IN TYSON’S KITCHEN
The distance to the house was short. Before Henrietta had done more
than taste the bliss of the open night, had done more than lift her
eyes in thankfulness to the dark profundity above her, she was under
the eaves. A stealthy tap was answered by the turning of a key, a door
was quickly and silently opened, and she was pushed forward. Bess
muttered a word or two—to a person unseen—and gripping her arm, thrust
her along a passage. A second door gave way as mysteriously, and
Henrietta found herself dazzled and blinking on the threshold of the
kitchen which she had left twenty-four hours before. It was lighted,
but not with the wastefulness and extravagance of the previous evening.
Nor did it display those signs of disorder and riot which had yesterday
opened her eyes.
She was sinking under the weight of the child, which she had hugged to
her that it might not cry, and she went straight to the settle and laid
the boy on it. He opened his eyes and looked vacantly before him; but,
apparently, he was too far gone in weakness, or in too much fear, to
cry. While Henrietta, relieved of the weight, and perhaps of a portion
of her fears, sank on the settle beside him, leant her face on her arms
and burst into passionate weeping.
It was perhaps the best thing in her power. For the men had followed
her into the kitchen; and Lunt, with brutal oaths, was asking why she
was there and what new folly was this. Bess turned on him—she well knew
how to meet such attacks; and with scornful tongue she bade him wait,
calling him thick-head, and adding that he’d learn by-and-by, if he
could learn anything. Then, while Giles, ill-content himself, gave some
kind of account of the thing, she began—as if it were a trifle—to lay
the supper. And almost by force she got Henrietta to the table.
“It’s food you want!” she said bluntly. “Don’t play the silly! Who’s
hurt you? Who’s going to hurt you? Here, take a sip of this, and you’ll
feel better. Never heed him,” with a contemptuous glance at Lunt. “He’s
most times a grumbler.”
For the moment Henrietta was quite broken, and the pressure which the
other exerted was salutary. She did what she was bidden, swallowing a
mouthful of the Scotch cordial Bess forced on her, and eating and
drinking mechanically. Meanwhile the three men had brought their heads
together, and sat discussing the position with unconcealed grudging and
mistrust.
At length:
“You’ve grown cursed kind of a sudden!” Lunt swore, scowling at the two
women. The child, in the presence of the men, sat paralysed with
terror. “What’s this blamed fuss about?”
“What fuss?” Bess shot at him over her shoulder. And going to the child
she bent over it with a bowl of bread and milk.
“Why don’t you lay ’em up in lavender?” the man sneered. “See here, she
was a peacock yesterday and you’d grind her pretty face under your
heel! To-day—— What does it mean? I want to know.”
“I suppose you don’t want ’em to die?” the girl returned, in the same
tone of contempt.
“What do I care whether they die?”
“They’d be much use to us, dead!” she retorted.
Giles nodded assent.
“The girl’s right there,” he said in a low tone. “Best leave it to her.
She’s a cunning one and no mistake.”
“Ay, cunning enough!” Lunt answered. “But whose game is she playing?
Hers or ours?”
“Didn’t know you had one!” Bess flung at him. And then in an undertone,
“Dolt!” she muttered.
“It’s all one, man, it’s all one!” Giles said. On the whole he was for
peace. “Best have supper, and talk it over after.”
“And let the first that comes in through the door find her?” Lunt
cried.
“Who’s to come?”
“Didn’t they come here this morning? And last night? And if she’d been
here, or the child—
“Ay, but they weren’t!” Bess answered brusquely. “And that’s the reason
the coves won’t come again. For the matter of that,” turning fiercely
on them, “who was it cleaned up after you, you dirty dogs, and put this
place straight? Without which they’d have known as much the moment they
put their noses in—as if the girl had been sitting on the settle there.
Who was it thought of that, and did it? And hid you safe upstairs?”
“You did, Bess—you did!” the gipsy answered, speaking for the first
time. “And a gay, clever wench you are!” He looked defiantly at Lunt.
“You’re a game cove,” he said, “but you’re not fly!”
