THE CRISIS.
When Phoebe Chiffinch returned to Alice's room, it was about ten o'clock;
a brilliant moon was shining on the old trees, and throwing their
shadows on the misty grass. The landscape from these upper windows was
sad and beautiful, and above the distant trees that were softened by the
haze of night rose the silvery spire of the old church, in whose vault
her father sleeps with a cold brain, thinking no more of mortgages and
writs.
Alice had been wondering what had detained her so long, and by the time
she arrived had become very much alarmed.
Relieved when she entered, she was again struck with fear when Phoebe
Chiffinch had come near enough to enable her to see her face. She was
pale, and with her eyes fixed on her, raised her finger in warning, and
then glanced at the door which she had just closed.
Her young mistress got up and approached her, also growing pale, for she
perceived that danger was at the door.
"I wish there was bolts to these doors. They've got other keys. Never
mind; I know it all now," she whispered, as she walked softly up to the
end of the room farthest from the door. "I said I'd stand by you, my
lady; don't you lose heart. They're coming here in about a hour."
"For God's sake, what is it?" said Alice faintly, her eyes gazing wider
and wider, and her very lips growing white.
"There's work before us, my lady, and there must be no fooling," said
the girl, a little sternly. "Mr. Levi, please, has told me a deal, and
all they expect from me, the villains. Are you strong enough to take
your part in it, Miss? If not, best be quiet; best for both."
"Yes; quite strong, Phoebe. Are we to leave this?"
"I hope, Miss. We can but try."
"There's light, Phoebe," she said, glancing with a shiver from the
window. "It's a bright night."
"I wish 'twas darker; but mind you what I say. Longcluse is to be here
in a hour. Your brother's coming, God help you! and that little limb o'
Satan, that black-eyed, black-nailed, dirty little Jew, Levice! They're
not in town, they're out together near this, where a man is to meet them
with writings. There's a licence got, Christie Vargers saw Mr. Longcluse
showing it to your brother, Sir Richard; and I daren't tell Vargers that
I'm for you. He'd never do nothing to vex Mr. Levice, he daren't.
There's a parson here, a rum 'un, you may be sure. I think I know
something about him; Vargers does. He's in the room now, only one away
from this, next the stair head, and Vargers is put to keep the door in
the same room. All the doors along, from one room to t'other, is open,
from this to the stairs, except the last, which Vargers has the key of
it; and all the doors opening from the rooms to the gallery is locked,
so you can't get out o' this 'ere without passing through the one where
parson is, and Mr. Vargers, please."
"I'll speak to the clergyman," whispered Alice, extending her hands
towards the far door; "God be thanked, there's one good man here, and
he'll save me!"
"La, bless you child! why that parson had his two pen'orth long ago, and
spends half his nights in the lock-up."
"I don't understand, Phoebe."
"He had two years. He's bin in jail, Miss, Vargers says, as often as he
has fingers and toes; and he's at his brandy and water as I came
through, with his feet on the fender, and his pipe in his mouth. He's
here to marry you, please 'm, to Mr. Longcluse, and _there's_ all the
good _he'll_ do you; and your brother will give you away, Miss, and
Levice and Vargers for witnesses, and me I dessay. It's every bit
harranged, and they don't care the rinsing of a tumbler what you say or
do; for through with it, slicks, they'll go, and say 'twas all right, in
spite of all you can do; and who is there to make a row about it? Not
you, after all's done."
"We must get away! I'll lose my life, or I'll escape!"
Phoebe looked at her in silence. I think she was measuring her strength,
and her nerve, for the undertaking.
"Well, 'm, it's time it was begun. The time is come. Here's your cloak,
Miss, I'll tie a handkerchief over my head, if we get out; and here's
the three keys, betwixt the bed and the mattress."
After a moment's search on her knees, she produced them.
"The big one and this I'll keep, and you'll manage this other, please;
take it in your right hand--you must use it first. It opens the far door
of the room where Vargers is, and if you get through, you'll be at the
stair-head then. Don't you come in after me, till you see I have Vargers
engaged another way. Go through as light as a bird flies, and take the
key out of the door, at the other end, when you unlock it; and close it
softly, else he'll see it, and have the house about our ears; and you
know the big window at the drawing-room lobby; wait in the hollow of
that window till I come. Do you understand, please, Miss?"
Alice did perfectly.
"Hish-sh!" said the maid, with a prolonged caution.
A dead silence followed; for a minute--several minutes neither seemed to
breathe.
Phoebe whispered at length--
"_Now_, Miss, are you ready?"
"Yes," she whispered, and her heart beat for a moment as if it would
suffocate her, and then was still; an icy chill stole over her, and as
on tip-toe she followed Phoebe, she felt as if she glided without weight
or contact, like a spirit.
Through a dark room they passed, very softly, first, a little light
under the door showed that there were candles in the next. They halted
and listened. Phoebe opened the door and entered.
