The Castle Inn Part 42

'There's no part for you!' Mr. Pomeroy answered with grim patience.

'Your part is to thwart me.'

Mr. Thoma.s.son, half risen from his chair, sat down again. 'What do you mean?' he muttered.

'You are her friend. Your part is to help her to escape. You're to sneak to her room to-morrow, and tell her that you'll steal the key when I'm drunk after dinner. You'll bid her be ready at eleven, and you'll let her out, and have a chaise waiting at the end of the avenue. The chaise will be there, you'll put her in, you'll go back to the house. I suppose you see it now?'

The tutor stared in wonder. 'She'll get away,' he said.

'Half a mile,' Mr. Pomeroy answered drily, as he filled his gla.s.s.' Then I shall stop the chaise--with a pistol if you like, jump in--a merry surprise for the nymph; and before twelve we shall be at Tamplin's. And you'll be free of it.'

Mr. Thoma.s.son pondered, his face flushed, his eyes moist. 'I think you are the devil!' he said at last.

'Is it a bargain? And see here. His lordship has gone silly on the girl.

You can tell him before he leaves what you are going to do. He'll leave easy, and you'll have an evidence--of your good intentions!' Mr. Pomeroy added with a chuckle. 'Is it a bargain?'

'I'll not do it!' Mr. Thoma.s.son cried faintly. 'I'll not do it!'

But he sat down again, their heads came together across the table; they talked long in low voices. Presently Mr. Pomeroy fetched pen and paper from a table in one of the windows; where they lay along with one or two odd volumes of Crebillon, a tattered Hoyle on whist, and Foote's jest book. A note was written and handed over, and the two rose.

Mr. Thoma.s.son would have liked to say a word before they parted as to no violence being contemplated or used; something smug and fair-seeming that would go to show that his right hand did not understand what his left was doing. But even his impudence was unequal to the task, and with a shamefaced good-night he secured the memorandum in his pocket-book and sneaked up to bed.

He had every opportunity of carrying out Pomeroy's suggestion to make Lord Almeric his confidant. For when he entered the chamber which they shared, he found his lordship awake, tossing and turning in the shade of the green moreen curtains; in a pitiable state between chagrin and rage.

But the tutor's nerve failed him. He had few scruples--it was not that; but he was weary and sick at heart, and for that night he felt that he had done enough. So to all my lord's inquiries he answered as sleepily as consisted with respect, until the effect which he did not wish to produce was produced. The young roue's suspicions were aroused, and on a sudden he sat up in bed, his nightcap quivering on his head.

'Tommy!' he cried feverishly. 'What is afoot downstairs? Now, do you tell me the truth.'

'Nothing,' Mr. Thoma.s.son answered soothingly.

'Because--well, she's played it uncommon low on me, uncommon low she's played it,' my lord complained pathetically; 'but fair is fair, and willing's willing! And I'll not see her hurt. Pom's none too nice, I know, but he's got to understand that. I'm none of your Methodists, Tommy, as you are aware, no one more so! But, s'help me! no one shall lay a hand on her against her will!'

'My dear lord, no one is going to!' the tutor answered, quaking in his bed.

'That is understood, is it? Because it had better be!' the little lord continued with unusual vigour. 'I vow I have no cause to stand up for her. She's a d--d saucy baggage, and has treated me with--with d--d disrespect. But, oh Lord! Tommy, I'd have been a good husband to her. I would indeed. And been kind to her. And now--she's made a fool of me!

She's made a fool of me!'

And my lord took off his nightcap, and wiped his eyes with it.

CHAPTER x.x.x

A GREEK GIFT

Julia, left alone, and locked in the room, pa.s.sed such a night as a girl instructed in the world's ways might have been expected to pa.s.s in her position, and after the rough treatment of the afternoon. The room grew dark, the dismal garden and weedy pool that closed the prospect faded from sight; and still as she crouched by the barred window, or listened breathless at the door, all that part of the house lay silent. Not a sound of life came to the ear.

By turns she resented and welcomed this. At one time, pacing the floor in a fit of rage and indignation, she was ready to dash herself against the door, or scream and scream and scream until some one came to her. At another the recollection of Pomeroy's sneering smile, of his insolent grasp, revived to chill and terrify her; and she hid in the darkest corner, hugged the solitude, and, scarcely daring to breathe, prayed that the silence might endure for ever.

But the hours in the dark room were long and cold; and at times the fever of rage and fear left her in the chill. Of this came another phase through which she pa.s.sed, as the night wore on and nothing happened. Her thoughts reverted to him who should have been her protector, but had become her betrayer--and by his treachery had plunged her into this misery; and on a sudden a doubt of his guilt flashed into her mind and blinded her by its brilliance. Had she done him an injustice? Had the abduction been, after all, concerted not by him but by Mr. Thoma.s.son and his confederates? The setting down near Pomeroy's gate, the reception at his house, the rough, hasty suit paid to her--were these all parts of a drama cunningly arranged to mystify her? And was he innocent? Was _he_ still her lover, true, faithful, almost her husband?

If she could think so! She rose, and softly walked the floor in the darkness, tears raining down her face. Oh, if she could be sure of it!

