Wylder's Hand Part 16

Stanley looked round him with pale and sharpened features.

'What the devil is it! If that scoundrel had come to kill us you could not cry out louder,' he whispered, with an oath. 'Do you want to wake your people up?'

'Oh! Stanley,' she repeated, in a changed and horror-stricken way. 'What a fool I've been. I see it at last; I see it all now,' and she waved her white hands together very slowly towards him, as mesmerisers move theirs.

There was a silence of some seconds, and his yellow ferine gaze met hers strangely.

'You were always a sharp girl, Radie, and I think you do see it,' he said at last, very quietly.

'The witness--the witness--the dreadful witness!' she repeated.

'I'll show you, though, it's not so bad as you fancy. I'm sorry I did not take your advice; but how, I say, could I know he was such a devil? I must go back to him. I only came down to tell you, because Radie, you know you proposed it yourself; _you_ must come, too--you _must_, Radie.'

'Oh, Stanley, Stanley, Stanley!'

'Why, d-- it, it can't be helped now; can it?' said he, with a peevish malignity. But she was right; there was something of the poltroon in him, and he was trembling.

'Why could you not leave me in peace, Stanley?'

'I can't go without you, Rachel. I won't; and if we don't we're both ruined,' he said, with a bleak oath.

'Yes, Stanley, I knew you were a coward,' she replied, fiercely and wildly.

'You're always calling names, d-- you; do as you like. I care less than you think how it goes.'

'No, Stanley; you know me too well. Ah! No, you sha'n't be lost if I can help it.' Rachel shook her head as she spoke, with a bitter smile and a dreadful sigh.

Then they whispered together for three or four minutes, and Rachel clasped her jewelled fingers tight across her forehead, quite wildly, for a minute.

'You'll come then?' said Stanley.

She made no answer, and he repeated the question.

By this time she was standing; and without answering, she began mechanically to get on her cloak and hat.

'You must drink some wine first; he may frighten you, perhaps. You _must_ take it, Rachel, or I'll not go.'

Stanley Lake was swearing, in his low tones, like a swell-mobsman to-night.

Rachel seemed to have made up her mind to submit pa.s.sively to whatever he required. Perhaps, indeed, she thought there was wisdom in his advice. At all events she drank some wine.

Rachel Lake was one of those women who never lose their presence of mind, even under violent agitation, for long, and who generally, even when highly excited, see, and do instinctively, and with decision, what is best to be done; and now, with dilated eyes and white face, she walked noiselessly into the kitchen, listened there for a moment, then stole lightly to the servants' sleeping-room, and listened there at the door, and lastly looked in, and satisfied herself that both were still sleeping. Then as cautiously and swiftly she returned to her drawing-room, and closed the window-shutters and drew the curtain, and signalling to her brother they went stealthily forth into the night air, closing the hall-door, and through the little garden, at the outer gate of which they paused.

'I don't know, Rachel--I don't like it--I'm not fit for it. Go back again--go in and lock your door--we'll not go to him--_you_ need not, you know. He may stay where he is--let him--I'll not return. I say, I'll see him no more. I'll get away. I'll consult Larkin--shall I? Though that won't do--he's in Wylder's interest--curse him. What had I best do? I'm not equal to it.'

'We _must_ go, Stanley. You said right just now; be resolute--we are both ruined unless we go. You have brought it to that--you _must_ come.'

'I'm not fit for it, I tell you--I'm not. You were right, Radie--I think I'm not equal to a business of this sort, and I won't expose you to such a scene. _You're_ not equal to it either, I think,' and Lake leaned on the paling.

'Don't mind me--you haven't much hitherto. Go or stay, I'm equally ruined now, but not equally disgraced; and go we must, for it is _your only_ chance of escape. Come, Stanley--for shame!'

In a few minutes more they were walking in deep darkness and silence, side by side, along the path, which diverging from the mill-road, penetrates the coppice of that sequestered gorge, along the bottom of which flows a tributary brook that finds its way a little lower down into the mill-stream. This deep gully in character a good deal resembles Redman's Glen, into which it pa.s.ses, being fully as deep, and wooded to the summit at both sides, but much steeper and narrower, and therefore many shades darker.

They had now reached those rude stone steps, some ten or fifteen in number, which conduct the narrow footpath up a particularly steep acclivity, and here Lake lost courage again, for they distinctly heard the footsteps that paced the platform above.

CHAPTER XVIII.

MARK WYLDER'S SLAVE.

Nearly two hours had pa.s.sed before they returned. As they did so, Rachel Lake went swiftly and silently before her brother. The moon had gone down, and the glen was darker than ever. Noiselessly they re-entered the little hall of Redman's Farm. The candles were still burning in the sitting-room, and the light was dazzling after the profound darkness in which they had been for so long.

Captain Lake did not look at all like a London dandy now. His dress was confoundedly draggled; the conventional countenance, too, was wanting.

There was a very natural savagery and dejection there, and a wild leer in his yellow eyes.

Rachel sat down. No living woman ever showed a paler face, and she stared with a look that was sharp and stern upon the wainscot before her.

For some minutes they were silent; and suddenly, with an exceeding bitter cry, she stood up, close to him, seizing him in her tiny hands by the collar, and with wild eyes gazing into his, she said--

'See what you've brought me to--wretch, wretch, wretch!'

And she shook him with violence as she spoke. It was wonderful how that fair young face could look so terrible.

'There, Radie, there,' said Lake, disengaging her fingers. 'You're a little hysterical, that's all. It will be over in a minute; but don't make a row. You're a good girl, Radie. For Heaven's sake, don't spoil all by folly now.'

He was overawed and deprecatory.

'A slave! only think--a slave! Oh frightful, frightful! Is it a dream? Oh frightful, frightful! Stanley, Stanley, it would be _mercy_ to kill me,'

she broke out again.

'Now, Radie, listen to reason, and don't make a noise; you know we agreed, _you_ must go, and _I can't_ go with you.'

Lake was cooler by this time, and his sister more excited than before they went out.

'I used to be brave; my courage I think is gone; but who'd have imagined what's before me?'

Stanley walked to the window and opened the shutter a little. He forgot how dark it was. The moon had gone down. He looked at his watch and then at Rachel. She was sitting, and in no calmer state; serene enough in att.i.tude, but the terribly wild look was unchanged. He looked at his watch again, and held it to his ear, and consulted it once more before he placed the tiny gold disk again in his pocket.

'This won't do,' he muttered.

With one of the candles in his hand he went out and made a hurried, peeping exploration, and soon, for the rooms were quickly counted in Redman's Farm, he found her chamber small, neat, _simplex munditiis_.

Bright and natty were the chintz curtains, and the little toilet set out, not inelegantly, and her pet piping-goldfinch asleep on his perch, with his bit of sugar between the wires of his cage; her pillow so white and unpressed, with its little edging of lace. Were slumbers sweet as of old ever to know it more? What dreams were henceforward to haunt it? Shadows were standing about that lonely bed already. I don't know whether Stanley Lake felt anything of this, being very decidedly of the earth earthy. But there are times when men are translated from their natures, and forced to be romantic and superst.i.tious.

When he came back to the drawing-room, a toilet bottle of _eau de cologne_ in his hand, with her lace handkerchief he bathed her temples and forehead. There was nothing very brotherly in his look as he peered into her pale, sharp features, during the process. It was the dark and pallid scrutiny of a familiar of the Holy Office, bringing a victim back to consciousness.

She was quickly better.