WITHIN THE MONKS' OVEN
The chamber into which Jeremy led me was small, but it had evidently
been used for a sleeping-room before. A couch was placed in the
corner. There were chairs and even a table. But I saw at the first
glance that the window, placed high in the vaulted roof, was unglazed,
but barred.
"It is not precisely a palace, so to speak," said Jeremy, shaking his
long snaky curls, and smiling his unctuous thin-lipped smile; "but in
comparison wi' some--mercy me, but ye should be content. Ye will be
braw and warm here. This was never aught but a cosy corner--see,
bonnie lass! There's the auld monks' wark--the oven where they baked
their pies!"
And taking my hand in his great one he slapped the wall which ended my
prison vault, cutting it, as it were, into two parts. It was, in fact,
quite as warm as the fingers could bear, and most of the time since has
kept an equal temperature--though, if anything, a little stifling on
baking days.
"Here ye shall bide," said Jeremy, standing dark and lithe in the
doorway; "I myself shall be your keeper, but think not but that Jeremy
Orrin kens bravely how to behave himself to a leddy. Ye will wait
here, sacred as St. Theresa, till the wedding gown is prepared and the
table spread. But Jeremy will feed his ladybird with his own hand
three times a day--nor shall his sister Aphra put so much as a pot
stick in the cooking, for fear of mistakes! She's a fine lass, Aphra,
when ye ken her, but little to trust to when she has a spite against
ye. Stick you by Jeremy, leddy, and he will stick by you!"
After he was gone, and the silence had re-established itself, listening
intently, I caught the sound of water flowing somewhere near, and
lifting up a little square of wood let into the stone floor in the
angle behind the couch, I saw black water creeping sullenly along
underneath my dungeon--probably the outlet of the Moat Pond on its way
to join the Brom Water. And I could not keep thinking of the fate of
those "others," who had not the doubtful but yet puissant protection of
Jeremy. The trapdoor was certainly large enough to take a man, and the
water, creeping ice-free down to the Moat Pond, would tell no tales.
As it was I tore one or two little notes sent me by Joe into the
smallest pieces, and watched them float away--that I might in no way
connect him with the miseries into which my foolish confidence had
brought me.
I was altogether alone. On the table Jeremy had put a candle with
matches. When he brought my evening meal of porridge, cooked in the
monks' bakery by himself, he asked if I wanted anything to read.
"I canna aye gie ye my company," he said. "What wi' the maister bein'
no well, I hae great stress o' business--but can ye read?"
I told him that I could, and awaited with some curiosity the books
which Mad Jeremy would bring me. His choice was better than I could
have expected. It comprised _Driver's Complete Farriery_, _The Heather
Lintie_, (poems), a book of sermons with the title _In Hoc Signo_--or
something like that--_Markham's Complete Housewife, Cavendish on
Whist_, and two huge volumes of _Pinkerton's Voyages_.
"I wad hae brocht ye a Bible, too, but Aphra micht hae noticed," he
said. "There's mair nor a packet o' candles in the press, forbye a
half loaf if ye are hungrysome i' the nicht-time. It's little likely
that ye will ken how to play the fiddle?"
I told him I had no such skill, at which he sighed.
"I was dootin' that," he said. "If ye had I could hae played the
seconds to ye fine! But Jeremy can play for twa when the fit is on
him. Ye never heard Jeremy. He has a fiddle that is a real--Jeremy
forgets the name--but it's real something awesome grand. And that's a
deal mair than maist braw folk can say o' their fiddles. For they are
maistly made i' the Gressmarket o' Edinbory! There's a melodeon,
though, wi' silver keys, that's better still. But Hobby winna gie
Jeremy the siller to buy it. It's in Lithgow's window at Langtoon, and
some day it will be Jeremy's ain. Maybe afore ye think. Then he will
come and play ye the bonnie music. Ye can dance, Elsie? Eh, that's
weel. Jeremy canna dance, but he can play the bonnie music to dance
till, and it's the finest sicht in the world to see a feat young lass
footing it dentily to 'The Wind that Shakes the Barley' or
'Tullochgorum.'"
After Jeremy was gone, I went over many things in my mind. Whatever
part my grandfather Stennis had taken in the disappearances of Harry
Foster, Riddick of Langbarns, Lang Hutchins the drover, and Joe
Yarrow's father, obviously he had nothing to do with this. Therefore,
I could only hope and pray that he was alike innocent of the others.
Not that the justice, or injustice, of the country would in any case
hold him guiltless. He it was who had brought this wild crew about the
lonely and formidable House of the Grange. Because of them the Deep
Moat glimmered through a mist of fear, and the sullen expanse of the
Moat Pond had its waters, like once on a time the Nile, turned by the
evening sun into blood.
Still, I should be glad, even in my own heart, to be able to think
better of my mother's father, even if no one agreed with me.
