Starvecrow Farm Part 27

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 pa.s.sages, 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 s.h.i.+vered. But that was the last tribute to weakness. Her nature, bold to recklessness, a.s.serted 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 pa.s.sage, and closed the door behind her. The close, heavy smell of the house a.s.sailed her as she listened; but all was still, and she raised the sash of the window. She pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 compa.s.sed 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 a.s.surance 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 s.p.a.ce 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 G.o.d'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 sh.o.r.e 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 pa.s.sage window and murmured submissively that it was there.