Lunt for answer fired half a dozen oaths at him. But Giles interposed.
“We’re all in one boat,” he said. “And food’s plenty. Let’s stop jawing
and to it!”
Two of the men seemed to think the advice good. And they began to eat,
still debating. The third, Saul, continued to listen to his companions,
but his sly eyes never left Henrietta, who sat a little farther down
the table on the opposite side. She was not for some time aware of his
looks, or of their meaning. But Bess, who knew his nature—he was her
cousin—and who saw only what she had feared to see, frowned as she
marked the direction of his glances. In the act of sitting down she
paused, leant over the table, and with a quick movement swept off the
Hollands bottle.
But the gipsy, with a grin, touched Lunt’s elbow. And the ruffian
seeing what she was doing, fell into a fresh fury and bade her put the
bottle back again.
“I shall not,” she said. “You’ve ale, and plenty. Do you want to be
drunk if the girl’s folks come?”
“Curse you!” he retorted. “Didn’t you say a minute ago that they
wouldn’t come?”
Giles sided with him—for the first time.
“Ay, that’s blowing hot and cold!” he said. “Put the gin back, lass,
and no two words about it.”
She stood darkly hesitating, as if she meant to refuse. But Lunt had
risen, and it was clear that he would take no refusal that was not
backed by force. She replaced the Dutch bottle sullenly; and Giles drew
it towards him and with a free hand laced his ale.
“There’s naught like dog’s nose,” he said, “to comfort a man! The lass
forgets that it’s wintry weather and I’ve been out in it!”
“A dram’s a dram, winter or summer!” Lunt growled. And he followed the
example.
But Bess knew that she had lost the one ally on whom she had counted.
She could manage Giles sober. But drink was the man’s weakness; and
when he was drunk he was as brutal as his comrade; and more dangerous.
She had satisfied her grudge against Henrietta. And she was aware now,
only too well aware, that she had let it carry her too far. She had
nothing to gain by further violence; she had everything to lose by it.
For if the girl were ill-treated, there would be no mercy for any of
the party, if taken; while escape, in the face of the extraordinary
measures which Clyne was taking and of the hostility of the
countryside, was doubtful at the best. As she thought of these things
and ate her supper with a sombre face, she wished with all her heart
that she had never seen the girl, and never, to satisfy a silly spite,
decoyed her. Her one aim now was to get her out of the men’s sight, and
to shut her up where she might be safe till morning. It was a pity, it
was a thousand pities, that Henrietta had not stayed in the smugglers’
oven! And Bess wondered if she could even now persuade her to return to
it. But a glance at Henrietta’s haggard face, on which the last
twenty-four hours had imprinted a stamp it would take many times
twenty-four hours to efface, warned her that advice—short of the last
extremity—would be useless. It remained to remove the girl to the only
place where she might, with luck, lie safe and unmolested.
In this Henrietta might aid her—had she her wits about her. But
Henrietta did not seem to be awake to the peril. The insolence of the
gipsy’s glances, which had yesterday brought the blood to her cheeks,
passed unnoted, so complete was her collapse. Doubtless strength would
return, nay, was even now returning; and presently wit would return.
For her nerves were young, and would quickly recover their tone. But
for the moment, she was almost comatose. Having eaten and drunk, she
sat heavily, with her elbow on the table, her head resting on her hand.
The sleeve had fallen back from her wrist, and the gipsy lad’s eyes
rested long and freely on the white roundness of her arm. Her fair
complexion seduced him as no dark beauty had power to seduce. He eyed
her as the tiger eyes the fawn before it springs from covert. Bess, who
read his looks as if they had been an open book, and who saw that
Giles, her one dependence, was growing more sullen and dangerous with
every draught, could have struck Henrietta for her fatuous stolidity.
One thing was clear. The longer she put off the move, the more
dangerous the men were like to be. Bess never lacked resolution, and
she was quick to take her part. As soon as she had eaten and drunk her
fill, she rose and tapped Henrietta on the shoulder.
“We’re best away,” she said coolly. “Will you carry the brat upstairs,
or shall I?”