Having seen the disturbances which followed the disappearances of Harry
Foster and Mr. Yarrow, I pleased myself with the thought that soon my
prison house would be broken open, and this foul brood of birds of prey
compelled to flee for their lives. But I had not forgotten that it was
the return of Harry's blood-stained mail cart which had awakened
suspicion, and in the case of Joe's father, the coming back of the mare
by way of the locked door of the yard. But a girl with half a dozen
books under her arm, on her way to teach a few infants in a school,
would be in a very different position. Joe and Nance Edgar would ask
questions, doubtless. But I had quarrelled with the one, and never
really been open or companionable with the other. So it might be said
(was indeed said) that I had taken French leave of Breckonside in a fit
of temper, and had gone off to meet friends, or to teach in a school
for which I had long been applying. Indeed, the postman had brought me
an official blue paper that morning, by virtue of which I was informed
of my registration as a regular certificated teacher under the Act of
1871.
As a matter of fact, there was even a greater upheaval after my
departure, but owing to doubts, and to the want of outward and visible
signs to provoke it, the outburst seemed longer in coming. I
considered myself, indeed as girls often do, much more friendless than
I really was.
Then began in my oven prison a period of great silence and regularity.
In writing the tale, I am following the entries in my diary day by day,
and shall endeavour to make a story out of them as best I can. There
is really little to tell, romantic as the circumstances were. As Mad
Jeremy had truly said, the place was warm enough. The absence of the
light of day was what I felt the most--also the lack of all sound,
either of human voice or any living creature. Each alternate weekday I
could hear Jeremy raking his fire to its proper heat before thrusting
in the pans containing his batch of bread. Thrice every day he would
come to bring me something to eat. But never did he offer me the least
violence all the time I remained in the vaulted chamber.
Perhaps the moon was in good season. Perhaps the fool had regained a
little sanity in the mere act of going contrary to his sister. At any
rate his madness showed itself chiefly in his bringing every sort of
musical instrument to my prison house. Upon these he played with
considerable skill, but with a strange, weird, irresponsible irony
running through even the most familiar tunes--something, as one might
say, like "God save the King" played by the host's own piper, when
George the Fourth made his state entrance into his own palace.
It must have been a strange sight to see us, seated of an evening in a
little semicircle, Jeremy with the three younger of his sisters--but
always without Aphra, or Euphrasia, as I found her real name to be.
And these occasions were by no means unwelcome. For, mad as the women
were, there was about them something of the village "innocent," lit
with a certain flame of religious enthusiasm. They were very different
from that tall, stern figure of granite--their elder sister. Honorine,
who had had some training in dressmaking, was always at work with
futile industry, confectioning some garment which, when finished, was
more like the dress of a Christmas guiser or carnival clown than a
respectable garment for everyday use. Her sisters, Camilla and
Sidonia, sat looking listlessly at nothing, or engaging in purposeless
infantile controversies with one another. Jeremy at one end of the
circle sat strumming fitfully upon his latest instrument, violin or
Jew's harp, his half-savage music breaking in upon Honorine's ceaseless
chatter without prelude or apology. But these interruptions did not in
the least put out his sister. She was proud of some remnants of a
former short-lived beauty, and loved to recount and magnify the ancient
flames she had kindled when "head of a department," dictating the
fashions to the good ladies of Thorsby at Hood and Truslove's long
extinct but once celebrated emporium in the High Street there.
It did not occur to me till afterwards that I ought to have been
frightened--thus sequestered from the world, and my life hardly worth
five minutes' purchase, if I should chance to incur the anger of one of
those mad creatures. But at the time I sat with my French grammar on
my knees, thinking chiefly how funny it was to see the five of us all
seated with the soles of our feet turned to a blank wall. This we did
for the warmth of the dividing wall. And indeed it was never cold--for
before my side had time to cool, Jeremy was firing up his oven again
for the next batch of bread to feed the Deep Moat Grangers and their
guests.
That these could be dangerous thieves and murderers, in spite of the
gossip I had heard, never crossed my mind. They were to me, as I think
to Mr. Ablethorpe, just so many poor things who had lost their senses.
I noticed, however, that all except Jeremy were accustomed to hush
their voices when they spoke of their terrible sister Aphra. And
little by little I was able to draw from Honorine (who, above all
things, loved to talk) the sad history of their wanderings. I will not
attempt to reproduce in detail all her babblings. Indeed, she never
quite finished a sentence. Nor did she ever continue where she left
off. But, so far as I understood her relation, controlled as it was
continually by the denials of Sidonia and Camilla, and punctuated by
the scornful strains of Mad Jeremy, the story of the Orrin family
amounted to this--
Their father had been a teacher in a large Lanarkshire village; but
some money having come into his hands by the death of a distant
relative, he went to Lancashire and there started a mill. He left a
fortune to his children, valued at some L40,000. But what had been
quickly gained proved just as easy to lose.
At his death Aphra kept on the spinning mill, and for a time made a
brave face to adverse fortune. But a combination among bigger
employers froze her out. The mill failed, and with it was engulfed the
wealth of her sisters and the portion of her one brother. Hitherto
Jeremy had behaved more humanly than any of the others, learning the
business of the mill, with the hope that some day he might be able to
conduct one of his own. But the sudden failure of all his hopes
overthrew an ill-balanced brain. He grew wild and untamable in his
habits, only appearing at home at rare intervals, and then only to
claim more and more money from his sister.
