Checkmate Part 82

"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 Phbe and Alice were at the door which admits to a pa.s.sage leading literally to the side of the house. This door Phbe softly unlocks, and when they had entered, locks again on the inside.

They stood now on the pa.s.sage 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 gra.s.s. 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 gra.s.s, 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 Phbe 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 n.o.ble 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 Phbe has shrewdly chosen to direct their escape.

Thank G.o.d! 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 eyeb.a.l.l.s gleam, as he steps in under the same cold light!

Who next?

Her _brother_! Oh, G.o.d! 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 Phbe 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.

Phbe Chiffinch, breathless, is holding Alice Arden's wrist with a firm grasp. As they brush the holly-leaves, in pa.s.sing, 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, Phbe; 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.

CHAPTER Lx.x.xVI.

PURSUIT.

Arrived at Mortlake, when Mr. Longcluse had discovered with certainty the flight of Alice Arden, his first thought was that Sir Richard had betrayed him. There was a momentary paroxysm of insane violence, in which, if he could only have discovered that he was the accomplice of Alice's escape, I think he would have killed him.

It subsided. How could Alice Arden have possessed such an influence over this man, who seemed to hate her? He sat down, and placed his hand to his broad, pale forehead, his dark eyes glaring on the floor, in what seemed an intensity of thought and pa.s.sion. He was seized with a violent trembling fit. It lasted only for a few minutes. I sometimes think he loved that girl desperately, and would have made her an idolatrous husband.

He walked twice or thrice up and down the great parlour in which they sat, and then with cold malignity said to Sir Richard--

"But for you she would have married me; but for you I should have secured her now. _Consider_, how shall I settle with you?"

"Settle how you will--do what you will. I swear (and he did swear hard enough, if an oath could do it, to satisfy any man) I've had _nothing_ to do with it. I've never had a hint that she meditated leaving this place. I can't conceive how it was done, nor who managed it, and I know no more than you do where she is gone." And he clenched his vehement disclaimer with an imprecation.

Longcluse was silent for a minute.

"She has gone, I a.s.sume, to David Arden's house," he said, looking down.

"There is no other house to receive her in town, and she does not know that he is away still. She knows that Lady May, and other friends, have gone. She's _there_. The will makes you, colourably, her guardian. You shall claim the custody of her person. We'll go there, and remove her."

Old Sir Reginald's will, I may remark, had been made years before, when Richard was not twenty-two, and Alice little more than a child, and the baronet and his son good friends.

He stalked out. At the steps was his trap, which was there to take Levi into town. That gentleman, I need not say, he did not treat with much ceremony. He mounted, and Sir Richard Arden beside him; and, leaving the Jew to shift for himself, he drove at a furious pace down the avenue.

The porter placed there by Longcluse, of course, opened the gate instantaneously at his call. Outside stood a cab, with a trunk on it. An old woman at the lodge-window, knocking and clamouring, sought admission.

"Let no one in," said Longcluse sternly to the man, who locked the iron gate on their pa.s.sing out.

"Hallo! What brings _her_ here? That's the old housekeeper!" said Longcluse, pulling up suddenly.

It was quite true. Her growing uneasiness about Alice had recalled the old woman from the North. Martha Tansey, who had heard the clang of the gate and the sound of wheels and hoofs, turned about and came to the side of the tax-cart, over which Longcluse was leaning. In the brilliant moonlight, on the white road, the branches cast a network of black shadow. A patch of light fell clear on the side of the trap, and on Longcluse's ungloved hand as he leaned on it.