JANET.
They talk yet of that winter in Marshcotes parish. Some recall it for
its twelve weeks of frost, others for the depth of snow that covered
all but the tallest tombstones in the cemetery for a week and a day;
but one and all remember the bitter night that heralded the storm,
because of a deed which the snow did its best to hide.
At four of the afternoon the sun went down behind the surly spur of
moor that guarded the western side of Frender's Folly. A black frost
had made iron of the marshy ground, and glass of the sullen lake. All
was bitter and dark, and the Folly walls seemed one with the gloom
about them. The sky was a dead, expressionless grey. Then, on a sudden,
yellowish banks of cloud crept up from the moor-edge, as though puffed
by a noiseless wind. The grouse ceased their complaining, the curlews
dropped earthward. One by one the snowflakes floated out of the
cheerless sky, like tears from a frozen heart; one by one they clung
to the heather sprays, blackening their murky green by contrast, or
nestled in he clefts of their stalks. And every flake might have been
a ghost, so subtle and lonely and sad was its wandering fall. White of
snow, black of night--there was nothing over all the moor but these.
The guests at the Folly, while they were dressing for dinner, peeped
out from under their blinds and saw the snowflakes silting against
the window-panes. They shrugged their shoulders at the lunacy that
had brought them here in winter weather, and went downstairs resolved
to make the best of a bad business. Laverack, feeling that he would
have much to answer for if the snow should fasten them up in the
house, exerted himself to keep the ball rolling. Laughter and jest
increased apace, till Janet, facing her father from the opposite end
of the table, thought she must surely go mad. Her mind was made up,
and she feared lest the storm should render it impossible to cross
the moor that night--feared lest some cause from within should detain
her--feared, finally, lest the dinner should never end.
When they had gained the drawing-room, and the men below had grown
noisily insistent on their freedom, Janet slipped to the side of the
lady-companion who helped her to do the honours of the house.
"Look after these people, will you?" she said. "I have an atrocious
headache, and I can't bear their foolishness."
"Really, my dear, you sound quite vindictive. I am sorry you are so
unwell; shall I send your maid up with some tea?"
"Please don't. I would rather be left alone till to-morrow; talk and
fuss jar on me so when I am like this. You will explain to every one? I
mean to slip away quietly."
A moment later she was speeding along the corridor that led to her
bedroom. She panted with excitement, with dread of frustration at this
eleventh hour; but her mouth was firm, and her eyes resolute.
"What it is to have to lie! I _hate_ it," she muttered. "Only, I had
to. What will Leo say, even if I do reach him safely?" she added, with
a disturbed wrinkling of her forehead.
She put on a cloak, and drew the pretty frilled hood over her head;
then waited till she heard the men come up, and the drawing-room door
close on the last of them. She went softly out by the side door,
cutting short the growl of a chained-up mastiff by telling him who she
was. Then across the whitened lawn, and up the rise till the open moor
was gained--a slender, girlish figure, flitting shadow-like amongst the
silent flakes. Her heart failed her as she reached the top; she seemed
to be the sport of the storm-elves, and there was no living thing to
help her to battle with the loneliness. She tried to sing, that so
she might trick herself into the thought that she had company; but
her voice was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and it sank
affrighted by its own power to people the stillness with re-echoing
cries. Her knees shook under her, and the bridle track showed
dimly--more dimly, it seemed, with each succeeding step. Not till now
had she understood what was meant by her foolhardy resolve to cross the
five miles of desolation that lay between herself and Wynyates.
At the end of a mile, just after she had turned into the cart-road that
ran past Lawfoot Water, she clashed against some one walking in the
opposite direction.
"Beg pardon," said a gruff voice. "I didn't fancy there'd be more nor
one fooil abroad to-neet."
At any other time the girl would have been frightened out of her
senses; but the voice rang honest, and any human company was better
than that awful silence which had gone before.
"Stay!" she cried, as the stranger was about to pass on. "Where are you
going?"
The man slewed round on his heels and began to make a queer cackling
noise in his throat, suggestive of sour merriment.
"To which I'd answer, Who the devil may _ye_ be, an' what is't to
ye where I'm wending? Ye've a lass's voice, an' a snod sort of a
figure, what I can see on't--but it beäts me to know what ye're after,
scampering across th' moor at this time of a wild neet."
"I want to get to Wynyates, and you are going to show me the way."
Janet, fearless now, had come close up to her companion, and rested a
hand on his sleeve.
