Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles Part 90

"Why did she not come to me as usual?"

"Did she not come?" asked Hester.

"I have seen nothing of her all the evening."

"Maybe she thought thee'd be dozing," observed Hester, bringing forward the sleeping-draught which she had been pouring into a wine-gla.s.s. She said no more. Her private opinion was that Anna had purposely abstained from the visit lest she should receive a scolding for going to bed late, her usual hour being half-past nine. Neither did Patience say any more.

She was feeling that Anna might be a little less ungrateful. She took the draught, and Hester went to bed.

And poor Anna? To describe her dismay, her consternation, would be a useless attempt. The doors were fast--the windows were fast also.

Herbert Dare essayed to soothe her, but she would not be soothed. She sat down on the step of the back door and cried bitterly: all her apprehension being for the terrible scolding she should have from Patience, were it found out; the worse than scolding if Patience told her father.

To give Herbert Dare his due, he felt truly vexed at the dilemma for Anna's sake. Could he have let her in by getting down a chimney himself, or in any other impromptu way, and so opened the door for her, he would have done it. "Don't cry, Anna," he entreated, "don't cry! I'll take care of you. Nothing shall harm you. I'll not go away."

The more he talked, the more she cried. Very like a little child. Had Herbert Dare known how to break the gla.s.s without noise he would have taken out a pane in the kitchen window, and so reached the fastening and opened it. Anna, in worse terror than ever, begged him not to attempt it. It would be sure to arouse Hester.

"But you'll be so cold, child, staying here all night!" he urged. "You are shivering now."

Anna was shivering: shivering with vexation and fear. Herbert thought it would be better that he should boldly knock up Hester; and he suggested it: nay, he pressed it. But the proposal sounded more alarming to Anna than any that had gone before it. It seemed that there was nothing to be done.

How long she sat there, crying and shivering and refusing to be comforted or to hear reason, she could not tell. Half the night, it seemed. But Anna, you must remember, was counting time by her own state of mind, not by the clock. Suddenly a bright thought, as a ray of light, flashed into her brain.

"There's the pantry window," she cried, arresting her tears. "How could I ever have forgotten it? There is no gla.s.s, and thee art strong enough to push in the wire."

This pantry window Herbert Dare had known nothing about. It was at the side of the house, thickly surrounded by shrubs; a square window frame, protected by wire. He fought his way to it amidst the shrubs; but to get in proved a work of time and difficulty. The window was at some height from the ground, the wire was strong. Anna sat on the door-step, never stirring, leaving him to get in if he could, her tears falling, and terrific visions of Patience's anger chasing each other through her mind. And the night went on.

"Anna!"

She could have shouted forth a cry of delight as she leaped up. He had entered, had found his way to the kitchen window, had gently raised it, and was softly calling to her. Some little difficulty still, but with Herbert's a.s.sistance she was safely landed, a great tear in her dress the only damage. He had managed to obtain a light by means of some fusees in his pocket, and had lighted a candle. Anna sat down on a chair, her face radiant through her tears. "How shall I ever thank thee?"

He was looking at his fingers with a half-serious, half-mocking expression of dismay. The wire had torn them in many places, and they were bleeding. "I could have got in quicker had I forced the wire out in the middle," he observed, "but that would have told tales. I pushed it away from the side, and have pushed it back again into its place as well as I could. Perhaps it may escape notice."

"How shall I ever thank thee?" was all Anna could repeat in her grat.i.tude.

"Now you know what you must do, Anna," said he. "I am going to jump out through the window, and be off home. You must shut it and fasten it after me: I'd shut it myself, after I'm out, but that these stains on my fingers would be transferred to the frame. And when you leave the kitchen, remember to turn the key of the door outside. I found it turned. Do you understand? And now farewell, my little locked-out princess. Don't say I have not worked wonders for you, as the good spirits do in the fairy tales."

She caught his hand in her glad delight. She looked at him with a face full of grat.i.tude. Herbert Dare bent down and took a kiss from the up-turned face. Perhaps he thought he had fairly earned the reward. Then he proceeded to swing himself through the window, feeling delighted that he had been able to free Anna from her dilemma.

Before Helstonleigh arose next morning, a startling report was circulating through the city, the very air teeming with it. A report that Anthony Dare had been killed in the night by his brother Herbert.

CHAPTER II.

COMMOTION.

