Starvecrow Farm Part 17

"If you are Mrs. Tyson," Henrietta answered gently.

"Yes, I am."

"I have brought you some things Mrs. Gilson of the inn wished to send you."

"I am obliged to you," with stiff shyness.

"And if you do not mind," Henrietta continued frankly, "I will rest a little. If I do not trouble you."

"No, I'm mostly alone," the young woman answered, slowly and apathetically. And she bade the servant set a chair for the visitor.

That done, she despatched the woman with the basket to the larder.

Then "I'm mostly alone," she repeated. And this time her voice quivered, and her eyes met the other woman's eyes.

"But," Henrietta said, smiling, "you have your husband."

"He's often away," wearily. "He's often away; by day and night. He's a doctor."

"But your servant? You have her?"

"She goes home, nights. And then----" with a spasm of the querulous face that had been pretty no more than a year before, "the hours are long when you are alone. You don't know," timidly reaching out a hand as if she would touch Henrietta's frock--but withdrawing it quickly, "what it is to be alone, miss, all night in such a house as this."

"No, and no one should be!" Henrietta answered.

She glanced round the great silent kitchen and tried to fancy what the house would be like of nights; when darkness settled down on the hollow in the hills, and the wood cut it off from the world below; and when, whatever threatened, whatever came, whatever face of terror peered through the dark-paned window, whatever sound, weird or startling, rent the silence of the distant rooms, this helpless woman must face it alone!

She shuddered.

"But you are not alone all night?" she said.

"No, but----" in a whisper, "often until after midnight, miss. And once--all night."

Henrietta restrained the words that rose to her lips.

"Ah, well," she said, "you'll have your baby by-and-by."

"Ay, if it lives," the other woman answered moodily--"if it lives.

And," she continued in a whisper, with her scared eyes on Henrietta's face, and her hand on her wrist, "if I live, miss."

"Oh, but you must not think of that!" the girl protested cheerfully.

"Of course you will live."

"I've mostly nought to do but think," Tyson's wife answered. "And I think queer things--I think queer things. Sometimes"--tightening her hold on Henrietta's arm to stay her shocked remonstrance--"that he does not wish me to live. He's at the house on the shoulder--Hinkson's, the one you pa.s.sed--most nights. There's a girl there. And yesterday he said if I was lonely she should come and bide here while I laid up, and she'd be company for me. But"--in a wavering tone that was almost a wail--"I'm afraid!--I'm afraid."

"Afraid?" Henrietta repeated, trembling a little in sympathy, and drawing a little nearer the other. "Of what?"

"Of her!" the woman muttered, averting her eyes that she might watch the door. "Of Bess. She's gypsy blood, and it's blood that sticks at nothing. And she'd be glad I was gone. She'd have him then. I know!

She made a sign at me one day when my back was turned, but I saw it.

And it was not for good. Besides----"

"Oh, but indeed," Henrietta protested, "indeed, you must not think of these things. You are not well, and you have fancies."

Mrs. Tyson shook her head.

"You'd have fancies," in a gloomy tone, "if you lived in this house."

"It is only because you are so much alone in it," the girl protested.

"That's not all," with a shudder. The woman leant forward and spoke low with her eyes glued to the door. "That's not all. You don't know, n.o.body knows. n.o.body knows--that's alive! But once, after I came to live here, when I complained that he was out so much and was not treating me well, he took and showed me--he took and showed me----"

"What?" Henrietta spoke as lightly as she could. "What did he show you?" For the woman had broken off, and with her eyes closed seemed to be on the point of fainting.

"Nothing--nothing," Mrs. Tyson said, recovering herself with a sudden gasp. "And here's the basket, miss. Meg lives down below. Shall she carry the basket to Mrs. Gilson's? It is not fitting a young lady like you should carry it."

"Oh, no; I will take it," Henrietta answered, with as careless an air as she could muster.

And after a moment's awkward hesitation, under the eyes of the dull serving-maid, she rose. She would gladly have stayed and heard more; for her pity and curiosity were alike vividly roused. But it was plain that for the present she could neither act upon the one nor a.s.suage the other. She read a plea for silence in the eyes of the weak, frightened woman; and having said that probably Mrs. Gilson would be sending her that way again before long, she took her leave.

Wondering much. For the low-ceiled kitchen, with its shadowy chimney-corner and its low-browed windows, had another look for her now; and the stillness of the house another meaning. All might be the fancy of a nervous, brooding woman. And yet there was something. And, something or nothing, there were unhappiness and fear and cruelty in this quiet work. As she climbed the track that led again to the lip of the basin, and to sunshine and brisk air and freedom, she had less pity for herself, she thought less of herself. She might have lain at the mercy of a careless, faithless husband, who played on her fears and mocked her appeals. She, when in her early unbroken days she complained, might have been taken and scared by--heaven knew what!

She was still thinking with indignation of the woman's plight when she gained the road. A hundred paces brought her to Hinkson's. And there, standing under the firs at the corner of the house, and looking over her shoulder as if she had turned, in the act of entering, to see who pa.s.sed, was the dark girl; the same whose insolent smile had annoyed her on the morning of her arrival, before she knew what was in store for her.

Their eyes met. Again Henrietta's face, to her intense vexation, flamed. Then the dog sprang up and raved at her, and she pa.s.sed on down the road. But she was troubled. She was vexed with herself for losing countenance, and still more angry with the girl whose mocking smile had so strange a power to wound her.

"That must be the creature we have been discussing," she thought. "Odd that I should meet her, and still more odd that I should have seen her before! I don't wonder that the woman fears her! But why does she look at me, of all people, after that fashion?"

She told herself that it was her fancy, and trying to forget the matter, she tripped on down the road. Presently, before her cheeks or her temper were quite cool, she saw that she was going to meet some one--a man who was slowly mounting the hill on horseback. A moment later she made out that the rider who was approaching was Mr.

h.o.r.n.yold, and her face grew hot again. The meeting was humiliating.

She wished herself anywhere else. But at the worst she could bow coldly and pa.s.s by.

She reckoned without the justice, who was wont to say that when he wore a ca.s.sock he was a parson, and when he wore his top-boots he was a gentleman. He recognised her with a subdued "View halloa!" and pulled up as she drew near. He slid from his saddle--with an agility his bulk did not promise--and barred the way.

With a grin and an over-gallant salute, "Dear, dear, dear," he said.

"Isn't this out of bounds, young lady? Outside the rules of the bench, eh? What'd Mother Gilson be saying if she saw you here?"

"I have been on an errand for her," Henrietta replied, in her coldest tone.

But she had to stop. The road was narrow, and he had, as by accident, put his horse across it.

"An errand?" he said, smiling more broadly, "as far as this? She is very trusting! More trusting than I should be with a young lady of your appearance, who twist all the men round your finger."

Henrietta's eyes sparkled.

"I am returning to her," she said, "and I am late. Please to let me pa.s.s."

"To be sure I will," he said. But instead of moving aside he drew a pace nearer; so that between himself, the horse, and the bank, she was hemmed in. "To be sure, young lady!" he continued. "But that is not quite the tone to take with the powers that be! We are gentle as sucking doves--to pretty young women--while we are pleased; and ready to stretch a point, as we did the other day, for our friend Clyne, who was so deuced mysterious about the matter. But we must have our _quid pro quo_, eh? Come, a kiss! Just one. There are only the birds to see and the hedges to tell, and I'll warrant"--the leer more plain in his eyes--"you are not always so particular."

Henrietta was not frightened, but she was angry and savage.