Starvecrow Farm Part 45

"Then, will you," in a tone touched by feeling, "if you have some day another like me, will you be as good to her? And remember that she may not have done anything wrong after all? Will you promise me?"

"I will, miss," Mrs. Weighton answered--very graciously for her. "But there, it isn't all has your sense! They takes and runs their heads against a brick wall! Either they scratches and screams, or they sulks and starves. And then we've to manage them, and we get the blame. I see you looked white and shivering when you come in, and I thought we'd have trouble with you. But there, you kept yourself in hand, and showed your sense--it's breeding does it--and you've naught to complain of in consequence. Wishing you well and kindly, miss!"

"I _shall_ come to you for a character!" Henrietta replied with a laugh.

And she came out quickly and joined Captain Clyne, who, waiting with his hand on the lock, had heard all. He saw that though she laughed there was a tear in her eye; and the mingling of gaiety and sensibility in her conduct and her words was not lost upon him. She seemed to be bent on putting him in the wrong; on proving to him that she was not the silly-pated child he had deemed her! Even the praise of this jailor's wife, a coa.r.s.e, cross-grained woman, sounded reproachfully in his ears. She was a better judge, it seemed, than he.

He put Henrietta into the chaise--the brisk, cold air of the winter morning was welcome to her; and they set off. Gnawed as he was by unhappy thoughts, wretchedly anxious as he was, he was silent for a time. He knew what he wanted, but he was ashamed to clutch at that advantage for the sake of which Sutton had resigned to him the mission. And for a long time he sat mute and brooding in his corner, the bright reflection of the snow adding pallor to his face. Yet he had eyes for her: he watched her without knowing it. And at the third milestone from Kendal, a little beyond Barnside, he saw her shiver.

"I am afraid you are cold?" he said, and wondering at the role he played, he drew the wraps closer about her--with care, however, that his fingers should not touch her.

"No," she answered frankly. "I am not cold. But I remember pa.s.sing that mile-stone. I was almost sick with fright when I pa.s.sed it. So that it was all I could do not to try to get out and escape."

This was a revelation to him; and not a pleasant one. He winced.

"I am sorry," he said. "I am very sorry."

"Oh, I felt better when I was once in the prison," she answered lightly. "And with Mrs. Weighton. Before that I was afraid that there might be only men."

He suffered, in the hearing, something of the humiliation which she had undergone; was she not of his blood and his cla.s.s--and a woman?

But he could only say again that he was sorry. He was sorry.

A little later he forgot her in his own trouble: in thoughts of his child, thoughts which tortured him unceasingly, and became more active as his return to the Low Wood suggested the possibility of news. At one moment he saw the lad stretched on a pallet, ill and neglected, with no eye to pity, no hand to soothe; at another he pictured him in some dark hiding-place with fear for his sole companion. Or again he saw him beaten and ill-treated, shrieking for the father who had been always to him as heaven, omniscient and omnipotent--but shrieking in vain. And then the thought that to one so weak and young a little added hardship, another day of fear, an insignificant delay, might prove fatal--it was this thought that wrung the heart most powerfully, and went far towards maddening the man.

As he sat watching the snow-covered fell slide by the chaise window, he was unconscious how clearly his misery was stamped on his features; or how pitiful was the hunger that lurked in the hollows under his eyes. But when the pace slackened, and the carriage began to crawl up the long hill beyond Broadgate, a faint sound caught his ear, and he remembered where he was, and turned. He saw that she was crying.

The same words came to his lips.

"I am sorry. I am very sorry," he said. "But it is over now."

"It's not that," she sobbed. "I am sorry for you! And for him! The poor boy! The poor boy! Last night--no, it was the night before---I thought that he called to me. I thought that he was there in the room with me!"

"Don't!" he faltered. "I cannot bear it! Don't!"

But she did not heed.

"Yes," she repeated. "And ever since, ever since I've been thinking of him! I've wondered, I've wondered if I did right!"

He was silent, striving to regain control of himself. But at last,

"Eight in saying nothing?" he asked.

His voice shook a little, and he kept his eyes averted.

"Yes. I didn't know"--a little wildly--"I didn't know what to do. And then you threatened me, and I--it seemed unreasonable. For I wanted to help you, I did, I did indeed. But I dared not, I dared not give him up! I could not have his blood on my hands after--you know."