Standing back in the shadow, Alice saw the room and the people in it,
distinctly. The parson was not the sort of contraband clergyman she had
fancied, by any means, but a thin hectic man of some four-and-thirty
years, only looking a little dazed by brandy and water, and far gone in
consumption. Handsome thin features, and a suit of seedy black, and a
white choker, indicated that lost gentleman, who was crying silently as
he smoked his pipe, I daresay a little bit tipsy, gazing into the fire,
with his fatal brandy and water at his elbow.
"Eh! Mr. Vargers, smoking after _all_ I said to you!" murmured Miss
Phoebe severely, advancing toward her round-shouldered sweetheart, with
her finger raised.
Mr. Vargers replied pleasantly; and as this tender "chaff" flew lightly
between the interlocutors, the parson looked still into the fire,
hearing nothing of their play and banter, but sunk deep in the hell of
his sorrowful memory.
As Phoebe talked on, Vargers grew agreeable and tender, and in about
three minutes after her own entrance, she saw with a thrill,
imperfectly, just with the "corner of her eye," something pass behind
them swiftly toward the outer door. The crisis, then, had come. For a
moment there seemed a sudden light before her eyes, and then a dark
mist; in another she recovered herself.
Vargers stood up suddenly.
"Hullo! what's gone with the door there?" said he, sternly ending their
banter.
If he had been looking on her with an eye of suspicion, he might have
seen her colour change. But Phoebe was quick-witted and prompt, and
saying, in hushed tones--
"Well, dear, ain't I a fool, leaving the lady's door open? Look ye, now,
Mr. Vargers, she's lying fast asleep on her bed; and that's the reason I
took courage to come here and ask a favour. But I'd rayther you'd lock
her door, for if she waked and missed me she'd be out here, and all the
fat in the fire."
"I dessay you're right, Miss," said he, with a more business-like
gallantry; and as he shut the door and fumbled in his pocket for the
key, she stole a look over her shoulder.
The prisoner had got through, and the door at the other end was closed.
With a secret shudder, she thanked God in her heart, while with a laugh
she slapped Mr. Vargers' lusty shoulder, and said wheedlingly, "And now
for the favour, Mr. Vargers: you must let me down to the kitchen for
five minutes."
A little more banter and sparring followed, which ended in Vargers
kissing her, in spite of the usual squall and protest; and on his
essaying to let her out, and finding the door unlocked, he swore that it
was well she asked, as he'd 'av' got it hot and heavy for forgetting to
lock it, when the "swells" came up. The door closed upon her: so far the
enterprise was successful.
She stood at the head of the stairs; she went down a few steps, and
listened; then cautiously she descended. The moon shone resplendent
through the great window at the landing below the drawing-room. It was
that at which Uncle David had paused to listen to the minstrelsy of Mr.
Longcluse.
Here in that flood of white light stands Alice Arden, like a statue of
horror. The girl, without saying a word, takes her by the cold hand, and
leads her quickly down to the arch that opens on the hall.
Just as they reached this point, the door of the room, at the right of
the hall door, occupied by Mr. Boult, who did duty as porter, opens, and
stepping out with a candle in his hand, he calls in a savage tone--
"What's the row?"
Phoebe pushed Alice's hand in the direction of the passage that leads to
the housekeeper's room. For a moment the young lady stands irresolute.
Her presence of mind returns. She noiselessly takes the hint, and enters
the corridor; Phoebe advances to answer his challenge.
"Well, Mr. Boult, and what _is_ the row, pray?" she pertly inquires,
walking up to that gentleman, who eyes her sulkily, raising his candle,
and displaying as he does so a big patch of red on each cheek-bone,
indicative of the brandy, of which he smells potently.
"What's the row?--_you're_ the row! What brings you down here, Miss
Chivvige?"
"My legs! There's your answer, you cross boy." She laughed wheedlingly.
"Then walk you up again, and be d--d."
"On! Mr. Boult."
"P! Miss Phibbie."
Mr. Boult was speaking thick, and plainly was in no mood to stand
nonsense.
"Now Mr. Boult, where's the good of making yourself disagreeable?"
"Look at this 'ere," he replied, grimly holding a mighty watch, of some
white metal, under her eyes--"you know your clock as well as me, Miss
Chavvinge. The gentlemen will be in this 'ere awl in twenty minutes."
"All the more need to be quick, Mr. Boult, Sir, and why will you keep me
'ere talking?" she replies.
"You'll go up them 'ere stairs, young 'oman; you'll not put a foot in
the kitchen to-night," he says more doggedly.
"Well, we'll see how it will be when they comes and I tells
'em--'Please, gentlemen, the young lady, which you told me most
particular to humour her in everything she might call for, wished a cup
of tea, which I went down, having locked her door first, which here is
the key of it,'" and she held it up for the admiration of Mr. Boult,
"'which I consider it the most importantest key in the 'ouse; and though
the young lady, she lay on her bed a-gasping, poor thing, for her cup of
tea, Mr. Boult stopt me in the awl, and swore she shouldn't have a drop,
which I could not get it, and went hup again, for he smelt all over of
brandy, and spoke so wiolent, I daren't do as you desired.'"