At the thought, the thought only, she glowed from head to foot with happy shame. And fear? If this were so, if his love were still hers, and hers the only fault--of doubting him, she feared nothing! Nothing! She felt her way to a tray in the corner where her last meal remained untasted, and ate and drank humbly, and for him. She might need her strength.

She had finished, and was groping her return to the window-seat, when a faint rustle as of some one moving on the other side of the door caught her ear. She had fancied herself brave enough an instant before, but in the darkness a great horror of fear came on her. She stood rooted to the spot; and heard the noise again. It was followed by the sound of a hand pa.s.sed stealthily over the panels; a hand seeking, as she thought, for the key; and she could have shrieked in her helplessness. But while she stood, her face turned to stone, came instant relief, A voice, subdued in fear, whispered, 'Hist, ma'am, hist! Are you asleep?'

She could have fallen on her knees in her thankfulness. 'No! no!' she cried eagerly. 'Who is it?'

'It is me--Olney!' was the answer. 'Keep a heart, ma'am! They are gone to bed. You are quite safe.'

'Can you let me out?' Julia cried. 'Oh, let me out!'

'Let you out?'

'Yes, yes! Let me out? Please let me out.'

'G.o.d forbid, ma'am!' was the horrified answer. 'He'd kill me. And he has the key. But--'

'Yes? yes?'

'Keep your heart up, ma'am, for Jarvey'll not see you hurt; nor will I.

You may sleep easy. And good-night!'

She stole away before Julia could answer; but she left comfort. In a glow of thankfulness the girl pushed a chair against the door, and, wrapping herself for warmth in the folds of the shabby curtains, lay down on the window seat. She was willing to sleep now, but the agitation of her thoughts, the whirl of fear and hope that prevailed in them, as she went again and again over the old ground, kept her long awake. The moon had risen and run its course, decking the old garden with a solemn beauty as of death, and was beginning to retreat before the dawn, when Julia slept at last.

When she awoke it was broad daylight. A moment she gazed upwards, wondering where she was; the next a harsh grating sound, and the echo of a mocking laugh brought her to her feet in a panic of remembrance.

The key was still turning in the lock--she saw it move, saw it withdrawn; but the room was empty. And while she stood staring and listening heavy footsteps retired along the pa.s.sage. The chair which she had set against the door had been pushed back, and milk and bread stood on the floor beside it.

She drew a deep breath; he had been there. But her worst terrors had pa.s.sed with the night. The sun was shining, filling her with scorn of her gaoler. She panted to be face to face with him, that she might cover him with ridicule, overwhelm him with the shafts of her woman's wit, and show him how little she feared and how greatly she despised him.

But he did not appear; the hours pa.s.sed slowly, and with the afternoon came a clouded sky, and weariness and reaction of spirits; fatigue of body, and something like illness; and on that a great terror. If they drugged her in her food? The thought was like a knife in the girl's heart, and while she still writhed on it, her ear caught the creak of a board in the pa.s.sage, and a furtive tread that came, and softly went again, and once more returned. She stood, her heart beating; and fancied she heard the sound of breathing on the other side of the door. Then her eye alighted on a something white at the foot of the door, that had not been there a minute earlier. It was a tiny note. While she gazed at it the footsteps stole away again.

She pounced on the note and opened it, thinking it might be from Mrs.

Olney. But the opening lines smacked of other modes of speech than hers; and though Julia had no experience of Mr. Thoma.s.son's epistolary style, she felt no surprise when she found the initials F.T. appended to the message.

'Madam,' it ran. 'You are in danger here, and I in no less of being held to account for acts which my heart abhors. Openly to oppose myself to Mr. P.--the course my soul dictates--were dangerous for us both, and another must be found. If he drink deep to-night, I will, heaven a.s.sisting, purloin the key, and release you at ten, or as soon after as may be. Jarvey, who is honest, and fears the turn things are taking, will have a carriage waiting in the road. Be ready, hide this, and when you are free, though I seek no return for services attended by much risk, yet if you desire to find one, an easy way may appear of requiting,

'Madam, your devoted, obedient servant, F.T.'

Julia's face glowed. 'He cannot do even a kind act as it should be done,' she thought. 'But once away it will be easy to reward him. At worst he shall tell me how I came to be set down here.'

She spent the rest of the day divided between anxiety on that point--for Mr. Thoma.s.son's intervention went some way to weaken the theory she had built up with so much joy--and impatience for night to come and put an end to her suspense. She was now as much concerned to escape the ordeal of Mr. Pomeroy's visit as she had been earlier in the day to see him.

And she had her wish. He did not come; she fancied he might be willing to let the dullness and loneliness, the monotony and silence of her prison, work their effect on her mind.

Night, as welcome to-day as it had been yesterday unwelcome, fell at last, and hid the dingy familiar room, the worn furniture, the dusky outlook. She counted the minutes, and before it was nine by the clock was the prey of impatience, thinking the time past and gone and the tutor a poor deceiver. Ten was midnight to her; she hoped against hope, walking her narrow bounds in the darkness. Eleven found her lying on her face on the floor, heaving dry sobs of despair, her hair dishevelled.

And then, on a sudden she sprang up; the key was grating in the lock!

While she stared, half demented, scarcely believing her happiness, Mr.

Thoma.s.son appeared on the threshold, his head--he wore no wig--m.u.f.fled in a woman's shawl, a shaded lanthorn in his hand.