her follower
might be the person she came to meet, could she have kept to her
purpose.
She came at length, trembling and clutching her hood about her, to the
foot of the lane. She knew the place by the colder, moister air that
swept her face, as well as by the lapping of the water on the strand.
For the road ran very near the lake at this point. It was a
mooring-place for two or three boats, belonging for the most part to
Troutbeck; and she could hear a loose oar in one of the unseen craft
roll over with a hollow sound. But no one moved in the darkness, or
spoke, or came to her; and with parted lips, striving to control
herself, she halted, leaning with one hand against the angle of the
bank. Then—she could not be mistaken—she heard her follower halt.
Thirty seconds—it seemed an age—she was silent, and forced herself to
listen, straining her ears. Then she could control herself no longer.
“Is it you?” she whispered, her voice strained and uncertain, “I am
here.”
No one answered. And when she had waited awhile glaring into the night
where she had last heard the footsteps she shuddered violently. For a
space she could not speak, she leant against the bank.
Then, “Is it you?” she whispered desperately, turning her face this way
and that. “Speak if it is! Speak! For God’s sake, speak to me!”
No one answered, but out of the gloom came the low creep of the wind
among the reeds, and the melancholy lapping of the water on the stones.
Once more the oar in the boat rolled over with a hollow coffin-like
echo. And from a distance another sound, the flap and beat of a sail as
the rudder was put over, came off the surface of the lake. But she did
not heed this. It was with the darkness about her, it was with the
skulking thing a pace or two from her, it was with the arms stretched
out to clutch her, it was with the fear that was beginning to stifle
her as the thick night stifled her, that she was concerned.
Once more, striving fiercely to combat her fear, to steady her voice,
she spoke.
“If you do not answer,” she cried unsteadily, “I shall go back! You
hear? I shall go back!”
Still no answer. And on that, because a frightened woman is capable of
anything, and especially of the thing which is the least to be
expected, she flung herself forward with her hands outstretched and
tried to grapple with the thing that terrified her. She caught nothing:
all that she felt was a warm breath on her cheek. She recoiled then as
quickly as she had advanced. Unfortunately her skirt brushed something
as she fell back and the contact, slight as it was, drew a low shriek
from her. She leant panting against the bank, crouching like a thing at
bay. The beating of her heart seemed to choke her, the gloom to stretch
out arms about her. The touch of a moth on her cheek would have drawn a
shriek. And on the lake—but near the shore now, a bowshot from where
she crouched, the sail of the unseen boat flapped against the mast and
began to descend. The light of a shaded lanthorn beamed for an instant
on the dark surface of the water, then vanished.
She did not see the lanthorn, she did not see the boat, for she was
glaring in the other direction, the direction in which she had heard
the footsteps. All her senses were concentrated on the thing close to
her. But some reflection of the light, glancing off the water, did
reveal a thing—a dim uncertain something—man or woman, dead or alive,
standing close to her, beside her: and with a shriek she sprang from
the thing, whatever it was, gave way to blind panic, and fled. For some
thirty yards she kept the road. Then she struck the bank and fell,
violently bruising herself. But she felt nothing. In a moment she was
on her feet again and running on, running on blindly, madly. She
fancied feet behind her, and a hand stretched out to seize her hair;
and in terror, that terror which she had kept at bay so long and so
bravely, she ran on at random, until she found herself, she knew not
how, clinging with both hands to the wicket-gate of the garden. A faint
light in one of the windows of the inn had directed her to it.
She stood then, still trembling in every limb, but drawing courage from
the neighbourhood of living things. And as well as her laboured
breathing would let her, she listened. But presently she caught the
stealthy trip-trip of feet along the road, and in a quick return of
terror she opened the gate and slipped into the garden. She had the
presence of mind to close the gate after and without noise. But that
done, woman’s nerves could bear no more. Her knees were shaking under
her, as she groped her way to her window, and felt for the chair which
she had left beneath it.
The chair was gone. Impossible! She could not have found the right
window; that was it. She felt with her hands along the wall, felt
farther. But there was no chair—anywhere. She had made no mistake. Some
one had removed the chair.
Strange to say, the moment she was sure of that, the fear which had
driven her in headlong panic from the water-side left her. She thought
no more of her stealthy attendant. Her one care now was to get in—to
get in and still to keep secret the fact that she had been out! She had
trembled like a leaf a few moments before, in fear of the shapeless
thing that crouched beside her in the night. Now, with no more than the
garden-fence between her and it, she feared it no more than a feather.