"I don't smell of brandy; no, I don't; do I?" he says, appealing to an
imaginary audience. "And I don't want to stop you, if so be the case is
so. But you'll come to this door and report yourself in five minute's
time, or I'll tell 'em there's no good keepin' me 'ere no longer. I
don't want no quarrellin' nor disputin', only I'll do my dooty, and I'm
not afraid of man, woman, or child!"
With which magnanimous sentiment he turned on his clumsy heel, and
entered his apartment again.
In a moment more Phoebe and Alice were at the door which admits to a
passage leading literally to the side of the house. This door Phoebe
softly unlocks, and when they had entered, locks again on the inside.
They stood now on the passage leading to a side door, to which a few
paces brought them. She opens it. The cold night air enters, and they
step out upon the grass. She locks the door behind them, and throws the
key among the nettles that grew in a thick grove at her right.
"Hold my hand, my lady; it's near done now," she whispers almost
fiercely; and having listened for a few seconds, and looked up to see if
any light appeared in the windows, she ventures, with a beating heart,
from under the deep shadow of the gables, into the bright broad
moonlight, and with light steps together they speed across the grass,
and reach the cover of a long grove of tall trees and underwood. All is
silent here.
Soon a distant shouting brings them to a terrible stand-still.
Breathlessly Phoebe listens. No; it was not from the house. They resume
their flight.
Now under the ivy-laden branches of a tall old tree an owl startles them
with its shriek.
As Alice stares around her, when they stop in such momentary alarm, how
strange the scene looks! How immense and gloomy the trees about them!
How black their limbs stretch across the moon-lit sky! How chill and
wild the moonlight spreads over the undulating sward! What a spectral
and exaggerated shape all things take in her scared and over-excited
gaze!
Now they are approaching the long row of noble beeches that line the
boundary of Mortlake. The ivy-bowered wall is near them, and the screen
of gigantic hollies that guard the lonely postern through which Phoebe
has shrewdly chosen to direct their escape.
Thank God! they are at it. In her hand she holds the key, which shines
in the moon-beams.
Hush! what is this? Voices close to the door! Step back behind the holly
clump, for your lives, quickly! A key grinds in the lock; the bolt works
rustily; the door opens, and tall Mr. Longcluse enters, with every
sinister line and shadow of his pale face marked with a death-like
sternness, in the moonlight. Mr. Levi enters almost beside him; how
white his big eyeballs gleam, as he steps in under the same cold light!
Who next?
Her _brother_! Oh, God! The mad impulse to throw her arms about his
neck, and shriek her wild appeal to his manhood, courage, love, and
stake all on that momentary frenzy!
As this group halts in silence, while Sir Richard locks the door, the
Jew directs his big dark eyes, as she thinks, right upon Phoebe
Chiffinch, who stands in the shadow, and is therefore, she faintly
hopes, not visible behind the screen of glittering leaves. Her eyes,
nevertheless, meet his. He advances his head a little, with more than
his usual prying malignity, she thinks. Her heart flutters, and sinks.
She is on the point of stepping from her shelter and surrendering. With
his cane he strikes at the leaves, aiming, I daresay, at a moth, for
nothing is quite below his notice, and he likes smashing even a fly. In
this case, having hit or missed it, he turns his fiery eyes, to the
infinite relief of the girl, another way.
The three men who have thus stept into the grounds of Mortlake don't
utter a word as they stand there. They now recommence their walk toward
the house.
Phoebe Chiffinch, breathless, is holding Alice Arden's wrist with a firm
grasp. As they brush the holly-leaves, in passing, the very sprays that
touch the dresses of the scared girls are stirring. The pale group
drifts by in silence. They have each something to meditate on. They are
not garrulous. On they walk, like three shadows. The distance widens,
the shapes grow fainter.
"They'll soon be at the house, Ma'am, and wild work then. You'll do
something for poor Vargers? Well, time enough! You must not lose heart
now, my lady. You're all right, if you keep up for ten minutes longer.
You don't feel faint-like! Good lawk, Ma'am! rouse up."
"I'm better, Phoebe; I'm quite well again. Come on--come on!"
Carefully, to make as little noise as possible she turned the key in the
lock, and they found themselves in a narrow lane running by the wall,
and under the trees of Mortlake.
"Which way?"
"Not toward the 'Guy of Warwick.' They'll soon be in chase of us, and
that is the way they'll take. 'Twould never do. Come away, my lady; it
won't be long till we meet a cab or something to fetch us where you
please. Lean on me. I wish we were away from this wall. What way do you
mean to go?"
"To my Uncle David's house."
And having exchanged these words, they pursued their way side by side,
for a time, in silence.