"Begow, tha'rt a cool un!" he muttered, half admiringly. "But I can't
do't; there's a wife an' three waiting at home, an' I mun put th' best
foot forrard to reach 'em come ten o'clock."
"I _must_ cross to Wynyates, I tell you, and I'm afraid of losing my
way if I go alone. Can you find it with snow on the ground?"
"Well, I reckon I can. I've known it, man an' boy, these forty year."
"If money will persuade you, you can take my purse and welcome. I don't
know how much there is in it, but if it isn't enough----"
"I don't want your money," growled the man. "I niver said a word to
leäd ye to think I wanted that."
"Then you won't come?" she said impatiently.
He shuffled from one foot to another, continued his growls in an
undertone, and finally started off in the direction of Wynyates.
"Ay, I'll come. Ye may be up to no godliness, but ye've got some
sperrit in ye--an' that's saying a deal for a woman. Come on."
As Captain Laverack was playing whist in the drawing-room, and inwardly
reviling his partner's experimental style of play, the butler came
behind his chair and asked for a word with him.
"All right, Denman; it will wait till we've finished our rubber, I
suppose?"
"It _will_ wait, sir, but----"
Laverack saw from the man's air that the matter was a grave one, and
rose from the table as soon as the hand was played, leaving his place
to a youngster who had been much more pleasantly employed at the piano.
"Well?" he demanded, standing just outside the door, which he had
closed behind him.
"It's about Miss Laverack, sir. She is not in her room, nor anywhere
else in the house, that we can find. Mrs. Rigby, sir, was looking out
of doors an hour or so ago, and she saw a figure in a cloak go past
Sultan's kennel."
Laverack wiped his forehead.
"Yes, yes; go on," he said irritably. "Why didn't you tell me before?"
"I've only just heard it, sir; and Mrs. Rigby didn't like to come and
tell you, seeing that the figure was come and gone so quick that she
had scarcely time to make sure of it. It was snowing, too, at the time."
"Did she recognize Miss Laverack?"
"It was about her height and figure. Besides, she stopped and patted
Sultan, and he left off growling at once. It must have been Miss
Laverack, sir."
Laverack began to pace up and down the long corridor, talking to
himself in his quick, nervous way. "I can't raise the alarm, because
that would give the confounded girl away to every guest in the house.
Oh, damn it, why didn't I do as I intended to do at first, and leave
here a week ago? It would have meant putting off the house-party, but
anything would have been better. Where does this fellow Roddick live?
Wynyates, isn't it? Five miles away, they tell me. She is sure to have
gone there. Well, I must get on to a horse, I suppose, and follow as
fast as I can: it will be all up with Janet if I don't bring her back
to-night."
He came opposite Denman again, and the butler coughed apologetically--
"Have you any orders for me, sir?"
"Orders? Yes; have the bay saddled, and waiting at the end of the drive
in ten minutes. Not a word of this, Denman, to any one."
It was not very long since Rigby, whose fears on the point may be
remembered, had been constrained to tell his wife of the disinterested
part he was playing as messenger between Miss Laverack and Mr. Roddick
of Wynyates. And Mrs. Rigby, though pledged to absolute secrecy by all
she held sacred in the world, had nevertheless been unable to refrain
from repeating the story, in confidence, to her friend the cook. From
the cook it had travelled round, still strictly in confidence, to
the ears of Denman, the butler; and Denman, having lately endangered
his comfortable post here by a rather glaring misdemeanour, promptly
repeated what he had heard to his master, hoping by this means to
re-establish his shaken credit. Laverack, being a man who was not
over-nice in his own methods, credited his keeper with like principles;
and his certainty that Rigby would spread the tale far and near, if
dismissed, was his sole reason for keeping man and wife in his employ.
Poor Rigby, whose only faults were an inordinate love of mystery and a
tendency to give others the benefit of his experiences, had been almost
heart-broken when he learned that it was all over with the meetings
between Roddick and Janet. Laverack had stormed and raved, and had with
difficulty been persuaded to stay at the Folly till the invited guests
should have come and gone. Even as it was, Janet was never sure from
day to day that he would not get rid of everyone on some excuse of
sickness or bereavement; and she resolved to bring matters to a crisis
before she was again dragged away from Roddick.
"By Gad, what a night!" muttered Laverack, as he went quietly out of
the house and crossed to the bend of the drive where his horse was
waiting for him. "Why Heaven gives a man daughters, Heaven only knows.
I shall be wet to the skin before I get back. Cranshaw first, if that
knave Rigby told me right, and after that I must ask the way."