For a moment she thought that she had carried her point. For no one
spoke or objected. But when Henrietta rose and turned to the settle to
take up the boy, the gipsy muttered something in Lunt’s ear. The
ruffian glared across at the girls, and struck the haft of his knife
with violence on the board.
“Upstairs?” he roared. “No, my girl, you don’t! We keep together! We
keep together! S’help me, if I don’t think you mean to peach!”
“Don’t be a fool,” she answered. And she furtively touched Henrietta’s
arm, as a sign to her to be ready. Then to the gipsy lad, in a tone
full of meaning, “The gentry mort,” she said, in thieves’ patter, “is
not worth the nubbing-cheat. I’m fly, and I’ll not have it. Stow it, my
lad, and don’t be a flat!”
“And let you peach on us?” he answered, smiling.
Lunt struck the table.
“Stop your lingo!” he said. “Here, you!” to Giles. “Are you going to
let these two sell us? The lass is on to peaching, that’s my belief!”
“We’ll—soon stop that,” Giles replied, with a hiccough. “Here,
I’ll—I’ll take one, and you—you t’other! And we’ll fine well stop their
peaching, pretty dears!” He staggered to his feet as he spoke, his face
inflamed with drink. “Peach, will they?” he muttered, swaying a little,
and scowling at them over the dull, unsnuffed candles. “We’ll stop
that, and—and ha’ some fun, too.”
“S’help us if we don’t!” cried Lunt, also rising to his feet. “Let’s
live to-day, if we die to-morrow! You take one and I’ll take the
other!”
The gipsy lad grinned.
“Who’s the flat now?” he chuckled. He alone remained seated, with his
arms on the table. “You’ve raised your pipe too soon, my lass!”
“Stow this folly!” Bess answered, keeping a bold face. “We’re going
upstairs,” she continued. “Do you”—to Henrietta—“bring the child.”
But, “Curse me if you are!” Giles answered. Drink had made him the more
dangerous of the two. He lurched forward as he spoke, and placed
himself between the girls and the foot of the open staircase that led
to the upper floor. “We’re one apiece for you and one over! And you’re
going to stay, my girls, and amuse us!”
And he opened his arms, with a tipsy laugh.
If Henrietta had been slow to see the danger, she saw it now. And the
shock was the greater. The men’s flushed faces and vinous eyes, still
more the dark face of the smiling gipsy who had raised the tempest for
his own ends, filled her with fear. She clutched the child to her, but
as much by instinct as from calculation; and she cast a desperate look
round her—only to see that retreat was cut off. The girls were hemmed
in on the hearth between the fire and the long table, and it was hard
to say which of the men she most dreaded. She had gone through much
already and she cowered, white to the lips, behind her companion, who,
for her part, looked greater confidence than she felt. But whatever
Bess’s fears, she rallied bravely to the occasion, being no stranger to
such scenes.
“Well,” she said, temporising, “we’ll sit down a bit if you’ll mind
your manners. But we’ll sit here, my lads, and together.”
“No, one apiece,” Giles hiccoughed, before she had finished speaking.
“One apiece! You come and sit by me—’twon’t be the first time, my
beauty! And—and t’other one by him!”
Bess stamped her foot in a rage.
“No!” she cried, “I will not! You’ll just stay on your own side! And we
on ours!”
“You’ll just do as I say!” the man answered, with tipsy obstinacy.
“You’ll just do—as I say!”
And he lurched forward, thinking to take her by surprise and seize her.
Henrietta screamed, and recoiled to the farthest corner of the chimney
nook. Bess stood her ground, but with a dark face thrust her hand into
her bosom—probably for a knife. She never drew it, however. Before
Giles could touch her, or Lunt, who was coasting about the long table
to come at Henrietta, had compassed half the distance—there was a knock
at the door.
It was a small thing, but it was enough. It checked the men as
effectually as if it had been the knell of doom. They hung arrested,
eye questioning eye; or, in turn, tip-toeing to gain their weapons,
they cast looks of menace at the women. And they listened with murder
in their eyes.