The others, Honorine, Camilla and Sidonia, mentioned the name of their
eldest sister with a kind of awe, but Jeremy never without a sneer or a
taunt--except only in her presence, and when taxed with digging in the
garden, a habit for which, Honorine whispered, Aphra was accustomed to
punish him severely.
After their failure in Wigham, the passage of the Orrin family
southward through England is marked only by some vague reminiscences of
Honorine. She would begin a sentence "When we were at Bristol" and end
it with "This happened after Aphra had brought us to Leeds."
Nevertheless the nodded confirmations of the other two sisters,
silently listening as they twisted their fingers, together with the
"humphs" and denials of Jeremy, let me understand the truth with
sufficient clearness.
If Aphra had been alone, unsaddled with her flock of mad folk, whom she
treated like grown-up children, yet loved with more than sisterly
devotion, she would have had no difficulty in providing for herself.
At Bristol, for instance, she had established herself with what
remained of their small capital in a ready-made shoe shop in a
well-frequented street, while Honorine and Sidonia interpreted the
latest London fashions to the dwellers in Clifton. But the latter
branch failed because Honorine refused to serve those customers who, on
entering the shop, would not consent to bow the knee and worship the
statue of the Virgin, which they kept in a wall niche surrounded with
ever-burning candles. This did not at all suit the ideas of the
Cliftonians, and soon the two sisters were back hanging on as before to
the skirts of Aphra. As for Jeremy, he wandered about the docks,
finding mysterious means of filling his pockets, but always sharing the
proceeds.
But his strength waxed so great, his temper so uncertain, that
practically he was allowed to go his way. From this time forward not
even Aphra was able to control him. More than once he had threatened
her life with his clasp knife. Still she did not insist upon his
leaving the house. As the head of the family, she was responsible for
all. Jeremy was a prodigal son, but still a son--indeed, the only son
of the house. Her father had confided him to Aphra, and she would be
faithful to her trust.
It was about this time that the family became touched with that mystic
spirit which Mr. Ablethorpe had thought to utilize in leading them to
better things. But the attempt was vain from the first.
Even at Bristol an attempt to walk in procession upon the street with
white banners and mystic emblems awoke so much mingled hostility and
mirth that the police were fain to interfere. And an assault made by
Honorine upon a visiting bishop of Low Church tendencies, who dared to
preach in a Geneva gown, led to the closing of the boot shop and their
migration once more to the north.
Everywhere they went Honorine was the bane of custodians of High
Anglican and Catholic churches. She insisted upon spending the whole
day in such buildings, kneeling for hours together before the sacred
pictures, especially those representing favourite saints, making her
stations of the cross several times a day, and representing to the
distressed church officers (who wanted their dinners) that it was no
time to think of earthly nourishment here below--because at any moment
their brains might be sucked up by a steam engine even as hers had
been. She continued, therefore, in spite of gowned Anglican church
officers, magnificent Catholic "Suisses," and arrogant parish beadles,
to do penance for sins which she had never committed.
"There are enough misdeeds in the family, though, to keep you at
penance all your life," grunted Jeremy with a grin, as Honorine
finished her confession. "You did quite right, Honor; I always said
that you had more sense than Aphra!"
"Aphra is wise," said her sister, "but she does not know that, owing to
my prolonged studies in the Book of Nature, I am enabled to cure
toothache."
From the date of their leaving Bristol the family had gone where the
determined Aphra had led them. Their longest time of refuge was in the
service of a German widow named Funkel, who lived in a villa near
Surbiton. Devout as Mr. Ablethorpe, this good woman had taken an idea
of bringing the Orrins to more settled ways.
Aphra was to be cook and housekeeper, Honorine sewing maid, Camilla
waited at table, and Sidonia became laundress. It was a hospitable and
kindly arrangement. But the operations of Jeremy, who had charge of
the small garden, brought all the dogs of the neighbourhood there to
scratch, while within doors the entire service of the household would
be interrupted by discussions as to what the exact meaning of a pinch
of salt spilled on the right side of the salt cellar, or a tug of war
between the younger sisters to decide who was to clean the knives.
As all had foreseen but herself, Madame Funkel had to call in the
police before she could get rid of her troop of domestics. It ended in
their retreat, after certain threats on Aphra's part--threats which,
but for the opportune vanishing of Jeremy, might not have ended
pleasantly for their ex-mistress.
Aphra returned to her diminished shoe shop, this time set up in a
suburb of Leeds, and Jeremy was next heard of as the companion of Mr.
Hobby Stennis in the little wayside cottage where he lived before
moving into the larger and more retired Deep Moat Grange.
Honorine asked Jeremy more than once how he came to be acquainted with
Mr. Stennis. But his only reply was that "there were certain things
which it was good for women to know, but how he first came to meet Mr.
Stennis was not one of them."