"But you no longer--care for him?"

"I loathe him!" she answered with a shudder. "But you see how it is.

He trusted me, and I--how can I betray him? How can I? How can I?"

It was his business to prove to her that she could, that she ought, that she must; he was here to press her to it, to persuade her, to cajole her to it, if necessary. He had come for that. But the words it behoved him to use stuck in his throat. And the chaise rolled on, and rolled on. And still, but with the sweat standing on his brow, he sat silent, looking out on the barren landscape, as the stone fences slid quickly by, or open moorland took their place. In ten minutes they would be at the Low Wood. Already through her window she could see the long stretch of sparkling water, and the wooded isles, and the distant smoke of Ambleside.

Their silence was a tragedy. She could save him by a word, and she could not say the word. She dared not say it. And he--the pleas he should have used died on his lips. It behoved him to cast himself on her mercy; he was here for that purpose. It behoved him to work on her feelings, to plead with her, to weep, to pray. And he did not, he could not. And the minutes pa.s.sed; the wheels rolled and rolled. Soon they would be at the end of their journey. He was like a famishing man who sees a meal within reach, but cannot touch it; or like one oppressed by a terrible nightmare, who knows that he has but to say a word, and he is freed from the incubus--yet his tongue refuses its office. And now the carriage, having climbed the rise, began to roll more quickly down the hill. In a very few minutes they would be at the end of their journey.

Suddenly--"What can we do?" she cried, piteously. "What can we do? Can we do nothing? Nothing?"

And neither of the two thought the union of interests strange; any more than in their absorption they noted the strangeness of this drive in company--over some of the very road which she had traversed when she eloped with another to avoid a marriage with him.

He shook his head in dumb misery. Three days of suspense, and as many sleepless nights, the wear and tear of many journeys, had told upon him. He had had but little rest, and that induced by sheer exhaustion.

He had taken his meals standing, he had pa.s.sed many hours of each day in the saddle. He could no longer command the full resources of his mind, and though he still held despair at arm's length, though he still by force of habit commanded himself, and was stern and reticent, despondency gained ground upon him. It was she who almost at the last moment suggested a plan that if not obvious, was simple, and to the purpose.

"Listen," she said. "Listen, sir! Why should not I do this? Go myself to--to him, to Walterson?"

"You?" he answered, with undisguised repugnance.

"Yes, I! I! Why not?" she asked. "And learn if he has the child, or knows where it is. Then if he be innocent of this last wickedness, as I believe him to be innocent, we shall learn the fact without harming him; always supposing that I go to him, undetected. And I can do that--with your help! That must be your care."

He pondered.

"But if," he said slowly, "you do this and he have the child? What then? Have you thought of the consequences to yourself? If he be privy to a crime which none but desperate men could commit, what of you? He will be capable of harming you. Or if he scruple, there will be others, the men who took my child, who will stick at nothing to keep their necks out of the noose, and to remove a witness who else might hang them."

"I am not afraid," she said firmly.

"G.o.d bless you!" he said. "G.o.d bless you! But I am."

"What?" she cried, and she turned to him, honestly astonished. "You?

You dissuade me when it is your child that is in peril?"

"Be silent!" he said harshly. "Be silent! For your own sake, if not for mine! Why do you tempt me? Why do you torture me? Do you think, Henrietta, that I have not enough to tempt me without your help? No, no," more quietly, "I have done you wrong already! I know not how I can make amends. But at least I will not add to the wrong."

"I only ask you to leave me to myself," she said hardily. "The rest I will do, if I am not watched."

"The rest!" he said with a groan. "But what a rest it is! Why should these men spare you if you go to them? They did not spare my boy!"

"They took the boy," she answered, "to punish you. They will not have the same motive for harming me. I mean--they will not harm me with the idea of hurting you."

"Ay, but----"

"They will know that it will not affect you."

He did not deny the statement, but for some time he drummed on the window with his fingers.

"That may be," he said at length. "Yet I'll not do it! And I'll not let you do it. Instead, do you tell me where the man is and I will go to him myself. And I will tell no tales."

"You will keep his secret?"

"I will."