She regained her ordinary plane, and foresaw all the suspicion, all the
inconvenience, to which her position, if she could not re-enter, must
subject her. And the smaller, the immediate fear expelled the greater
and more remote.
She leant against the wall and tried to think. Who had, who could have
removed the chair? She could not guess. And thinking only increased her
eagerness, her anxiety to enter and be safe. She must get in somehow,
even at a little risk.
She tried to take hold of the sill above her, and so to raise herself
to the window by sheer strength. But she could not grasp the sill,
though she could touch it. Still, if she had something in place of the
chair, if she had something a foot high on which to raise herself she
could succeed. But what? And how was she to find anything in the dark?
She peered round, compelling herself to think. Surely she might find
something. With a single foot of height she was saved. Without that
foot of height she must rouse the house; and that meant disgrace and
contumely, and degrading suspicion. Her cheeks burned at the prospect.
For no story, no explanation would account satisfactorily for her
absence from the house at such an hour.
She was about to grope her way round the house to the yard at the
back—where with luck she might find a chicken coop or a stable
bucket—when five paces from her the latch of the wicket clicked
sharply. By instinct she flattened herself against the wall; but she
had scarcely time to feel the sudden leap of her heart before a mild
voice spoke out of the gloom.
“I’m afraid I have taken your chair,” it murmured, “pray forgive me. I
am Mr. Sutton, and I—I am very sorry!”
“You followed me!”
“I——”
“You followed me!” Her voice rang imperative with anger. “You followed
me! You have been spying on me! You!”
“No! No!” he muttered. “I meant only——”
“How dare you! How dare you!” she cried in low fierce tones. “You have
been spying on me, sir! And you removed the chair that—that I might not
enter without your help.”
He was silent a moment, standing, though she could not see him, with
his chin on his breast. Then:
“I confess,” he said in a low tone. “I confess it was so. I spied on
you.”
“And followed me!”
“Yes,” he admitted it, his hands extended in unseen deprecation, “I
did.”
“Why?” she cried. “Why, sir?”
“Because——”
“But I do not want to know,” she retorted, cutting him short as she
remembered the time, and place, “I want to know nothing, to hear
nothing from you! The chair, sir! The chair, if you do not wish to add
further outrage to your unmanly conduct. Set me the chair and go!”
“But hear at least,” he pleaded, “why I followed you, Miss Damer.
Why——”
She stamped her foot on the ground.
“The chair!” she repeated.
He was most anxious to tell her that though other motives had led him
to spy on her and watch her window, he had followed her out of a pure
desire to protect her. But her insistence overrode him, silenced him.
He set the chair under the passage window and murmured submissively
that it was there.
That was enough for her. She felt for it, found it, and without thought
of him or word to him, she climbed nimbly in. That done she stooped and
drew the chair up, and closed the window down upon him and secured it.
Next, feeling for the door of Mr. Rogers’s room she got rid of the
chair, and seized her hidden candle and crept out and up the stairs.
Apparently all the house, save the man who had detected her, slept. But
she did not dare to pause or prove the fact. She had had her lesson and
a severe one; and she did not breathe freely until the door of her
chamber was locked behind her, and she knew herself once more within
the bounds of the usual and the proper.
Then for a brief while, as she tore off her damp clothes, her thoughts
ran stormily on Mr. Sutton: nor did she dream, or he, from what things
he had saved her. The man was a wretch, a spy, a sneak trying to worm
himself into her confidence. She would box his ears if he threatened
her or referred to the matter again. And if he told others—she did not
know what she would not do! For the rest, she had let herself be scared
by a nothing, by a step, by a sound; and she despised herself for her
cowardice. But—she had that consolation—she had played her part, she
had gone to the rendezvous, she had not failed. The fault lay with him
who should have met her there, and who had not met her.
And so, shivering and chilled—for bedroom fires were not yet, and she
was worn out with fright and exposure—she hid herself under the heavy
patchwork quilt and sought comfort in the sleep of exhaustion. It was
not long in coming, for she suspected no more than she knew. Like the
purblind insect that creeps upon the crowded pavement and is missed by
a hundred feet, she discerned neither the dangers which she had so
narrowly escaped, nor those into which her late action was fated to
hurry her.