“If you breathe a word,” Giles hissed, “I’ll throttle you!”
And he raised his hand for silence. The knock was repeated.
“Some one must go,” the gipsy lad muttered.
His face was sallow with fear.
“Go?” Bess answered, in a low tone, but one of fierce passion. “Who’s
to go but me? See now where you’d be without me!”
“And do you see here,” Lunt made answer, and he drew a pistol from his
pocket, and cocked it, “one word more than’s needful, and I’ll blow
your brains out, my lass. If I go, you go first! So mark me, and speak
’em fair!”
And with a gesture he pointed to the dairy, and beckoned to the other
men to retire thither.
He seemed to be about to command Henrietta to go with them. But he saw
that in sheer terror she would disobey him, or he thought her
sufficiently hidden where she was. For when he had seen the other men
out he followed them, and holding the door of the dairy half open
showed Bess the pistol.
“Now,” he said, “and by G—d, remember. For I’ll keep my word.”
Bess had already, with a hasty hand, removed some of the plates and
mugs from the table. She made sure that Henrietta was all but invisible
behind the settle. Then she went to the door.
“Who’s there?” she cried aloud.
No one answered, but the knock was repeated.
Henrietta raised her white face above the level of the settle. She
listened, and hope, terrified as she was, rose in her heart. Who was
likely to visit this lonely house at so late an hour? Was it not almost
certain that her friends were there? And that another minute would see
her safe in their hands?
Giles’s dark face peering from the doorway of the dairy answered that
question. The muzzle of his weapon now covered her, now Bess. Sick at
heart, almost fainting, she sank again behind the settle and prayed.
While Bess with a noisy hand thrust back the great bar, and opened the
door.
There was no inrush of feet, and Bess looked out.
“Well, who is it?” she asked of the darkness. “You’re late enough,
whoever you are.”
The entering draught blew the flames of the candles awry. Then a
woman’s voice was heard:
“I’ve come to ask how the missus is,” it said.
“Oh, you have, have you? And a fine time this!” Bess scolded, with
wonderful glibness. “She’s neither better nor worse. So there! I hope
you think it’s worth your trouble!”
“And the baby? I heard it was dead.”
“Then you heard a lie!”
The visitor, who was no other than Mrs. Tyson’s old servant, the stolid
woman who had once admitted Henrietta to the house, seemed at a loss
what to say next. After an awkward pause:
“Oh,” she said, “well, I am glad. I was not sure you hadn’t left her.
And if she can’t get out of her bed——”
“You thought there’d be pickings about!” Bess cried, in her most
insolent tone. “Well, there ain’t, my girl! And don’t you come up again
scaring us after dark, or you’ll hear a bit more of my mind!”
“You’re not easy scared!” the woman retorted contemptuously. “Don’t
tell me! It takes more than the dark to frighten you!”
“Anyway, nine o’clock is my hour for getting scared,” Bess returned.
“And as it’s after that, and you’ve a dark walk back—— D’you come
through the wood?”
“Ay, I did.”
“Then you’d best go back that way!” Bess replied.
And she shut the door in the woman’s face, and flung the bar over with
a resounding bang.
And quickly, before the men, heaving sighs of relief, had had time to
emerge from their retreat, she was across the floor, and had dragged
Henrietta to her feet.
“Up the stairs!” she whispered. “The door on the left! Knock! Knock!
I’ll keep them back.”
Taken by surprise as she was, Henrietta’s courage rose. She bounded to
the open stairs, and was half-way up before the men took in the
position and understood that she was escaping them. They rushed forward
then, falling over one another in their eagerness to seize her. But
they were too late, Bess was before them. She sprang on to the widest
of the lower steps where the staircase turned in the corner of the
room, and flashing her knife in their eyes, she swore that she would
blind the first man who ascended. They knew her, and for the moment
fell back daunted and dismayed; for Giles had put up his pistol. He
bethought himself, indeed, of pulling it out, when he found parley
useless; but it was then too late. By that time Bess’s ear told her
that Henrietta was safe in Mrs. Tyson’s room, with the bolt shot behind
her.