The streets of Helstonleigh, lying so still and quiet in the moonlight, were broken in upon by the noisy sound of a carriage, bowling through them. A carriage that was abroad late. It wanted very little of the time when the church clocks would boom out the two hours after midnight.

Time, surely, for all sober people to be in bed!

The carriage contained Mr. Dare, his wife and daughter. They went, as you may remember, to a dinner party in the country. The dinner was succeeded by an evening gathering, and it was nearly one o'clock when they left the house to return. It wanted only five minutes to two when the carriage stopped at their own home, and sleepy Joseph opened the door to them.

"All in bed?" asked Mr. Dare, as he bustled into the hall.

"I believe so, sir," answered Joseph, as carelessly as he could speak.

Mr. Dare, he was aware, alluded to his sons; and not being by any means sure upon the point, Joseph was willing to escape further questioning.

Two of the maids came forward--the lady's maid, as she was called in the family, and Betsy. Betsy was no other than our old friend Betsy Carter: once the little maid-of-all-work at Mrs. Halliburton's; risen now to be a very fine housemaid at Mrs. Dare's. They had sat up to attend upon Mrs. Dare and Adelaide.

Mr. Dare had been for a long while in the habit of smoking a pipe before he went to bed. He would have told you that he could not do without it.

If business or pleasure took him out, he must have his pipe when he returned, however late it might be.

"How hot it is!" he exclaimed, throwing back his coat. "Leave the hall door open, Joseph: I'll sit outside. Bring me my pipe."

Joseph looked for the pipe in its appointed resting-place, and could not see it. It was a small, handsome pipe, silver-mounted, with an amber mouth-piece. The tobacco-jar was there, but Joseph could see nothing of the pipe.

"Law! I remember!" exclaimed Betsy. "Master left it in the dining-room last night, and I put it under the sideboard when I was doing the room this morning, intending to bring it away. I'll go and get it."

Taking the candle from Joseph's hand, she turned hastily into the dining-room. Not, however, as hastily as she came out of it. She rushed out, uttering a succession of piercing shrieks, and seized upon Joseph.

The shrieks echoed through the house, upstairs and down, and Mr. Dare came in.

"Why, what on earth's the matter, girl?" cried he. "Have you seen a ghost?"

"Oh, sir! Oh, Joseph, don't let go of me; Mr. Anthony's lying in there, dead!"

"Don't be a simpleton," responded Mr. Dare, staring at Betsy.

Joseph gave a rather less complimentary reprimand, and shook the girl off. But suddenly, even as the words left his lips, there rose up before his mind's eye the vision of the past evening: the quarrel, the threats, the violence between Anthony and Herbert. A strange apprehension seated itself in the man's mind.

"Be still, you donkey!" he whispered to Betsy, his voice scarcely audible, his manner subdued. "I'll go in and see."

Taking the candle, he went into the dining-room. Mr. Dare followed. The worst thought that occurred to Mr. Dare was, that Anthony might have taken more wine than was good for him, and had fallen down, helpless, in the dining-room. Unhappily, Anthony had been known so to transgress.

Only a week or two before----but let that pa.s.s: it has nothing to do with us now.

Mr. Dare followed Joseph in. At the upper end of the room, near the window, lay some one on the ground. It was surely Anthony. He was lying on his side, his head thrown back, his face up-turned. A ghastly face, which sent poor Joseph's pulses bounding on with a terrible fear as he looked down at it. The same face which had scared Betsy when _she_ looked down.

"He is stark dead!" whispered Joseph, with a shiver, to Mr. Dare.

Mr. Dare, his own life-blood seeming to have stopped, bent over his son by the light of the candle. Anthony appeared to be not only dead, but cold. In his terrible shock, his agitation, he still remembered that it was well, if possible, to spare the sight to his wife and daughter. Mrs.

Dare and Adelaide, alarmed by Betsy's screams, had run downstairs, and were now hastening into the room.

"Go back! go back!" cried Mr. Dare, fencing them away with his hands.

"Adelaide, you must not come in! Julia," he added to his wife, in tones of imploring entreaty, "go upstairs, and keep back Adelaide."

He half led, half pushed them across the hall. Mrs. Dare had never in all her life seen his face as she saw it now--a face of terror. She caught the fear; vaguely enough, it must be confessed, for she had not heard Anthony's name, as yet, mentioned in connection with it.

"What is it?" she asked, holding on by the bal.u.s.trades. "What is there in the dining-room?"